At first I read “Algeria” and wondered what grudge they had against economists.
What’s with the three sticks and two lines? Wait. Is that foreigner writing?
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You even gets points for effort in the game of hate
(which is a big help considering the high correlation with ignorance)
Q.E.D.
that’s Latin, BTW
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Cheaper than paying someone to do it, if that’s your kink.
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You know, I actually think that the flight attendant does have a choice - and in fairness to the flight attendant, it seems they were 99.9% sure there was no issue and was just following orders. But based on the evidence presented, anyone should be able to make the judgement that he posed no threat. Even if he was writing terror plans, it wouldn’t make sense to do the calculations last minute like that. The guy has already been through security screening, no flags were raised, so… why indulge a panicked nutcase?
Basically the airline embarrassed this guy to assuage people’s irrational fears. That’s the whole problem. American Airlines must revisit policies in how they deal with this sort of thing. The bar for what is considered a credible threat is clearly too low, and not worth the inconvenience and stigma being heaped upon everyone else.
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Never underestimate the capabilities of an angry mathemagician?
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Trump’s America isn’t here, Obama’s is. The incompetence of the TSA is legendary, but nothing has been done. An order from the Whitehouse, and a request for the TSA director’s resignation would put things back on track. That’s not on the agenda, but another round of golf is high on the list.
Oh, the irony!
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The economist should have handed the tattle tale a “back of the napkin” estimate of the money lost by the airport and everyone flying with this waste of time.
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Just because someone says something doesn’t mean you should do anything about it.
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It’s nice to see everyone piling on a perfectly average paranoid racist.
However, the problem with society is not that there are occasionally people who are completely ignorant and irrationally afraid of anything foreign or incomprehensible. Those cases are to be expected. Most of them range from “naive” to “harmlessly stupid” unless you give them power.
But what sort of excuse do airline employees have for delaying a flight 1,5 hours and harassing a passenger because another passenger is afraid of algebra?
I mean, who are the bad guys here?
A thought experiment: If an obviously stupid and anti-semitic person tells you they are afraid because they saw a Jew loitering next to a well, are you going to call the police so that they question the suspected well-poisoner?
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Or fear of a particular Phoenician philosopher. Oh great I spilled pulses all over myself.
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No child left behind? Obviously we lowered the bar way low. Next president need to unroll the Ketchup education plan. Because obviously catching up is beyond there scope of reality.
People accuse ISIL/Daesh of being “medieval”.
I’ve just been reminded of Pope Silvester 2nd, Gerbertus, who was a medieval mathematician/astronomer as well as becoming Pope. He re-introduced astronomical instruments into Europe and introduced the decimal system and the abacus; to do this he went to Moorish Spain to learn the latest technology.
In Europe he was accused of sorcery and witchcraft, and various pacts with the Devil, seemingly on the basis that he could do arithmetic, including dividing one number by another.
The woman on the plane, in fact, has a medieval mindset. I hope the West is going to start a campaign to stamp out this sort of ignorance.
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If you’re a flight attendant and the stupid anti-Semite is a higher up in a political party, or a senior police person, yes. Because you aren’t stupid, and you know that against stupidity even the Gods struggle in vain.
Ah! Well, I’ve solved for X.
It’s 1.5 hours.
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A Loompa?
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