So, a friend of mine was recently arrested and almost shot by submachine guns for knowing too much. Well, not literally for knowing too much, but that's what it comes down to. Of course, from the authorities' point of view, she was arrested for almost being a terrorist, despite the fact that she clearly appeared so by accident. Which, of course, doesn't make much more sense. But enough of this: Those among us who don't follow random national news stories have no idea what I'm talking about.
Last Friday, a 19-year-old MIT student named Star Simpson wore some simple electronics to Boston's Logan International Airport while picking up her boyfriend. She was wearing something like a high-tech nametag, consisting of little more than a 9V battery and some LEDs in the shape of a star (like her name, see). An airport attendant, seeing loose wires frolicking out in the open, mistook it for a bomb and called security. It took several heavily armed state troopers to realize, in fact, bombs do not work this way and she was no threat. Bizarrely, they still charged her for wearing the so-called 'hoax device,' and she was taken downtown.
Now, the reason I say it happened as a result of knowing too much may not be obvious at first. Some of you may be thinking that to wear anything with open wires to an airport is pretty dumb, particularly to the airport from which two of the hijacked planes on 9/11 departed. But, at the same time, let's not kid ourselves: What she was wearing couldn't possibly be mistaken for a bomb by anyone at all familiar with electronics. It'd be like looking at an iPod and worrying it'd shoot lasers or something.
In fact, she'd been wearing the electronics for days on MIT's campus and showed it off at a career fair, all without causing a stir. There, everyone who saw it knew exactly what it was and there was no way it could be dangerous; when she stepped into the outside world, however, that was no longer the case. She had (apparently) honestly forgotten that usually the general populace doesn't know very much about electronics, and they react to the unknown with fear and, all too often nowadays, submachine guns. She knew so much she'd forgotten other people didn't.
Now, I know most of us don't really like those pesky sciences, and hate the very idea of math, but it seems to me that today requires more and more from each of us (especially those charged with protecting, or shooting, others). If not to understand and enjoy the world in all its splendor, at least to consider ourselves well-educated.
At the very least, though, is it too much to ask that the mere sight of technology doesn't inspire murderous fear? True, advances in science and technology have led to newer, scarier weapons, but they've also led to newer, better hearts, and even newer, cuter puppies (think: labradoodles). The more we understand science and technology, or more importantly, the more we try, the more we'll find that some things we thought were scary just plain aren't.
After all, there's no such thing as knowing too much if everyone else knows it too.
