Over the weekend there was a bomb hoax on campus. I want to know what people think about this. Clearly it was not smart to do something like this, but do these kinds of things cause people to be more
cautious or would this situation cause people to think that most are just hoaxes?
I think that it is dumb that people even began to leave boxes around campus to make people think they were bombs. There is no reason to do that and it just creates this flse sense of either fear or lack there of now.
ReplyDeleteTo be honest i think that if I saw any boxes on campus now I would think they were just more bomb threat hoaxes and wouldn't take them seriously what-so-ever. This could be a problem for the school if a l ot of people here feel the same way that I do, in the instance that a real bomb were to be planted. I know that the odds and likelyhood of a bomb actually being planted here at Linfield are very slim but the fact that people won't be taking them seriously anymore opens the door for someone to make a serious threat if they so wished to.
Overall I tink the fake threats were an idiotic idea and it makes me kind of laugh thinking about how they are in jail for such an unnecessary thing.
Due to the incident this sunday and last sunday, I think students are going to take future incidents not seriously. It's just like the story of the boy who cried wolf. You can only try to fool someone so many times, that they begin to not care, which causes a problem for future situations in the case of a real situation.
ReplyDeleteI agree with ccassel's comments. I too, think it was a horrible, idiotic thing for a Linfield Student to try and play a prank like that. It makes the school look bad, as well as the students attending Linfield. The person that planned the hoax deserves the punishment they are receiving.
I think what happened was really dumb because now, students aren't going to believe anything in the future if there was actually something dangerous occurring. I agree that this was very idiotic and that they deserve what they got. Also, I feel as though people may view Linfield's students as foolish because this person represented our school and committed a dumb act. People definitely are not going to be more cautious and just believe that most of these things are hoaxes. Overall, I think what happened was kind of funny.
ReplyDeleteIts too bad that this had to off happen. I believe that more and more students will not take future situations like this one seriously any more. There already is enough students who don't take these kind of issues seriously enough, but now there will be more. I thought this whole thing was disturbing, even to where students were only complaining about how they couldnt go to Dillin to eat, instead of taking a bomb threat seriously.
ReplyDeleteDid anyone consider that this may be a test or a social norm experiment? In thinking of the events like this it raises a lot of interesting questions. The way in which our society reacts to these situations is fairly dramatic. Im not saying that I don't appreciate having a safe campus and having people be on top of the ball. I don't really commiserate with the pranksters, and I do agree the whole thing was fairly silly. But having a 7 hour campus lockdown seemed fairly silly as well.
ReplyDeleteSundays incident was clearly not taken seriously, as the news anchor reported that "linfield students dont tend to take matters seriously." It's unfortunate that these situations aren't taken seriously, because if there were any threats around or on campus students may end up getting hurt or dead. However, it doesn't help that people are pulling hoaxes; if anything it takes matters into a worse situation as students will get the perception of the next "bomb" threat as a joke. Overall, this situation just proves that students dont take threats serious, and thats a problem.
ReplyDeleteI think that the bomb incident will cause more skeptism among students and professors about suspicious packages but many are not going to take the next threat as seriously because it has happened too many times. This is unfortunate because I knew the person who was involved in the crime and they are not threatening in any way; they were simply trying to see what would happen. Although I admit that this was not a wise decision to make, I believe that everybody is making too big a deal of it. This individual had a lot of potential for making a difference in thier life and the world, especially being a senior and about to graduate, but this incident will seriously hinder her abilities to do that. Not to mention that she is facing thousands of dollars in fines and possibly time in prison. . . Many people do not realize the severe consequences she is facing for a minor inconvenience to us.
ReplyDeleteI agree that this situation is somewhat similar to the story of the "little boy who cried wolf" like Amy said. I think that this situation is one that seems like you can't win with. Hindsight is 20/20 and in retrospect, now that we know that this was a "prank" people can argue that the situation was dealt with in a way more severe than necessary (such as evacuating halls). However, if this wasn't a prank and something serious happened, and the school hadn't exhausted every resource they had in dealing with this, then everyone would come down on Linfield saying they didn't take it "seriously" I would rather the school be safe than sorry.
ReplyDeleteI think this leads back to what we discussed in class the quote "If you define a situation as real, it will be real in its consequences." We now know this situation didn't pose a serious physical threat, but the person behind it created a situation in which it was defined as "real" in its consequences in the eyes of those in charge of handling it.
I think the incident made people more aware of what happens and how serious this is. I don't think people will be more likely to call whenever they see something suspicious. Overall the whole situation is sad and too bad that someone had such poor judgement to think this would turn out all right.
ReplyDeleteI too believe that the situation on Sunday was one of poor choice. While creating a scenario at Linfield to see what would happen appears to be a good idea, using the scenario of eight "suspicious packages" (especially in today's society) that the person decided to choose, was a very ignorant decision. When I was in high school, people would call in bomb threats or write on the bathroom stalls just to shut down school. Because we had so many in one year, we had to impose ridiculous security measures and made the students at my school, including me, feel really insecure. Also because we had so many bomb threats, we had a huge article put in the paper about how horrible of a school it was.
ReplyDeleteI think that something like that happening at Linfield had the person gotten away with it and/or continued with the acts, could have put Linfield in the same situation as my high school. I know that acts like this, although there was no harm meant, was inconsiderate, especially when joking about something as serious as eight potential explosives. It reminds me of the act of yelling "FIRE" in a movie theater filled with people when there isn't actually one. While I think that Hope's idea that people will become more aware of suspicious situations, I hope that Linfield doesn't have to come down to the situation where you always have to be on the lookout.
Considering I live in the Greens Apts. (and she did too) the bomb squad parked right behind my car, and were searching around the area for about 3hrs. I thought when they detonated the first 'bomb' it was a cars muffler actually.
ReplyDeleteI feel it was unwise, considering how people dread for their own safety but laugh it off when they found out it was a hoax (Most people I know got angry over the ordeal). The worse thing I've heard is "Boy who cried Wolf" Syndrome, and people won't care anymore, leading to people disregarding potential threats.
I think that this is a representation of person in the heat of the moment not realizing how stupid their chioce was until afterwards.
ReplyDeleteAlso, it made me think back to high school when we had a bomb threat so I did not have the same feeling for it being a scare.
I realized that what happened was in a way her own kind of "breaching" experiment, although her actions were definitely more severe and had greater consequences. The incident was taken seriously and all procedures were followed, even though it was all just a hoax. I, myself was put on lock down in my dorm but was still sleeping when all the eruption occurred so really it did not affect me personally in any way that I could be upset with her. The school on the other hand has every reason to be upset. Potentially endangering the school is a serious matter and should not be messed around with. Just like in out breaching experiments, what she did disrupted the common social norms of people, and in the end was punished because of it. This experiment that she participated in was quite serious but at the same time, I really have no opinion whether I was mad or not.
ReplyDeleteI belive that situations like this make us numb to if something really did happen. People joke about so many things that we are numb to reality. We see everything as a joke and question it until it can be completely proven that it is true. I think it is SO retarded that people do this and even more retarded that one person would take the blame for many people.Obviously that couldn't be done by just one person and yet one person will be a conficted felon.
ReplyDeleteI think this situation hightlights to an extreme the culture of fear that Michael Moore talks about in his film Bowling for Columbine. We have created a culture of fear, and now when a security guard on a college campus finds a random cardboard box, instead of thinking it was just a box someone needs to recycle, he thinks it's a bomb (I'm talking about the Nov 29th incident). Why has our society become so paraniod and fear-crazed? What are the deeper underlying issues that need to be addressed so people do not automatically assume garbage can kill you?
ReplyDeleteI think from the beginning, no one truely believed Linfield was being bombed. Everyone in the dorms talked about how rediculous it was for us to stay in our rooms because everyone felt we were being pranked. Somehow we have already become numb to these situations, we often see acts of bombing but only in the news over in foreign countries. We never consider it happening to us because we are use to seeing it happening other places.
ReplyDeleteI agree. Although the reaction/response has made us realize the severity of this situation, the sad part is that it is, and probably will be, considered a joke. When you think about it, if Linfield had two "bomb threats" within a week, how often is the bomb squad called to investigate other "bomb threats" & how many of these "threats" are actually real? If I were on the bomb squad, I probably would not take many threats seriously. Like others have mentioned, this definitely a "Boy who cried Wolf" scenario.
ReplyDeleteI dont think it will make us think that it is more than just a hoax. After that weekend, I think it made the school more cautious and people more cautious on how they approach these types of things. After this happening, no one else will play a prank on the school because if you do, you will go to jail depending how serious it is. There will be no more practical jokes like that for a while i think. I'm glad it was all just a joke because now days, you never know what's going to happen next. Someone needed to get in trouble for people to open thier eyes and see that bomb threats aren't something to joke around with.
ReplyDelete