Not everyone believes in superstitious nonsense like this though. Not a dig at you being religious by the by I'm purely talking about this post!
The "trust" you have placed in these inanimate objects is based on empirical evidence; that the x amount of times you have used them before where they haven't sent you inexplicably to death, the y amount of times every other human has used them before where they haven't been sent inexplicably to their death. This also applies to cars crashing and flights disappearing. How many times has a flight in the same circumstances as this crashed or disappeared. What are the odds? I "trust" that a flight won't randomly crash because the odds suggest it won't; the chances of it happening are so low even with a new crash, but it obviously doesn't mean that it can't happen.
I get that the latest event will put people off but really the odds of it happening to you will be pretty much just as small as they were before. Obviously another thing to consider along with the odds is the time period between these events. I mean of course it would be a legitimate cause for concern if it happened again within in a relatively small period of time because then it's more likely something is actually fundamentally wrong.
Writing it off as "she'll be right" has absolutely nothing to do with ignoring your own mortality and is much more logical than using "One of their planes disappeared, the next one could to!" as an excuse not to fly on this specific plane/with this airline. If you apply the latter thought process, you may as well just sit in your bed for the rest of your life and hope your roof doesn't fall down, because there are plenty of things that can just randomly go "boom" (with just as low odds) and kill you.
Ignoring the religious silliness in the first comment...
Not being a superstitious hysterical nub is not "shrugging off death". It's more about being like "oh, you know, this so rarely happens... I'm not going to worry about it". You know, the exact same logic that unbeknownst to you you apply every time you step outside when it's storming or every time you go driving in your car. With one-off occurrences like these it's just the luck of draw - if it happens again, then it's time to be worried.
:crazy:
Finding that plane in the ocean would be closer to trying to find where you left that single speck of sand in your house than where you left your keys.
By the way I feel like I should clarify that I'm basically arguing that from a logical (heavily reliant on statistics, of course) position nothing suggests you should be afraid of these flights now. I understand people will make their decisions from emotional positions, though, considering fear can often be an illogical concept.
Personally it does not bother me at all. I'd base my airline choice on many other things before thinking "oh god! Statistically speaking, with the latest crash, choosing this plane and this airline gives me a 0.0000001139 (note: statistic made up on the spot) chance of being blown into smithereens"
You completely miss the point.
It is the fact that it
can happen, not the statistical chances of it
not happening, that creates the fear.
You trust it to
not happen because of the proactive measures to ensure the safety of a person. Just like every aspect of human society, which is to protect against death.
My point is death happens, and unless you have confronted that and dealt with the reality of human mortality, then these 'issues' which crop up every so often are going to cause fear - fear of death, mainly. People avoid dying because of its finality. These events highlight that and the fear caused isn't that the plane will fall out of the sky (which is statistically improbably but still possible); it is the fact that it
can happen and the result of that which causes the fear / panic.
You call it superstitious mumbo jumbo, and I appreciate that is your view of life and death - you're pragmatic and dismissive of what death is. It happens, you move on.
But that simply highlights you're never thought about death and its occurrence. Spend a day thinking about death and its reality, and I am certain you would have a different outlook to it as a consequence.
Statistically speaking, it's safer to fly now than ever. We're not due another massive air disaster for a bit yet.
True.
Don't want to put the mockers on it, but this is a really enjoyable thread.
Agree wholeheartedly.
I'm not talking about it missing. That's happened. I'm saying, how goes it go missing in the first place. I, like many others, have no idea of it's final resting place and for all we know could not even be in an ocean.
Given the amount of flight-data, trackers, military GPS/Radar, SAT Ping (SAT phones on board), at disappears. That's the part I'm talking about.
I worded the analogy wrong. Slightly.
Yes, the mystery of it is quite... disconcerting. It honestly points to something different being at play.
