nsplayr

Sure but are inspections better than no inspections? Is some international oversight better than none? Concince me that we’re better off today after tearing up the JCPOA than before. There was supposed to be a “new, better deal” under Trump that did not happen. The JCPOA wasn’t a magic wand, but it was better than what we have after Trump tore it up, which is absolutely fuck-all diplomatically. We had carrots and still retained sticks and now it’s only sticks…great work.

That is valid, but it’s also less satisfying than showing up at the finance desk in your bag, sleeves rolled, sunglasses on top of your head, looking around like: I keed…mostly 😎

Both median and average happiness can still be higher even if there are more data points on the far left of the chart with a pistol stuffed in their mouth. I don’t think it’s a lot more complicated than that.

I mean…when we backed out of the deal they started enriching again, yea. Wouldn’t you have done that too if you were them? Not that the JCPOA didn’t solve all Iranian problems, it was a big help at solving the nuclear one. Glad we tore it up for absolutely zero gain, masterful diplomacy there!

I grew up in AFSOC and so we were leading edge of the two-piece multi cam flight suits but… I have done two “career days” at my daughter’s school when she was in elementary. Wore the two-piece to one, and all the kids were like, “Woah you’re an army man!” Ok good try kid…0300, infantry, ya made it 😕 Wore my bag to the next one. Kids that time, “Are you a pilot?” At the time…no, but well done anyways young lads and lasses, you’ll grow up big and strong. BL: They can take the green bag from my cold dead hands now. I’ve had the two-piece multi cam since probably 2010/2011 and yet I only wear it in emergencies. Yea yea taking the top off to poop or when hot, copy. Some traditions are worth a little inconvenience. Also I learned early on that looking cool (and sounding good on the radio) actually matter in aviation, and I teach that same lesson to all the young pups coming up behind me.

The Middle East is like a bad crack habit, we can’t kick it even if we try! Fucking Iranians…

I’m still waiting for this kick ass interface for a computer…

I’ve been Guard MPA for several years and fees have always been waived from both AMEX and Chase.

Correct! They are not a big force in the country at large. I am way more involved in democratic politics than average and have never met someone who would describe those groups as one of their primary identities. I’m glad we agree.

This part I fully agree with!

My statement holds, I don’t know any of the people in the video. Anyone on the left calling for a civil war is a dangerous moron that no one should listen to…just like anyone on the right! Or the center. Theres not going to be a civil war, our politics is not substantially more radical than in the past, but we do need to actively stick together and move the country forward if we want our kids to enjoy the gift we were all given at birth (or naturalization) - a great country.

The library is very fun, gotta agree on that. We do have a ping pong table and an oculus video game setup in the bar though, so those were pretty convincing to a middle schooler.

No one I know left-of-center talks about a civil war 🤷‍♂️ Joe Biden, an old white man and long-time senator is president, and the GOP holds the house. Not seeing some insane liberal agenda washing over us anytime soon. jUsT aSkInG fOr InSaNiTy To StOp ok what do you mean by that?

This is the way. Congrats on winning at life 🍻

Thank you for bringing actual data. Also thank god were all safe from the Woke DEI nightmare that’s ruining civil aviation and compromising safety! /sarcasm Not a dig at you personally, just the general vibe where too many people take their desired biases and graft them into whatever the issue is.

The only people who talk about and wishcast a civil war are on the right. Law enforcement is not fomenting a civil war. You can’t just “Ooh, look what you made me do” into a civil war.

Ok Hercules, flying planes ain’t that hard 😂

Agreed 1000% on this. When she was a bit younger my oldest daughter told me she didn't know if she wanted to be a pilot because (sic) all the pilots are boys. She did think more about being a librarian because that's what my wife is and guess what, school librarians skew WAAY female. Now she's settled on psychologist - great, good luck with that - funny thing is that she's so far only met female psychologists so maybe she's still a strident sexist (as most kids are in my experience). 😅 I mean, if my kiddo doesn't want to be a pilot for other reasons that's fine, she's allowed to be wrong, but it should not be because she can't envision herself doing it and assumes there's a gendered component to the job just based on how the demographics are today. There is in fact no part of the MQ-9 GCS that you must operate with your penis, I'm continually disappointed to report... I had to work to introduce her to some women in my squadron because I'm selfish and want a little Guard baby legacy nipping at my old-man heels...problem is there are only 3 ladies who are pilots out of ~55 of us maybe? Not that any of my bros aren't talented and dedicated and deserving of the jobs and all of that, but can you see from a little girl's perspective how it looks? Great, so let's get with kids early and given them all access to good opportunities to succeed and then later on when we're selecting for competitive, highly-paid, highly-valued careers, people have a shot no matter what they look like or where they grew up. I think most people are on board with that in principle. The rub becomes when you look at the current situation for ATP pilots, that are 95/5 male and 86.9% white (this is a WAG) and see something that isn't the same selection pool as in the kindergarten class, you should absolutely want to look why and figure out if what we're doing right now is truly achieving the above-agreed upon ideal, and then if not, work toward fixing it. Major airline flight academies are a great way to start this IMHO - start with zero, train all or mostly in-house, funnel to the regionals and main lines when the puppies have met FAA mins and desired experience, train to succeed or cut loose along the way if it's not a good fit. There are tons of people not cut out to be airline pilots because they are dumb, indecisive, won't work hard, etc., 100%. But I firmly believe those undesirable traits are also fairly evenly spread amongst all genders, races, etc. just like the good qualities. Again, you don't just hire the black trans Romanian with zero flight hours when she shows up at an interview with Delta, I don't think anyone wants that, but you do work to disassemble the structures that lead to undesired unequal outcomes that are a symptom of poorly-distributed talent.

@Grabby As I’ve mentioned several times, there’s some imbalance that’s expected due to preferences. Is it 50/50, 60/40, 70/30, etc. I don’t know, don’t really care one way or the other. But it ain’t 95/5, especially for a lucrative and well respected career field. You have to see that something there is probably not ideally distributed. You have some low-performers in the 95% group who can and should be overlooked for very talented folks in the 5% group who haven’t been given a shot. Percentage wise there are more male elementary school teachers than female ATP pilots, and I can tell you for sure elementary education doesn’t pay for shit and is not high-status. It’s worth thinking about how we arrived at 95/5, what talented folks we’re missing out on because of that, and figuring out ways to move toward a better mix that actually maximizes talent in the long term. I personally know many extremely talented & valuable PhDs, JDs, MDs, etc. that would have never been in those career fields even one generation ago due to racial or gender norms of the time. It’s much better for everyone that we’ve moved beyond that today, and my point that hits close to home perhaps is that ATP pilots as a group are well behind the 8-ball in this regard.

I mean, more or less 😅 Simplified for simplicity’s sake. But yes, what I wrote is not the full story, there are many good books that tell it better.

It’s not that you should have quotas or some of the other excesses of modern DEI warriors. But just ask yourself if, given that talent is relatively evenly distributed (maybe you don’t believe this), what led to a certain career field still being 95/5 split in 2023? Is that a desirable end state? There was a time when basically all prestigious career fields were approx 100% male. Doctors, lawyers, surgeons, elected leaders, CEOs, etc. That’s no longer the case, and I say that’s for the better for everyone. Maybe you don’t believe that either. ATP pilots are a bit of an outlier still being so highly male, why is that? Like I mentioned, even some of the most stereotypically female careers (that pay way less) are more gender-balanced. Some imbalance is due to preferences and all else, but 95/5? Likely not. I actually, no-shit, believe that diversity across numerous dimensions makes us stronger and it’s ok if you don’t, but that’s the foundational belief for supporting programs that help bring underrepresented people into high-status, important fields. Trying to give voice however imperfectly to the other side of a lot of what’s posted here.

Yea I agree with almost all of this. It does make you wonder when there’s a highly desirable, lucrative and respected career that’s 95% one gender (or race or whatever), that’s not what you’d expect to naturally occur. Probably worth putting some effort to assess if that makes sense or if it is a societal effect that’s not actually helping make that career field better. Don’t hire people because of their race or gender or whatever or hire unqualified people, but open up your recruiting lenses and offer opportunities and push people who are underrepresented to apply. There are amazing, top 10% future pilots we’ll miss out on if you don’t do those things, and you’ll have to hire instead more center- or below-center-of-mass in-group folks just to fill the seats. I’ll say it again, there’s a brittleness to too much sameness. Fully agree that modern DEI stuff is usually insane so don’t put that evil on me Ricky Bobby.

I mean TBH if you have a relatively average town demographically and the pee-wee basketball league is like 75% black kids at age 5…yea you probably should encourage more white boys and girls to play! Never know when you’re gonna find the next Alex Caruso 😂 #WhiteMamba. Did you see Mac McClung win the dunk contest? VA white boy, represent! Same goes with super early pilot training or pipeline programs…you have not selected for any skill or experience at all at that point, and because I believe talent is evenly distributed, yea you should try to have a relatively representative group. Same story also for stuff like ROTC - you don’t want your Officer corps to be all male, all southern, all white, all middle class, etc. Those things are all fine (I am all four!) but there’s talent elsewhere too that you’d miss if you just let societies proclivities and stereotypes run rampant forever. There’s a brittleness that comes with too much sameness that can be hard to see when you are part of the in-group. Your current crop of ready & willing ATP holders in 2023, yea you hire who’s most qualified now when there’s severe need; don’t hire some random trans black Romanian or whatever with zero flight hours just because. This is your NBA red herring and why there’s no affirmative action for talentless white wanna-ballers like myself. But that’s not happening. Anyone saying we’re less safe in commercial aviation today because of DEI is full of shit unless they have very convincing receipts. Thinking long-term though, as the airline CEOs are / should be doing, you can do better when you home-grow people like the majors are starting to do with these fight academies. I have two daughters with zero flight hours each, but there’s absolutely no reason they should not envision themselves as ATP pilots when they grow up nor should there be a lack of great opportunities for them to pursue that if they so choose. Representation and opportunities do actually matter, especially in high-powered, high-status careers, and I hope to see more of both for my girls or other young people like them who are not well represented in cockpits today.

I’m just saying don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. The annoying CBTs, the intolerably weird seminars, etc., yea those aren’t helping. The DEI industrial complex is a thing and it pretty much sucks - 69% of them are a bunch of grifters of you ask me. BUT, there’s no reason the flight deck (or the boardroom or wherever else) has to be so radically skewed white and male, or female, or whatever else depending on the field. But for aviation it’s definitely white and male. IMHO talent is relatively evenly distributed by race, gender, etc., so if your institution is not, you are accepting more mediocrity than you should. If there are some no-shitter physical characteristics that are essential to screen for, ok. That doesn’t really exist for airline pilots, yet the group is 95% male and I’m sure very overly represented by white people as well. And while I’m sure the vast majority of current pilots are well meaning and we’ll qualified, you don’t just continue to accept an objectively weird situation with that kind of imbalance forever. Give more opportunities to folks who are underrepresented and you’ll find tons of excellent pilots, more than if you remained hemmed in by your very off-kilter, limited historical selection pool. That’s my opinion at least. It’s not hard quotas or interviewing people with freaking bags over their heads, it’s nuts seeking out talent broadly and nurturing opportunities for everyone. Feel free to disagree if you’d like.