wrote in message
...
Take one sentence out of context, and of course it sounds like a
generalization. In context, however, I was referring to situations like
the one described

The context was about airplanes. Your comment specified cars. How can you
possibly claim that your comment was NOT a generalization. You specifically
generalized from airplanes to cars, and from a specific stranger to all
strangers generally.

[...] That's one notch
up from being a "total" stranger and different than some stranger
offering you a ride at random.

Thus the problem with generalizations. When you fail to qualify your
statement, it becomes inaccurate. Just because someone else is vouching for
a person, that does not keep them from being a total stranger. It simply
makes them a different kind of total stranger.

Thank you for illustrating exactly the problem with generalizations I was
talking about.

And believe it or not, there are people who still hitch-hike. Some risk?
Sure. But flying with someone you know doesn't preclude risk either.

EXACTLY. That was the point!
In the scenario being discussed, I wasn't hitching an airplane ride.

Because you refused, true. But it's reasonably analagous to hitch-hiking,
which is not a uniformly dangerous practice.

Yes, and that was Jay's original question, if anyone has ever refused to
fly with someone.

Actually, his question was "Have you ever refused to fly with someone you
felt was not entirely safe?" That's a very different question from "have
you ever refused to fly with someone you did not know to be entirely safe?"

The person you described was not someone you had any reason to believe "was
not entirely safe." The only reason for declining the ride was your lack of
knowledge about him, not some specific knowledge about him.

Pete