Accidents - correlation and causation?

"Jose" wrote in message
m...
Nothing is black and white. The guy =at= the airport, who has no
intention of flying but is just there to pick Sam up would be more like
the pedestrian on the side of the road. But I'm talking about the
schoolyard that has an airplane fall on it.

My point is your willingness to simply alter the stated scenario to suit
your whim. And again, you try to shift the discussion away.

Regardless, the pedestrian in his front yard next door to your house is like
the guy at the airport, being near one terminus of an automobile trip. The
schoolyard is much more like the pedestrian downtown, being somewhere along
the path of travel of the automobile trip.

Without the concept of "justice", there is no concept of "innocent".

"Innocent" means "didn't do it". The "it" that he didn't do needn't be a
Bad Thing.

If it's not a bad thing to expose oneself to risk, why is your desire to
punish such a person by affording them less protection from the actions of
others?

In this context, I use "innocent" to mean "didn't deliberately put himself
in harm's way", where flying an airplane is a case of deliberately putting
oneself in harm's way. You are taking a chance. Ditto driving a car
(each WRT their respective hazards)

There is absolutely no reason that the harm in question needs to include the
irresponsible actions of others.

A person strolling in the park had better be prepared for the risk of
being shot.

There is always risk, but when you =contribute= to that risk (by going
hunting, for example) you are no longer "innocent" in the sense that the
picknicker is.

So the park stroller is NOT innocent by your reasoning? After all, they
would have less risk staying at home, so their action of going out and
strolling in the park contributes to their risk. Ergo, "no longer
'innocent'".

But according to you, the people on the ground are innocent while the
passengers in the plane are not. And according to you, they should thus
be granted more protection.

Yes, they should... by the pilot.

The pilot isn't the one making the rules. Try again.

In the case of solo flight, the FAA grants the *passengers* the greater
degree of protection.

The passengers are at greater risk to begin with.

So what? Why should then passengers of boats not be granted the greater
degree of protection, through a similar training and certification program
used for aviation?

You don't seem to be able to stay focused on who it is you'd like to protect
or to not protect. Sometimes you want the "innocents" not directly involved
to be better protected, and sometimes you want the "guilty" who are exposing
themselves to greater risk to be granted greater protection.

But even so, the case in boating is that no one is granted any real
protection by government regulation. Not the passengers, and not the
"innocents".

[...]
flying a kite isn't going to kill someone.

The risk is small, but nonzero.

Really? You know of someone who has been killed by a kite?

I've never heard of such a thing (excluding kites specifically designed to
harm, which I already disqualified in the text you trimmed).

As far as I know, the risk of flying a kite IS zero with respect to a fatal
injury.

Now we're discussing degree, which is what I was saying all along. LIttle
league pitchers aren't certified, but there have been fatal pitching
accidents too.

Well, as I mentioned, there are a number of activities, including many that
are FAR more hazardous than little-league pitching, that are not regulated.
That doesn't mean they shouldn't be. Still, little-league pitching is not
inherently dangerous. That is, no death would occur when the usual and
proper safety precautions are taken. In aviation and boating, you can take
every precaution, and an accident can still kill you.

We disagree, but I'm open to being swayed by actual data. (and if you
include big boats, you have to include big planes too)

That's fine. The hazard to people on the ground by large airplanes is even
less than by small airplanes.

Pete