The above meme has been widely circulated, to the approval of people who think it’s an unanswerable response to those who question the unthinking acceptance of everything asserted by authorities and ‘experts’. But I think it both reflects and encourages confused thinking. Several points:
First, the pilot does not choose your destination. You do that yourself…if you are an airline passenger, by choosing the airline and the flight, if you’re going by charter or are the airplane owner, by telling the pilot directly where you want to go. But in neither case will you hear the pilot say, “Hey, you guys are kind of out of shape; forget Florida, we’re going to Minnesota for cross-country skiing and ice fishing.”
Second, there is nothing in politics analogous to the training and the practical and written tests required to be certified as an Airline Transport Pilot.
Third, it was identified many years ago in the aviation world that a significant number of accidents were being caused by excessive deference to (actual or perceived) authority…for example, when a First Officer (copilot) was concerned about something, but was reluctant to bring it to the attention of the Captain. The subject of ‘Crew Resource Management’, intended to address this problem, is now part of the training of people who fly aircraft with multiple crew members. The message of CRM is the opposite of the uncritical acceptance of authority that the circulators of this meme seem to be advocating.
Fourth, although the pilot in command is responsible for and is the final authority as to the operation of that aircraft, he is also responsible for gathering information from multiple sources relevant to the safe conduct of the flight: weather information, fuel calculations, airspace restrictions, mechanical condition of the aircraft, etc. He can’t just say well, the plane is in good shape and there’s plenty of fuel to get there, so let’s go. Compare and contrast with the politician who in making a ‘lockdown’ decision chooses to rely only on the opinions of virologists and epidemiologists, while ignoring any information about the effects on schoolchildren and small businesses.
What else?
It’s a comment by the smugly superior, throwing shade on those who presume to think for themselves, instead of unhesitatingly obeying the orders of their betters.
And doubly annoying for the towering air of smug superiority.
A single frame out of a movie can give a very wrong impression of that is going on. Here is my take on what was happening in prior frames:
The pilots suddenly announced that they were turning the plane around. Instead of taking the paying passengers to their vacation destination in Hawaii, they had decided to go to Haiti instead — because that was what their DIE instructor had suggested. Any passenger who objected was free to register a complaint with “Joe Biden’s” Administration — but would of course be accused of racism.
The passenger standing up had revealed that he was a former Air Force pilot, now a commercial pilot for another airline flying the same plane, with over 10,000 hours of total flying experience.
Then we get the above frame which tickles the fancy of our inferior elitists who have grown fat & lazy on the taxpayers’ dime.
Experts in the physical world versus “Experts” in the theoretical world.
Captain Sully Sullenberger verses Tony Blinken
The people nodding with appreciation for this cartoon favor the woman who can’t do an unscripted interview and thinks bacon is a spice over the billionaire ex-president who has been a successful businessman and TV personality for decades.
Expert.
That word is well on the way to meaning something like “overly credentialed fool.”
It:
1) That the experts are competent at flying the plane
2) That the experts haven’t already crashed the plane
3) That the passengers aren’t on the constitutional equivalent of Flight 93 and discussing last, desperate options of rushing the cockpit
There are four planes that I remember that have been deliberately crashed by one of their pilots. In two cases, there was a long enough interval between the diversion and impact where something like that scenario could have played out if the passengers had been aware. I think there’s a reasonable chance that with an otherwise functioning plane, a non pilot could be talked through a successful landing.
I note the cartoonist’s skill in that I immediately took a dislike to the loud mouth before I even read the caption.
Well, the difference is this. Every passenger who boarded the plane would have had to agree to let the pilot be chosen by a vote of all present. Or heck, maybe we let each row of seats pick an elector!
Some of the people in the cartoon are raising their hands. Others are not. Do the more vocal ones have the right to endanger the lives of those who are not raising their hands? If this system were actually in place we’d all have a lot more leg room, because 95% of us would say no way in hell am I going to take this sort of risk.
Some of my more exercised progressive friends do think this is just what we have done in the recent election, but they are safe on the ground and near as I can tell are free to walk to Canada. Or just complain a lot. First Amendment and all.
Sorry to be off topic, but has anyone heard from Michael Kennedy in the last several weeks?
How about the layman who responds to the Dr – after seeing ads for “his disease” on the TV and how it can be so great – presumes to talk with the Dr as an equal authority – or better yet, had googled his malady and think he knows the problem over the dr? That happens every day.
Good example on the politicos’ handling of COVID.
It was the “doctors” that the pols followed down the disastrous path of lock downs and business closings, being ever mindful not to inconvenience themselves. They could sit comfortably at home, secure that their paychecks were flowing without interruption. We’re all paying for the hundreds of billions stolen every time we go to the grocery store and will pay again on every April 15th from here on.
Bad pilots usually pay a price, often with their lives. Bad “experts” in many other fields often pay no price, and sometimes are even rewarded.
“Bad pilots usually pay a price, often with their lives. Bad “experts” in many other fields often pay no price, and sometimes are even rewarded.”
That is the worst problem with government-by-expert, though hardly the only one. They demand ultimate power, yet can damage or destroy citizens’ lives by bad decisions — and when they make life-altering mistakes they pay no price personally.
If the “pilot” had crashed the last five flights, killed most of the passengers, destroyed the aircraft and was bankrupting the airline, yeah, I’d give moustache guy a try. Maybe he’s an old reservist who flew F-4s? At this point a person with MS Flight experience might be better.
My metaphor beats your metaphor. Why? Because I have this model here that predicts the outcome that I favor. . .
Screw that. Let’s look at data.
How did your experts do vs. specific critics, on Covid/Inflation/Foreign Policy/etc. ???
If someone’s or some group’s predictions or prescriptions proved to be relatively accurate, maybe we should overweight that person’s or group’s predictions or prescriptions on the same issues, going forward?
If an expert or group of experts was systematically wrong in the past, maybe we should downgrade their predictions, going forward?
Do we now know that some of the experts were corrupt? Maybe we should take that knowledge into account, going forward?
Start asking reasonable questions. The cartoon is anything but. It’s a straw-man argument, rather than a reasonable counter-argument to political populism or to arguments for limited government.
Rather than ask what’s wrong with the meme, shouldn’t we start by asking what, if anything, is right about it? Depending on how it is being used, one might say “You’re not like a pilot saying he is more qualified than a passenger to fly a plane. You’re more like someone who says his pilot’s licence qualifies him to do brain surgery and, on inspection, is found not to actually have a pilot’s licence”.
Pilots—the kind who pilot planes in the cartoon—are usually ex-military and chosen by giant international corporations. The executives making pilot choice decisions are usually ultimately not pilots themselves.
Such qualifications, if applied to the presidency, would result in better leaders than those chosen by Democrat Party.
When it finally hit me the mistake is so obvious I can’t believe someone hasn’t explained it long since. It’s the difference between real expertise and competence and playing an “expert” in the media.
Airline pilots prove their expertise daily by safely piloting planes from numerous point A’s to point B. With media “experts”, by the time it’s apparent that they were talking out of an orifice not usually associated with expression, the cycle has moved on. Considering the selection process of these would be sages, a combination of self promotion and being anointed with superhuman wisdom by the most uniformly ignorant profession to ever infest a society, those rare occasions when they seem to be right are the true wonders.
It should also be pointed out that the pilots will suffer the same fate as the passengers good or ill.
A lot of experts and politicians live and act immune from their choices. Remember the examples of those partying and dining during lockdowns?
Two pilot sayings:
A pilot is the first at the scene of every crash.
Crash straight ahead, aim between the trees.
Teachers and educrats like to use the strawman that you wouldn’t want to have a man off the street perform your brain surgery or fly a plane, you want an expert. So they use that analogy to say you should sit back and let the educational experts, the school system, do their jobs.
So think of the meme, with the pilot and the airplane, as a metaphor for repudiating the populist critique of the rule by experts.
Mike…”So think of the meme, with the pilot and the airplane, as a metaphor for repudiating the populist critique of the rule by experts.” Sure, that’s the intent…my post is an attempt to show why it doesn’t fit. (Although many will think it does fit, decisively)