We should be careful not to lose too much freedom

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CrownCityMisfit
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Re: We should be careful not to lose too much freedom

Post by CrownCityMisfit »

The most important thing I can do is teach my children self-respect, empathy, integrity, and what it means to be responsible - so they can navigate through all of this nonsense.
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Aymi
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Re: We should be careful not to lose too much freedom

Post by Aymi »

Bump, because this thread still makes sence. Good read !

Now working in aircraft maintenance, I see how much of a clusterf*ck regulations are; the huge quantity of useless paperwork required to get an healthy aircraft back in the air compared to how little to safety they add is mindblowing.
Recently we had to throw out about $30K of old but perfectly fine "made in Wichita" King Air / Citation parts because some numbers of the FORM 8130-3 conformity paper got blurry and barely readable with time.
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Buffy Foster

Re: We should be careful not to lose too much freedom

Post by Buffy Foster »

I think some ppl used this as their inspiration... :'(


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DHenriques_
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Re: We should be careful not to lose too much freedom

Post by DHenriques_ »

Scott - A2A wrote:A few things come to mind.

A year or so ago I was in a hot tub at a local health club, and saw this laundry list of rules, of if you have A, B, C, D, etc. don't do this, get out if bla, don't etc. etc. And I realized that, society is now treating corporations like our parents and the general public as their kids. If someone goes into a hot tub with a heart condition, has a heart attack, they will blame the corporation and probably get a nice settlement with all their health bills paid. Why does this happen? Because we as a society are slowly giving up our freedom and being treated more like children.

I have a 2004 Toyota Land Cruiser (great vehicle), but it has this annoying feature of automatically locking the doors. As if I can't manage when to lock or unlock the doors. I can't tell you how many times I go out to my garage to pull on a door only to find it locked and think "when was I considered someone who can't manage this?"

The last thing are these air bags. Personally I don't want these explosive devices in front of me unless I am on the highway. This is my choice, but the car manufacturers can't give us the option, because, if I turn it off, get killed, I could successfully argue this was ultimately their fault and get a huge settlement. Why? Because my lawyer would argue about how the large corporation knows better than I do and they are therefore to blame. In other worlds, they have control over my life, like a parent has over a child.

One last thing to consider. In the 50's (Lewis knows more about this than I do) there was a large annual airshow in England where a jet crashed into the crowd, killing dozens. They actually went on with the show later that afternoon and nobody sued the airplane manufacture, show officials, etc. Now I am not crazy about a show going on after such a tragedy, but it goes to show how radically this world has changed in just 1/2 of a lifetime. This show was very important to the British economy as the #1 industry then was aviation, and they just forged head and got business done.

I am just saying this to let us all think who we want to be, and who (or what) do we want having control over our lives. A world where adults are treated with respect and authority over their own lives and actions, is a much better world where some bigger entity thinks about what each of us can or can't do on our own, when it has no impact on anyone around us.

Scott.
The crash Scott is referring to I believe was the crash in 1952 at Farnborough involving the DH 110 flown by John Derry.
Bea and I had wonderful friends (David and Pauline Francis) from Chipping Sodbury in the UK. David worked for Bae Industries and was there at Farnborough when this happened.
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Scott - A2A
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Re: We should be careful not to lose too much freedom

Post by Scott - A2A »

As time goes on, we are all slowly losing freedom. There are a lot of bad people in this world who thirst for control over others, and history has seen much success in this kind of suppression. America was founded on the principals of an individuals right to pursue happiness without being under the control of any other entity. This concept has been brutally under assault for decades. I pray for the younger generation who have this drive for freedom, as they will be under an ever increasing assault from others as they gain power over time. The official state motto in New Hampshire is "Live free or die." That pretty much sums up my position. The key IMO is that those who truly live for freedom stay united and strong. Actually many first generation Star Trek episodes exemplified the importance of true freedom. We see very little of this kind of thinking in mainstream media today. Let's hope it has a resurgence because people have a right to be free and pursue their own idea of happiness and liberty.

Scott.
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Alan_A
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Re: We should be careful not to lose too much freedom

Post by Alan_A »

May I respectfully suggest that reviving this thread and amplifying it is a bad idea? The A2A customer base isn't monolithic - there are a number of us on the other side of this argument. As I mentioned in an early (2016) post, my wife is an enforcement attorney for a federal regulatory agency. Do I need to come here and read about "bad people in this world who thirst for control over others," or who are putting the concept of the pursuit of happiness "brutally under assault"? I'm the third of four generations in my family to work in the mainstream media. Do I need to come here and read denunciations of the mainstream media? Do I need to hear how all of your precious freedoms are under attack from (it certainly sounds like) people like me?

As a result of this thread in its original form - and a couple of others that hit at around the same time - I withdrew from this community for a period of about 18 months. I've only just come back, and not with the same energy or enthusiasm as before. I'm not the only one - I know of at least two other people who stopped participating at about the same time, and that's just the ones I've spoken with directly. Now, thanks to these new posts, I'm reconsidering again whether I want to continue here either as a forum participant or a customer. My leaving might be better for all concerned. After all, you surely wouldn't want me to be buying your simulated airplanes with funds that came from activities (regulation and journalism) that you're so strongly opposed to. I'd hate to be one to taint your revenue stream.

I'd never question your right to believe what you want, or to advocate what you want. And there are plenty of places where you can do that. But - pro tip here - your customer forum shouldn't be one of them. It should be a complete mystery to me how you believe society should be ordered. This should be a place where we can come to talk about your products, and our shared passion for aviation, and where the sky should be everybody's sky, not a sky that favors one group or philosophy over others.

Polarization has gotten much worse since this thread was started over a year and a half ago. Tempers are short, nerves are short and relationships are frayed. Please don't add to the strain. We need a haven where we can get away from all that, if only briefly. Please let this be that haven.
"Ah, Paula, they are firing at me!" -- Saint-Exupery

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Scott - A2A
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Re: We should be careful not to lose too much freedom

Post by Scott - A2A »

Alan,

A2A is not political and never will be. You seem to read politics into this (when I say "mainstream media" that is just another word for "culture and awareness.") However, if it was 1942 you would bet A2A would be on the side of the Allies and probably actively support the cause. This topic of freedom isn't political.

Freedom is deeper than politics, it's human nature, it's historical. We have regimes around the world today and in the past that have suppressed people's freedoms. Millions died fighting against this during WWII. This isn't to be forgotten, but to be celebrated and remembered. Today we still have these forces growing around the world. Nowhere am I advocating any political party as there are people in all political parties who want to take your freedom away, so forget politics. Think of the difference of those who live in North or South Korea. It's historical and factual, not political. If you are going to advocate dictatorships against democracy, that's beyond party politics. That's humanity.

A2A Simulations is an American company, and I am a proud American. That doesn't take away from anyone who isn't American and is proud of their own country. People are free to post here about their countries, cultures, etc. We have British, Polish, and German people on the A2A team. Millions of people around the world are proud and grateful for each of those countries and what they have each fought for in the past 100 years. We don't need to pretend that their history doesn't exist.

The fact is there are evil people out there who want to control others and take their freedoms away. This isn't political, it's the dark side of humanity. Some people want to pretend this doesn't exist. One thing I always remember an old friend of mine, a former Yale history teacher used to always say, "Scott, the one thing that hasn't changed in the past 2000 years, is man."

Scott.
A2A Simulations Inc.

Buffy Foster

Re: We should be careful not to lose too much freedom

Post by Buffy Foster »

Scott - A2A wrote:The fact is there are evil people out there who want to control others and take their freedoms away. This isn't political, it's the dark side of humanity. Some people want to pretend this doesn't exist. One thing I always remember an old friend of mine, a former Yale history teacher used to always say, "Scott, the one thing that hasn't changed in the past 2000 years, is man."

Scott.
My dad alway says that too and points to even ancient Greek plays and ppl are basically the same as then; the same goodness and the same evilness, the same wisdom and the same foolishness, the same joy and teh same sorrow.

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AKar
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Re: We should be careful not to lose too much freedom

Post by AKar »

It is a bit of dilemma, really. When people make up a society and when society forms a nation, there always is some freedom to be given away by an individual when we agree to play by the rules of our society. Even when acknowledging simple concepts, such as the right to ownership. Some amount of limiting the individual freedom is probably a good thing for everyone's wellness, it follows, and I'd guess almost anyone agrees. A fine society and good nation to live in gives us a lot, and I don't think that anything that is given should be gratuitous, even if that slightly limits our freedoms and gives us some obligations.

Yet, it should not go so far that it starts to limit our options of what we do with our lives. I don't know but would guess that if there was a simple, constant balance for each and every human being, it could perhaps be found, but I don't think there is such a balance. The concept of balance seeks for averaging, and a society built solely for average people is surely not optimal for anyone of the bulk of the large population who is actually distinctly not average in a way or another. I guess it shows in how many people who deviate from the norm in some respects tend to feel that the society demands them to prove themselves harder. I think to some extent, this is acceptable, though society would perhaps often do best if helping people to exercise their rights to do what they are interested in and by time good at. In my thinking, the society as showing to an individual should act as a catalyst, but not as a reactant in what comes to anyone's fundamental choices.

Using whatever power one has at his disposal to reduce some other individual's freedom for former's own benefit is simply wrong if one asked me. This is, thankfully, shown in fundamental rights of civilized world, such as person's right to resign his job - at his own risk of course. It has not been something taken for granted by a huge portion of people doing labor (either manual or something else) over the history of mankind.

-Esa

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Alan_A
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Re: We should be careful not to lose too much freedom

Post by Alan_A »

Scott,

I appreciate the reply and I understand the argument you're trying to make. But I think it's a different one than is being made in the bulk of this thread, including in your original post. The thread isn't about freedom in the abstract - it's about freedom from regulation. The threat to freedom isn't a totalitarian takeover - it's airbags and seat belts. The threat isn't posed by Nazis or Communists - it's posed by regulators. The specific argument is that our freedoms are under assault because regulators are trying to tell us what to do and how to live. So there should be less regulation. How is that not political?
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Scott - A2A
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Re: We should be careful not to lose too much freedom

Post by Scott - A2A »

Alan,

No worries, we're in full agreement for no political talk on these forums and I apologize if my posts came across as political (the “mainstream media” word was a buzz word I should have known but was not thinking of news, etc. but our society). The freedoms I am speaking of isn't really even about regulation – I'm not worried about hot tub regulations per say, but more about where this all leads. It's more like what Esa was talking about thinking “we have a right to quite any job.” There are people in this world that would take that right away in a heartbeat, and I'm sure both sides of the political isles would stand unified against that.

Best regards,
Scott.
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Aymi
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Re: We should be careful not to lose too much freedom

Post by Aymi »

I believe that;

There are hardcore (and off-chart) subjects like immigration, feminism, lgbt, capitalism... That you should just avoid because no mater what, half of the planet (including familly, friends, and internet people) will disagree and find your opinion stupid, just like you think theirs is stupid.

Then there are '' soft'' subjects, like geopolitics, which are fascinating

I think we can reasonably talk about risks and responsabilities against freeedom in the long term without entering the amalgam loophole of hardcore subjects.
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Alan_A
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Re: We should be careful not to lose too much freedom

Post by Alan_A »

@Scott - fair enough. And thanks for clarifying. I'm fine with the broader questions and would be happy to get back to the freedom from/freedom to debates from a couple pages back (would be... if I had the energy... which thankfully I don't... so... sighs of relief all around... 8) ) Yes, "mainstream media" was a bit of a trigger but there are a lot of triggers out there and they're hard to avoid. But I see what you mean now.

@Aymi - I agree with you, though there's always a danger of spilling over into hardcore issues without meaning to. There are a lot of ways to go wrong these days. Fortunately we've got a smart, mature community, so I think if we get to that point, we can all work together to pull ourselves back from the brink.

Happy to follow more discussion, though I'll be cautious about jumping in, for the reasons just noted.
"Ah, Paula, they are firing at me!" -- Saint-Exupery

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Re: We should be careful not to lose too much freedom

Post by Old Airman »

Since I'm really an "Old Fart" (82) I try to fly everything that interest me in flight simulations. Close the cockpit door (bed room with computer set up), take off and everything else goes away!
No politics, fake news, movie stars telling me who's a bad president or courts of law convicting a man for something that happened years ago and the only evidence is an irate women's word for it.

So when I need real information or help with my system I come to the Pilot's Lounge and what do I read? A whole gang of other old farts preaching the same diatribe I spout all of the time. It's nice to belong!

But Scot, your much too young to be such a cynic, fall back and laugh. Don't let the bastards grind you down. If you can't jump over them anymore walk around them like the rest of us old farts.

Some of my mentors would be called lazy and said to lack initiative but when you wanted something done, done right and done now, they were the ones that were called and if they were left to their own devices the job was done! Their most common mantra was, "Don't sweat the small stuff" and "Its all small stuff"!

Well this is enough soap boxing and cliché spouting for one day, I'm going to fly from Mildenhall to EGBO and see if anyone cares.

Old Airman
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Scott - A2A
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Re: We should be careful not to lose too much freedom

Post by Scott - A2A »

Old Airman, thanks for your sentiment but I'm pretty much in line with Alan here in being perhaps even more careful opening discussions of politics, especially in the heated climate the world is currently in. I'm going to lock the post as it was just meant to last for a day or two a long time ago, and not continue on forever.

Scott.
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