@nosleep@bara the degree of agency depends on the specific scenario but it's guaranteed to be very near zero in a plane
I don't think agency is the right answer tho. I think it's a psychological thing. doesn't matter if any passengers actually died, we're highly risk averse because certain death is so blatantly obvious being that far off the ground
we aren't nearly as squeamish about trains even though accidents do happen, people do get killed, and you have similarly little to no agency in the relevant scenarios (they happen rapidly and without warning from the passenger perspective)
@nosleep@bara@mischievoustomato well it's a mix. there's the psychological aspect where the risk aversion levels between planes versus things like trains or busses don't match up
then there's the (separate) effect that the degree of agency has on risk aversion. people regularly take far greater risks than they otherwise would when they perceive that they have control over the situation and I'm not convinced that is a cope or an excuse or whatever else. it makes a lot of sense if you consider the difference between trusting yourself with your life versus trusting some publication or government body or whatever that estimates risks based on historical performance or some mathematical model that you know nothing about
> owns a 2003 honda civic with 3 urgent safety recalls on it
hopefully not the airbag one. getting randomly killed by a small bomb is a pretty bad failure mode
@bara@mischievoustomato@nosleep vaguely related thought. I don't think I've ever fallen off of a wall while sitting on one yet I'd never sit on the edge of a cliff
@nosleep you can get t-boned by an alcoholic plane pilot on the runway. any case, being yourself at fault for dying in a car crash feels infinitely better than going down in a plane. picking gut feeling option over statistics is a good attitude for people to have in general i think
@nosleep if I'm going to be in a deathtrap it had better be a good old fashioned american deathtrap 💪, none of this homosexual mile high metal tube business (all seriousness tho, I'd rather not be in either if I could help it although I trust the big three way more than I trust anything coming out of boeing rn)
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