Missing planes

[lapal_fan]

much like Villa fans dislike blues and visa versa.

 

It's stupid, but it's normal for us to dislike another football club.

 

Extremely forgiving example I know, but it's still the same sort of irrational behaviour you're talking about.

[Risso]

 

 

When it's non-muslims, religion doesn't get mentioned.

If it was revealed to have been done in the name of religion then I'm sure it would.

 

So am I if and only if it is established that the religious aspect was a cause/factor. With muslims, it's mentioned as a matter of course. But I accept I didn't word my post very well, but anyway.

 

Making a point on a football message board after an air crash in Germany, a message board that'll never be read by anyone associated, and even if it was, the point made was not offensive, or insensitive IMO.

The media often mentions the religion (or suspected religion) if it's muslim. it rarely mentions it in any other instances, these days. It's not truly even handed in that regard and YGs point was IMO a fair one.

 

 

Have there been many examples of an atrocity carried out by somebody who was a Muslim that turned out to be completely unrelated to religion or the siutation in the Middle East?

[chrisp65]

Given there are quite a few muslims. I'd expect there are quite a few. Most days.

 

People have issues and drive vans into crowds and go on gun sprees the world over. Seemingly unmotivated killing is not a western thing.

 

 

n.b. a quick google search says yes, you can be a muslim nutter that isn't simply motivated by misguided religious fervour

Edited March 27, 2015 by chrisp65

[blandy]

Have there been many examples of an atrocity carried out by somebody who was a Muslim that turned out to be completely unrelated to religion or the situation in the Middle East?

Chris answered for me, but yes, loads.

As a clue there are large Muslim populations in places like Burma, Cambodia, Malaysia, Khazakstan, Vietnam, Cameroon and so on.

Something like a quarter of all the world's human population is muslims. It's inevitable, humans being humans.

[Risso]

Given there are quite a few muslims. I'd expect there are quite a few. Most days.

 

People have issues and drive vans into crowds and go on gun sprees the world over. Seemingly unmotivated killing is not a western thing.

 

 

n.b. a quick google search says yes, you can be a muslim nutter that isn't simply motivated by misguided religious fervour

 

Any actual examples?

[chrisp65]

Do you mean serial killers like Javed Iqbal who murdered 100 boys, or random spree killers like Sohrab Khan who killed 7 in one spree and is suspected of killing 9 others?

[Xela]

3 people in the cockpit at all times? Isn't that going back to how planes were before advancements in aviation technology rendered the role of a dedicated flight engineer redundant? 

 

Ultimately you can't legislate for someone's moment of madness can you? Luckily it is an extremely rare occurrence so I can't see there being sweeping changes in procedures.

 

When I used to fly as a youngster (talking late 80's, early 90's) the pilot used to open his door so kids and inquisitive parents could have a look in the cockpit while the plane was in the air! You can't imagine it now can you? 

[Brumerican]

It's all utterly heartbreaking

[mjmooney]

In a hasty change to their safety regulations, Ryanair are now insisting that there be at least one pilot on each flight.

[Marka Ragnos]

 

The co-pilot recently passed his psychological evaluation, so either he was really good at masking his true underlying mental state or there is a flaw in their evaluation process. 

 

I think a lot of people who suffer with depression and mental illnesses spend every day of their lives telling people they are okay whilst wearing a mask. I'd hold very little weight to psychological exams to be honest. I can't imagine they're very extensive. The better way to minimise this type of incident is to bring in remote control of planes imo.  

 

Sometimes automated stuff goes wrong, sometimes people go wrong. We can't have neither so we go with what we currently have, a bit of both.

Do we have a bit of both? I'm not so sure a control room can take control of a plane can they? This needs to happen asap. Of course, it needs to have manual over-ride in case of technical failure.

 

 

I am sorry, in a big way, to hear that this man was treated for "depression," because it's going to lead to a backlash, I suspect. 

 

What he did wasn't the act of a depressive -- if indeed things are as they seem -- it was the act of a depressive murderer.

 

I feel that "depression" and mental illness have less to do with this case than simple inhumanity as well as what I would call, very carefully and with many qualifications, evil.

 

Mentally ill people can do nice things and they can do hurtful things. Mostly, they do a bit of each everyday, just like everyone else. This was a colossal crime.

Edited March 27, 2015 by Plastic Man

[VillaChris]

I was thinking what would've happened if the Captain hadn't gone off to the loo which could quite easily have happened considering it was a short flight.

 

Would this guy had attempted to throttle him or just wait until he co-piloting  another flight?

[Marka Ragnos]

I talked about this with a friend of mine who is trained in psychology and he says that depressed people normally have agency. There are psychotic states that can occur very rarely, it is true. But does it really sound like this man was suffering from a psychotic episode? Not to me at least. I've seen men in certain states of psychosis and they are very clearly ill. They're not piloting anything.

[snowychap]

I feel that "depression" and mental illness have less to do with this case than simple inhumanity as well as what I would call, very carefully and with many qualifications, evil.

So it was 'evil'?

What on earth is 'evil'? Why are we in to some silly idea about 'evil'? He killed people.

There may be loads of possible reasons why he did it (including the idea that he didn't actually think about all - or any - of the other people).

p.s. regarding the other stuff in your posts - it would be nice if some 'mental health professionals' stood up and accepted that they have **** all of a clue about mental health.

Edited March 28, 2015 by snowychap

[Marka Ragnos]

 

I feel that "depression" and mental illness have less to do with this case than simple inhumanity as well as what I would call, very carefully and with many qualifications, evil.

So it was 'evil'?

What on earth is 'evil'? Why are we in to some silly idea about 'evil'? He killed people.

 

There may be loads of possible reasons why he did it (including the idea that he didn't actually think about all - or any - of the other people).

p.s. regarding the other stuff in your posts - it would be nice if some 'mental health professionals' stood up and accepted that they have **** all of a clue about mental health.

 

 

Oh dear. Yes, "evil" works for me -- as a word, pragmatically -- to describe this man's apparent actions. You may have another word that's more nuanced, creative, relevant, scientific, etc etc ad nauseam. Fine. I imagine we mean pretty much the same thing. We think the dude did something hurtful to others. But I think evil's a good old word, and it requires no defence:

 

 

evil (adj.)  Old English yfel (Kentish evel) "bad, vicious, ill, wicked," from Proto-Germanic *ubilaz (cognates: Old Saxon ubil, Old Frisian and Middle Dutch evel, Dutch euvel, Old High German ubil, German übel, Gothic ubils), from PIE *upelo-, from root *wap- "bad, evil" (cognates: Hittite huwapp- "evil"). 

In Old English and other older Germanic languages other than Scandinavian, "this word is the most comprehensive adjectival expression of disapproval, dislike or disparagement" [OED]. Evil was the word the Anglo-Saxons used where we would use bad, cruel, unskillful, defective (adj.), or harm (n.), crime, misfortune, disease(n.). In Middle English, bad took the wider range of senses and evil began to focus on moral badness. Both words have good as their opposite. Evil-favored (1520s) meant "ugly." Evilchild is attested as an English surname from 13c.

 

 

I don't know what other posts of mine you're talking about. Please do keep in mind that I am feeble-minded, which complicates philosophical questions for me. As for "mental health professionals," tbh, you sound pretty angry about something, but I'm not sure I understand. The very first words of the friend I mentioned when I asked him about his thoughts on the Germanwings murderer were "I don't know. No idea." He wasn't stood up, but in an armchair,  but otherwise, it sounds to me as if he was doing what you ask.

Edited March 28, 2015 by Plastic Man

[snowychap]

But I think evil's a good old word, and it requires no defence

Thanks for the unnecessary link to the etymology of the word.

Whenever I hear people describe something as evil, it largely comes across as a way of categorizing something and putting it into a box that they never have to look at again as though simply using the word has already fully done the job of explaining the action/person in question.

"Well, it's just evil." Thanks, that's it. It's in my box in the cupboard with all of the other evil things that I can't explain/don't want to explain/are bad.

 

I don't know what other posts of mine you're talking about. Please do keep in mind that I am feeble-minded, which complicates philosophical questions for me. As for "mental health professionals," tbh, you sound pretty angry about something, but I'm not sure I understand. The very first words of the friend I mentioned when I asked him about his thoughts on the Germanwings murderer were "I don't know. No idea." He wasn't stood up, but in an armchair,  but otherwise, it sounds to me as if he was doing what you ask.

Maybe they weren't posts of yours - apologies for that.

Actually, I'm more than a little appalled by some of the media coverage of the whole thing (front pages of red tops like 'madman in the cockpit' and not much better from some other outlets) and quite pissed off by some of the 'mental health professionals' that have been trotted out on TV/radio news programmes since the event happened to largely plough through their text book nonsense about people with mental health issues.

Perhaps, you should have quoted your friend's first words (sat, stood, recumbent or however he was) as they sound like the utterings of someone with much good sense.

[leemond2008]

This world is utterly senseless at times. It's hard to get your head around somebody doing this, there is very little you can do to guard against somebody just going nuts.

Agreed.

The only thing to consider is that threat of someone going nuts is present everywhere, not just on a plane.

Someone could go nuts and axe you down in the street for no reason.

Pretty rich coming from me though. I hate flying!

I quite like flying, take off and landing anyway, the bit in between is normally shit and boring. I have to say I never realised the pilot left the cockpit to use the loo, I assumed they had their own one. But you're right, it's just very unlucky for those on board, there really is nothing you can do against someone willing to kill like this, whether it's in an aeroplane or anywhere.

I'm the opposite.

Once we're cruising I'm fine.

It's the take off and landing that shits me up. Take off more than landing.

I've just ordered this book as I'm fed the **** up of being scared of flying. Someone here recommended it so I'm hoping it works

I think that book could go into the ice rink but I'm not entirely sure

[blandy]

Sometimes automated stuff goes wrong, sometimes people go wrong. We can't have neither so we go with what we currently have, a bit of both.

Do we have a bit of both? I'm not so sure a control room can take control of a plane can they? This needs to happen asap. Of course, it needs to have manual over-ride in case of technical failure.

Currently most aircraft are controlled by a bit of both. Much of the navigation and take off and landing is basically done by the aircraft, with the Pilot(s) largely monitoring. They can override the Flight Control System if the need arises, but by and large they type in the flight plan (waypoints, diversion airfields and so on) and sit back, on the more modern commercial aircraft.

For these aircraft there's no way for anyone on the ground to be able to take control of the vehicle. And nor should there be - it wouldn't solve the type of problem of a pilot on the aircraft maliciously crashing it - it would just move the risk to a person on the ground maliciously crashing it, while removing the freedom of the aircrew to take action in unforseen circumstances. For example if a technical failure were to mean, say that an aircraft lost cabin pressure, the pilot would descend and fly at low altitude - that would obviously be a major deviation from the Flight plan - if a man on the ground was to say "hold on, that's not right" and return the aircraft to altitude, he'd kill everyone on it.

It's quite possible to have unmanned aircraft, where they autonomously carry out a flight plan. These also, though have a "pilot" just a pilot on the ground, in a Ground Control Station. The pilot is able to take control of the vehicle if required, or to update the flight plan, as with a manned aircraft.

These aircraft are currently almost exclusively used by the Military. They are by and large not flown in the same airspace as general aviation traffic. The reason for that revolves around regulation and safety. To integrate with other traffic, the Aviation authorities require that the risk to people property and the environment is miniscule, and they require that it's transparent to air traffic controllers whether the aircraft is manned or unmanned - so for example an air traffic controller needs to be able to talk on the radio to an unmanned aircraft, and for "it" to respond in exactly the same way as if a human was on board - including talking back to the controller. The unmanned aircraft needs to be able to react to a situation where for example an airliner is in difficulty nearby, and unable to change it's flight path, and the unmanned aircraft needs to be able to be advised of this and to then respond as commanded by ATC to get out of the way. It also would need to be able to take the same type of action as a manned aircraft in the event of an emergency or technical failures - so that if it was going to crash it would do what a pilot would do, and try and avoid hitting buildings, roads and other places there are, or might be, people and try and crash land in open country.

For all those reasons and many more, unmanned aircraft are not going to be flying people round for a long time yet.

Unmanned aircraft also need to be resistant to hijacking - not by passengers on board, but by someone somewhere accidentally or deliberately jamming the RF links, or spoofing it with false commands, or disrupting navigational data, or taking over control from the real operator and crashing it into a building.

Nevertheless, despite all these hurdles, unmanned aircraft are being designed, tested, operated and used regularly by all kinds of companies and armed forces, and their capabilities in some instances are beyond those of manned aircraft, in part because the absence of humans on board removes some of the environmental and human factors limitations they bring - from fatigue, to G forces, the temperature and pressure and environmental requirements that humans require.

There's also the public perception the idea of getting in an aircraft with no pilot freaks people out. And there's the media image of "robot drones" and terminators and all that guff.

Returning to this horrible crash, sadly there's not really a totally foolproof way of preventing someone intent on causing this type of incident from doing so. For every step taken there is a flip side.

Each day millions of miles are travelled by people on aircraft, and there are far fewer people killed or injured in air travel than on the roads and pavements of towns and cities. It's partly because it's such a rare event for people to be killed in air travel that it makes world news. Which is of no comfort to any affected, of course, but it's still worth pointing out.

[Marka Ragnos]

 

But I think evil's a good old word, and it requires no defence

Thanks for the unnecessary link to the etymology of the word.

Whenever I hear people describe something as evil, it largely comes across as a way of categorizing something and putting it into a box that they never have to look at again as though simply using the word has already fully done the job of explaining the action/person in question.

"Well, it's just evil." Thanks, that's it. It's in my box in the cupboard with all of the other evil things that I can't explain/don't want to explain/are bad.

 

I don't know what other posts of mine you're talking about. Please do keep in mind that I am feeble-minded, which complicates philosophical questions for me. As for "mental health professionals," tbh, you sound pretty angry about something, but I'm not sure I understand. The very first words of the friend I mentioned when I asked him about his thoughts on the Germanwings murderer were "I don't know. No idea." He wasn't stood up, but in an armchair,  but otherwise, it sounds to me as if he was doing what you ask.

Maybe they weren't posts of yours - apologies for that.

Actually, I'm more than a little appalled by some of the media coverage of the whole thing (front pages of red tops like 'madman in the cockpit' and not much better from some other outlets) and quite pissed off by some of the 'mental health professionals' that have been trotted out on TV/radio news programmes since the event happened to largely plough through their text book nonsense about people with mental health issues.

Perhaps, you should have quoted your friend's first words (sat, stood, recumbent or however he was) as they sound like the utterings of someone with much good sense.

 

 

I didn't mean to offend. I only include the etymology to show -- in a way I find interesting, at least, and overwhelmingly clear -- that this word "evil" goes far back historically as a way to express social disapproval of something otherwise unexplainable. I wasn't trying to "teach" anyone anything, including you! 

 

Yes, I agree that people often use "evil" stupidly as a catch-all in terrifying and unfair ways, and indeed, countless people labeled with the term have been tragically victimized throughout history. 

 

For what it's worth, I basically define evil as the conscious infliction of suffering on others (and in some circumstances, on the self), whether through action or inaction, as well as the conscious denial of the awareness of such an infliction of this suffering. The only caveat I would add is that once someone establishes a long-standing habit of denying this self-awareness, it can become almost unconscious.

 

Yes, the friend I mention is, I think, especially wise about the limitations of mental health care and treatment. It can be weak sauce!  I've had several friends with schizophrenia, and if you know schizophrenia in this way or as someone who works with the severely mentally ill, you also know that schizophrenia is nigh well impossible to treat long-term. The long-term prognosis for full recovery is very poor. With many mental illnesses, the professionals must admit almost complete defeat.

 

But my other point was that, unlike schizophrenia, usually with depression there seems to be agency, though not always.

 

I find the whole legal questions intriguing, in a very sad way, with this man on the plane. The fact that he did NOT respond vocally when called possibly indicates to me a possible criminal awareness of moral/ethical responsibility.

 

What do you think?

 

If Andreas Lubitiz had said something, anything, in response to the calls for him to open the door, to me that might have actually demonstrated/revealed that he was not responsible for his actions -- that he was insane. He might have said something like, "I'm growing mushrooms with unicorn faces on them!" or even "God is great." This kind of utterance would have proved, possibly, that he was insane.

 

For now, though, he comes across as someone who knowingly hid things. That knowledge, to me, is indicative of responsibility, of knowing right from wrong, hurtful from kind, the infliction of pain on others from comfort. And that, to me, is utterly evil.

[blandy]

I think part of the problem some people may have with the use of the word "Evil" (generally, not specific to this disaster) is the implied religious element.

The kind of old testament God and the Devil stuff - the belief that some religionist people have of their God doing and being responsible for "good" things, and a Devil being responsible for or doing "Evil" things.

Many people see there's not the slightest bit of evidence or justification or reason for that sort of superstitious view. They see that this construct of the Devil and as a consequence alleged Devil instigated "evil" is utter baloney. They see that there is no "Devil" there is no "God" and thus there is no (religious) Evil or religious good - there is only people, with all their flaws and illnesses and selflessness and selfishness and compassion and delusion and love and hatred and all the other myriad aspects of our natures and characteristics.

There's a perception, perhaps misplaced, that various nations, or areas of nations have preachers and populations that go with all this "work of the Devil or act of God stuff, not as a metaphor, but as a genuine world view. And this perception sees that world view as somewhat stone age and ignorant, bluntly. That that sort of thing, like witch doctors, Voodoo, burning at the stake and all the rest of it belongs in the past when humankind didn't collectively have the knowledge and information about the world and our place in it that we do now, if only we'd all use it.

[limpid]

Man created God in his own image. That's why he's a psychopathic sociopath with dissociative identity disorder.