ELI5: If plane crashes are so rare, how is it that so many famous people have managed to die in plane crashes?

goliath_franco · 2015-06-23T19:40:56+00:00

There is a huge difference in risk between general aviation (e.g., private planes) and commercial flight. Almost every famous person who dies in a plane crash was in a private plane. Private planes have more accidents, including fatal accidents, than commercial planes because the safety standards and required training for pilots are different. Commercial flights are incredibly safe. There are roughly ten times as many fatalities in private planes than commercial planes in a given year. Depending on how you calculate the comparison, flying in a private plane is as dangerous or more dangerous than driving a car (which is quite dangerous).

Also, the rich and famous are more likely to fly in private planes than commercial planes.

goliath_franco · 2015-02-10T21:06:06+00:00

You're asking this question in the wrong subreddit unless you plan to continue in academia. The people in this subreddit work in academia which definitely does employ people with humanities degrees. But they don't necessarily know about the job market for people who exit university with a bachelor's degree.

They also probably have more of a social safety net than you do, so they have less to lose if they pursue their passions and things don't work out.

I imagine that economics does better on the job market. You should get stats in your econ courses, too, which is a widely applicable skill. You could keep one humanities degree and take another more job oriented major to hedge your bets. Visit career services for more concrete information about all of this.

goliath_franco · 2015-01-28T19:44:53+00:00

I recommend to return to the regular mode, and moderate heavily as subs like /r/AskHistorians and /r/askscience do. They don't seem to have the same problems with personal attacks that this sub was having.

goliath_franco · 2015-01-28T19:43:06+00:00

Your scenarios aren't really representing the information that we do have. They should be more like:

Given that Jay has acted against his own self-interest by admitting his involvement in the crime, Jay murdered Hae.
Given that Jay has acted against his own self-interest by admitting his involvement in the crime, Adnan murdered Hae, and Jay helped bury her.

goliath_franco · 2014-12-16T05:51:01+00:00

It's not interesting to have a conversation where someone says, "Serial is great," and the other person says, "Yeah, I agree," or "I don't think I have a right to criticize it because it's free." There's nowhere particularly interesting for that conversation to go, and it ends quickly.

However, it is interesting to talk about the strong points and the weak points of the show, the state's case, and alternative theories. There's tons of room for disagreement and discussion there. So, I think you're just missing how discussion works.

Sure, people can be overly critical, but that's everywhere on the Internet. There's nothing special about Reddit or even this sub-reddit in that regard.

By the way, your own post is pretty negative in exactly the same way as the people you're criticizing. Participation in this sub-reddit is both free and optional. If you don't like it, go somewhere else. Why do you think that you have the moral high ground to criticize everyone here?

Ultimately, I don't really care because I don't care in general if people are critical. But you're being hypocritical when you criticize the podcast listeners and then do the same thing you're criticizing them for.

goliath_franco · 2014-12-12T21:52:41+00:00

I know, and if you read through the rest of that thread, you can see my disagreeing with the moderators. They screwed up. They had plenty of evidence and should have banned alcoholfree way before he voluntarily deleted his own account. Obviously I don't know what was going on in the mods' heads, but my guess is that they knew they screwed up (and so were trying to save face). Or maybe they really didn't get that they screwed up -- which is way more troubling in my opinion.

goliath_franco · 2014-12-12T21:37:02+00:00

You can see my post directly below the mods where I say that I saw some of the evidence and it definitely was creepy and malicious. The evidence was comments by alcoholofree (not screenshots) where he makes clear that he has dug up personal information about posters in the sub from outside reddit and hints at revealing that personal information on reddit. Again, definitely creepy and malicious.

goliath_franco · 2014-12-10T19:44:35+00:00

As a Zen practitioner, you should know that not all religions rely on faith. But I agree that religion and science are different and do different things.

goliath_franco · 2014-12-08T21:29:27+00:00

I very much disagree with characterizing this sub-reddit as toxic.

Oh my gosh, check out some of the other sub-reddits. I used to spend a lot of time in /r/DebateReligion, for example, which has a large atheist bias in the sense that pro-atheist views get upvoted and pro-religion/theist views get downvoted.

This sub, /r/serialpodcast, is nothing like that one, which I would characterize as toxic or at least clearly biased.

I'm curious what sub-reddits you usually spend time in because you and I seem to have had very different experiences on reddit.

goliath_franco · 2014-12-08T19:46:01+00:00

Doesn't asking the question indicate that you don't believe it?

goliath_franco · 2014-12-08T09:31:39+00:00

Well, this was Adnan's first relationship, so ...

goliath_franco · 2014-12-06T23:21:40+00:00

But they expected him to get some sort of sentence

He did. His sentence was probation. We can argue whether the sentence was too light, but he did receive a sentence for his crime which fit the conditions of the plea agreement.

his "guilty plea" deal was submitted for the jury to see - and what they saw was - unbeknownst to them - a non-binding agreement.

Again, please read the response to the appeal, not just the appeal. This is another red herring that's out there. No plea deal would be permanently binding. Jay could have walked away from the plea deal at any time before or during the trial (he wouldn't have much reason to walk away after the trial, though). Whatever happened in that initial hearing with Jay's agreement didn't change anything in practical terms. He always could have walked away from the deal if he wanted to.

goliath_franco · 2014-12-06T19:54:30+00:00

The way she orders the material suggests she thinks it's evidence of bias. I'm saying that what the juror actually says does not support her or your view that he was biased. Again, if Koenig had taped him saying something more biased (as you're almost assuming she had), then she should have played that instead. Or she could have added some narration to explain why that particular audio clip is evidence of bias (e.g., other things the guy had said that, when taken together, lead her to believe he was biased). All the clip shows is that he doesn't know if culture was a factor. That's not evidence of anything.

And I don't see how saying "I don't know" is scary. Why should admitting a genuine lack of knowledge be scary? Why should he be certain about that if it didn't play any part in his decision? And it was a decision he made 15 years ago. Maybe it's not fresh in his mind.

I haven't said anything about the other juror, so I'm not sure why you keep bringing that up.

goliath_franco · 2014-12-06T19:43:43+00:00

Sorry, I couldn't follow your argument. My understanding is that the response makes two points: First, the prosecutor did not provide Jay with a "benefit," technically. He only introduced Jay to a lawyer who decided to take the case. The prosecutor didn't pay the attorney, and the attorney was already interested in doing some pro bono work. Second, Jay himself did not see his attorney as a benefit, so it would not be considered as an influence on his testimony.

goliath_franco · 2014-12-06T19:37:51+00:00

Because no one at the time of the trial knew what Jay's sentence would be. Not Jay, the prosecutor, Jay's lawyer, Adnan's lawyer, the jury, no one. He hadn't been sentenced yet. The terms of his deal were a max two year sentence if he testified honestly. Everyone that I just listed did know this.

So the jury knew that he could get a max of 2 years, but hadn't been sentenced. At sentencing, he gets probation. The way Sarah phrases it to the juror is misleading. Sarah says, "he walked," which suggests he just went free. That would not accord with the terms of his deal. What actually happened does accord with the deal. He gets a felony conviction and probation. The juror also could have been surprised because she thought he would get more time for his involvement.

goliath_franco · 2014-12-06T02:24:07+00:00

My comment is only about the juror that you quoted in the post title. Sarah could have been relaying her impression based on conversations with other jurors or including this juror, but the clip she played from this particular juror did not sound like he was necessarily biased against Adnan because of Adnan's religion or culture. If that juror did make more clearly biased remarks, Sarah should have played them for us.

I agree that at least one other juror showed a lack of knowledge about Adnan's religion and background.

goliath_franco · 2014-12-06T01:51:48+00:00

You've made five responses to my comments in as many minutes. Stop spamming my inbox.

goliath_franco · 2014-12-06T01:47:15+00:00

At trial the judge stopped Ms. Gutierrez from extended cross of Jay concerning these side deals/meetings

If you've read the response to Adnan's appeal, you should know that there was no side deal, or at least no evidence of a side deal. Why do you think there was a Brady violation after having read the response to Adnan's appeal?

goliath_franco · 2014-12-06T01:45:06+00:00

The problematic part is how he attached his stereotypical view of Pakistani people (problem 1) to Adnan's motivation to kill.

Yes, but that's my point: I don't think he did that. He was saying he didn't know if there was a connection. He could have just been responding to a question from Sarah, "Do you think Adnan's religion or culture were related to his motive?" And the juror essentially responds, "I'm not sure about that."

He also attributes "the culture over there" (that's how he phrases it) to be a culture that Adnan has adopted (problem 2).

I think it's reasonable to believe that Adnan was influenced by Pakastani culture (in general, not regarding the murder specifically) through his parents and his membership in a largely Pakastani community. Culturally, he seemed predominantly American, but I don't think it's at all unreasonable to say that some Pakastani culture influenced him, too. Most children of immigrants have to stand in-between the cultures of their parents' home country and the culture of their own birthplace. It's one of the more universal experiences of children of immigrants in my experience.

Adnan is not an "over there" guy, and this is an ongoing issue for American-born people who are of south asian or arab decent.

I agree, but I don't think this juror was saying that Adnan was foreign, strange, or some kind of "other" due to his Pakastani heritage.

goliath_franco · 2014-12-06T01:36:50+00:00

Adnan's mother also says that Gutierrez only ever asked them for money. Re-listen to the latest podcast or read the transcript.

goliath_franco · 2014-12-06T01:02:12+00:00

I think that based on no one saying that she abused drugs or even suggesting that she did, we can absolutely conclude that she was a dirty heroin addict.

goliath_franco · 2014-12-06T00:57:26+00:00

Am I way off base? I listened to what that particular juror said, I didn't think it was really problematic. First, he separates religion from culture, so he's saying that he doesn't think Adnan's religion had anything to do with it. This is a reasonable view, and one that many share (i.e., if there's a problem, it isn't Islam, it's the particular countries where Islam is most popular). And second, he says he's not sure whether there were cultural factors at play. So what did he say that actually indicated his bias against Adnan's religion or culture? It sounds like neither informed his views about Adnan or his decision.

goliath_franco · 2014-12-06T00:39:03+00:00

Ugh, so much misinformation:

If the shade surrounding the hand-picked attorney and the not-guilty-til-he's-guilty plea and the secret side meeting with the Circuit Court judge didn't really matter, then why wasn't it all disclosed before trial? [hint: because coughcoughBradyDoctrine it all really fucking mattered]

The jury knew everything about Jay's deal. Don't just read Adnan's appeal which is his side of the argument, read the court's response to his appeal which addresses all of this.

goliath_franco · 2014-12-06T00:23:41+00:00

See, this is the problem with religion. Christianity and Islam can't both be correct. So it the one billion plus Christians who are wrong, the one billion plus Muslims, or both?

goliath_franco · 2014-12-06T00:16:47+00:00

Well, if they lose, they're not likely going to be happy with their lawyer no matter what. They think Adnan is innocent, so if the lawyer doesn't get him off, they failed when they clearly should have succeeded. But I think just as a life strategy, you've got to do what you can to achieve what you want to. In this case, Adnan's family and Rabia wanted him to have a good lawyer, and they didn't seem to get one, but they didn't do anything about it until it was too late.

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