PILOT SPIN
Spin Zone => Spin Zone => Topic started by: Rush on April 16, 2025, 07:20:34 AM
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Thought I’d take this out of the joke thread so it could get back to only jokes, although a case can be made that this whole subject is a joke.
Here’s my take. The real point here is one the media sidesteps but Katy Perry herself actually addresses but without the bigger context: The actual accomplishment of these women, that I will grant them, is they faced fear of death. Perry put it that way when she talked about everyone she loves and the possibility that with this flight she might not return to them. Yet she reached deep and found her “feminine” strength and courage and went on the flight anyway.
And the reason it’s such a big deal is that women don’t do that much. It’s men that face the possibility of death regularly. Dangerous jobs like mining and offshore drilling and electric linemen, testing new technology like planes and rockets and submarines, going into combat, crawling under cars up on jacks.
I’m not a man so you guys tell me: Every time you do something potentially dangerous do you have an emotional confrontation with yourself about how brave you’re being?
I’m a woman so I do. The one time I jumped out of an airplane I thought I might die, was pretty convinced I would, so much so that when the chute opened properly I was genuinely surprised, and extremely happy that I was going to continue living for the time being.
So I totally get where those women were coming from, and have no problem with them celebrating themselves for having “confronted certain death” and survived. The problem I have is the media celebration over it for the FALSE assertion that they did something historic, and mislabeling it as the first all woman “crew” which is a lie on two points, it was not the first all woman crew in space (that happened in 1963 iirc) and they were not “crew”. They were passengers.
And the implication these women did something notable having to do with spaceflight when it was on the shoulders of overwhelmingly majority of men that made it possible. And no mention or credit of that anywhere.
All these women did was a rare act of courage in what is normally a security oriented female mindset. Yet the fact that that’s the only real story here is played down by the media, perhaps because to highlight it too much might remind people that it’s men who face danger regularly and that is what upholds all of civilization. That doesn’t fit the insufferable girl power cult.
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I went through many a door not sure if the person I was going to arrest was armed, was going to shoot, get violent, etc. Never once did I think how brave I was. Fear, anxiety, nervous? Yes. But never brave. It was the job I chose.
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I’m not a man so you guys tell me: Every time you do something potentially dangerous do you have an emotional confrontation with yourself about how brave you’re being?
No.
I’m a woman so I do. The one time I jumped out of an airplane I thought I might die, was pretty convinced I would, so much so that when the chute opened properly I was genuinely surprised, and extremely happy that I was going to continue living for the time being.
I'm sorry, but that's embarrassing.
There are times when we think, "Good grief, I could get killed doing this," but then do it anyway because it's something that needs to get done.
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I'm sorry, but that's embarrassing.
There are times when we think, "Good grief, I could get killed doing this," but then do it anyway because it's something that needs to get done.
My premise is, it would be embarrassing for a man, but not for a woman. On the other hand, childbirth is dangerous but I didn’t have that reaction when going into childbirth. It was more like you said, I am aware this could kill me but it needs to get done. There was no feeling of fear and having to be “brave”.
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Maybe I was a bit harsh.
If I get in an airplane and I think that the flight will end in disaster, then I'm not going. Not out of fear, but rather because I assessed the risk and made a determination that it wouldn't be prudent until the risks can be mitigated, or if they can't, then just don't do it. If you truly felt that the parachute wouldn't open, then you should have never jumped.
Every time I get on a roller coaster or a thrill ride, the men just sit there while every woman, without exception, screams at the top of her lungs. It has never occurred to me that they all thought they were about to die. Can you imagine the screaming that must have happened inside that spacecraft during launch?!
Men and women process things differently. Celebrate the difference and let the genders play to their strengths. Men know this, always have. It's the women who need to get back into their own lane. I don't care that they put a bunch of women in a spaceship but quit calling them a crew and making it sound like they did it on their own.
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The closest I can come to some of these much better stories is about when I worked for a wildlife rehabilitation center about 40 years ago. We had all sorts of wounded animals from bears and alligators to roosters, squirrels and a few badgers. The only emotion I remember was how scared I was, not how brave I was.
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Maybe I was a bit harsh.
That's okay. :)
If I get in an airplane and I think that the flight will end in disaster, then I'm not going. Not out of fear, but rather because I assessed the risk and made a determination that it wouldn't be prudent until the risks can be mitigated, or if they can't, then just don't do it. If you truly felt that the parachute wouldn't open, then you should have never jumped.
Of course I didn't actually think the risk was that high, I'm not an idiot! But it's a lot higher than say, staying on the ground. It was an emotional reaction to a new-to-me activity that is risky relatively speaking (ask your life insurance company), not an intellectual assessment of the absolute risk of one jump on one day, which I found acceptable.
Oddly, I never felt that way getting into a bugsmasher. I'm starting to flying commercially though, due to DEI pilots and DEI ATC but that's another story.
Every time I get on a roller coaster or a thrill ride, the men just sit there while every woman, without exception, screams at the top of her lungs. It has never occurred to me that they all thought they were about to die. Can you imagine the screaming that must have happened inside that spacecraft during launch?!
Nah, we're squealing in delight, not screaming in fear. When Phil Knight took me up and did a hammerhead, it occurred to me during the vertical dive as I watched the ground fill the screen and grow larger, that if he didn't pull out we were going to die in a smoking hole, but instead of feeling fear I thought it was the most hilarious thing in the world, and laughed my ass off.
Why? I guess I trusted that man to know what he was doing, although I probably would have felt fine with Patty Wagstaff. But then, I chose to go with Phil instead of Patty in the first place. Does that make me sexist?
Men and women process things differently. Celebrate the difference and let the genders play to their strengths. Men know this, always have. It's the women who need to get back into their own lane. I don't care that they put a bunch of women in a spaceship but quit calling them a crew and making it sound like they did it on their own.
Exactly! it is hardwired into our DNA. Women are more security and safety minded, and more risk-averse, because we are so vulnerable with pregnancy and caring for infants which we are actually supposed to be doing most of our fertile years. It's abnormal that we use birth control and don't have a baby every third year. Men are hard wired to do the things needed for survival and protection of the women and all those babies.
Modern civilization has messed up all those natural instincts but we still have them. But we have these ideologies that try to deny them. Like men and women are interchangeable or just a product of how they're raised, not their chromosomes. It's been taken to sick, psychotic levels, like there's 72 genders and you can change gender every 5 minutes. Women like these six claiming they did something historic when they did absolutely nothing (except overcome their trepidation) and all of media going along with it is like master level self-delusional narcissim.
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Agree with the others. I make a calculated risk assessment. If it's not something that HAS to be done, and if I determine the risks are too great, I don't do it.
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Agree with the others. I make a calculated risk assessment. If it's not something that HAS to be done, and if I determine the risks are too great, I don't do it.
That's the difference between us and people with an overgrown need for thrill seeking. Like the kid who skied down a slope to jump over a highway, built a ramp but didn't bother to do a mathematical calculation and hit the pavement instead of the snow on the other side. He was 21. If I was his mom I would be SO PISSED at him. Besides grieving.
https://coloradosun.com/2024/04/10/skier-killed-trying-jump-berthoud-pass/
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Gayle King, who is famous for being Oprah's lesbian lover, insists that she's an astronaut because the flight she went on had the same trajectory as Alan Shepard's Mercury flight. And Shepard is an astronaut so she is one too. If she had done that 60 years ago (shit! It was that long ago??) with a 1/4 chance of getting killed, hardly anyone had done it before, and every rocket before had exploded, sure.
Yeah, the flight she went on was cool. I'd like to do that someday. But brave and heroic and inspirational and all that? No.
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Agree with the others. I make a calculated risk assessment. If it's not something that HAS to be done, and if I determine the risks are too great, I don't do it.
And I agree with you. Before flying I do all the risk assessment, do everything I can to be fully prepared. When I finally line up with the runway I ask myself "Do I really want to do this?" Any gut feel that something is off, I don't go.
I don't think I've done anything truly brave. I've jumped out of airplanes (static line), rode motorcycles, flew taildraggers in a strong crosswind. Yeah, I've been scared. But while I've been scared I never considered what I did being brave. Not compared to combat, running into a burning building, confronting a crazy person who has a gun or knife. Not even close. And those things I did... not any more. My risk tolerance is a lot different now that I'm older.
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Every time I get on a roller coaster or a thrill ride, the men just sit there while every woman, without exception, screams at the top of her lungs.
OMG they did actually scream (start about 1:00):
https://x.com/jammles9/status/1912847339061964953
But to be fair she criticizes Perry for what she said about connecting more back to earth. This is exactly the same sentiment William Shatner tried to express to Jeff Bezos but was interrupted by Bezos wanting to pop a bottle of champagne and do a photo op spraying it all over everybody.
Shatner was trying to say (he clarified in writing later) that he had expected to go up and be wow’d by the wonder of space but to his surprise the opposite happened. Space is an empty void. Everything precious and meaningful is actually back down there and he felt only a profound sadness. Then he went on to explain that the sadness was because man is ruining the environment and making species go extinct blah blah blah but I give him a break on that because he’s a nonagenarian stuck in the climate change ideology of his liberal Democrat Hollywood peers. And he was so fricking sexy to little girl me back in the 1960s. Some of my childhood heroes just can’t make me hate them.
However, though their sentiments are the same, Perry gushes like a narcissist for the camera while Shatner was oblivious to the camera and simply trying to express himself one-on-one to Bezos. And then was rudely rebuffed to which he reacted with class.
None of those women have any class at all. And they aren’t astronauts. Shatner isn’t either but I’d give him honorary astronaut status. He at least pretended to fly spaceships.
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Gayle King, who is famous for being Oprah's lesbian lover, insists that she's an astronaut because the flight she went on had the same trajectory as Alan Shepard's Mercury flight. And Shepard is an astronaut so she is one too. If she had done that 60 years ago (shit! It was that long ago??) with a 1/4 chance of getting killed, hardly anyone had done it before, and every rocket before had exploded, sure.
Yeah, the flight she went on was cool. I'd like to do that someday. But brave and heroic and inspirational and all that? No.
Now that the lie of gender switching is exposed, and DEI and white supremacy etc. etc. are crumbling, and George Floyd is passing from memory, the New Thing must be “ brave and heroic.” But still a lie. Keep it up, Alice.
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IIRC Shepard landed on the ocean?
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IIRC Shepard landed on the ocean?
twice (with a stop on the moon before the 2nd splashdown)
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This is exactly the same sentiment William Shatner tried to express to Jeff Bezos but was interrupted by Bezos wanting to pop a bottle of champagne and do a photo op spraying it all over everybody.
Shatner was trying to say (he clarified in writing later) that he had expected to go up and be wow’d by the wonder of space but to his surprise the opposite happened. Space is an empty void. Everything precious and meaningful is actually back down there and he felt only a profound sadness. Then he went on to explain that the sadness was because man is ruining the environment and making species go extinct blah blah blah but I give him a break on that because he’s a nonagenarian stuck in the climate change ideology of his liberal Democrat Hollywood peers. And he was so fricking sexy to little girl me back in the 1960s. Some of my childhood heroes just can’t make me hate them.
I'm sure Shatner didn't talk off the cuff, he already knew what he was going to say.
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twice (with a stop on the moon before the 2nd splashdown)
Oh well, since he didn't fly non-stop he's clearly not an astronaut.
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I'm sure Shatner didn't talk off the cuff, he already knew what he was going to say.
I think he was genuine that he expected to react one way and was surprised he reacted another, but then he is an actor.
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And I agree with you. Before flying I do all the risk assessment, do everything I can to be fully prepared. When I finally line up with the runway I ask myself "Do I really want to do this?" Any gut feel that something is off, I don't go.
I don't think I've done anything truly brave. I've jumped out of airplanes (static line), rode motorcycles, flew taildraggers in a strong crosswind. Yeah, I've been scared. But while I've been scared I never considered what I did being brave. Not compared to combat, running into a burning building, confronting a crazy person who has a gun or knife. Not even close. And those things I did... not any more. My risk tolerance is a lot different now that I'm older.
You made me think of something, using the word “scared”. When I jumped out of the plane thinking for sure I would die, I was not “scared”. That deep feeling of terror? I felt that when I had a detached retina. I guess I’m much more afraid of going blind than of death.
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You made me think of something, using the word “scared”. When I jumped out of the plane thinking for sure I would die, I was not “scared”. That deep feeling of terror? I felt that when I had a detached retina. I guess I’m much more afraid of going blind than of death.
Me too. Years of suffering is my greater fear. I told my husband, if I go quickly, just know that’s exactly what I wanted.
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You made me think of something, using the word “scared”. When I jumped out of the plane thinking for sure I would die, I was not “scared”. That deep feeling of terror? I felt that when I had a detached retina. I guess I’m much more afraid of going blind than of death.
We could use the "pucker factor" scale as a measure of scared. I really don't think I've been above a 5.
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Me too. Years of suffering is my greater fear. I told my husband, if I go quickly, just know that’s exactly what I wanted.
Exactly! Even though I was sure I would die jumping, I knew it would be an instant “smush”. That doesn’t really scare me at all. But years of living blind? And not born blind when you never knew anything else and can function just fine, but going blind at an age where I have trouble learning new languages, like Braille. No thank you, just kill me.
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We could use the "pucker factor" scale as a measure of scared. I really don't think I've been above a 5.
Pucker factor is good. The most puckering scare I’ve ever had well, those words don’t even describe it, it was another dimension of feeling I can’t really articulate, was when our kid was diagnosed with cancer. I can’t even measure it. It was a different kind of yardstick altogether. It was also the one single time in over 40 years of marriage I ever saw my husband cry.
Geeez this is getting deep.
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You're right. That's a whole nother dimension of fear. Not fear for yourself, but fear for others. My wife is disabled. There's a persistent background fear that I might do something stupid to myself and leave her helpless.