Comment by causal
3 hours ago
I think it's important to multiply "likelihood of the human making a mistake" by "how many times the human must avoid a mistake". If your hobby presents 100 avoidable-but-life-threatening mistakes an hour, it's a dangerous hobby.
Driving a car presents 100 avoidable-but-life-threatening-potential-mistakes an hour. I'm personally exceptionally risk-averse and avoid cars for that reason, but I don't think that level of risk aversion necessarily needs to be typical. It's certainly worth pointing out that a safety-conscious person can significantly reduce the risk of a given activity, even if they can't eliminate it completely. And, to be honest, I'd rather encourage risk-aware pilots to take up the hobby! Airliner pilots have to come from somewhere, and I'd prefer if my airline pilot was one who considered the risks of flying and did it anyways rather than having an airline pilot who is totally reckless and simply doesn't care about risks.