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That’s not subjective; you just made it up. For one thing, B-52s seem to have substantial safety externalities for nearby cities.

by brians 7y ago

burnte 7y ago
>That’s not subjective; you just made it up. That's the definition of subjective. You're thinking objective.
- samstave 7y ago
  Thank you. This is going to come across a subjectively offensive to people on HN, aside from the old timers, as I am such, stop trying to prove how smart you are. Listen more. Engage rather than flex your ego. Discuss rather than downvote. I almost never vote on anything, @dang may likely be able to look at my click record. I don’t click on votes too often, I engage in discussion as often as possible. (Constantly hit with “you’re posting too fast”) So don’t downvote me. Talk to me please. EDIT; cowards
  - kelnos 7y ago
    Ok, I'll bite: your original comment wasn't useful at all, and didn't push the conversation forward. Making a baseless suggestion that the B-52 is the "safest machine in history" is not useful. You presented no evidence for this claim, and used "subjective" as a weasel word to avoid responsibility for what you were saying. And then, incredibly, you make a -- reasonable -- assertion as to how you would determine a plane's safety and reliability, but then don't actually bother to try to apply that to the B-52. And then someone downthread uses something similar to your methodology (while presenting hard numbers and sources) to prove you wrong that the B-52 is the safest plane ever. So my subjective opinion is that you've provided nothing of value to this conversation, and that is why you've been downvoted. Oh, and calling people "cowards" when you don't like what they're saying or doing? If you want to invoke "old timers" on HN, you might as well at least pay attention to the site guidelines. As someone who has had an account here for 10 years (funny coincidence that you and I created our accounts within a week of each other), you should be well aware of them.
    - 9935c101ab17a66 7y ago
      I agree. Samstave's original comment was... befuddling. And the more recent reaction stranger still.
- hn_throwaway_99 7y ago
  That's not the definition of subjective. When GP says "That’s not subjective; you just made it up." it means that talking about airplane safety (which can obviously be objectively measured with things like crashes per landing/takeoff, crashes per mile, etc.) with the moniker "it's subjectively the safest" doesn't make any sense. It would be like saying "That plane is subjectively the heaviest" or "Today is subjectively the hottest day on record" - no, it's not subjective, you just made it up.
  - samstave 7y ago
    I completely disagree with this. I subjectively make my statement based on that data I have available to ME* Objective would be I have failure data in front of me. Now, I personally have heard of far fewer B-52 accidents in my lifetime, and the plane is almost double mine, and as such, I deem it safe as heck. Also, guess what - B-52s carry nukes not passengers. How many nukes have gone off for a B-52 crash vs how many lives have been lost via commercial crashes? Also, I come from a nuke family, and an air force family. My grandfather was one of the designers of Hanford and my brother was head of the tenth medical wing and flight surgeon to the joint chiefs, and my dad best friend was sec of energy... in charge of nukes... So, I stand by my words.
    - azernik 7y ago
      > and the plane is almost double mine I assume you're talking about lifespan? The B-52 may have been in the air for a long time (though only 15 years longer than the 737), but it has also been flying in much smaller quantities; there have only ever been ~750 B-52s built, while there have been over 10K 737s built. And in addition, a commercial airliner is usually in the air for a much higher percentage of its lifespan than any military airplane. So for example, the 737-600/700/800/900 series has had 9 accidents (6 full-loss equivalents)... over 100 million flights. http://www.airsafe.com/events/models/rate_mod.htm http://www.airsafe.com/events/models/rate_mod.htm Accident rate info for the B-52 is harder to come by, especially since a lot of the "accidents" are complications from battle damage in Vietnam, but I'm seeing 10 peacetime full-loss incidents just among those that have their own Wikipedia pages: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Accidents_and_incidents_involving_the_Boeing_B-52_Stratofortress https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Accidents_and_inciden...
- 9935c101ab17a66 7y ago
  But you don't have to say: "I'm subjectively of the opinion..." I also do find the original commenter's use of 'subjective' at the very least, odd, and the thrust of their remark is, subjectively, quite strange.

That’s not subjective; you just made it up. For one thing, B-52s seem to have substantial safety externalities for nearby cities.

by brians 7y ago

That’s not subjective; you just made it up. For one thing, B-52s seem to have substantial safety externalities for nearby cities.

burnte 7y ago

>That’s not subjective; you just made it up. That's the definition of subjective. You're thinking objective.

samstave 7y ago
Thank you. This is going to come across a subjectively offensive to people on HN, aside from the old timers, as I am such, stop trying to prove how smart you are. Listen more. Engage rather than flex your ego. Discuss rather than downvote. I almost never vote on anything, @dang may likely be able to look at my click record. I don’t click on votes too often, I engage in discussion as often as possible. (Constantly hit with “you’re posting too fast”) So don’t downvote me. Talk to me please. EDIT; cowards
- kelnos 7y ago
  Ok, I'll bite: your original comment wasn't useful at all, and didn't push the conversation forward. Making a baseless suggestion that the B-52 is the "safest machine in history" is not useful. You presented no evidence for this claim, and used "subjective" as a weasel word to avoid responsibility for what you were saying. And then, incredibly, you make a -- reasonable -- assertion as to how you would determine a plane's safety and reliability, but then don't actually bother to try to apply that to the B-52. And then someone downthread uses something similar to your methodology (while presenting hard numbers and sources) to prove you wrong that the B-52 is the safest plane ever. So my subjective opinion is that you've provided nothing of value to this conversation, and that is why you've been downvoted. Oh, and calling people "cowards" when you don't like what they're saying or doing? If you want to invoke "old timers" on HN, you might as well at least pay attention to the site guidelines. As someone who has had an account here for 10 years (funny coincidence that you and I created our accounts within a week of each other), you should be well aware of them.
  - 9935c101ab17a66 7y ago
    I agree. Samstave's original comment was... befuddling. And the more recent reaction stranger still.
hn_throwaway_99 7y ago
That's not the definition of subjective. When GP says "That’s not subjective; you just made it up." it means that talking about airplane safety (which can obviously be objectively measured with things like crashes per landing/takeoff, crashes per mile, etc.) with the moniker "it's subjectively the safest" doesn't make any sense. It would be like saying "That plane is subjectively the heaviest" or "Today is subjectively the hottest day on record" - no, it's not subjective, you just made it up.
- samstave 7y ago
  I completely disagree with this. I subjectively make my statement based on that data I have available to ME* Objective would be I have failure data in front of me. Now, I personally have heard of far fewer B-52 accidents in my lifetime, and the plane is almost double mine, and as such, I deem it safe as heck. Also, guess what - B-52s carry nukes not passengers. How many nukes have gone off for a B-52 crash vs how many lives have been lost via commercial crashes? Also, I come from a nuke family, and an air force family. My grandfather was one of the designers of Hanford and my brother was head of the tenth medical wing and flight surgeon to the joint chiefs, and my dad best friend was sec of energy... in charge of nukes... So, I stand by my words.
  - azernik 7y ago
    > and the plane is almost double mine I assume you're talking about lifespan? The B-52 may have been in the air for a long time (though only 15 years longer than the 737), but it has also been flying in much smaller quantities; there have only ever been ~750 B-52s built, while there have been over 10K 737s built. And in addition, a commercial airliner is usually in the air for a much higher percentage of its lifespan than any military airplane. So for example, the 737-600/700/800/900 series has had 9 accidents (6 full-loss equivalents)... over 100 million flights. http://www.airsafe.com/events/models/rate_mod.htm http://www.airsafe.com/events/models/rate_mod.htm Accident rate info for the B-52 is harder to come by, especially since a lot of the "accidents" are complications from battle damage in Vietnam, but I'm seeing 10 peacetime full-loss incidents just among those that have their own Wikipedia pages: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Accidents_and_incidents_involving_the_Boeing_B-52_Stratofortress https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Accidents_and_inciden...
9935c101ab17a66 7y ago
But you don't have to say: "I'm subjectively of the opinion..." I also do find the original commenter's use of 'subjective' at the very least, odd, and the thrust of their remark is, subjectively, quite strange.