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> no matter what the benefits would be This is illogical reasoning. We should look at the cost/benefit tradeoff. Looking only at costs or only at benefits wi

> no matter what the benefits would be This is illogical reasoning. We should look at the cost/benefit tradeoff. Looking only at costs or only at benefits will not yield the best decision. We need to draw a line somewhere between safety & cost. I'd argue it is always possible to make something safer if you are willing to accept higher cost. Expensive plane tickets have negative externalities, and for some, does cost lives (inability to get treatments for ex.).

RcouF1uZ4gsC 7y ago
> inability to get treatments for ex. I don't think that is a good example. If the treatment you need requires you to fly, that means it a very complicated diseases, or a rare disease that only a few centers treat. In any case, it is likely that the care is very resource intensive and is either expensive or heavily subsidized. In those cases, even if the airfare were doubled or tripled, it would not be the limiting factor in treatment.
- SahAssar 7y ago
  I'm not saying it necessarily applies for life-saving treatments AFAIK, but not everyone agrees on what medical care is. For example, in the U.S. it has been shown that state abortion restrictions hit the lower-income segment much harder precisely because they cannot afford to travel to states which have more liberal laws concerning abortion.
- flatline 7y ago
  Or the cost of flying and getting surgery abroad is far cheaper than doing it at home, with minimal additional risk.
- aeternum 7y ago
  It is common enough that there is an entire organization (Angel Flight) dedicated to it. Using private planes and private pilots which are significantly less safe than commercial. Another example is family members overseas. Many have to choose between providing for their family vs. being with their family. Affordability of flights can have a huge impact on their quality of life and ability to take part in the moments that many of use take for-granted.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    This is partially self-inflicted. Cheap air travel incentivizes more people to move overseas because they know their families are just a flight away. I once knew a person that lived and worked in the UK, but studied in Poland - she flew back and forth twice a month(!). I guess it would be fine, if not for the environmental costs. Anyway, I have this feeling that you could justify just about anything if you dig for nth-order effects, but it doesn't change the fundamental point: a race to the bottom sacrifices everything that can be sacrifices. Environment is usually the first victim, quality the second, but safety trade-offs are eventually made too. At some point in a product category's lifecycle, one starts to wonder whether it's so degraded that it would be better if it didn't exist anymore.
    - TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
      And n-th order effects and externalities are specifically excluded from corporate accounting. Which means we don't know how much these things actually cost in real terms. We also don't know how to quantify potential benefits. (And if someone says 'Well, that's subjective' - so is nominal market value.) There's conventional profit-loss accounting, and there's everything else. It seems the everything else can accumulate to ecosystem-threatening levels, and conventional accounting will continue to pretend this is financially irrelevant.
- muratk 7y ago
  It doesn't have to be a rare disease—it can just mean that non-basic healthcare is hard to access. Example: I live in the Philippines. Its healthcare system is affected by two things: centralization and the fact that the country is an archipelago. Most quality health care is happening in Metro Manila. What you find outside is generally very basic, and even in 2nd-tier cities like Cebu or Davao they may refer you to Manila for something you'd think they ought be able to do. With travel by boat being … rather slow, with vacation time not exactly ample, and the average salary being low I'm quite certain that affordable flights ($25 Cebu - Manila) are making ample difference in terms of what kind of healthcare situations are being addressed.
  - Moru 7y ago
    So healthcare would have been better in the outer regions without cheap air travel?
hannasanarion 7y ago
Who is flying commercial to get treated for life-threatening emergencies?
- BurningFrog 7y ago
  Think life-threatening non-emergencies.
  - hannasanarion 7y ago
    If travel is necessary for medical treatment, it ought to be covered by insurance, so the price shouldn't matter. Medevac flights, aka air ambulances, are a thing.
    - blaser-waffle 7y ago
      "covered by insurance" doesn't mean much if you're still billed $10k or more after insurance. My father has decent insurance as a retiree and still got billed for an ambulance ride after he had complications following a jaw surgery. I've seen a bunch of anecdotal stories about how it's cheaper for someone on the west coast to fly to Korea, or down to Mexico, for non-critical surgeries, spend a week recovering, and then fly home.
      - hannasanarion 7y ago
        I think it's a fair assumption that the US healthcare system would have been overhauled long before the complete elimination of the competitive market for commercial air travel, which is what this thread is about.
WanderPanda 7y ago
Not to underestimate that cheap far distance travel probably decreases the probability of big wars by a reasonable amount.
- isoskeles 7y ago
  How do we factor in 9/11 here?
  - shuckles 7y ago
    The discussion here is about more or less expensive air travel, within reasonable multiples. Al Qaeda would’ve probably been able to justify and afford 10x what it paid for its airfare so that’s mostly a matter of passenger air travel existing in the first place.
  - shrubble 7y ago
    The first attack on WTC was a truck bomb which almost succeeded.
    - cvs268 7y ago
      (Oh no!) If the truck almost hit, the airplane actually hit. (Oh yeah!) If the WTC was standing maybe oil would be cheaper. (Oh no!) But, if oil were cheaper, we would be that much further away from adopting alternate energy sources like solar. Reminds me of the quote (forget the source) - Nothing is bad. Nothing is good. Everything just is.
- adrianN 7y ago
  If flying were very expensive for consumers, it would probably be a lot more expensive for the military too. Civilian aviation probably provides a lot of R&D that is used in military planes.
hhas01 7y ago
“We need to draw a line somewhere between safety & cost.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiB8GVMNJkE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiB8GVMNJkE
- aeternum 7y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jltnBOrCB7I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jltnBOrCB7I
  - hhas01 7y ago
    Indeed. This is not an accident. But memories are short and greed is long, and those who “forget” that every safety reg was written in the blood of others can sleep easy beneath golden parachutes and very good lawyers. Honestly, best thing Boeing could do now is rename it the “737 MAX Fight Club Pinto”, fill it with all the incels who didn’t get the joke, and fly the whole crapload off into the great unknown.
    - aeternum 7y ago
      In my opinion, Milton is right in that clip. Everyone agrees that we need to draw the line somewhere, define some level of safety as 'good enough'. IE flying is more dangerous in IFR conditions, so we could ban all commercial flights during those conditions. However that line is not the same for everyone. Most people are fine with accepting the slightly higher risk involved in flying during low visibility. Risk tolerances are different, so why do we try to regulate to a given standard. It makes little sense to allow motorcycles yet have a regulation that requires the use of seatbelts in cars. Instead, I'd like to see regulations that enforce testing and information sharing. After that, let people decide which airline to take, which car to buy, and therefore where to draw that line.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 7y ago

> inability to get treatments for ex. I don't think that is a good example. If the treatment you need requires you to fly, that means it a very complicated diseases, or a rare disease that only a few centers treat. In any case, it is likely that the care is very resource intensive and is either expensive or heavily subsidized. In those cases, even if the airfare were doubled or tripled, it would not be the limiting factor in treatment.

SahAssar 7y ago
I'm not saying it necessarily applies for life-saving treatments AFAIK, but not everyone agrees on what medical care is. For example, in the U.S. it has been shown that state abortion restrictions hit the lower-income segment much harder precisely because they cannot afford to travel to states which have more liberal laws concerning abortion.
flatline 7y ago
Or the cost of flying and getting surgery abroad is far cheaper than doing it at home, with minimal additional risk.
aeternum 7y ago
It is common enough that there is an entire organization (Angel Flight) dedicated to it. Using private planes and private pilots which are significantly less safe than commercial. Another example is family members overseas. Many have to choose between providing for their family vs. being with their family. Affordability of flights can have a huge impact on their quality of life and ability to take part in the moments that many of use take for-granted.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  This is partially self-inflicted. Cheap air travel incentivizes more people to move overseas because they know their families are just a flight away. I once knew a person that lived and worked in the UK, but studied in Poland - she flew back and forth twice a month(!). I guess it would be fine, if not for the environmental costs. Anyway, I have this feeling that you could justify just about anything if you dig for nth-order effects, but it doesn't change the fundamental point: a race to the bottom sacrifices everything that can be sacrifices. Environment is usually the first victim, quality the second, but safety trade-offs are eventually made too. At some point in a product category's lifecycle, one starts to wonder whether it's so degraded that it would be better if it didn't exist anymore.
  - TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
    And n-th order effects and externalities are specifically excluded from corporate accounting. Which means we don't know how much these things actually cost in real terms. We also don't know how to quantify potential benefits. (And if someone says 'Well, that's subjective' - so is nominal market value.) There's conventional profit-loss accounting, and there's everything else. It seems the everything else can accumulate to ecosystem-threatening levels, and conventional accounting will continue to pretend this is financially irrelevant.
muratk 7y ago
It doesn't have to be a rare disease—it can just mean that non-basic healthcare is hard to access. Example: I live in the Philippines. Its healthcare system is affected by two things: centralization and the fact that the country is an archipelago. Most quality health care is happening in Metro Manila. What you find outside is generally very basic, and even in 2nd-tier cities like Cebu or Davao they may refer you to Manila for something you'd think they ought be able to do. With travel by boat being … rather slow, with vacation time not exactly ample, and the average salary being low I'm quite certain that affordable flights ($25 Cebu - Manila) are making ample difference in terms of what kind of healthcare situations are being addressed.
- Moru 7y ago
  So healthcare would have been better in the outer regions without cheap air travel?

hannasanarion 7y ago

Who is flying commercial to get treated for life-threatening emergencies?

BurningFrog 7y ago
Think life-threatening non-emergencies.
- hannasanarion 7y ago
  If travel is necessary for medical treatment, it ought to be covered by insurance, so the price shouldn't matter. Medevac flights, aka air ambulances, are a thing.
  - blaser-waffle 7y ago
    "covered by insurance" doesn't mean much if you're still billed $10k or more after insurance. My father has decent insurance as a retiree and still got billed for an ambulance ride after he had complications following a jaw surgery. I've seen a bunch of anecdotal stories about how it's cheaper for someone on the west coast to fly to Korea, or down to Mexico, for non-critical surgeries, spend a week recovering, and then fly home.
    - hannasanarion 7y ago
      I think it's a fair assumption that the US healthcare system would have been overhauled long before the complete elimination of the competitive market for commercial air travel, which is what this thread is about.

WanderPanda 7y ago

Not to underestimate that cheap far distance travel probably decreases the probability of big wars by a reasonable amount.

isoskeles 7y ago
How do we factor in 9/11 here?
- shuckles 7y ago
  The discussion here is about more or less expensive air travel, within reasonable multiples. Al Qaeda would’ve probably been able to justify and afford 10x what it paid for its airfare so that’s mostly a matter of passenger air travel existing in the first place.
- shrubble 7y ago
  The first attack on WTC was a truck bomb which almost succeeded.
  - cvs268 7y ago
    (Oh no!) If the truck almost hit, the airplane actually hit. (Oh yeah!) If the WTC was standing maybe oil would be cheaper. (Oh no!) But, if oil were cheaper, we would be that much further away from adopting alternate energy sources like solar. Reminds me of the quote (forget the source) - Nothing is bad. Nothing is good. Everything just is.
adrianN 7y ago
If flying were very expensive for consumers, it would probably be a lot more expensive for the military too. Civilian aviation probably provides a lot of R&D that is used in military planes.

hhas01 7y ago

“We need to draw a line somewhere between safety & cost.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiB8GVMNJkE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiB8GVMNJkE

aeternum 7y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jltnBOrCB7I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jltnBOrCB7I
- hhas01 7y ago
  Indeed. This is not an accident. But memories are short and greed is long, and those who “forget” that every safety reg was written in the blood of others can sleep easy beneath golden parachutes and very good lawyers. Honestly, best thing Boeing could do now is rename it the “737 MAX Fight Club Pinto”, fill it with all the incels who didn’t get the joke, and fly the whole crapload off into the great unknown.
  - aeternum 7y ago
    In my opinion, Milton is right in that clip. Everyone agrees that we need to draw the line somewhere, define some level of safety as 'good enough'. IE flying is more dangerous in IFR conditions, so we could ban all commercial flights during those conditions. However that line is not the same for everyone. Most people are fine with accepting the slightly higher risk involved in flying during low visibility. Risk tolerances are different, so why do we try to regulate to a given standard. It makes little sense to allow motorcycles yet have a regulation that requires the use of seatbelts in cars. Instead, I'd like to see regulations that enforce testing and information sharing. After that, let people decide which airline to take, which car to buy, and therefore where to draw that line.