site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   764 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for April 18, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

1
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

My incredibly off-topic comment justifiably saw no response, but it reminded me of one question.

Imagine you’re on a flight where somebody tried to smuggle murder hornets and they got loose. Only three people were immune and survived: you, and a basement dweller who spent thousands of hours in MS Flight Simulator including the plane model you’re on, and a real fighter pilot who has never flown a commercial plane ever. They look at you to decide who will be landing the plane. Which one do you choose?

My understanding is that the division of labor in an emergency is for the co-pilot to take the controls and the captain to manage comms and the checklist(s), the reason being that experience and a (hopefully) cool head are more valuable for the latter tasks. So, I'd have the sim pilot take the controls and the fighter pilot take the radio and checklists.

I've always wanted to land a plane.

Serves them right for putting you in charge really.

Imagining your eyes widening like a child opening a present as you say it and the dread they would feel in that moment made me laugh my ass off, kudos.

I'm not terribly frightened of this hypo. Either, or both, or neither I'll do it myself just for the story. Landing a plane isn't really THAT hard. It's reasonably difficult to do perfectly every single time, without damaging the plane or anything around the plane. I would bet the median mottizen could land an airliner with no serious injuries or fatalities with 98% success or better with radio guidance.

Fighter pilot.

Resilience to stress is more important than excellence. Both of them can fly a plane. Only one of them knows how to keep his cool in stressful circumstances.

The MSF guy, with pilot as copilot.

Can I choose a team of the hornets?

...what's the delta between the transferability of MS Flight Simulator skills versus a fighter jet? I have no idea. I'd probably go with the fighter jet pilot, on the assumption that MSFS is sufficiently streamlined that it transfers less.

Your average fighter pilot has probably flown maybe a half dozen other aircraft types too: you don't go straight from a simulator into a jet.

...I doubt that. Last I checked MSFS was for those guys who loved having all of the bullshit on a plane down to the last button. That was a decade ago..

XPlane or Prepar3d are better as instrument trainers, but you can still get MSFS to the point where it can be blessed for BATD purposes (effectively, can clock a limited number of hours on it as a pilot). The biggest worry I'd have is that they are still buttons; even high-end yokes tend to be horribly unrealistic when it comes to physical feel, and many parts don't really have good physical equivalents even if you're willing to pay an arm, leg, and first-born child.

In normal conditions a pilot only really has to manage the aircraft in the sense of a checklist, where there's literally very exact steps involved for procedure at every point in the process, but high crosswinds, bad visibility, (very) low fuel levels, equipment failures/non-ops on aircraft or ground, or particularly annoying airports can make that less true. In those situations, being able to identify the feel of different types of whole-aircraft movement go, or knowing how to count off time properly in your head under stress, or how to handle procedures that aren't covered in flight simulator work could be more relevant.

I don’t want to be a dick, but you’re a brand new account and the only two responses you’ve gotten (within minutes of each other) are usernames I don’t recognize that were each created within a week of this website’s creation.

Does that seem weird to anyone else?

No. What would be the purpose of this conspiracy? You can't just throw these aspersions into the wind, make it interesting.

And I'm gonna go with the basement dweller. I had almost the exact hypothetical situation happen to me last month. My brother had received a small, remotely controlled airplane toy, but he couldn't keep it in the air for more than 15 seconds, even though he can jump higher than me. Thanks to my extensive experience watching youtube videos on airplane crashes, I just leveled the wings and stopped giving it gas when the AoA was too high, and voila, stall averted and everyone saved.

Many troll accounts that have already been banned were dormant usernames that were registered in September of 2022. There's no need for a conspiracy.

I take it I was being a dick.

I mean, mollie the mare has 200 comments, it's not a dormant troll. And two accounts posting within 2 minutes of each other is well within the realm of innocent events. The worst troll here, post-nazi-insider-spat-and-delete-guy, uses new accounts that date from the time his last one was banned, so if he ever used them, he's out of prime dormants.

We seem to have some new faces around. 4chan refugees?

Fighter jock, so very hard. There's a reason "flying by the seat of your pants" became an expression. Even the very best simulators don't match the actual experience of putting a plane back on the ground safely. Also a commercial jet is much much harder to crash than a fighter jet which, by design, trades stability for agility.

The biggest issue would be a lack of familiarity with the controls. Put simulator guy/gal in the co-pilot's chair so they can point out where the appropriate dials and buttons are and you should be fine. Aside from being in a plane full of corpses and murder hornets anyway.

Conditional on:

  • The plane being capable of autoland
  • The MSFS model near study level
  • There is a CAT III runway within range with ample fuel reserves and favorable weather
  • The real fighter pilot has only ever flow fighters and fast jet trainers (No you're in a 737 and he's flown a P-8 Poseidon)

The basement dweller. Otherwise the fighter pilot. In the first case everyone will probably walk away with quite a story to tell. In the second everyone will probably survive, but there might be some injuries and the plane is probably going to be totaled.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats