 |
|
I’m guessing you didn’t go for the bull sacrifice…
The goat option was tested at Katmandu Airport in September to propitiate Akash Bhairab, the Hindu sky god. Officials of Nepal Airlines told Reuters that they had sacrificed two goats in front of a Boeing 757 whose mechanical problems had forced the airline to suspend some flights…
We do, though, have abundant data regarding option C. Last year, tens of millions of people bought life insurance for scheduled flights of airlines in the United States. Not one of those insured passengers died in a crash — and this was not just a coincidence, at least not to many of the people who bought the insurance.
No, at some level they believed that their insurance helped keep the plane aloft, according to psychologists with new experimental evidence of just how weirdly superstitious people can be.
I’m never surprised at how superstitious our species remains. Aside from leftover Stone Age genes, it’s a profitable self-sustaining industry.
I try not to be superstitious…it’s bad luck.
I thank my lucky stars I’m not superstitious.
I’ve never needed flight insurance… knock on wood.
Many secular westerners laugh at the ignorance of these primitive rituals but in my observation, even the most dedicated atheists can have crazy totally irrational superstitions. I think we humans are just wired that way.
It is ironic that at the same time we have all of this technology and science there are still people living out in the world who’s existence hasn’t changed much since the stone age.
If flight insurance let me insure against flight delays, bad food and re-routing people to outer Mongolia, then it might be worth it.
Eideard! I call upon the very unfathomable power of cosmic destiny to deliver bloody death & destruction upon you and all passengers on your next airline flight… unless… unless you tug your ear sometime during that flight. No one needs to know about this. Just one, quick, gentle little tug. The ear.
RBG
NONE OF A, B, OR C; BUT D) The Airline performing all routine and mandated maintenance, and having a flight crew that is not drunk !!!
this is like those “extended” warranties.
Salesman: It comes with a Manufacturers’ one-year warranty. But you really need a three-year extended warranty.
Customer: What are saying? Are you telling me this thing you’re trying to sell is a piece of crap?
>> Improbus said, on May 6th, 2008 at 7:06 am
>> It is ironic that at the same time we have all of this technology and science there are still people living out in the world who’s existence hasn’t changed much since the stone age.
I’ve never lived in the Stone Age but I lived for a while in Nepal. It’s a pretty incredible place and highly recommended by me.
I don’t know if it’s ironic, but it is fascinating how modernity had come differently to South Asia than in the west.
In the west, modernity tends to REPLACE the old stuff. In South Asia (and elsewhere, probably) the two often co-exist. So, you might see a satellite dish being delivered on a donkey cart. Or a family in a stick hut might have a cell phone with MMS service and a camera.
Greg – I think it’s more like leapfrogging the intermediate technologies.
There’s hardly anywhere in the 3rd World – for example – that intends to string copper wire for telephone communication. Folks are going straight to cellular.
Same is true for satellite dishes. I lived and worked with plenty of folks in the Navajo Nation who cranked up their batteries once a day with a generator – and ran DirecTV at night in their hogan.