Becoming an Airline Pilot without a College Degree

nibake said:
B.S. in Aeronautics. Graduating this semester.
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This all makes more sense now. I was wondering why you didn't understand 100 level social science concepts, but it's because you've never been exposed to these ideas.

So, here's a little reading for you. This is an NPR article about a Pew Research Foundation report detailing that those with graduate degrees are generally more liberal.

http://www.npr.org/2016/04/30/475794063/why-are-highly-educated-americans-getting-more-liberal

This has been known by political scientists for decades.

What you're probably suffering from is called confirmation bias. If I had to guess you're the typical conservative pilot who believes that liberals are trying to destroy you, this country, and everything you hold dear. You've likely been told this during your formative years. If this is the case, then it's almost impossible for humans to discard those initial impressions even when evidence is provided to the contrary. Here's a brief rundown on that one:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/27/opinion/sunday/youre-not-going-to-change-your-mind.html
 
jtrain609 said:
This all makes more sense now. I was wondering why you didn't understand 100 level social science concepts
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Well, that doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Someone finishing a B.S. would like have already taken a 100 level social science class. But let's not get distracted by details. You assume that I would even need to go to college to understand social science concepts? Then you accuse me of being too open minded (for not assuming that highly educated Americans are more liberal), then you accuse me of confirmation bias. The cognitive dissonance is strong in these parts!

As far as the NYTimes article, I think i'll pass on that. I don't need someone's opinion piece to tell me about whether I am going to change my mind. But, you may be right! It is unlikely I will change my mind since over the pages of this thread no one has brought forth any strong reasons to do so, much less even discussed the legitimacy of my argument. I guess that was too much to ask for from an internet forum.
 
nibake said:
Well, that doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Someone finishing a B.S. would like have already taken a 100 level social science class. But let's not get distracted by details. You assume that I would even need to go to college to understand social science concepts? Then you accuse me of being too open minded (for not assuming that highly educated Americans are more liberal), then you accuse me of confirmation bias. The cognitive dissonance is strong in these parts!

As far as the NYTimes article, I think i'll pass on that. I don't need someone's opinion piece to tell me about whether I am going to change my mind. But, you may be right! It is unlikely I will change my mind since over the pages of this thread no one has brought forth any strong reasons to do so, much less even discussed the legitimacy of my argument. I guess that was too much to ask for from an internet forum.
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Kind of what I figured.

Good luck, kiddo.
 
nibake said:
I'm not sure that educated people are more liberal. The point was made that people with a college education were less likely to vote for Trump. I can only speculate as to why that is. Maybe they didn't want a president who knew less about the constitution then them?

The argument I am trying to make is that not only do colleges tend to espouse progressive ideas, but also that this is common knowledge.

I do think that a liberal arts education will certainly encourage a person to challenge and rethink some of his/her beliefs. Does that mean people are going to come out more liberal on the other end? I don't know. Maybe it will have the opposite effect. So often people who blindly follow a certain ideology fall into self-parody and make themselves look like fools. A big factor contributing to Trump's election, IMO, is how out of control the media has become with little regard for honest, fair, journalism. Sometimes these things backfire. I know the last time I had a union looking at for my interests (figuratively holding a gun to my head) I went from viewing unions in a negative light to passionately despising them. If students can see through the dis-ingenuity of a radical professor, it could backfire. I suppose this is more likely if a student comes into the environment already having good critical thinking skills.

TL;DR - Yes, I think colleges are liberal. IDK how college educated people are really affected by this.
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I don’t think that most of the “real” media is liberal or conservative. The people who choose to isolate themselves in echo chambers are now very capable of doing so due to the way information is dispersed in today’s environment. If you don’t like what someone says, unfriend them. If you don’t like what the news says, block the site. It’s a real problem.

Fox News pioneered the concept of making propaganda look like real news. MSNBC followed suit. Now it’s difficult to tell what is real and not real. Once journalistic ethics was thrown to the winds, the whole system falls into question.

Choose the objective and intelligent sources of news. BBC, PBS, Economist, etc. are good choices. Stay away from anything that merely confirms your biases.
 
PhilosopherPilot said:
I don’t think that most of the “real” media is liberal or conservative. The people who choose to isolate themselves in echo chambers are now very capable of doing so due to the way information is dispersed in today’s environment. If you don’t like what someone says, unfriend them. If you don’t like what the news says, block the site. It’s a real problem.

Fox News pioneered the concept of making propaganda look like real news. MSNBC followed suit. Now it’s difficult to tell what is real and not real. Once journalistic ethics was thrown to the winds, the whole system falls into question.

Choose the objective and intelligent sources of news. BBC, PBS, Economist, etc. are good choices. Stay away from anything that merely confirms your biases.
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I mean, this assumes that news was ever not propaganda...

I've yet to see a news organization that didn't practically jizz itself at the thought of covering a major conflict.
 
ppragman said:
I mean, this assumes that news was ever not propaganda...

I've yet to see a news organization that didn't practically jizz itself at the thought of covering a major conflict.
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Before “the news” was a profit center for the network, it wasn’t that way. It’s really in the last 20+ years that it has been a source of money, since the first Gulf War. For television anyway.

But truly, the big change is the loss of “ethics.” Once you let go of that concept, the gloves come off and nothing is out of bounds.
 
ppragman said:
I mean, this assumes that news was ever not propaganda...

I've yet to see a news organization that didn't practically jizz itself at the thought of covering a major conflict.
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Yes, I think nowadays there is more information available to ordinary people so if one cares about whether the news they see is propaganda, it's easier to find out; and it is easier to tell when media outlets scorn to exercise journalistic integrity. And the fact that there are more clearly biased, echo-chamber type media outlets today makes the presence of propaganda more apparent, so you are more likely to be aware of it. Of course in the past many media outlets probably had to avoid being too biased to avoid losing subscribers, so bias may have been less pronounced- nowadays subscribers who want a certain viewpoint will seek out news that caters to their ideology since it's so much more readily available.

Isn't it said that the media had a huge role in provoking the Spanish-American war? One wonders how many other wars this might have, at least partially, been the case with...
 
Yakob said:
Yes, I think nowadays there is more information available to ordinary people so if one cares about whether the news they see is propaganda, it's easier to find out; and it is easier to tell when media outlets scorn to exercise journalistic integrity. And the fact that there are more clearly biased, echo-chamber type media outlets today makes the presence of propaganda more apparent, so you are more likely to be aware of it. Of course in the past many media outlets probably had to avoid being too biased to avoid losing subscribers, so bias may have been less pronounced- nowadays subscribers who want a certain viewpoint will seek out news that caters to their ideology since it's so much more readily available.

Isn't it said that the media had a huge role in provoking the Spanish-American war? One wonders how many other wars this might have, at least partially, been the case with...
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Remember the Maine!


Remember the Cant!
 
PhilosopherPilot said:
. It’s really in the last 20+ years that it has been a source of money, since the first Gulf War. For television anyway.
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No. Much, much earlier than that. Like, since the late 1950's.

This was basically the central thesis of "Good Night and Good Luck", BTW

But truly, the big change is the loss of “ethics.” Once you let go of that concept, the gloves come off and nothing is out of bounds.
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What ethics do you feel have been lost?




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killbilly said:
No. Much, much earlier than that. Like, since the late 1950's.

This was basically the central thesis of "Good Night and Good Luck", BTW



What ethics do you feel have been lost?
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Truth matters less than sensationalism. Opinion, while never completely out of a story, should be specifically called out, as opposed to discretely hidden.

I think of it this way, when I was instructing in the sim, the goal was to only teach the SOPs, nothing more. I should never have taught technique. If someone asked for a technique, or if it seemed appropriate, we were supposed to call out very specifically, "This is technique only, not SOP. Do not feel that you must do things this way."

So now think of this in terms of journalism... I feel that today's journalists (if they were instructors) would be all about just teaching their own techniques, and calling it SOP. When teaching their own opinions, they wouldn't call it out, and it would be difficult to know what is technique versus SOP. And lately, they would just be making stuff up from whole cloth, that isn't even in the book. It's worse than teaching a technique. They are teaching things that are flat out wrong.

That's where we are today. Some organizations flat out make stuff up, if it suits their narrative. The goal for all Americans should be to seek out those places that say what is true, versus what is comfortable. I would rather know the truth, than be comfortable in my biases...but that's uncommon apparently.
 
jtrain609 said:
This all makes more sense now. I was wondering why you didn't understand 100 level social science concepts, but it's because you've never been exposed to these ideas.

So, here's a little reading for you. This is an NPR article about a Pew Research Foundation report detailing that those with graduate degrees are generally more liberal.

http://www.npr.org/2016/04/30/475794063/why-are-highly-educated-americans-getting-more-liberal

This has been known by political scientists for decades.

What you're probably suffering from is called confirmation bias. If I had to guess you're the typical conservative pilot who believes that liberals are trying to destroy you, this country, and everything you hold dear. You've likely been told this during your formative years. If this is the case, then it's almost impossible for humans to discard those initial impressions even when evidence is provided to the contrary. Here's a brief rundown on that one:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/27/opinion/sunday/youre-not-going-to-change-your-mind.html
Click to expand...
Your article studies are very intriguing to me. I didn't reply after the study I asked for, got caught up on a trip and just hovered the forums to read. I found it massively interesting the study showed statistics from household income to education. It looked like a pretty diverse area as well, not just liberal cities and counties. These articles are also great as well.

I've noticed as I've gotten older and still building maturity, I'm being exposed to more of this. I try to stay up to date and educate myself on the political world. I don't like the negativity and hate from people associated with talking politics but I love the foundation of studying it. When I started school I identified as a strong republican. Then again what does that matter as a 18 yr old college freshman. The college experience didn't change much of my opinion, my professors were pretty even split. It wasn't until I graduated that my opinions started changing. Maybe it's the last election or just figuring out I can't identify with everything one party on everything.

Then I look back at college and the variety of things I learned. I took classes from art history (not my favorite), to environmental history, to high level business courses all which were outside my degree. Then I realize college wasn't about being force fed information as much as it was building the base of a foundation of thought, that I can continually build on for the rest of my life. Can I identify conservative for the rest of my life? Probably not. Can I jump over and be a liberal the rest of my life? Probably not. While I'm not saying you can't do all of this without the piece of paper (as some are much smarter than I with no degree), it does seem like my ignorance has shortened and my mind has grown since graduating college. I'm still working on it daily but who isn't? I feel like I owe my professors and maybe it would have been the same if I didn't go to school. I'll never know.

My point is I enjoy discussing and reading these things. I try to have an open mind more and more each day. Listen to both sides, debate, converse. I enjoy that. I wish I took more of those classes in college like you're suggesting. Especially with how much I love to debate, be proven wrong and prove wrong, all while enjoying ourselves. But that's why I come on the forums here. I owe you the gratitude of opening my mind on a topic I might have otherwise never debated. I've never looked at the study of education and voting habits, but it makes sense for myself now looking at how much I can't identify with this current administration anymore (a guy who believed he a was a strong conservative). I didn't think I'd start a massive argument/debate but it was all healthy fun.
 
tcco94 said:
Your article studies are very intriguing to me. I didn't reply after the study I asked for, got caught up on a trip and just hovered the forums to read. I found it massively interesting the study showed statistics from household income to education. It looked like a pretty diverse area as well, not just liberal cities and counties. These articles are also great as well.

I've noticed as I've gotten older and still building maturity, I'm being exposed to more of this. I try to stay up to date and educate myself on the political world. I don't like the negativity and hate from people associated with talking politics but I love the foundation of studying it. When I started school I identified as a strong republican. Then again what does that matter as a 18 yr old college freshman. The college experience didn't change much of my opinion, my professors were pretty even split. It wasn't until I graduated that my opinions started changing. Maybe it's the last election or just figuring out I can't identify with everything one party on everything.

Then I look back at college and the variety of things I learned. I took classes from art history (not my favorite), to environmental history, to high level business courses all which were outside my degree. Then I realize college wasn't about being force fed information as much as it was building the base of a foundation of thought, that I can continually build on for the rest of my life. Can I identify conservative for the rest of my life? Probably not. Can I jump over and be a liberal the rest of my life? Probably not. While I'm not saying you can't do all of this without the piece of paper (as some are much smarter than I with no degree), it does seem like my ignorance has shortened and my mind has grown since graduating college. I'm still working on it daily but who isn't? I feel like I owe my professors and maybe it would have been the same if I didn't go to school. I'll never know.

My point is I enjoy discussing and reading these things. I try to have an open mind more and more each day. Listen to both sides, debate, converse. I enjoy that. I wish I took more of those classes in college like you're suggesting. Especially with how much I love to debate, be proven wrong and prove wrong, all while enjoying ourselves. But that's why I come on the forums here. I owe you the gratitude of opening my mind on a topic I might have otherwise never debated. I've never looked at the study of education and voting habits, but it makes sense for myself now looking at how much I can't identify with this current administration anymore (a guy who believed he a was a strong conservative). I didn't think I'd start a massive argument/debate but it was all healthy fun.
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(An aside comment based on your last paragraph)
I think that not being able to identify with this administration does not make you any less of a conservative. If anything, that may make you more of one. Nothing about the current administration is conservative. The GOP has been hijacked, and everyone in that party is letting it happen. I'm a moderate liberal, and I can say this, if Hillary was behaving the way Trump behaves, I would want her impeached. This is not normal, and it is not a partisan issue. When we look back on this in 5-10-20 years, people are going to wonder where in the hell the adult supervision went.
 
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