A few observations:
1. I accept that this FBY technology overall is a good thing, and understand that some of you are saying it is pretty much essential (to a greater or lesser extent) for aircraft of this size.
2. I have been surprised at how often you to disagree about the detail - much more than I would have expected. There have been vigorous debates about the principles of various flight laws, or the implications of a particular error message. Maybe this is because you do not all operate the A330, and that some of this detail is particular to that aircraft type. Or would there still be disagreement among a group of A330 pilots?
3. A lot of this stuff seems based on IT rather than "airmanship", and I wonder if this is a problem. When things go wrong in an aircraft, there will sometimes not be sufficient time to work through what is going on and what it means. The situation will often deteriorate while you are thinking. This is true in many areas of life - there is not a pause button where you can freeze the situation and work out what is happening and what to do. Sometimes you have to act - because not acting will lead to a disaster.
4. IT is often a bit different - stop, understand, then act. But many areas of life require prompt action. I am 100% sure the IT people that produce this technology understand this. But I do wonder if there is not some remnant of this thinking in the way this technology is developed. Is there a small residual bias that assumes there will be time for the pilot to work through the problem and take the correct action. Rather than overloading the pilot with information, should this technology simply allow him/her to get on and fly the plane, and encourage him/her to do so? I remember seeing the interview with the Qantas A380 pilot after that engine failure out of Singapore - page after page of error messages to work through. How would this have turned out if the consequences of the explosion presented a more immediate threat to the aircraft?
5. I was interested in the view expressed by someone here a day ago that this technology can disconnect a pilot from the aircraft to the point that s/he is unaware of a deteriorating situation - of how close the system can be to failure, and how the pilot could be totally unprepared to have control thrown back to them. This issue makes sense to me.
6. I wonder if this is a wider problem in society. Overall we are making things more reliable and more user friendly and more accessible. We are doing this by dumbing down technology, and taking the view that end-users "don't need to understand it". This means that a smaller % of users understand how it works. Overall I guess this is a good thing. Except when it goes wrong of course.
My 2c on philosophy today.