safetypee,
have you ever considered a politician's career?
whilst acknowledging the excellence in your views
Yes, let's start with flattery and then completely disagree with the message that the previous poster wanted to convey, without ever saying "no".
and there may be many retrospective examples of where the ‘ideals’ did not exist (good or bad).
may be? Or maybe not? Please name some examples. Same question can be asked to almost every phrase of the post.
The point being, is that the concept of an ideal is in part ‘in the eye of the beholder’, which will probably be related to the task.
The original phrase is "beauty is in the eye of the beholder". Beauty is something that cannot be measured, it's just a matter of personal preference. Here we are speaking not about beauty, but about concrete technical tools to better perform a concrete task, and tools can be compared based on objective criteria rather than personal preference, so the proverb is completely out of place. But it surely sounds good and very convincing, doesn't it?
Thus, we may be attempting to use modern technology for a task and with techniques (including training) which are inappropriate. It is not that these aspects or the technology are wrong, they are different.
I’m not seeking a right or wrong view, but a balance in that if the aviating task were to be reconsidered then the design may be perfectly adequate, but this would require a different approach to training and operating.
Let me rephrase this: we have modern technology, and "modern" means "cool", so we apply the "cool" technology to the task of aviating. Unfortunately, it turns out that the task and techniques (including training) are somehow inappropriate for modern technology. Therefore, the task of aviating needs to be redefined, to better suit modern technology
It may seem funny at first, but there do seem to be many people who really think this way, here and elsewhere
I hope that there is a half-way position in these views because the technology already exists.
This is partly true, because the huge investments have been made and things cannot be changed overnight. But at the same time, efforts must be made to improve the technology, not just adapt to it because it exists. And the first step to solve a problem is to acknowledge that the problem exists. Without this crucial step, the problem will exist indefinitely.