In the context you put it, yes, that's exactly what it is and that's all it is.

You're admitting you're wrong, and then sticking to your mistake.

Under no case, ever, is a still employed merged pilot in anywhere near the same situation as a pilot at a never to exist again liquidated carrier. Ever. Not even remotely close.

Any AT pilot that thinks they might as well have ended up on the street with no job and no seniority number anywhere because they lost their CA seat for a while is orders of magnitude wrong, as is your statement to the same effect. I don't know if you were one of them or not, but I've heard plenty of complaining from lots of AT pilots and have never heard anything close to what you are saying directly from any of them. Yes many of them are upset at what happened, but none of them that I have ever met or talked to has ever equated it with liquidating and being on the street and that is just asinine to attempt to make that comparison just because you heard some "beyotching".

BTW, career expectations is always a moving target and not only does how we envision such a thing change, it changes a lot and it changes often. Not only from mergers, which are a long standing fact of life in the industry, but from a million other things even when no merger happens.