Originally Posted by
ThumbsUp
Free lunch effect isn't a pejorative, it's just the effect on advertising a benefit and how it tailors a response to that benefit. I can't answer why if white males comprise only 30% of the population, they are over-represented by interest in aviation. I could throw out a bunch of theories, but my Air Force military experience doesn't lend itself to guess what makes someone want to fly planes vs someone who doesn't. I thought I was going to be something entirely different when I joined, but 30 years later here I am.
i think you’re being constructive here but the “why” seems pretty obvious for this and so many other well paying professions with steep barriers to entry and steeped in tradition.
Also, as a kid in the 80s I was a voracious reader of everything about aviation’s history. Yeager, Boyington, all the boys from the Right Stuff, Doolittle, Lindbergh and Rickenbacker featured prominently. They were all legit trailblazers - I still think they’re all incredible for their aviation accomplishments - but I can’t think of anyone save Earhart who deviated from that typical background.
There’s more than a grain of truth to “you can’t be what you can’t see”