Sociologist Crashes Airliner into the Hudson

 

I know who did this. It’s gotta be him. Barry Kosmin. I was having dinner with Barry, Ariela Keysar, and Ryan Cragun last night at a really nice restaurant in Hartford. We were finishing up a long set of sessions working on Barry and Ariela’s American Religious Identification Survey data, and over dinner the conversation began to turn to overreactive policy formation in defense contracting and public safety. The flow of the unanimous (at least at our table) critique was similar to the logic in Kuran and Sunstein’s work on the influence of  false information cascades. Barry went on a quite righteous rant about the highly ritualized and completely worthless sets of safety procedures we endure on each flight. Explaining how to put on a seat belt, and where the lifejackets are and how to use your seat as a flotation device. If you’ve never met him, try to imagine Barry’s staccato British intonation for the Kosmin quote: “Have you ever seen anyone use those stupid little rubber ramps in a real airplane crash? Or those ridiculous yellow vests you’re supposed to blow up with your mouth after a plane crash? It just doesn’t happen. I want to see it happen!” It was classic Barry Kosmin. He was hilarious. Spot on. Totally correct. Yep. It was him. Probably used a rocket launcher from his old office at CUNY….