[Lestat]

"Anyway the answer of course, is that in the case of the death penalty, the downside to the remedy of turning the error rate into zero is that the convicted get life in prison. The downside to the remedy of assuring a zero error rate fore child molestors is that all child molestors go free. To insure no airline fatalities we must give up airplanes and cripple our economy."

So can I assume that with respect to air travel and child molesters; we agree that the downsides of eliminating risk altogether is unacceptable?

I'm just saying I feel the same away about the death penalty. When I perform the same analogy, I conclude that zero risk (i.e. life in prison for ALL convicted), is also unacceptable, and a burden to society.

So other than our differing values and the fact that you are correct in stating air travel's impact on the economy is greater than the costs of supporting ALL convicted murderers for the rest of their natural lives (but still an economic burden).

By the way, my questions were not irrelevant.

There IS an unacceptable risk for air travel. It just so happens that it is currently within our tolerance. One could also debate whether or not the current risk of losing astronaut's lives is acceptable or not.

It would seem you are accusing me of fuzzy thinking because my risk tolerance of executing an innocent happens to be higher than yours.