That's true, but not particularly actionable. "Avoid doing stupid things" isn't something you can just decide to do directly. It's a good goal, but you need to find more specific ways to achieve that goal.

There are long established ways to reduce the incidence of stupidity. Always using checklists, always getting a weather brief, establishing personal minimums, etc. Of course, all of this will be covered as a standard part of any flying safety course.

IMO just saying "avoid doing stupid things" is dangerous. It's too easy to take that advice and say, well, I'm obviously not stupid, so I'm safe. And then you fly into a thunderstorm or stall while turning final or forget to connect a control surface, because avoiding stupidity has little if anything to do with being smart.

You can definitely stack the odds heavily in your favor, but it takes a lot of effort.

I didn't mean to imply that not doing stupid things is easy, merely that it's possible.

Driving is dangerous, and if it takes "stacking the odds considerably in your favor" to make $THING only as dangerous as driving, I think it's safe bet that $THING is a pretty dangerous activity.

I'm actively working toward my PPL now but let's not pretend it's a safe venture by any means. You're strapping yourself onto a single lawn-mower engine that was build in the 60's that someone bought for $20,000 five years ago.

Hmm, I tell myself the same things about my driving ("I avoid doing stupid things, so I have stacked the odds in my favor.") -- possible since the causes of most car accidents are well-known.

I guess in both cases, we believe we have improved the odds, but also in both, we don't know how much.

There is the additional problem that our efforts to improve our own safety may be less airtight than we imagine.

Of course, the same applies to driving. Take out DUIs, excessive speeding, texting, etc. and the accident rate associated with driving goes way down as well.

The problem is that when you're driving your fate is much more in the hands of the drivers around you than when you're flying. A stupid driver often takes out nearby cars along with their own. It's extremely rare for a stupid pilot to take out any aircraft but his own.

While true, you can still heavily tilt the odds in your favor while driving by being attentive, being in control, and avoiding bad weather when possible.

And, on the flip side, it's unlikely that another plane is going to run into you but you're probably a lot more exposed to events out of your control such as unexpected weather (e.g. crosswinds) and mechanical failures with serious consequences in a plane than in a car.

That's sort of the debate here, I think. Given $DANGEROUS_THING with $EVENTS_BEYOND_MY_CONTROL, I want to predict and plan for $EVENTS_BEYOND_MY_CONTROL to the best of my ability.

What's more unpredictable: stupid human drivers, stupid robot drivers, complex mechanical machines, or weather? Who is John Galt?