Well, we where talking about flying with a random person from internet ;) I'd think that one would want to check that someone had flown before and that this person is 'in good standing' in our society.

As to 'ivy league or big company', its an answer to the question: "will I be comfortable sharing a ride with, say, a random Stanford student or with Google/whatewher employee?". The answer is yes. Simply because I understand where these people are coming from and this is already good enough a connection.

I thought that might be your reasoning, but it doesn't make sense to me. There are numerous examples of criminals, murderers and other deviant classes from big companies and ivy league schools. The Unabomber for example, graduated from Harvard, posessed a PhD and taught at UC Berkley.

Isn't it the same kind of reasoning that one would use when, say, hiring someone? That is, look for past credentials? And assume that past behaiviour would be a good predictor for the future?

I think the answer should be previous flight experience with commercial pilots + background check. And the reason for that is not terrorist threats, but just basic common sence. Flying is inherently dangerous, you can't just quit midflight. There've been described cases when flight instructors had to restrain inadequately behaiving flight students (scared, jamming controls, etc). And we've all been reading about cases when airliners crew had to restrain drunk/psyco passengers. This is what I'd be interested to avoid.

> Isn't it the same kind of reasoning that one would use when, say, hiring someone? That is, look for past credentials? And assume that past behaiviour would be a good predictor for the future?

I guess I just don't see the connect between your criteria and behaving well on a flight. In your education/employment example I can see that connection.