Show HN: Identify car crash editorial anti-patterns using NLP • Hacker News Board

Re: Show HN: Identify car crash editorial anti-patterns using NLP

#211

Post by ihaveajob » Fri, Oct 15, 2021, 5:34 PM UTC

dfxm12 wrote: post #74

dash2 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course if there is evidence that the driver deliberately tried to kill someone, nobody will call it an accident. I would imagine that the vast majority of car deaths are indeed accidental, not murders. This seems to contrast with the situation of gun deaths. No?

I'm not sure. I read a lot of gun violence reporting like "person a was struck by a bullet and later died due to complications" vs "gunman shot and killed person a". It's kinda the same thing. I would make no assumptions about if car accidents are accidental (which for some reason seems to be the default) or not - and that's more or less the point of the article.

The fact that even making a similar argument to mine, you still say "if car accidents are accidental" is very telling of how ingrained this phrase has become. (Not to pick on you, I just find it amusing.)

Re: Show HN: Identify car crash editorial anti-patterns using NLP

#212

Post by ihaveajob » Fri, Oct 15, 2021, 5:36 PM UTC

dash2 wrote: post #60

ihaveajob wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with using "accident" as the default term is that it preempts any evidence-finding, implying that it was nobody's fault. If someone shoots their gun randomly and someone gets hurt by just being there, nobody will call it an "accident", but somehow if the weapon is a car, the driver gets the benefit of the doubt regardless of the facts.

Of course if there is evidence that the driver deliberately tried to kill someone, nobody will call it an accident. I would imagine that the vast majority of car deaths are indeed accidental, not murders. This seems to contrast with the situation of gun deaths. No?

The main point is that "accident" implicitly absolves the driver of fault, before any evidence is examined. If you're driving 100MPH in a local street, you may not be intentionally trying to harm anyone, but if you do, the result can hardly be called an accident.

Re: Show HN: Identify car crash editorial anti-patterns using NLP

#213

Post by dfxm12 » Mon, Oct 18, 2021, 2:11 PM UTC

ihaveajob wrote: post #211

dfxm12 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure. I read a lot of gun violence reporting like "person a was struck by a bullet and later died due to complications" vs "gunman shot and killed person a". It's kinda the same thing. I would make no assumptions about if car accidents are accidental (which for some reason seems to be the default) or not - and that's more or less the point of the article.

The fact that even making a similar argument to mine, you still say "if car accidents are accidental" is very telling of how ingrained this phrase has become. (Not to pick on you, I just find it amusing.)

I don't think this is coincidental: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28841388

I was trying to amusingly challenge the reader to separate the two meanings of accident (car crash and something that happened unintentionally) just like most writing about crashes tries to get the reader to conflate them. :)