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Why drivers in China intentionally kill the pedestrians they hit

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Re: Why drivers in China intentionally kill the pedestrians they hit

#91

Post by spacehome »

danny8000 wrote: post #48
spacehome wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Causing injury can mean responsibility for lifetime care. As well it should.

No, there is insurance for that. Motor vehicles are inherently dangerous machines, and we all take the risk of injuring someone every time we drive. Insurance distributes the risk of driving across all drivers. You should only be punished for injuring someone with a car if you were negligent.

> No, there is insurance for that.

Then being responsible means having the insurance. Not having the insurance is being irresponsible.

Re: Why drivers in China intentionally kill the pedestrians they hit

#92

Post by elwell »

matt2000 wrote: post #76

The fact that this story is the top of hacker news should indicate to us all that this site has lost what it had. How is this different than reddit? How do we want it to be different? This is simply a sensational, horrifying article that has been up voted because of its shock value. We can do better.

I would say: https://news.ycombinator.com/classic but that doesn't seem to help much.

Re: Why drivers in China intentionally kill the pedestrians they hit

#93

Post by massysett »

The story emphasizes laws on monetary compensation for victims, which I think misses the point entirely. The real reason people are doing this is because they can commit murder and apparently they are not punished for it. If you deliberately run over a living person to kill him, that is murder.

Re: Why drivers in China intentionally kill the pedestrians they hit

#94

Post by SteveBash »

pvnick wrote: post #56
sandworm101 wrote: post #49

Forgetting the laws, what sort of people can so casually kill like this? There are basic human instincts not to hurt people. Armies have to train soldiers to ignore these feelings because without training most won't kill even under combat situations. So when I see someone kill so casually I have to believe that they have rehearsed the scenario in their head beforehand. That means a large number of chinese people driv…

People throughout history have killed, seemingly casually. It's human nature. I would contend that modern society has instilled these feelings of guilt associated with murder specifically against the natural tendency of man.

It's not human nature, even the etymology and history for the word "assassin"(hashish eater) says it, in most of the cases humans have needed drugs to bypass his default nature and kill another human.

Re: Why drivers in China intentionally kill the pedestrians they hit

#95

Post by seanmcdirmid »

mikeash wrote: post #34
hirsin wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When Mao created the notion of the Three Worlds, he included China in the Third World [1]. It was (ostensibly) unaligned, whereas Europe (and to an extent Japan) was aligned, making it Second World. He (via Deng) specifically called out the Third World as underdeveloped. [1] “Speech by Chairman of the Delegation of the People’s Republic of China, Teng Hsiao-Ping, at the Special Session of the U.N. General Assembly: A…

According to Wikipedia, Mao's concept is different, despite the similar name. The term "Third World" comes from 1952 and was used to refer to countries not aligned with either the US or USSR, which would not have included China at the time.

But when Mao made his speech in 1974, that was way into the sino-soviet split.

Re: Why drivers in China intentionally kill the pedestrians they hit

#96

Post by copperx »

AdeptusAquinas wrote: post #85
clarkmoody wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vast majority of people have never and will never murder. It's not human nature to do so.

The book Guns, germs and steel retorts that fit the majority of human history (I.e the last hundred thousand years or so) most human encounters with other humans who were not family resulted in death for one party or another. Still the case in some isolated areas. Only the growth of societies really changed that default inclination, out of necessity.

That seems awfully murderous. Not even animals of the same race face that fate.

Re: Why drivers in China intentionally kill the pedestrians they hit

#97

Post by stephen_cagle »

sandworm101 wrote: post #49

Forgetting the laws, what sort of people can so casually kill like this? There are basic human instincts not to hurt people. Armies have to train soldiers to ignore these feelings because without training most won't kill even under combat situations. So when I see someone kill so casually I have to believe that they have rehearsed the scenario in their head beforehand. That means a large number of chinese people driv…

I think you have to look at this from a certain perspective. Think about it, this is a country of 1.3 billion people. How often does this actually happen?

Secondly, think about incentives. Maybe I am hopelessly naive, but I believe that the majority of human beings have something built into them that stops them from hurting others. For the majority of humanity, you don't need laws against murder, internal morality and social pressure is sufficient. However, this is a small subset of humanity that would make RATIONAL rather than MORAL choices about murder if forced to make a choice about it. This is the reason that murder has such high penalties, for those people.

tldr; China needs to raise the expected penalty for engaging in this sort of behavior to the point that it is not rational. This isn't necessary for the great majority of Chinese (any more than it is anywhere else in the world) but it is necessary for some.

Re: Why drivers in China intentionally kill the pedestrians they hit

#98

Post by nosuchthing »

orthoganol wrote: post #63
sandworm101 wrote: post #49

Forgetting the laws, what sort of people can so casually kill like this? There are basic human instincts not to hurt people. Armies have to train soldiers to ignore these feelings because without training most won't kill even under combat situations. So when I see someone kill so casually I have to believe that they have rehearsed the scenario in their head beforehand. That means a large number of chinese people driv…

I lived in China for a few months. The way it was explained to me was, it's you and your family, and everyone else can f * off.

The way that's described seems like a society/culture of sociopaths..

Re: Why drivers in China intentionally kill the pedestrians they hit

#99

Post by dghughes »

sandworm101 wrote: post #49

Forgetting the laws, what sort of people can so casually kill like this? There are basic human instincts not to hurt people. Armies have to train soldiers to ignore these feelings because without training most won't kill even under combat situations. So when I see someone kill so casually I have to believe that they have rehearsed the scenario in their head beforehand. That means a large number of chinese people driv…

Meanwhile also in China they execute people for what seems like every other crime yet running over someone to kill them is brushed off as nothing.

Re: Why drivers in China intentionally kill the pedestrians they hit

#100

Post by titfn »

sandworm101 wrote: post #49

Forgetting the laws, what sort of people can so casually kill like this? There are basic human instincts not to hurt people. Armies have to train soldiers to ignore these feelings because without training most won't kill even under combat situations. So when I see someone kill so casually I have to believe that they have rehearsed the scenario in their head beforehand. That means a large number of chinese people driv…

it's the same in many states in the US... for example, if you are going to shoot someone, make sure that you kill them, if you don't want to go to jail...
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