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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

#121

Post by troisx »

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 was about to make a snarky reply about your complaint, but first I wanted to remind myself what HN was like when it first started and I had my original account. So I headed to the archives and realized I'd forgotten how great HN was in 07/08. So thanks for the nostalgic moment.

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

#122

Post by alextgordon »

clarkmoody wrote: post #70
pvnick wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

Watch this and see if you change your mind on that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPM-gJA62Rs

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

#123

Post by chaostheory »

caio1982 wrote: post #67
chaostheory wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The general culture of the Central and South America is actually pretty similar to China and other Asian countries.

Multiple citations needed.

You don't need a research paper to see the similarities. Both are low trust societies with a strong focus on a clan mentality needed for protection from the aforementioned low trust society i.e. bribing officials high and low, using family connections to get access to jobs, real food and real medicine; and so on

When I think about it, I feel that it's one of the reasons that Asian family ties tend to weaken when they migrate to the West. Societal trust is a lot higher here so there's less need to rely on your family.

关系 is important everywhere, but it's way more important in low trust societies.

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

#124

Post by copperx »

chaostheory wrote: post #44
speeder wrote: post #19

In Brazil the punishment for murder is lesser than many other crimes, leading to people murdering investigators (or in one particularly infamous case, a mayor murdered two environmental cops that were going to investigate his farm, got convicted, but still got re-elected). Also firing a gun and not hitting anything also has a harsher punishment than hitting someone, so unless you are a cop that need to draw attention…

The general culture of the Central and South America is actually pretty similar to China and other Asian countries.

Did you mean "general disregard of the law" by "culture"? Because the cultures are light years apart.

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

#125

Post by clarkmoody »

pvnick wrote: post #87
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 vast majority of people have never and will never murder. Like I said, modern society has instilled feelings of guilt and negative consequences with our comparatively well-developed ethical and justice systems, generally leading to situations where the risk of getting caught murdering someone outweighs the benefits of killing them (go to jail, hell, etc). But flip the risk analysis (eg, what this article is abo…

> modern society

Did I restrict my statement in some way when I said "vast majority"?

I know citing Wikipedia is lazy, but it mentions high murder rates of 35 in 100,000 during medieval times. I know there are other forms of homicide, but I haven't spent the time to find stats. Assuming on average one murderer per victim, %0.00035 is vansishingly small.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder

Also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manslaughter

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

#126

Post by y2c »

ryaniscool wrote: post #26
dmm wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When a pedestrian or cyclist is killed by a car in the US, so long as the driver is not drunk and does not leave the scene, the driver will almost never face criminal penalties. What we call car accidents are considered an unavoidable part of life to be resolved by civil courts and insurance payouts. I'd say say the US has a cultural mess regarding cars too.

Can you cite sources or any basis at all for this conclusion? An acquaintance of mine was speeding and killed someone. He went to jail for a couple of years. No alcohol or drugs were involved and he didn't leave the scene. He was going something like 80 in a 55mph zone.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/10/opinion/sunday/is-it-ok-to... has a bunch of examples (though does not link to sources).

Quote from this article: '“We do not know of a single case of a cyclist fatality in which the driver was prosecuted, except for D.U.I. or hit-and-run,” Leah Shahum, the executive director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, told me.'

Big ones off the top of my head: - Amelie de Moullac: police found driver at fault, DA refused to prosecute - Charles Vinson: driver ran a red light. Vinson also technically ran a red, but had the walk signal. Vinson was found at fault; driver not even 50% fault.

These are pretty SF-specific examples, but I don't think it's an SF-specific phenomenon.

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

#128

Post by slake »

copperx wrote: post #90
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 wonder whether the value of a life goes significantly down when there are 1,500,000,000 other people in the country.

I live in India. The rest of the country ratio is similar here. We have hit and run cases too, very high profile ones. Not the worst ones come back to ensure they've killed a 3 yr old!

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

#129

Post by arrayjumper »

spacehome wrote: post #91
danny8000 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's why having insurance is a requirement for driving in most countries.

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

#130

Post by brador »

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…

The same way we eat a dead cow because hey, cheap $1 protein with ketchup. It's habit and no reason to stop and think it through, plus everyone does it so it must be ok.
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