Why drivers in China intentionally kill the pedestrians they hit • Hacker News Board

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

#161

Post by prapam2 » Sat, Sep 05, 2015, 4:23 AM UTC

adventured wrote: post #20

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.

You're comparing completely different scenarios, trying to paint the US in an artificially bad light. If you intentionally drive over a pedestrian multiple times to try to kill them, you're going to prison potentially for decades. One scenario is purely an accident, the other is intentionally trying to make sure you murder the pedestrian.

What if driver has some issue with someone and intentionally drives over him (no alcohol or drugs on the driver), can they get away with it?

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

#162

Post by chaostheory » Sat, Sep 05, 2015, 4:28 AM UTC

gkanai wrote: post #159

chaostheory wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is spot on. There's a reason that people's last name comes before their first over there. It's a low trust society where the only thing that matters is your clan.

Last name first has nothing to do with trust. Japan is one of the highest-trust societies in the world (see crime stats) and last name comes first. I live in China and have lived 13 years in Japan so I know what I am talking about.

The order of the last name shows the importance of your family over yourself. Family is far more important over there because it better shields you from society, while simultaneously contributing to the ills of society, i.e. too much self interest vs concern for the whole society; leading to a very difficult to break circular pattern of corruption.

Yes Japan is very different from China if not most of Asia. It's also not hard to see that Japan probably adopted the naming order since they also adopted the Chinese writing system.

I'm Chinese. I was born in Asia and I still routinely visit and keep in touch with my family over there.

To be clear, I'm not saying every Chinese person in China is like this, nor am I saying that it will always be like this. Looking at both HK and Taiwan, things will eventually change for the better in the long term; especially when you consider the long term effects of the one child policy. However (speaking to fellow Chinese people) what I'm describing is real and there's no use in ignoring it, and I feel that there's value in helping people, who aren't of Asian, Hispanic, or Mediterranean (Italian, Greek, etc...) background; to understand it.

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

#163

Post by clarkmoody » Sat, Sep 05, 2015, 4:28 AM UTC

jdietrich wrote: post #134

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.

Two words: Stanley Milgram. Our morals aren't nearly as absolute as we like to think. 20% of the entire population of Rwanda were hacked to death with farm implements by ordinary people. 25% of the Cambodian population were butchered, starved or worked to death by a poorly-organised militia. Any of us have the capacity to kill if we have a sufficiently compelling justification. Ask any mother if she would kill to sav…

> Two words: Stanley Milgram.

In the study, he didn't ask his subjects to kill. And they didn't actually murder anyone.

> Rwanda ... Cambodia ... Nazis ... Interahamwe

People killing on behalf of the State is a whole other matter than what the article is talking about vis-à-vis pedestrian fatalities. The State has been the largest single driver of misery, destruction, and death in human history, and I don't disagree that mass murder has happened and is evil. But drivers ensuring the death of a struck passenger stands in stark contrast to the kill-or-be-killed nature of State violence. On this point, I would agree with your assertion about "compelling justification," which in the case of the State is the threat of violence against the killer for not doing the bidding of the State.

But even in the face of multiple genocides and huge wars, including nuclear bomb blasts, the fact remains that the vast majority of humans have never and will never kill another human.

> A great number of Americans ...

See a sibling response for murder rates and compare to my assertion that a vast majority of people don't do it.

And self-defense is not murder by the legal definition, which include premeditation.

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

#164

Post by kiiski » Sat, Sep 05, 2015, 4:30 AM UTC

clarkmoody wrote: post #125

pvnick wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.…

In this context, medieval times are "modern society". They already had social, religious and legal norms against killing. Also, most people lived in the countryside or small villages where they didn't have many chances for killing people anyway, so the murder rate in larger towns must be a lot higher than the overall 35 figure.

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

#165

Post by mirimir » Sat, Sep 05, 2015, 4:35 AM UTC

afarrell wrote: post #54

mirimir wrote: post #18

There's a similar dynamic in Mexico. Causing injury can mean responsibility for lifetime care. Another factor is Napoleonic law aka presumption of guilt. So one may end up in jail until trial. The third factor is ubiquitous graft. After an accident, the party with the most cash gets to tell the official story. So yes, advice is to flee with plates and registration (if any). But I didn't get that killing victims was c…

> Another factor is Napoleonic Law AKA presumption of guilt. Wait what?

> For an accused person, one of the most critical differences is that under Mexican criminal law, the accused is essentially considered guilty until proven innocent.

http://tijuana.usconsulate.gov/root/pdfs/telegalcriminalguid...

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

#166

Post by agsa » Sat, Sep 05, 2015, 4:36 AM UTC

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…

Can you clarify your logic? From what I read:

1. It is basic human instinct to not hurt people. 2. Training can overcome this instinct. 3. Therefore these murderers must have trained themselves. 4. Therefore there are a lot of people in China who must have trained themselves to kill. 5. This all reflects badly on all of China when citizens visit other countries.

Can someone explain why it is reasonable to assume that mental training (2), as opposed to perverse incentives and corruption as the article mentions, is the only way to overcome (1), and why, even assuming (4) to be true, (5) is also true?

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

#167

Post by 254m4 » Sat, Sep 05, 2015, 4:37 AM UTC

kelukelugames wrote: post #79

robgibbons wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Your comment is baffling to me. Why are these countries not worthy of visiting?

It is very hard for us to come in the US. Things are better and safer here. When I got here I discovered that people travel to poor and unsafe countries for fun.

Things are better, may be right. But safer? With guns?

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

#168

Post by jrockway » Sat, Sep 05, 2015, 4:39 AM UTC

ilaksh wrote: post #118

I'd like to hear the Chinese perspective. Also, what penalties do people pay in the US if they accidentally cripple someone?

A few dollars a month more on their insurance premiums.

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

#169

Post by dllthomas » Sat, Sep 05, 2015, 4:41 AM UTC

254m4 wrote: post #167

kelukelugames wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is very hard for us to come in the US. Things are better and safer here. When I got here I discovered that people travel to poor and unsafe countries for fun.

Things are better, may be right. But safer? With guns?

Guns don't kill very many Americans, compared to other causes. Even including guns wielded by police, guns wielded in warfare, accidents, &c.

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

#170

Post by oska » Sat, Sep 05, 2015, 4:42 AM UTC

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 don't think it's a bad article but what I have noticed is that the discussion threads under articles of this type on HN are of a generally low quality.