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The past is not true

sive.rs

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Re: The past is not true

#21

Post by astura »

PcChip wrote: post #19
astura wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, even if you kill someone while driving, if you're not drunk and don't leave the scene then you don't get more than a traffic ticket. https://www.vice.com/en/article/9bzdpv/you-can-kill-anyone-y...

Manslaughter is a traffic ticket these days?

Manslaughter charges only happen if the driver is drunk or flees. Otherwise it's a traffic ticket AT MOST.

My friend's teenaged son, while biking, was run over by a driver who did it completely intentionally. Zero charges or tickets.

From my link above

>Leah Shahum from the San Francisco Bike Coalition told the New York Times last year that her organization does “not know of a single case of a cyclist fatality in which the driver was prosecuted, except for DUI or hit-and-run.” Kristin Smith, also of the SF Coalition, says that “Last year, four people were hit and killed in San Francisco and no charges were ever brought,” including for a collision captured on video that showed the driver was at fault.

>But if the public is at a loss, so are prosecutors. Portland, Oregon, attorney Ray Thomas explains that DAs don’t like to go after “some soccer dad who made a mistake… The police, prosecutors, and courts don’t feel it’s a mistake that should net someone jail time… There are criminally negligent homicide laws. But [a crash] has got to be really, really bad.”

Re: The past is not true

#24

Post by bmacho »

Do you know the concept of space-time, block universe, B-theory of time, etc? How physics assumes that the laws of physics don't know the notion of "now"? And how physicists usually start every calculation with "let X denote the set of events", all the past and future events?

Isn't that depressing? The future is true, even if we can't know it. (Even in a finite, discrete and deterministic universe, which we can compute on computers, habitants of the universe can't know the future. A software can't compute its future. A similar reasoning to the halting problem can show this.)

May I interest you in an other view? Slice Universe to the rescue! There is only now, and the now is true. There is matter, in a particular, ever changing spatial configuration. In 3d. The now is true, also it changes. Only the real people, made out of matter can experience things, simulated people, or the people that are not even simulated don't have real experiences. The past is not true, but we have some information about it, what the past can possibly be. So is the future, it is not true, but we have some information about it. There is no ontological or qualitative difference between the past and the future, only quantitative (which comes from the ridiculous amount of negentropy at the beginning of our universe).

Re: The past is not true

#25

Post by hef19898 »

astura wrote: post #21
PcChip wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Manslaughter is a traffic ticket these days?

Manslaughter charges only happen if the driver is drunk or flees. Otherwise it's a traffic ticket AT MOST. My friend's teenaged son, while biking, was run over by a driver who did it completely intentionally. Zero charges or tickets. From my link above >Leah Shahum from the San Francisco Bike Coalition told the New York Times last year that her organization does “not know of a single case of a cyclist fatality in whi…

Well, accidents do happen, don't they? Thing is so, if one party was reckless it amounts, usually, to some charges of hurting / injuring someone.

But you show nicely the differemce between history / facts (number of accidents from official statistics matched against charges and results of analysis of each accident) and feelings / story / narrative (someone says something to a journalists who then reports on it).

Re: The past is not true

#26

Post by pixl97 »

ttonkytonk wrote: post #12
hef19898 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

History is absolutely true, factually true at that. Facts are sometimes hard to come by, heck some facks of modern history are still classified, but that does not give people carte blanche to make up stuff as they go... Like yeah, he was in an accident, media misreported it. Thing is so, how comes he, and the women, never knew who was at fault? Insuramce sure did some investigation as did police. Not knowing the fact…

History is true, but the history anyone knows is selective, a mental model, often guessed or interpreted, and usually secondhand information.

Thermodynamics is true, everything else is an interpretation.

Re: The past is not true

#28

Post by chmod775 »

astura wrote: post #17
benjaminwootton wrote: post #7

Would there not be some police investigation and possibly prison time if you recklessly caused such a serious accident? I’m not sure how this misunderstanding could occur for so many years.

No, even if you kill someone while driving, if you're not drunk and don't leave the scene then you don't get more than a traffic ticket. https://www.vice.com/en/article/9bzdpv/you-can-kill-anyone-y...

> What makes Cann’s story notable among the 700 or so bicyclists who are hit and killed in America each year is that San Hamel faces charges in Cann’s death.

In the end he got 10 days in jail, 4 years probation, and had to pay the cyclist's funeral expenses - for plowing him over from behind while driving home drunk from a bar.

So apparently even if you hit someone while DUI nothing really happens.

Re: The past is not true

#29

Post by keepamovin »

WA wrote: post #2

In an alternate universe: the lady couldn’t walk, got obese and died of a heart attack 10 years ago. So, the past isn’t true until it is and then, maybe, it’s even worse. Not sure what to make of this story.

Reminds me of: https://thedailyzen.org/2015/03/20/zen-story-maybe/

There is a Taoist story of an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years. One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit. “Such bad luck,” they said sympathetically. “Maybe,” the farmer replied.

The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. “How wonderful,” the neighbors exclaimed. “Maybe,” replied the old man.

The following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their sympathy on his misfortune. “Maybe,” answered the farmer.

The day after, military officials came to the village to draft young men into the army. Seeing that the son’s leg was broken, they passed him by. The neighbors congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out. “Maybe,” said the farmer.

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