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SXSW: 2 dead, 23 injured.

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Re: SXSW: 2 dead, 23 injured.

#51

Post by Crito »

dllthomas wrote: post #43
Crito wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been drunk enough to loose consciousness my fair share of times, but I have never been drunk enough to do something like get behind the wheel of a car. If that point of drunkenness exists for me, it exists beyond the "alcohol poisoning, facedown on the floor" point. Alcohol is often used as an excuse for poor behavior, but in practice with most people it does not have the power to induce most of the behavior tha…

My experience has been similar to yours, but I am not confident that there isn't enough variation in human cognition and physiology that wouldn't still wind up with a lot of drunk drivers if every instance of driving drunk was as described above. This is not inconsistent with the notion that the predominance of effects of drinking on personality/behavior have more of a social basis than a chemical one (as studies hav…

Oh, I definitely think that there are people for who might tend to drive drunk after drinking. I'm just saying that "but I made the decision to drive drunk while drunk" doesn't get any sympathy from me.

Even if that sort of behavior while drunk caught them completely off guard the first time it happened (which I think is very unlikely, though not impossible), they later made the decision while sober to drink again. The made that decision while sober and with the knowledge that when drunk, they do things like drive drunk.

Edit:

Brief responses, since my commenting appears to be limited at the moment:

justin66: I am not like the person that did this. I do not steal cars. I don't drive while drunk. I don't flee the police when pulled over. I would never flee on foot after crashing into other cars and people. People who drive while drunk typically do it frequently. I never have.

Codhisattva: "meta-consciousness impairment occurs well before losing consciousness from alcohol poisoning." I am not saying that I have never been impaired. I am saying that despite being impaired many times, I have never been impaired in such a way that I had any desire to drive while drunk, or any delusions about my ability to do so.

unclebucknasty: "Yet, you are questioning the judgment of someone who, instead of repeatedly drinking himself into a potential coma, stops somewhere short of that and decides he can operate a vehicle." You bet your ass I am. I may have endangered my life while having a little to much fun in college, but I never drove while drunk, and I never killed anybody.

"Well, that's the thing: the grandparent is judging people who drive drunk repeatedly, while he himself repeatedly drinks to the point of losing consciousness. I just don't see the difference."

I'm going to go with the most obvious difference being body-count. That is obvious right?

Furthermore, don't worry for my health. As I have mentioned on HN in the recent past, my current drinking is down to 4-6 nights a month. I am drawing on my experience drinking, not currently struggling with drinking.

I take exception to your implication that drunk driving is some sort of inevitable phenomenon that people who drink to the point of drunkenness are powerless to avoid through anything but luck. Drunk driving only happens if you allow it to happen. If you drive drunk, it isn't because of alcohol, it is because of you. There is nobody and no thing to blame but yourself.

Re: SXSW: 2 dead, 23 injured.

#52

Post by mdemare »

trippy_biscuits wrote: post #41

When I think of all the money spent in the name of improving and enriching the lives of human beings, it troubles me that we don't have a reliable solution for ending DUI. I know many companies fund research to end cancer or improve the quality of life for those with various diseases. While this research may help save or improve lives, it's motivated in part by a potential return on investment. Why can't we do someth…

You mean like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignition_interlock_device ? It's operational here in nl, about 100 people a week are forced to have one installed.

Re: SXSW: 2 dead, 23 injured.

#53

Post by dllthomas »

Crito wrote: post #51
dllthomas wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience has been similar to yours, but I am not confident that there isn't enough variation in human cognition and physiology that wouldn't still wind up with a lot of drunk drivers if every instance of driving drunk was as described above. This is not inconsistent with the notion that the predominance of effects of drinking on personality/behavior have more of a social basis than a chemical one (as studies hav…

Oh, I definitely think that there are people for who might tend to drive drunk after drinking. I'm just saying that "but I made the decision to drive drunk while drunk" doesn't get any sympathy from me. Even if that sort of behavior while drunk caught them completely off guard the first time it happened (which I think is very unlikely, though not impossible), they later made the decision while sober to drink again. T…

Agreed.

Re: SXSW: 2 dead, 23 injured.

#54

Post by Crito »

elipsey wrote: post #44
Crito wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been drunk enough to loose consciousness my fair share of times, but I have never been drunk enough to do something like get behind the wheel of a car. If that point of drunkenness exists for me, it exists beyond the "alcohol poisoning, facedown on the floor" point. Alcohol is often used as an excuse for poor behavior, but in practice with most people it does not have the power to induce most of the behavior tha…

I agree with Codhisattva that in many cases people who are very drunk are not in control of their behavior. Moreover, an alcoholic is, by definition, not able to control his behavior. I have heard first hand accounts from self identified alcoholics of such situations, some of which resulted in a death that the person in question could not even remember. I don't mean to suggest that this is an excuse; in the stories t…

I believe in alcoholism. I believe that anybody can develop a dependence on alcohol. I do not believe that alcohol categorically has the power to make anybody drive drunk. I don't accept "I was drunk" as an excuse for anything, unless you were unknowingly drugged.

Re: SXSW: 2 dead, 23 injured.

#55

Post by techpeace »

Long-time Austinite here. This is indeed a sad day, and our thoughts are of course with those who were affected. At the very least, I hope that this situation will cause us to make real strides toward improving the currently deplorable state of public transportation in this city, as it's now proving to be a real danger to human life.

I've lived here 12 years, and the only improvements to public transportation infrastructure in that time have been the addition of a single train line and a few of those long buses that bend in the middle. As the fastest growing city in the country, a city that relies so heavily on the tax revenues generated by the ~2 weeks of debauchery that is SXSW, we'll need to seriously improve the ability to move folks around without automobiles or the maddening traffic and inability to safely be on the roads (or, indeed, standing near the roads) between 1:30AM-3:30AM will continue to plague us.

Re: SXSW: 2 dead, 23 injured.

#56

Post by pikachu_is_cool »

trippy_biscuits wrote: post #41

When I think of all the money spent in the name of improving and enriching the lives of human beings, it troubles me that we don't have a reliable solution for ending DUI. I know many companies fund research to end cancer or improve the quality of life for those with various diseases. While this research may help save or improve lives, it's motivated in part by a potential return on investment. Why can't we do someth…

What about driverless cars? That'd pretty much solve that problem completely if I'm not horribly mistaken.

Re: SXSW: 2 dead, 23 injured.

#57

Post by ToastyMallows »

trippy_biscuits wrote: post #41

When I think of all the money spent in the name of improving and enriching the lives of human beings, it troubles me that we don't have a reliable solution for ending DUI. I know many companies fund research to end cancer or improve the quality of life for those with various diseases. While this research may help save or improve lives, it's motivated in part by a potential return on investment. Why can't we do someth…

I wonder how self-driving cars would impact this situation? Also: what would happen to a self-driving car that went through a sobriety checkpoint with the drunk person as a passenger?

Re: SXSW: 2 dead, 23 injured.

#58

Post by xbonez »

jakobe wrote: post #48
trippy_biscuits wrote: post #41

When I think of all the money spent in the name of improving and enriching the lives of human beings, it troubles me that we don't have a reliable solution for ending DUI. I know many companies fund research to end cancer or improve the quality of life for those with various diseases. While this research may help save or improve lives, it's motivated in part by a potential return on investment. Why can't we do someth…

Preventing DUI is a difficult problem. A much easier problem would be to prevent speeding. Put a GPS in every car that prevents the car from driving faster than the speed limit. All the technology exists, and this would doubtlessly save lives, but somehow I doubt anybody would pass the required laws.

Agreed. My $100 Garmin GPS tells me what the speed limit is, an what speed I'm doing. I've often wondered why this wasn't just built into cars to ensure they throttle lock at the speed limit.

Re: SXSW: 2 dead, 23 injured.

#59

Post by justin66 »

Crito wrote: post #22
Codhisattva wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, "impaired meta-consciousness" is the problem. It's a fact of human life that when drinking, a person reaches a point where they are no longer able to make rational judgments. Not only about their actions but also about the level of impairment they are experiencing. This is why drunks are dangerous - after X drinks they look at their car and think "I've got this" when in fact they are so drunk they don't know wh…

I've been drunk enough to loose consciousness my fair share of times, but I have never been drunk enough to do something like get behind the wheel of a car. If that point of drunkenness exists for me, it exists beyond the "alcohol poisoning, facedown on the floor" point. Alcohol is often used as an excuse for poor behavior, but in practice with most people it does not have the power to induce most of the behavior tha…

> I've been drunk enough to loose consciousness my fair share of times, but I have never been drunk enough to do something like get behind the wheel of a car. If that point of drunkenness exists for me, it exists beyond the "alcohol poisoning, facedown on the floor" point.

One wonders what experimental technique you used to make this determination, if the driver of that car felt the same way, how valuable our judgments about our own behavior while drinking can possibly be, and so on.

You've outlined a belief that acknowledges the horror of what alcohol can bring about but allows you to keep drinking a lot anyhow. And it allows you to think of yourself as completely different than the guy who just killed those people. I'll just float the idea - as a fellow consumer of alcohol and not somebody interested in judging - that you might unconsciously be a little too easy on yourself here, and your drinking might actually put the rest of the world at risk to some degree.

(not to mention our erroneous human tendency to think of criminals as a completely different species as ourselves, which can also lead to some questionable ideas)

Re: SXSW: 2 dead, 23 injured.

#60

Post by derekp7 »

jakobe wrote: post #48
trippy_biscuits wrote: post #41

When I think of all the money spent in the name of improving and enriching the lives of human beings, it troubles me that we don't have a reliable solution for ending DUI. I know many companies fund research to end cancer or improve the quality of life for those with various diseases. While this research may help save or improve lives, it's motivated in part by a potential return on investment. Why can't we do someth…

Preventing DUI is a difficult problem. A much easier problem would be to prevent speeding. Put a GPS in every car that prevents the car from driving faster than the speed limit. All the technology exists, and this would doubtlessly save lives, but somehow I doubt anybody would pass the required laws.

I would love to have a device like that, kind of a reverse cruise control The only times I've gotten speeding tickets is when I was unaware of a drop in the speed limit. Maybe something that combines GPS, plus a dash cam that recognizes road signs (so that it can pick up construction zones, etc).

Only one major problem with this -- many areas are funded in large part by speeding tickets. If it is impossible for a car to speed, what will these areas do for revenue?

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