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[I-Like-To-Bike]

Seriously, of everyone that's posted in this thread thus far, the only person other than me to give a coherent argument is zeytoun.

Zeytoun, what say you about such a backhanded compliment?

[chipcom]

Look, by no means do I think I'm the smartest feller in the world, but if someone can't see that my ideas have at least some merit, then, yes, I am most likely much more intelligent than them.

I can understand respectful disagreement, but some of you fools seem to think that what I'm saying doesn't make one whit of sense. I'm sorry, but the only explanation I have for that kind of attitude is sheer stupidity.


Thanks, this pretty much sums it up...you are hereby bestowed the Helmet Head "I know everything and everybody else is an idiot" award. Wear your pointy hat proudly.

[zeytoun]

Zeytoun, what say you about such a backhanded compliment?
I was just mirroring Makeinu's pseudo-logical style.

---

Comparable is not the same as equivalent. Comparable means you can give some finite measure of how far two things are from being equivalent. Equivalent means that that measure is zero.
Exactly, there is a difference. And the level of comparability makes a huge difference as well. You have not presented a clear defining line that exonerates one level of "causation" while condemning another.

The fact that some causal relationships can be foreseen with a higher probability than others allows you to leverage your intuition about easily foreseeable events and apply it to almost all kinds of causal relationships. Every opportunity for guilt can be weighted according to its probability.Argument: Predictability of negative outcome. The higher the odds of a negative outcome attached to behavior, the higher the culpability.

While this argument is useful when comparing very rare outcomes, to very common ones, it's silly when comparing one rare outcome to another. For example, there are 30-40,000 vehicle-related deaths for every 200,000,000 licensed drivers in the US. that is a ratio .02%.

If you are assigning guilt based on the "predictability" of motorist-related deaths, then this same principle should carry over to anything with this same (or higher) probability. Loggers, aircraft pilots, fishing workers, structural iron and steel workers, refuse and recyclable material collectors, farmers and ranchers, roofers, electrical power line installers/repairers, driver/sales workers and truck drivers, & taxi drivers and chauffeur in the US all have higher ratios of deaths per worker, loggers having a ratio over 4 times as high (.0924%)*. By this logic, anyone hiring any of these workers has higher blood guilt than a person choosing to drive. Have you ever paid for a cab, paper products, or soft-shelled crab?

*http://money.cnn.com/2005/08/26/pf/jobs_jeopardy/

[Brian]

Look, by no means do I think I'm the smartest feller in the world, but if someone can't see that my ideas have at least some merit, then, yes, I am most likely much more intelligent than them.

That's golden.

How can you sleep at night knowing that you're going put yourself in a position where you might have to injure or kill someone?

Perhaps the rest of us don't twist trivial matters into issues the way you do. Do you lose sleep over the fact that the Chinese made goods you buy contribute to slave labor?

[AEO]

Ah, now I remember why I stay away from A&S forum.

See, by that logic, you are helping pump billions of toxic chemicals into the environment with everyday things that you do. Needless to say these chemicals can cause severe pain and suffering to anything that lives.
Your bike, your tires, your clothing. These all consume an amazing amount of resources and pump out a lot more pollution than one could imagine. The use of your PC to post on these forums, again, plenty of pollution created.
By merely being alive and trying to live day to day, you can cause pain and suffering to millions of people who you've never met. But you know, it's wrong to kill anyone, pain and suffering included, right?
So why do you use items that have blood on them?

If I was to live by your moral standards I wouldn't touch anything that I personally didn't make and know that it came from a very morally correct source, be it clothing, food, etc.
bikes? out of the question. Ore miners could have died to get that metal in my bike. Metal ore extractors could have inhaled dangerous chemicals when they were extracting the metal from the ore. Well, the list can go on, but I can't possibly comprehend how big my environmental and humanitarian impact is with rough guesses, so I will leave it like this.

[I-Like-To-Bike]

I was just mirroring Makeinu's pseudo-logical style.
Doesn't that give you both a headache AND gastrointestinal distress?

[zeytoun]

Doesn't that give you both a headache AND gastrointestinal distress?
That's my cross to bear I guess.... but I just went on a nice ride, and it cured it! :)

[gabdy]

If you haven't bothered to read this thread then why should I waste my time talking to you?



Sorry, I couldn't keep reading your posts, you sound like a bit of a nutter who has had too much LSD.
All this crap you are going on about leads me to believe you are a self righteous hypocrite. You value life so much, yet you own a gun. WTF is that about. Guns serve no other purpose but to kill.

[Brian]

Guns serve no other purpose but to kill.

My missus, born and bred in Newcastle, would disagree. She was afraid of guns at first, now she owns a couple, and enjoys target shooting.

I still maintain that a personal defense weapon is not for killing, but to prevent you from being killed. ;)

[why2not]

How many thousands has makeinu killed by living (and allowing his family to live) above basic sustenance level? Do his kids really need to grow & mentally develop to their full potential? All that money/food wasted vs providing them only enough food to sustain life.

Internet provider fees alone would probably save 20-30 people a month. Let's not get into the electricity wasted by his computer. Or rent or clothing or furniture.

If makeinu does not sell everything he owns other than one set of clothing and his bike (to get back and forth to work, so that he can make more money to donate) and start living in a shack, then he is chosing not to provide money to save lives. He is chosing to be a killer.

This is not a hypothetical situation, like: if I drive a car, I might accidentally kill someone. This is a real life situation where if he uses even a few pennies more than he requires to live, someone will die from the lack of what that money could have provided for them. Since he equally respects those lives as much as he does his own & his families, how can he stand knowing that he is killing them by allowing himself & his family to live above sustenace level? Talk about blood on hands...

[dobber]

This is a real life situation where if he uses even a few pennies more than he requires to live, someone will die from the lack of what that money could have provided for them. Since he equally respects those lives as much as he does his own & his families, how can he stand knowing that he is killing them by allowing himself & his family to live above sustenace level? Talk about blood on hands...

But he can justify the killing of others statistically. I think he uses pie charts or something and graphs the morality of it.

[Brian]

But he can justify the killing of others statistically. I think he uses pie charts or something and graphs the morality of it.

I like pie.

[makeinu]

Exactly, there is a difference. And the level of comparability makes a huge difference as well. You have not presented a clear defining line that exonerates one level of "causation" while condemning another.

Yes I have. Causation of negative effects which is minimal must be exonerated (as minimizing the causation of negative effects is the best one can possibly accomplish...if the best is condemned then everything must be condemned which contradicts the very purpose of a moral standard). Anything else should be regretted as a less than optimal decision. Set the level of remorse to taste and serve. :)

Argument: Predictability of negative outcome. The higher the odds of a negative outcome attached to behavior, the higher the culpability.

While this argument is useful when comparing very rare outcomes, to very common ones, it's silly when comparing one rare outcome to another. For example, there are 30-40,000 vehicle-related deaths for every 200,000,000 licensed drivers in the US. that is a ratio .02%.

While it's true that the ratio is .02%, you're not being very careful about drawing a probabilistic conclusion from that statistic. Those are 30,000 unique vehicle-related deaths per year, while the number of licensed drivers from year to year exhibits a very great deal of overlap. When rolling a die, the probability of seeing a 4 is only 1/6 the first time you roll it. If you roll it n times then the probability is 1-(5/6)^n. Not that this situation necessarily meets the exact same assumptions as rolling a die, but without resorting to technical jargon this should give you some idea of why your notion of probability is off by at least an order of magnitude. If you add serious injuries then you really start to see the culpability of getting behind the wheel.

Of course, if the probability is spread thinly over many rare outcomes then the calculation becomes more tedious, but I don't see why that would make it any less valid. In fact, since actions which have outcomes thinly distributed as such are competing against actions which have more uneven distributions, the answer is simple, avoiding gambling. Give actions which have a relatively high probability of positive outcome preference over actions which exhibit a great deal of uncertainty.

If you are assigning guilt based on the "predictability" of motorist-related deaths, then this same principle should carry over to anything with this same (or higher) probability. Loggers, aircraft pilots, fishing workers, structural iron and steel workers, refuse and recyclable material collectors, farmers and ranchers, roofers, electrical power line installers/repairers, driver/sales workers and truck drivers, & taxi drivers and chauffeur in the US all have higher ratios of deaths per worker, loggers having a ratio over 4 times as high (.0924%)*. By this logic, anyone hiring any of these workers has higher blood guilt than a person choosing to drive. Have you ever paid for a cab, paper products, or soft-shelled crab?

*http://money.cnn.com/2005/08/26/pf/jobs_jeopardy/

Once again you're failing to properly weight things. Paying for a single soft-shelled crab never employs a fishing worker for an entire year. You have to divide the probability of death per worker by the number of soft-shelled crabs produced annually by the worker. Then, with proper care, you can compare eating a soft-shell crab with driving a car for a year.

That's golden.

Don't be mad just because you're not smart enough to contribute anything except personal attacks.

Perhaps the rest of us don't twist trivial matters into issues the way you do. Do you lose sleep over the fact that the Chinese made goods you buy contribute to slave labor?

Just because you don't like to think about the consequences of your actions that doesn't make them trivial.

Also, I don't lose any sleep over my contribution to "slave labor". I support "slave labor". If it weren't better than what were otherwise available to the people being "enslaved" then they wouldn't be participating.

How many thousands has makeinu killed by living (and allowing his family to live) above basic sustenance level? Do his kids really need to grow & mentally develop to their full potential? All that money/food wasted vs providing them only enough food to sustain life.

Internet provider fees alone would probably save 20-30 people a month. Let's not get into the electricity wasted by his computer. Or rent or clothing or furniture.

If makeinu does not sell everything he owns other than one set of clothing and his bike (to get back and forth to work, so that he can make more money to donate) and start living in a shack, then he is chosing not to provide money to save lives. He is chosing to be a killer.

This is not a hypothetical situation, like: if I drive a car, I might accidentally kill someone. This is a real life situation where if he uses even a few pennies more than he requires to live, someone will die from the lack of what that money could have provided for them. Since he equally respects those lives as much as he does his own & his families, how can he stand knowing that he is killing them by allowing himself & his family to live above sustenace level? Talk about blood on hands...

If only life were that simple. Perhaps one day I will regret not doing as you say, but for now I'm trying my best to do what I believe will have the most positive impact. Maybe one day I will lament the good I failed to accomplish, but at least I will be able to say that I tried my best.

[Brian]

Pete, he's obviously afraid to drive a car. This is the guy that wouldn't buy his wife a car, because it would cost him $1 million in retirement money, that he's planning on giving away.

[makeinu]

Great, the three biggest trolls on BF are now together: I-Like-To-Bike, Pete Fagerlin, and Brian.

Brace yourself for a round of baseless accusations, personal attacks, and straw man arguments. In fact, here's one right now:
Pete, he's obviously afraid to drive a car. This is the guy that wouldn't buy his wife a car, because it would cost him $1 million in retirement money, that he's planning on giving away.

Yes, fear must be my problem. You must be telepathic. :rolleyes:

Please. Zeytoun and I are having a serious conversation. If you want to psychoanalyze me then send me the phone number for your psychology practice and I'll give you a call....oh wait, that's right, you don't have a psychology practice; You're just some loon trolling the internet and spouting your uninformed opinion about things that have no bearing on this conversation whatsoever.

[Brian]

Please. Zeyoun and I are having a serious conversation. If you want to psychoanalyze me then send me the phone number for your psychology practice and I'll give you a call....oh wait, that's right, you don't have a psychology practice; You're just some loon trolling the internet and spouting your uninformed opinion about things that have no bearing on this conversation whatsoever.

If you take the conversation to PMs then perhaps people won't question your intelligence or sanity. As it is, you haven't done much to convince anyone of anything other than that you have some "interesting" views.

[makeinu]

If you take the conversation to PMs then perhaps people won't question your intelligence or sanity.

Sorry, but I don't think being heckled by close minded and ignorant naysayers who are too lazy to follow their thoughts to their proper end is reason enough to hide from public view.

I have a good point and Zeytoun and I are discussing it in this thread on the topic and you're not going to dissuade me from continuing to do so no matter how much you heckle, no matter how much you present frivolous accusations against my character, and no matter how much you troll. That goes for you, Pete Fagerlin, and I-Like-To-Bike.

As it is, you haven't done much to convince anyone of anything other than that you have some "interesting" views.

Wow. There you go again. Your gift of telepathy is amazing. How do you simultaneously perceive the thoughts of everyone reading this thread and still retain enough energy to hold a conversation? :rolleyes:

[Brian]

Wow. There you go again. Your gift of telepathy is amazing. How do you simultaneously perceive the thoughts of everyone reading this thread and still retain enough energy to hold a conversation? :rolleyes:

No telepathy needed. I'm hardly alone in my assessment of your posts.

[why2not]

If only life were that simple. Perhaps one day I will regret not doing as you say, but for now I'm trying my best to do what I believe will have the most positive impact. Maybe one day I will lament the good I failed to accomplish, but at least I will be able to say that I tried my best.

Why is it not that simple? You believe that not your driving a car will save more lives than you could by donating money to feed starving people?

[chipcom]

If you take the conversation to PMs then perhaps people won't question your intelligence or sanity. As it is, you haven't done much to convince anyone of anything other than that you have some "interesting" views.

Keep this guy in mind when you are making up your proposed P&R invitation list. :D

[makeinu]

Speaking of telepathy, how exactly did you determine that the slave laborers mentioned above had a choice in participating in their slave laboring, let alone that they have no better option than being slaves?

I think this is getting a little too far off topic. If you'd like to discuss the moral issues surrounding cheap chinese goods and slave labor then perhaps you should start another thread.

We can't save the whole world in one thread, you know.

No telepathy needed. I'm hardly alone in my assessment of your posts.

Sorry, but you and a few other trolls do not speak for everyone. So without telepathy...

Why is it not that simple? You believe that not your driving a car will save more lives than you could by donating money to feed starving people?

I believe that it may, especially if the money saved from not driving a car is, in turn, donated to feed starving people.

Also to the best of my knowledge, there aren't really any people starving to death in my area. So any money donated towards feeding starving people would have to be through a charitable organization. When it comes to charities, not all money donated actually goes towards the stated cause. Now, of course, this isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it can be difficult to tell whether or not the money is being used properly and I am not currently in a position to start my own charity. In the mean time, I believe being kind to my family and friends may help spur them towards good works in the future. So the best use of much of the money spent providing my family with an above subsistent standard of living isn't entirely clear to me.

If you have figured it all out then I'd love to hear it, but somehow I get the feeling that you aren't being serious.

[Brian]

I believe that it may, especially if the money saved from not driving a car is, in turn, donated to feed starving people.


So how much have you given this month?

[shatdow]

What a train-wreck of a thread. I hate to contribute to this flame war, but the position held by makeinu is so absurd to me I can't look away any longer.

The basis of almost every object and action in society is the trade-off between use and acceptable risk. We make buildings taller than one story even though somebody can fall and become injured from the height (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=444950&in_page_id=1770); we use knives to prepare food even though they can injure or kill if dropped or if somebody runs through the kitchen.

The dangers associated with objects and actions are mitigated through laws governing use and behavior, and the expectation that all society's members are informed of the dangers and exercise good judgment. I don't blame the cliff someone chooses to jump off of for their death, nor do I sneak up behind someone in the kitchen, shove my hand under their knife, and blame them for getting cut. If a cyclist (or a motorist!) is running a red light and gets hit, depending on the circumstances, I would not hold the motorist with the green light responsible. If the motorist was speeding or not paying attention, to the point where an avoidable accident occurred, that's different.

I reject makeinu's contentions in his/her posts and find them absurd and almost offensive.

[zeytoun]

While it's true that the ratio is .02%, you're not being very careful about drawing a probabilistic conclusion from that statistic. Those are 30,000 unique vehicle-related deaths per year, while the number of licensed drivers from year to year exhibits a very great deal of overlap. When rolling a die, the probability of seeing a 4 is only 1/6 the first time you roll it. If you roll it n times then the probability is 1-(5/6)^n. Not that this situation necessarily meets the exact same assumptions as rolling a die, but without resorting to technical jargon this should give you some idea of why your notion of probability is off by at least an order of magnitude. If you add serious injuries then you really start to see the culpability of getting behind the wheel.
Fuzzy math, buddy. You've bitten off more than you can chew.

What matters is that I used the same method for driving fatalities, as work fatalities. 1 person's risk of fatality per year. n = 1 year.

If you want to increase the odds of killing a person in traffic, by looking at it over multiple years, you will have to do the same with the fatalities of the workers.

If you want to add serious injuries to driving, you need to add them to workers.

The fact is... statistically, a person is more likely to die from spending a year working on a fishing boat, then spending a year as a chauffeur...

You're not doing very well pretending to be a professor.

[I-Like-To-Bike]

That's my cross to bear I guess.... but I just went on a nice ride, and it cured it! :)

Zeytoun,

As you can see from the recent posts, the fool thinks he is in a rational/logical discussion with another nuthouse philosopher. Perhaps you might want to rethink your humoring of him.

[zeytoun]

If that's what everyone wants, I'm happy to stop.

I'd also be amenable to continuing.

[zeytoun]

Once again you're failing to properly weight things. Paying for a single soft-shelled crab never employs a fishing worker for an entire year. You have to divide the probability of death per worker by the number of soft-shelled crabs produced annually by the worker. Then, with proper care, you can compare eating a soft-shell crab with driving a car for a year.
Actually, there’s another way to do this. Figure out the average wages of all of these people, and see how much money you’re spending each year on anything that supports any of these businesses.

You’ll have to factor in:
rent, since that supports constructions workers and roofers
all books, magazines, paper towels, toilet paper
all non-farmed sea food you eat
a portion of all products you buy sine they are usually shipped by truck
I think by the time we’re finished, anyone will be hard pressed to say they don’t spend at least one quarter to one half of their income supporting these deadly occupations.

This means that it’s very reasonable to estimate that a middle class American's annual consumption leads to the similar number of fatalities as driving for a full year.

btw, are you a vegetarian? Because if you eat meat your contributing a lot to starvation, not to mention the suffering of intelligent animals.

[chipcom]

If that's what everyone wants, I'm happy to stop.

I'd also be amenable to continuing.

By all means, proceed, as long as you don't mind engaging in a battle of wits with an unarmed man. ;)

[AEO]

Okay, let me get this straight.

You believe it is morally apprehensible to do anything with a high probability of killing someone.
You believe it is, while regrettable, okay enough to possibly kill someone because of your needs since there's a low overall probability of getting them killed.
Your conscious compels you to prevent you from doing anything that will put you on the high probability side.
You believe all life is equal.
What is a high probability and what is a low probability for you? 50:50? 70:30?

Would you go ahead and pull over red light runners and say that it is morally wrong to run red lights because they are going to get someone seriously hurt or even killed each time you see one? Red light runners can not only cause grief, harm and carnage, but the person behind the wheel of vehicle with ROW may be traumatized and scared for life because of them.
How about you educate people about not doing stupid things that doesn't put the probability of dying or getting killed in their favour?
Not giving them warnings or some friendly advice would mean that you sat there idly, twiddling your thumbs, apathetically, while they put themselves in harms way. You may not think it, but what you are doing with this action is showing that you do not care for their lives. It is too trivial and too inconvenient for you to give them advice.
Or have you calculated that by not doing so, you make it safer for other people around you overall when there are no idiots who cause accidents?

If you saw a rodent run out in front of you, do you hit the rodent and kill it with your bike, you escape uninjured. Would you feel bad about it? Or were you glad you swerved into the row of parked cars and seriously injured yourself, but letting the rodent escape alive?

All life may be equal, but by saying that you can live with certain risk assessments means that you're contradicting that stance, even if you say "it's morally regrettable, but I can live with it".
It is my view that life is not equal. Life cannot be equal, it was never meant to be from the dawn of life on earth. There's a whole life cycle that sustains each other. By saying only humans, or even animals are "life" then obviously some life is more equal than others since plants and bacteria are also life.

[I-Like-To-Bike]

If that's what everyone wants, I'm happy to stop.

I'd also be amenable to continuing.

Hey, If you are having fun, please continue.

To me it seems like teasing a retarded person just to laugh at him for his response.

[syn0n]

How can you sleep at night knowing that you're going put yourself in a position where you might have to injure or kill someone?

My opinion is that if you hit me then tough **** for you. Both of us are eventually going to die, the most striking difference is that you'll die with blood on your hands while I'll die with a clean conscience. But I suppose you think I'm just crazy for not cowering at the sight of your weapon. I suppose you think Martin Luther King Jr was a fool for not cowering at threats of violence against him. Right?
I am putting people in a dangerous position? Look, whether you like it or not, there are laws which govern the flow of traffic, inclusive of motor vehicle, bicycle, and pedestrian traffic. If you choose to disobey the law, particularly a ROW law, the potential resulting collision will be your fault, not the fault of whomever you dart out in front of. And you do realise, injury to yourself aside, you very well may be indirectly responsible for the serious injuries to or death of someone else by running reds?

I know what your're trying to argue, which is "no cars = no death lol", but that's not going to fly either. With your attitude you could end up hitting another cyclist or a pedestrian, and yes, while it's less likely to be fatal, it's is a very real possibility. And while I know you don't care about them, you could end up killing a motorist who swerves to save you.

You call that a clean conscious? If you do, you really are a sociopath on two wheels.

Furthermore, whether you care about the ROW laws governing both you and I or not, if you choose to ignore them, you're a fool to expect me or anyone else to prioritize your "safety" (which I feel is relative when you quite obviously do not care about it yourself) over that of those not involved and completely innocent (other cyclists, motorists, and pedestrians).

Cyclists with your mentality are the reason I sometimes wish bicycles had "paper", or cyclists had mandatory licenses. If you had to prove you know how to ride safely, and you could loose the right to ride, I'm sure you'd suddenly care a lot more about the law, and more importanly, the safety of those your actions are compromising. And for what? So you can save 30 seconds at a traffic light?

Either you can't stand being wrong (thus this drawn out discussion in which everyone disagrees with you on some level) or you're an idiot.

[makeinu]

Translation:

You can't support the wacky claim that you made about slaves and you are engaging in the same type of "telepathy" that you are decrying above. Hypocrisy at its finest.

No, my original statement was in english. Your "translation" clearly isn't a translation at all, but a product of your overactive imagination.

As I said, if you want to discuss this topic then make another thread. I'm not interested in discussing it here.

Oh, and before I forget, here's the translation:
"As I said, if you want to discuss this topic then make another thread. I'm not interested in discussing it here."

What a train-wreck of a thread. I hate to contribute to this flame war, but the position held by makeinu is so absurd to me I can't look away any longer.

The basis of almost every object and action in society is the trade-off between use and acceptable risk. We make buildings taller than one story even though somebody can fall and become injured from the height (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=444950&in_page_id=1770); we use knives to prepare food even though they can injure or kill if dropped or if somebody runs through the kitchen.

The dangers associated with objects and actions are mitigated through laws governing use and behavior, and the expectation that all society's members are informed of the dangers and exercise good judgment. I don't blame the cliff someone chooses to jump off of for their death, nor do I sneak up behind someone in the kitchen, shove my hand under their knife, and blame them for getting cut. If a cyclist (or a motorist!) is running a red light and gets hit, depending on the circumstances, I would not hold the motorist with the green light responsible. If the motorist was speeding or not paying attention, to the point where an avoidable accident occurred, that's different.

I reject makeinu's contentions in his/her posts and find them absurd and almost offensive.

Huh? I have no idea why you find my ideas absurd and offensive. They are exactly the same ideas which you are upholding. You are practically repeating my argument: Yes, the basis of almost every object and action in society is the trade-off between use and acceptable risk. Yes, the dangers associated with objects and actions are mitigated through laws governing use and behavior, and the expectation that all society's members are informed of the dangers and exercise good judgment. Therefore, we should consider how to responsibly make a good tradeoff in order to determine what the laws governing use and behavior should be.

What is it about speeding or not paying attention that is any more avoidable than the inherent speed and lack of attention present in all driving? Nothing. Nothing, except a societal standard; A societal standard which needs to be corrected.

Fuzzy math, buddy. You've bitten off more than you can chew.

What matters is that I used the same method for driving fatalities, as work fatalities. 1 person's risk of fatality per year. n = 1 year.

If you want to increase the odds of killing a person in traffic, by looking at it over multiple years, you will have to do the same with the fatalities of the workers.

If you want to add serious injuries to driving, you need to add them to workers.

The fact is... statistically, a person is more likely to die from spending a year working on a fishing boat, then spending a year as a chauffeur...

You're not doing very well pretending to be a professor.

The context of our discussion was the overall consequences of a decision, not just the consequences for the present year. If you're solely interested in comparing work related fatalities to traffic fatalities then, yes, the annual rates should be sufficient. However, that's not the point that puts your false comparison to rest. The point that puts your false comparison to rest is the one you chose to ignore: That eating one or two soft shell crabs a year can't be attributed to employing a worker for a year. I'm perfectly happy to admit that feeding your entire extended family a soft shell crab for every meal has a greater risk of fatality than driving a car, but who the hell feeds their entire extended family a soft shell crab for every meal? As I already mentioned, you need to divide your numbers by the number of soft shell crabs produced by a fishing worker per year.

Fuzzy math indeed. That's what statistics is, and you don't seem to be able to practice it properly. As far as pretending to be a professor, I don't think I would do very well at that (pretending, that is).

Actually, there’s another way to do this. Figure out the average wages of all of these people, and see how much money you’re spending each year on anything that supports any of these businesses.

You’ll have to factor in:
rent, since that supports constructions workers and roofers
all books, magazines, paper towels, toilet paper
all non-farmed sea food you eat
a portion of all products you buy sine they are usually shipped by truck
I think by the time we’re finished, anyone will be hard pressed to say they don’t spend at least one quarter to one half of their income supporting these deadly occupations.

This means that it’s very reasonable to estimate that a middle class American's annual consumption leads to the similar number of fatalities as driving for a full year.

btw, are you a vegetarian? Because if you eat meat your contributing a lot to starvation, not to mention the suffering of intelligent animals.

Very clever. That's a pretty good way to do it, but you might have to exclude the rent measure as I don't believe that most housing expenses go towards construction as much as inflation.

Furthermore, I don't necessarily see how this point is relevant to my position. Consuming like a middle class American and driving a car are not mutually exclusive decisions. So why are you comparing their risks of causing fatalities? The only way the risk of causing a fatality by consuming like a middle class American could justify driving is if it were done in lieu of driving, but that clearly isn't the case for any realistic scenario.

You need to compare practicing consumerism to not practicing consumerism and driving a car to not driving a car.

Okay, let me get this straight.

You believe it is morally apprehensible to do anything with a high probability of killing someone.
You believe it is, while regrettable, okay enough to possibly kill someone because of your needs since there's a low overall probability of getting them killed.
Your conscious compels you to prevent you from doing anything that will put you on the high probability side.
You believe all life is equal.
What is a high probability and what is a low probability for you? 50:50? 70:30?

Would you go ahead and pull over red light runners and say that it is morally wrong to run red lights because they are going to get someone seriously hurt or even killed each time you see one? Red light runners can not only cause grief, harm and carnage, but the person behind the wheel of vehicle with ROW may be traumatized and scared for life because of them.
How about you educate people about not doing stupid things that doesn't put the probability of dying or getting killed in their favour?
Not giving them warnings or some friendly advice would mean that you sat there idly, twiddling your thumbs, apathetically, while they put themselves in harms way. You may not think it, but what you are doing with this action is showing that you do not care for their lives. It is too trivial and too inconvenient for you to give them advice.
Or have you calculated that by not doing so, you make it safer for other people around you overall when there are no idiots who cause accidents?

If you saw a rodent run out in front of you, do you hit the rodent and kill it with your bike, you escape uninjured. Would you feel bad about it? Or were you glad you swerved into the row of parked cars and seriously injured yourself, but letting the rodent escape alive?

All life may be equal, but by saying that you can live with certain risk assessments means that you're contradicting that stance, even if you say "it's morally regrettable, but I can live with it".
It is my view that life is not equal. Life cannot be equal, it was never meant to be from the dawn of life on earth. There's a whole life cycle that sustains each other. By saying only humans, or even animals are "life" then obviously some life is more equal than others since plants and bacteria are also life.

Good point. Although an alternative perspective on educating cyclists to stop for traffic signals is to educate motorists to give priority to cyclists...perhaps by forcing them to do so to prevent collision. Also, when I say life, I mean to imply human life.

By all means, proceed, as long as you don't mind engaging in a battle of wits with an unarmed man. ;)
Hey, If you are having fun, please continue.

To me it seems like teasing a retarded person just to laugh at him for his response.

There there. You guys shouldn't feel bad because you lack the intelligence to participate in this conversation. Just find someone else to talk to. Your feeble insults aren't going to accomplish anything.

I am putting people in a dangerous position? Look, whether you like it or not, there are laws which govern the flow of traffic, inclusive of motor vehicle, bicycle, and pedestrian traffic. If you choose to disobey the law, particularly a ROW law, the potential resulting collision will be your fault, not the fault of whomever you dart out in front of. And you do realise, injury to yourself aside, you very well may be indirectly responsible for the serious injuries to or death of someone else by running reds?

I know what your're trying to argue, which is "no cars = no death lol", but that's not going to fly either. With your attitude you could end up hitting another cyclist or a pedestrian, and yes, while it's less likely to be fatal, it's is a very real possibility. And while I know you don't care about them, you could end up killing a motorist who swerves to save you.

Assuming that I am not willing to spend more time to get to work, then I think running reds while bicycling presents a significantly lower risk than driving a car while obeying traffic laws. So running reds while bicycling would be the more moral choice.

Now, of course it may be immoral for me to not be willing to spend more time going to work, but that's another issue.

Furthermore, whether you care about the ROW laws governing both you and I or not, if you choose to ignore them, you're a fool to expect me or anyone else to prioritize your "safety" (which I feel is relative when you quite obviously do not care about it yourself) over that of those not involved and completely innocent (other cyclists, motorists, and pedestrians).

Cyclists with your mentality are the reason I sometimes wish bicycles had "paper", or cyclists had mandatory licenses. If you had to prove you know how to ride safely, and you could loose the right to ride, I'm sure you'd suddenly care a lot more about the law, and more importanly, the safety of those your actions are compromising. And for what? So you can save 30 seconds at a traffic light?

It is not me, but the law which gives priority to cyclists. Cyclists are not required to be licensed because the law gives cyclists priority over motorized vehicles when it comes to traffic violations. Motorized vehicles face stiffer penalties for traffic violations for the same reason that drunk drivers face stiffer penalties for traffic violations: because driving a motorized vehicle is more culpable.

[Brian]

[snip]Huh? I have no idea [snip]

Would have saved you a lot of typing.

[makeinu]

Would have saved you a lot of typing.

I know this is your forum and all, but can't you troll somewhere else?

[Brian]

I know this is your forum and all, but can't you troll somewhere else?

It's not mine. I just work here.

[makeinu]

It's not mine. I just work here.

Nevertheless, can't you troll somewhere else?

[CentPARider]

Any motorist that isn't willing to take full responsibility for anyone they kill while they're behind the wheel is as selfish and deranged as a serial killer.

Are doctors and surgeons selfish and deranged because they are not taking moral responsibility for patients who die under their care (assuming they are not the negligent ones, like the driver)?

If they cannot guarantee the outcome of a procedure can save the patients life, should they just not do the surgery?

[dobber]

http://diendan.dethi.com/vi/uploads/News/pic/1180642027.nv.gif

[AEO]

Assuming that I am not willing to spend more time to get to work, then I think running reds while bicycling presents a significantly lower risk than driving a car while obeying traffic laws. So running reds while bicycling would be the more moral choice.

Now, of course it may be immoral for me to not be willing to spend more time going to work, but that's another issue.

I do think, that when you said that line, you became a hypocrite in my book.
You try to uphold a certain moral standard, yet you are fine with breaking your own rule "all humans are equal" when you say that. It may be convenient for you to run a red, but at the cost of convenience, safety and morality for other people. When you run that red, at that moment you become above everyone else.
It's saying "hey, look at me, I'm more important than you, so I'm going to obstruct you there. Mere laws need not apply to me, I am above the law".

Your moral standards are rather close to politician morals in this regard. They say it's wrong and against their policy, but they do it anyways, breaking promises and making full 180s on their positions.
For instance, something Americans must be well acquainted with: Freedom. Freedom does not mean you can do anything you want. It means you may do what you want only if you do not endanger the freedom of others.

If anything, you are not a morally upheld person. You are a disrespectful, discourteous, hypocritical, car hating, red light runner who supports killing people in one way or another.

[CentPARider]

Just curious, does anyone know what makeinu does for a living, besides this?

This thread is the best justification for me running a stop sign on my bike yet. I can break the law, and the driver will be punished. Of course, I’ll be dead, but whatever.

If it were 2 cars instead of a bicyclist and a car, do the rules change at all? I mean makeinu’s rules, not the actual vehicle code that specifies right of way.

[Brian]

Just curious, does anyone know what makeinu does for a living, besides this?


Dunno. What do morally superior twenty-somethings do?

[CentPARider]

Dunno. What do morally superior twenty-somethings do?

Advocate running red lights and stop signs in an Advocacy and Safety forum, and then get all high and mighty when something adverse happens and blame everyone else in society for being morally reprehensible.

[syn0n]

Assuming that I am not willing to spend more time to get to work, then I think running reds while bicycling presents a significantly lower risk than driving a car while obeying traffic laws. So running reds while bicycling would be the more moral choice.
Oh, wow. So breaking the law, and greating increasing the chances of one of the multiple collision scenarios I mentioned earlier is the moral choice? Honestly, I haven't ever thought of it that way! Now, when I wake up I'll just try my best to cause crashes because it the moral thing to do!

It is not me, but the law which gives priority to cyclists. Cyclists are not required to be licensed because the law gives cyclists priority over motorized vehicles when it comes to traffic violations. Motorized vehicles face stiffer penalties for traffic violations for the same reason that drunk drivers face stiffer penalties for traffic violations: because driving a motorized vehicle is more culpable.
http://i4.tinypic.com/4y81bf6.gif

You really should look at a law book for your own good. It's called "failure to yeild". If you run a red, and someone hits you, you do realize that not only are you technically at fault, but you're likely to be ticketed and held financially liable for the damages, right? Unless you're a little kid, the law doesn't care too much about what kinda of vehicle you have. It cares about the way you use it.

To recap: You run a red, you get hit by a car, you get FUBAR'd, you have tens of thousands of dollars of medical bills, you get cited for the collision, and you get to pay for the car. That's totally worth saving 30 seconds at a light in my book!

[Scaryspice]

I had a friend who was driving in her car and some cyclist ran the red light and hit her car, man ....the cops just wrote him a ticket for going thru a red light and not only that, she hit her breaks so hard in her car that she had damages on her face. So guess what, not only did the cyclist had to pay for her medical bills for being on the wrong, but he also had to pay for the damages that he cause to her car and they were worth alot more than his bike. Ouch that hurt.

[makeinu]

Are doctors and surgeons selfish and deranged because they are not taking moral responsibility for patients who die under their care (assuming they are not the negligent ones, like the driver)?

If they cannot guarantee the outcome of a procedure can save the patients life, should they just not do the surgery?

I swear that I already posted a response to this, but it seems to have disappeared.

Anyway, the answer to your question is in the probabilities. Surgery performed by nonnegligent doctor's does not have a higher probability of causing harm than good as driving a car does.

Well sparky, I'm not imagining anything. I'm just noting your inability to support your outlandish claim re: slave labor.

You might want to correct your notes. That's refusal, not inability. If you want me to show my ability to support my claims on cheap goods then make another thread.

Though I doubt you'll do that. You'd rather make one straw man after another about my stance on a topic of which I've said almost nothing.

I do think, that when you said that line, you became a hypocrite in my book.
You try to uphold a certain moral standard, yet you are fine with breaking your own rule "all humans are equal" when you say that. It may be convenient for you to run a red, but at the cost of convenience, safety and morality for other people. When you run that red, at that moment you become above everyone else.
It's saying "hey, look at me, I'm more important than you, so I'm going to obstruct you there. Mere laws need not apply to me, I am above the law".

Your moral standards are rather close to politician morals in this regard. They say it's wrong and against their policy, but they do it anyways, breaking promises and making full 180s on their positions.
For instance, something Americans must be well acquainted with: Freedom. Freedom does not mean you can do anything you want. It means you may do what you want only if you do not endanger the freedom of others.

If anything, you are not a morally upheld person. You are a disrespectful, discourteous, hypocritical, car hating, red light runner who supports killing people in one way or another.

Fair enough. However, I think a key difference is that I am willing to take full responsibility for my actions. If I were to kill someone I would be willing to take whatever punishment is deemed appropriate.

If everyone were willing to do the same then the world would be a better place. I can't say the same of eliminating hypocrisy.

If it were 2 cars instead of a bicyclist and a car, do the rules change at all? I mean makeinu’s rules, not the actual vehicle code that specifies right of way.

Do the probabilities change? As I've explained many many times, my rules are based on the probabilities, just as any rational set of rules should be.


You really should look at a law book for your own good. It's called "failure to yeild". If you run a red, and someone hits you, you do realize that not only are you technically at fault, but you're likely to be ticketed and held financially liable for the damages, right? Unless you're a little kid, the law doesn't care too much about what kinda of vehicle you have. It cares about the way you use it.

To recap: You run a red, you get hit by a car, you get FUBAR'd, you have tens of thousands of dollars of medical bills, you get cited for the collision, and you get to pay for the car. That's totally worth saving 30 seconds at a light in my book!

You can contrast that to what would happen if you did the same thing in a car: You still get FUBAR'd; You still have the tens of thousands of dollars of medical bills; You still get cited for the collision; You still get to pay for the car; And in addition to all those things you get points on your license and/or lose the privilege of driving your vehicle on public roads.

The law clearly does care about what kind of vehicle you have. Believe me if you get pulled over in your car and the officer asks for your license and registration saying, "Gee, officer I don't need a license to ride my other vehicle," isn't going to cut it.

[syn0n]

You can contrast that to what would happen if you did the same thing in a car: You still get FUBAR'd; You still have the tens of thousands of dollars of medical bills; You still get cited for the collision; You still get to pay for the car; And in addition to all those things you get points on your license and/or lose the privilege of driving your vehicle on public roads.

The law clearly does care about what kind of vehicle you have. Believe me if you get pulled over in your car and the officer asks for your license and registration saying, "Gee, officer I don't need a license to ride my other vehicle," isn't going to cut it.
You mean if I ran a red in my car? I don't run reds. That's the difference between you and I. I don't do it on the bike either. And while it was poorly worded, I'll admit, my point still stands. Failure to yield laws apply to vehicles. That means your bike. If you ran a red and a collision results, you're liable.

[burntbizzkit]

I'm disappointed that so many people are attacking makeinu's personal life rather than his philopophy. This is certainly a forum of poor debaters.

Makeinu is the only person in this thread who has given the topic thought. Hypocrite or not, his personal actions have nothing to do with the philosophy he is presenting. It is an idea that we can strive for, much like religion. A set of rules to live by, which we can't always meet, but we strive to meet.

Ignore 'laws'. They are irrelevant when deciding whether an action is moral. Laws change, morality does not.

[CentPARider]

I'm disappointed that so many people are attacking makeinu's personal life rather than his philopophy. This is certainly a forum of poor debaters.

Makeinu is the only person in this thread who has given the topic thought. Hypocrite or not, his personal actions have nothing to do with the philosophy he is presenting. It is an idea that we can strive for, much like religion. A set of rules to live by, which we can't always meet, but we strive to meet.

Ignore 'laws'. They are irrelevant when deciding whether an action is moral. Laws change, morality does not.

Why not just strive to meet the traffic rules first? Might keep people from having to make even harder choices.

I’ll ask again: Was it a moral action for the cyclist to run the red/stop regardless of whether it’s a law or not? Does that even seem like a good idea? What about the cyclists moral responsibility to those around him (forget the car hating agenda for a second)? He keeps mentioning probability. I would think that as a cyclist runs reds/stops against right of way traffic, there is an increase in the probability of something adverse happening. Just a general gut feeling, nothing statistical to back it up, other than some common sense.

Since you are the only one drinking his kool aid, then what is the driver’s responsibility to the cyclist that chose to run the stop and was regrettably killed?

[CentPARider]

I swear that I already posted a response to this, but it seems to have disappeared.

Anyway, the answer to your question is in the probabilities. Surgery performed by nonnegligent doctor's does not have a higher probability of causing harm than good as driving a car does.

You did. Here it is.

Absolutely. That's why people with any sense of moral decency avoid activities which are likely to cause death to others.

[Helmet Head]

No one should ever be in control of a deadly force unless they are willing to do whatever it takes to guarantee that that force is only released in a responsible manor. Anything less is morally reprehensible.

Any motorist that isn't willing to take full responsibility for anyone they kill while they're behind the wheel is as selfish and deranged as a serial killer.
Wow, I don't know how I missed this thread until now.

Anyway, while makeinu takes his argument to the extreme ("deranged as a serial killer"), I think in most cases where someone is killed by a car, and, more generally, any time there is any kind of crash, he has a valid point.

As I've long argued, the whole point of defensive driving is that almost all collisions could be avoided by either driver involved. That means in almost all cases, the driver who hits someone or something probably could have prevented it, even if, for example, the someone or something that he hit ran a red light. That's why you should never enter an intersection, even on green, without making sure it's clear.


Be careful around intersections. If you get a yellow light, stop. You can anticipate when the light is about to change, so it is no excuse to say it was too late. If you have the green light, watch for the red-light runner—look left, right, then left AGAIN to make sure the intersection is going to be safe before you enter it, even on one-way streets (because somebody might be going the wrong way AND running red lights). Red light runners are often speeding as well, so make sure you look down the road far enough to see them coming.


www.roadtripamerica.com/DefensiveDriving/Rule09.htm (http://www.roadtripamerica.com/DefensiveDriving/Rule09.htm)


Now, not taking responsibilty for something you did truly accidentally or absent-mindedly is not the same as not taking responsibility for harm caused intentionally by a serial killer, of course. So the derangement is not the same, not even close. Intent matters.

But I am not happy with how little people seem to realize about how much control they have over whether they are involved in a crash or not, whether they are driving, cycling or walking.

The chapter on personal responsibility in Robert Hurst's book, The Art of Urban Cycling, should be read and ingested by everyone. I would like to see the basic idea generalized for all of life.