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It seems you missed both my points. 1. People do indeed willingly put themselves at risk by driving on a public road, which was in the same list with the cosme

It seems you missed both my points. 1. People do indeed willingly put themselves at risk by driving on a public road, which was in the same list with the cosmetic surgeon. And doing so also puts others at risk. 2. The degree of risk is what matters. Ergo while both obeying the speed limit and driving 200 mph (assuming it was possible) puts others at risk, the latter risk is considered to high a degree. It is not a fundamental choice between risk and no risk, but between unacceptably-high risk and acceptable risk.

Retric 6y ago
Speeding is by definition both an unacceptable risk and illegal. Even driving the speed limit is only acceptable in ideal conditions. Driving at those speeds is illegal in rain, fog, snow, etc as it puts others at what is considered an unacceptable risk. You and many others may decide to ignore public safety and the law, but that doesn’t somehow make it safe. While you personally may feel homicide is a reasonable trade off for convince, don’t assume everyone that happens to be near a public street and who’s life your willing to sacrifice, agrees with you. The occasional person killed in their own homes might have considered it a reasonable trade off, but we can’t ask them. EX: https://www.wfft.com/content/news/Woman-in-Fort-Wayne-killed-after-car-crashes-into-house-on-McCellan-Street-573455111.html https://www.wfft.com/content/news/Woman-in-Fort-Wayne-killed...
- unishark 6y ago
  Another miss. Now you have it backwards. I am not defending speeding (good lord). I am pointing out that legal behavior is risky too. Therefore your point about risk equating to harm is useless.
  - Retric 6y ago
    Plenty of things are acceptable harm. Exhaling CO2 in the same room with somebody is actually physically harmful but nobody generally worries that breathing becomes lightly more difficult when you’re around. The bounds for acceptable harm seem invisible, but they definitely exist. Therefore some levels of risk being acceptable is in no way a counter argument.
    - unishark 6y ago
      I agree with everything you said except the last statement, which is an assertion, not logic. Since you agree that one cannot avoid creating risk, what is the logical value of introducing the idea that risk is "harm"? You can just as well talk of unacceptable risks, rather than "unacceptable harms". Further, you apparently agree that all "accidents" result from parties taking a risk, whether small acceptable risks (more rarely, no doubt) or by larger unacceptable risks. So what point are you left making about the existence of "accidents"?
      - Retric 6y ago
        The last statement was countering your train of logic, it wasn’t support for the idea on it’s own. I am not introducing the idea that risk is harm, I am acknowledging that society has agreed that risk is harm most clearly in the case of Endangerment laws. Therefore that must extend to all levels of risk not simply the most extreme cases. Therefore someone deciding to put others at risk must as generally agreed by society be seen as willingly doing harm to others. As to “accidents” the outcome may have been undesirable by the person at fault by speeding, failing to maintain proper distance, failing to maintain your car, driving in unsafe conditions, driving when you’re incapable of maintaining control etc are hardly accidental. Their the result of deliberate risk taking with others lives. When you anti up the health and safety of pedestrians you can’t then say their death was anything but your fault. That said, sure their might be a few hundred actual accidental deaths in the US from manufacturing defects, or undiagnosed medical conditions. But, calling a drunk driver hitting someone by going down the highway in the wrong direction an accident is a completely meaningless, at that point just call it a bad thing and move on.
        unishark 6y ago
        You can't counter my train of logic by using the same points I used to support it, at least not without providing something more. Both "high risk" and "low risk" behaviors are qualitatively the same; they create a risk. They only differ quantitatively in the amount. And while you have been running for several posts with the idea that a high risk behavior is a sure cause of an accident, most are also generally very unlikely to cause an accident in absolute terms (that's usually why people take such risks, after all), making them very low risk compared to actual intentional violence (the point of the poster you responded to). Drawing a line for legal/illegal risks just allows us to punish people for taking risks we don't want them to take. It is still meaningful to call it an accident to identify these qualitative similarities.

Retric 6y ago

Speeding is by definition both an unacceptable risk and illegal. Even driving the speed limit is only acceptable in ideal conditions. Driving at those speeds is illegal in rain, fog, snow, etc as it puts others at what is considered an unacceptable risk. You and many others may decide to ignore public safety and the law, but that doesn’t somehow make it safe. While you personally may feel homicide is a reasonable trade off for convince, don’t assume everyone that happens to be near a public street and who’s life your willing to sacrifice, agrees with you. The occasional person killed in their own homes might have considered it a reasonable trade off, but we can’t ask them. EX: https://www.wfft.com/content/news/Woman-in-Fort-Wayne-killed-after-car-crashes-into-house-on-McCellan-Street-573455111.html https://www.wfft.com/content/news/Woman-in-Fort-Wayne-killed...

unishark 6y ago
Another miss. Now you have it backwards. I am not defending speeding (good lord). I am pointing out that legal behavior is risky too. Therefore your point about risk equating to harm is useless.
- Retric 6y ago
  Plenty of things are acceptable harm. Exhaling CO2 in the same room with somebody is actually physically harmful but nobody generally worries that breathing becomes lightly more difficult when you’re around. The bounds for acceptable harm seem invisible, but they definitely exist. Therefore some levels of risk being acceptable is in no way a counter argument.
  - unishark 6y ago
    I agree with everything you said except the last statement, which is an assertion, not logic. Since you agree that one cannot avoid creating risk, what is the logical value of introducing the idea that risk is "harm"? You can just as well talk of unacceptable risks, rather than "unacceptable harms". Further, you apparently agree that all "accidents" result from parties taking a risk, whether small acceptable risks (more rarely, no doubt) or by larger unacceptable risks. So what point are you left making about the existence of "accidents"?
    - Retric 6y ago
      The last statement was countering your train of logic, it wasn’t support for the idea on it’s own. I am not introducing the idea that risk is harm, I am acknowledging that society has agreed that risk is harm most clearly in the case of Endangerment laws. Therefore that must extend to all levels of risk not simply the most extreme cases. Therefore someone deciding to put others at risk must as generally agreed by society be seen as willingly doing harm to others. As to “accidents” the outcome may have been undesirable by the person at fault by speeding, failing to maintain proper distance, failing to maintain your car, driving in unsafe conditions, driving when you’re incapable of maintaining control etc are hardly accidental. Their the result of deliberate risk taking with others lives. When you anti up the health and safety of pedestrians you can’t then say their death was anything but your fault. That said, sure their might be a few hundred actual accidental deaths in the US from manufacturing defects, or undiagnosed medical conditions. But, calling a drunk driver hitting someone by going down the highway in the wrong direction an accident is a completely meaningless, at that point just call it a bad thing and move on.
      - unishark 6y ago
        You can't counter my train of logic by using the same points I used to support it, at least not without providing something more. Both "high risk" and "low risk" behaviors are qualitatively the same; they create a risk. They only differ quantitatively in the amount. And while you have been running for several posts with the idea that a high risk behavior is a sure cause of an accident, most are also generally very unlikely to cause an accident in absolute terms (that's usually why people take such risks, after all), making them very low risk compared to actual intentional violence (the point of the poster you responded to). Drawing a line for legal/illegal risks just allows us to punish people for taking risks we don't want them to take. It is still meaningful to call it an accident to identify these qualitative similarities.