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I don't think that's restricted to parents: I've felt that way since I was ten years old. That doesn't mean we have to kill the perpetrators: just remove them.

I don't think that's restricted to parents: I've felt that way since I was ten years old. That doesn't mean we have to kill the perpetrators: just remove them. Retribution might make us feel better, but it doesn't solve anything. It's shutting the stable doors after the horse has bolted. We don't need a special judicial exception for the mass murder of children: we need that to not happen in the first place. At that scale, it's not one person: it's an institutional failing. We need those institutional failings to not happen: talk of punishment, except to the extent it has a deterrent effect (which I'm generally sceptical of), is a distraction. Aviation rarely blames pilots for plane crashes, even when it's clearly their fault (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_by_pilot#By_pilots_in_control_of_whole_flight https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_by_pilot#By_pilots_in_...): they do things like a two-in-cockpit policy. Aeroplanes are among the safest places in the world. That attitude seems a better one to mimic. What does it truly mean, to say “never again”?

TeMPOraL 3y ago
I mostly agree with you. I suppose I missed one important part in my comment - intent. A surviving pilot may not be blamed for a plane crash and associated deaths for merely being at fault. But I bet the story would be different if they did this intentionally, or intentionally allowed it to happen - we'd be talking murder / terrorism charges. Same in this case, I feel there's a difference between deaths of children as a result of lack of care or attention, vs. knowingly letting it happen because of personal gains.
- wizzwizz4 3y ago
  > A surviving pilot may not be blamed for a plane crash and associated deaths for merely being at fault. > In the years 1999–2015 the study found 65 cases of pilot suicide (compared to 195 pilot errors) and six cases of passengers who jumped from aircraft. There were 18 cases of homicide-suicide, totaling 732 deaths; of these events, 13 were perpetrated by pilots. Pragmatically, I don't see a difference. I couldn't give a shit about the perpetrators: they have lost the right to factor into my moral calculus. I care about the children not dying.
  - TeMPOraL 3y ago
    Fair enough. I mean, I ultimately don't really want even more people to die over this. Rather, I want things like this to not happen. Ever. Death penalty sounds like a big step in this direction, in a world where white-collar crime isn't just not punished proportionally to the scale of damage, it's barely punished at all. I suppose it is a red herring, an idea of putting a band-aid on a much larger problem. I'll note however, that pilot suicide is a qualitatively different scenario than executive knowingly causing death of some people, somewhere, because it's easy enough to do it and profit off it. There's only so much you can do about the former - at some point, it's down to an individual, their emotional state, and a moment. However, in the latter case, the process is much more sober, takes more time, and it's doubtful the perpetrator is themselves suicidal.
    - wizzwizz4 3y ago
      In arguing against the death penalty for this, I was also missing the point: the criminal justice system is not the place for prevention, only retrospective (attempted) remedies. We should be thinking about how to restructure the system that makes white-collar mass murder (corporate homicide) possible. (The death penalty is bad for other reasons, and I don't feel this warrants an exception. But that's a different, and well-trodden, argument.) > There's only so much you can do about the former - at some point, it's down to an individual, their emotional state, and a moment. And yet, it is successfully averted by two-in-cockpit policies (excluding possibly China Eastern Airlines Flight 5735: investigations are still ongoing, so I'm not sure what went on there). If we can prevent this, we can prevent that.
      - TeMPOraL 3y ago
        It's ironic. Elsewhere today[0], I wrote about the problems where the correct take kind of ruins the mood of the argument, which is why the discourse keeps spinning in circles. With you spelling out the missing point, I realized this has happened to me here: of course this is a hard, systemic issue. But talking about death penalty let me conveniently forget about it for a moment, and feel like there's a simple solution. Which of course there is not. So thanks for that bucket of cold water :). -- [0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38674263 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38674263

TeMPOraL 3y ago

I mostly agree with you. I suppose I missed one important part in my comment - intent. A surviving pilot may not be blamed for a plane crash and associated deaths for merely being at fault. But I bet the story would be different if they did this intentionally, or intentionally allowed it to happen - we'd be talking murder / terrorism charges. Same in this case, I feel there's a difference between deaths of children as a result of lack of care or attention, vs. knowingly letting it happen because of personal gains.

wizzwizz4 3y ago
> A surviving pilot may not be blamed for a plane crash and associated deaths for merely being at fault. > In the years 1999–2015 the study found 65 cases of pilot suicide (compared to 195 pilot errors) and six cases of passengers who jumped from aircraft. There were 18 cases of homicide-suicide, totaling 732 deaths; of these events, 13 were perpetrated by pilots. Pragmatically, I don't see a difference. I couldn't give a shit about the perpetrators: they have lost the right to factor into my moral calculus. I care about the children not dying.
- TeMPOraL 3y ago
  Fair enough. I mean, I ultimately don't really want even more people to die over this. Rather, I want things like this to not happen. Ever. Death penalty sounds like a big step in this direction, in a world where white-collar crime isn't just not punished proportionally to the scale of damage, it's barely punished at all. I suppose it is a red herring, an idea of putting a band-aid on a much larger problem. I'll note however, that pilot suicide is a qualitatively different scenario than executive knowingly causing death of some people, somewhere, because it's easy enough to do it and profit off it. There's only so much you can do about the former - at some point, it's down to an individual, their emotional state, and a moment. However, in the latter case, the process is much more sober, takes more time, and it's doubtful the perpetrator is themselves suicidal.
  - wizzwizz4 3y ago
    In arguing against the death penalty for this, I was also missing the point: the criminal justice system is not the place for prevention, only retrospective (attempted) remedies. We should be thinking about how to restructure the system that makes white-collar mass murder (corporate homicide) possible. (The death penalty is bad for other reasons, and I don't feel this warrants an exception. But that's a different, and well-trodden, argument.) > There's only so much you can do about the former - at some point, it's down to an individual, their emotional state, and a moment. And yet, it is successfully averted by two-in-cockpit policies (excluding possibly China Eastern Airlines Flight 5735: investigations are still ongoing, so I'm not sure what went on there). If we can prevent this, we can prevent that.
    - TeMPOraL 3y ago
      It's ironic. Elsewhere today[0], I wrote about the problems where the correct take kind of ruins the mood of the argument, which is why the discourse keeps spinning in circles. With you spelling out the missing point, I realized this has happened to me here: of course this is a hard, systemic issue. But talking about death penalty let me conveniently forget about it for a moment, and feel like there's a simple solution. Which of course there is not. So thanks for that bucket of cold water :). -- [0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38674263 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38674263