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In high school, a friend of mine decided to kill himself. He wanted a painless, certain, instant death, so he drove down the freeway at 80mph, aimed his car at
by SiVal 13y ago
In high school, a friend of mine decided to kill himself. He wanted a painless, certain, instant death, so he drove down the freeway at 80mph, aimed his car at a giant (utterly immovable) concrete overpass piling and prepared to die. As soon as his car left the regular roadbed, it went out of control, sideswiped the bridge piling, flipped several times and came to rest upside down. Despite having gone through such violent acrobatics with no seatbelt or airbag, when his car came to a rest, he crawled out the window, dusted himself off, and cursed. A few scratches and small bruises.
He didn't try it again because, he later explained, he had discovered that an out-of-control car was just a random number generator, and he was terrified of a "partial" success that would leave him still alive but permanently incapacitated and forever dependent on others without the capacity to really live or really die.
I suspect that the powerful conspirators some people seem to suspect are well aware of my friend's lesson and are equally unwilling to tolerate a partial success. I don't believe they would risk so much on an out-of-control car and a simple tree.
- rl3 13y ago>I suspect that the powerful conspirators some people seem to suspect are well aware of my friend's lesson and are equally unwilling to tolerate a partial success. It depends on what constitutes success. Take this hypothetical: the target has a habit of driving lightly to moderately intoxicated. Assuming he or she survives, do you think anyone is going to believe this person's story about what actually happened when the toxicology report comes back saying they were intoxicated? No. The said conspirators would still reap partial success in the form of a clear message and chilling effect, not to mention inflicting potentially debilitating injuries or the resulting damage to the target's reputation. Hypotheticals aside, you're probably right. If an unlikely cabal of evil conspirators are going to go to such lengths, they likely would prefer a more predictable outcome.
- inafield 13y agoWhile I don't have a link to the studies at hand, I've seen it shown that being any amount of intoxicated generally makes people relaxed enough that they are able to handle better some of the forces of some types of automobile collisions.