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With the greatest respect and sympathy for a guy who had to make a snap judgment in the moment, I have to question that judgment. He inflicted a terrible loss o

by dctoedt 13y ago

With the greatest respect and sympathy for a guy who had to make a snap judgment in the moment, I have to question that judgment. He inflicted a terrible loss on his own wife and family -- and to what end? Original article in the Merc: http://www.mercurynews.com/twitter/ci_24989424/tech-worker-k.. http://www.mercurynews.com/twitter/ci_24989424/tech-worker-k....

undoware 13y ago
...and yet, had he succeeded, we would be praising him. Google the 'moral luck' paradox, it applies here.
- gpmcadam 13y ago
  Come on, it's HN. If he had succeeded, the top comments would still have been critical in some way ;) (And yes, I understand the irony of this comment!)
  - chrismorgan 13y ago
    No—if he had succeeded, it wouldn't have been news.
belluchan 13y ago
You're getting downvoted, but I agree that we shouldn't be praising this kind of behavior out of context. The guy was unquestionably brave, had good intentions, but probably terrible judgement.
pragone 13y ago
I find your comment fascinating purely because it's a concept that I've never been able to understand. While I can begin to understand what you're saying about the loss he inflicted on his wife and family, the life he could have saved far outweighs that loss; as I said, I couldn't live my life any other way. I often try to wrap my head around the concept of putting myself and my family before my fellow man, but it's one that just doesn't come to me easily.
- gus_massa 13y ago
  For simplicity, let’s assume that you value all human equally. Then the question if not if he could have saved a life. The question is if (under similar circumstances) the probability of dying was less than the probability of saving the other person. I think it’s not reasonable to attempt a rescue with a 90% dying chance, knowing that there is only a 10% chance of success. On the other hand I think it’s reasonable to attempt a rescue with a 10% dying chance, knowing that there is a 90% chance of success. It’s very difficult to estimate the chances in this case, because we don’t know all the circumstances, the available information and the point of view. And it’s impossible to be sure how I would have reacted in the very short time that was available. And if you want a more complex model and don’t mind using made up numbers, I’d prefer to weight myself and my family members with 2 points, and give my daughter at least 5 points. Condolences to both families.
- hueving 13y ago
  The life of the survivor is more important than his? How can you make that kind of judgment? A person responsible for providing for a family has just as much social value as an arbitrary man hanging out on some railroad tracks. To mindlessly kill yourself for any person is pointless, especially if that person is already suicidal. The burden of knowing someone died to save you is not something depressed people cope with well.
doorhammer 13y ago
I upvoted you. I completely respect what this guy did, and honestly, hope I'd do the same, but I don't think we should ever avoid rational discussion about whether or not something really is the best thing to do, or just what feels like the right thing to do. Of course, I don't think anyone here, parent included, would be so tactless as to bring this up with anyone closely connected to the situation during their time of loss, but I don't think it's good to shy away from asking difficult moral questions.
- rdl 13y ago
  There is also a difference between doing nothing and doing things in a way which might be less effective than maximum effort but which would be safer for yourself. e.g. if I'm alone and unarmed, and I see someone stopped involuntarily by the side of the road and relatively safe, in a bad area, in a normal-to-sketchy car, etc., I will probably call the police to report it, rather than stopping myself. If I see an elderly person in a rich area in a non-threatening car with a flat tire, I'll possibly stop and offer to help, or at least put better flares or whatever behind his car and make sure he's ok for water/health while waiting. If I see an actual accident in realtime, or the aftermath of an obvious accident, with likely trauma to passengers, I'll almost always stop (unless police/paramedics are already there). Similarly, if someone was standing on the tracks with an approaching train, I'd verbally command him how to GTFO, and possibly belt/bag-as-rope, but particularly if it were an adult stranger who is potentially suicidal or otherwise unlikely to cooperate, I'd be instinctively reluctant to get in front of the train myself. Someone who accidentally fell would scare me less, but would also be more likely to be able to get out on his own or with assistance from the platform. But the time to make all these decisions is well in advance of the incident; what level of comfort you have with different kinds of threats, skills in dealing with things, etc. I'd probably be more comfortable with water rescues (since I actually trained for this as a dive master) than most people, but less comfortable dealing with crazy/mentally unstable people, and more comfortable with end-a-hostile-threat vs. prevent-self-harm.
rdl 13y ago
People make mistakes, and "in the heat of the moment" is exactly the time when people don't have time to rather all the facts and rationally evaluate them for likely outcomes. I've accepted what I thought at the time was a relatively low risk to myself to extricate someone, and it later turned out to have been vastly more dangerous than I'd thought originally. I made a quick assessment of the risks and my capabilities, was wrong, and got lucky. (I generally weight my own survival disproportionately highly vs. that of others, too, so I don't think I'm really reckless.) I judge people much more harshly for situations where they have a long time to reflect and choose not to. In this case, he probably either thought the train was slowing/stopping, and thus he'd have more time, or that he could extricate the person more quickly than he did. It might be the case that what he did had a high expected chance of success and he was just unlucky, or he had wrong information in the instants before, or overestimated his abilities, or underestimated the difficulty, or just had bad judgement; we probably won't know.
lvs 13y ago
You believe you're hiding behind some kind of moral high-ground by making reference to his wife and family, all while criticizing a man who gave his life for a stranger. What a sickening sentiment you've seen fit to express publicly. A society based on your moral code would be no better than anarchy. If someone sticks out their neck someday for you, risking it all, will you perhaps be capable of a humanist thought then?
- ryanjshaw 13y ago
  Given the lack of details presented in the article the GP linked to, and the many scenarios I can think of which on the surface would have appeared "risky but not Darwin Award risky", I must conclude that either GP is psychic or is feeling insecure about knowing he'd never make the same decision in the presumed scenario that so many here are respecting, and is attempting to protect his self-esteem by asserting his perspective is the only rational perspective.
- DerpDerpDerp 13y ago
  The first thing they teach you about rescuing drowning people is to make sure you don't drown too. How is this any different? It's entirely possible that he made an error in judgment, and made the whole situation worse because there are two people wounded (well, one dead, one wounded), while despite any attempt he made, there would have been at least one. I wouldn't want someone to try to save me if I were going to die either way, and they were going to die if they tried.
  - bdcravens 13y ago
    The first thing they teach you about rescuing drowning people is to make sure you don't drown too. Key difference is that this probably wasn't something he was _taught_. He was acting purely in the moment. I think was you take that first step you tend to throw out risk assessment. Once you've looked someone in the eye, made whatever thread of personal connection, to then walk away and choose to let them die is possibly worse than death to some.
    - 13y ago
nate_meurer 13y ago
Decisions that people make in the "rescuing someone from the tracks in front of a fast approaching train" scenario cannot, in my humble opinion, be productively analyzed in the context of our ordinary lives. The situation is simply too extraordinary, and I'm not even sure "judgment" in the normal sense is a term that can be usefully applied to many folks in this situation. Take all of your fears, drives, and insecurities, add your unreliable risk-assessing abilities (common to most humans) and an amount of adrenaline that many of us will never experience, and cram them into the space of seconds in the face of certain death, in front of an audience. I simply don't see the use of second-guessing a decision made under those circumstances. For example, it could well be that someone "freezes" in motion, unable to discontinue the effort, compelled by adrenaline and emotion and whatever else. I've experienced this myself in far less serious situations. Or it could be Mr. Scholz was in complete control of his faculties, and made a ordered, rational decision to keep up the effort at all costs. We'll never know. It's fun to think about what I might do, but I have no way to relate to the actions of someone else. It's just too complicated.
- dctoedt 13y ago
  > Take all of your fears, drives, and insecurities, add your unreliable risk-assessing abilities (common to most humans) and an amount of adrenaline that many of us will never experience, and cram them into the space of seconds in the face of certain death, in front of an audience. I simply don't see the use of second-guessing a decision made under those circumstances. That's why you have to try to war-game these things in advance -- because in the heat of the moment you won't have time or capability to analyze them rationally. (It's the same reason why athletes and soldiers and sailors train incessantly, so that they can rely largely on trained pattern recognition, a.k.a. reflex.) ---- > It's fun to think about what I might do, but I have no way to relate to the actions of someone else. It's just too complicated. Um, OK.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
- dctoedt 13y ago
  > Have you thought about that person's life? about his family? Yes I have -- and I've decided that for purposes of governing my conduct, in nearly all circumstances, my duty to my own family unquestionably takes priority over my duty to an adult stranger's family. EDIT: And so there's no confusion, I would expect the same if the roles were reversed -- if I were trapped on a railroad track with a train bearing down on me, I'd be really pissed if some other dad (or mom) were to put his own life at grave risk to try to save mine. Just because circumstances are about to inflict a loss on my family doesn't justify his risking the same for his.
squintychino 13y ago
I hope if I'm ever in trouble that you're not around. Because if you are, I'm as good as dead while you think about what the best judgement call is. This man acted bravely by trying to save this stranger, this fellow human being. Since no one else stepped up to help (or did I miss the part in the article where it talked about everyone trying to lend a helping hand?) he took it upon himself to do the decent HUMAN thing and try to help. It's easy to criticize and pick apart this man's actions and judgement from behind your keyboard and after the fact. This man did a brave thing that had bad consequences. Yes it's a sad loss for this family, but this man is a hero in my book. He died trying to help people, regardless of whether he knew them or not.
- dctoedt 13y ago
  > Yes it's a sad loss for this family, but this man is a hero in my book. Out of curiosity, are you married? Do you have kids, or aging parents, or anyone else to whom you feel any sense of long-term duty? I'm not trying to be snarky, just to assess where you're coming from.
mcphilip 13y ago
I don't think it's possible to evaluate the mindset of the individual attempting the rescue from the side line. All rational thought may have fled his mind and he was acting on pure impulse. The only reason I speculate that might be the case was when I was held at gunpoint (long story), my mind immediately switched to a "detached observer" point of view. No fear or heroism, just observation of events.
noonespecial 13y ago
The man he tried to rescue had a family too. Sometimes you double down when you think the odds are in your favor. It's sad that turned out not to be the case this time.
- silvertonia 13y ago
  Or it was the case, it was the perfectly right thing to do, and he just got unlucky.
learningram 13y ago
Reminds me of the kid in China that was run over by two trucks and no one cared http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Wang_Yue http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Wang_Yue

by dctoedt 13y ago

undoware 13y ago

...and yet, had he succeeded, we would be praising him. Google the 'moral luck' paradox, it applies here.

gpmcadam 13y ago
Come on, it's HN. If he had succeeded, the top comments would still have been critical in some way ;) (And yes, I understand the irony of this comment!)
- chrismorgan 13y ago
  No—if he had succeeded, it wouldn't have been news.

belluchan 13y ago

You're getting downvoted, but I agree that we shouldn't be praising this kind of behavior out of context. The guy was unquestionably brave, had good intentions, but probably terrible judgement.

pragone 13y ago

I find your comment fascinating purely because it's a concept that I've never been able to understand. While I can begin to understand what you're saying about the loss he inflicted on his wife and family, the life he could have saved far outweighs that loss; as I said, I couldn't live my life any other way. I often try to wrap my head around the concept of putting myself and my family before my fellow man, but it's one that just doesn't come to me easily.

gus_massa 13y ago
For simplicity, let’s assume that you value all human equally. Then the question if not if he could have saved a life. The question is if (under similar circumstances) the probability of dying was less than the probability of saving the other person. I think it’s not reasonable to attempt a rescue with a 90% dying chance, knowing that there is only a 10% chance of success. On the other hand I think it’s reasonable to attempt a rescue with a 10% dying chance, knowing that there is a 90% chance of success. It’s very difficult to estimate the chances in this case, because we don’t know all the circumstances, the available information and the point of view. And it’s impossible to be sure how I would have reacted in the very short time that was available. And if you want a more complex model and don’t mind using made up numbers, I’d prefer to weight myself and my family members with 2 points, and give my daughter at least 5 points. Condolences to both families.
hueving 13y ago
The life of the survivor is more important than his? How can you make that kind of judgment? A person responsible for providing for a family has just as much social value as an arbitrary man hanging out on some railroad tracks. To mindlessly kill yourself for any person is pointless, especially if that person is already suicidal. The burden of knowing someone died to save you is not something depressed people cope with well.

doorhammer 13y ago

I upvoted you. I completely respect what this guy did, and honestly, hope I'd do the same, but I don't think we should ever avoid rational discussion about whether or not something really is the best thing to do, or just what feels like the right thing to do. Of course, I don't think anyone here, parent included, would be so tactless as to bring this up with anyone closely connected to the situation during their time of loss, but I don't think it's good to shy away from asking difficult moral questions.

rdl 13y ago
There is also a difference between doing nothing and doing things in a way which might be less effective than maximum effort but which would be safer for yourself. e.g. if I'm alone and unarmed, and I see someone stopped involuntarily by the side of the road and relatively safe, in a bad area, in a normal-to-sketchy car, etc., I will probably call the police to report it, rather than stopping myself. If I see an elderly person in a rich area in a non-threatening car with a flat tire, I'll possibly stop and offer to help, or at least put better flares or whatever behind his car and make sure he's ok for water/health while waiting. If I see an actual accident in realtime, or the aftermath of an obvious accident, with likely trauma to passengers, I'll almost always stop (unless police/paramedics are already there). Similarly, if someone was standing on the tracks with an approaching train, I'd verbally command him how to GTFO, and possibly belt/bag-as-rope, but particularly if it were an adult stranger who is potentially suicidal or otherwise unlikely to cooperate, I'd be instinctively reluctant to get in front of the train myself. Someone who accidentally fell would scare me less, but would also be more likely to be able to get out on his own or with assistance from the platform. But the time to make all these decisions is well in advance of the incident; what level of comfort you have with different kinds of threats, skills in dealing with things, etc. I'd probably be more comfortable with water rescues (since I actually trained for this as a dive master) than most people, but less comfortable dealing with crazy/mentally unstable people, and more comfortable with end-a-hostile-threat vs. prevent-self-harm.

rdl 13y ago

People make mistakes, and "in the heat of the moment" is exactly the time when people don't have time to rather all the facts and rationally evaluate them for likely outcomes. I've accepted what I thought at the time was a relatively low risk to myself to extricate someone, and it later turned out to have been vastly more dangerous than I'd thought originally. I made a quick assessment of the risks and my capabilities, was wrong, and got lucky. (I generally weight my own survival disproportionately highly vs. that of others, too, so I don't think I'm really reckless.) I judge people much more harshly for situations where they have a long time to reflect and choose not to. In this case, he probably either thought the train was slowing/stopping, and thus he'd have more time, or that he could extricate the person more quickly than he did. It might be the case that what he did had a high expected chance of success and he was just unlucky, or he had wrong information in the instants before, or overestimated his abilities, or underestimated the difficulty, or just had bad judgement; we probably won't know.

lvs 13y ago

You believe you're hiding behind some kind of moral high-ground by making reference to his wife and family, all while criticizing a man who gave his life for a stranger. What a sickening sentiment you've seen fit to express publicly. A society based on your moral code would be no better than anarchy. If someone sticks out their neck someday for you, risking it all, will you perhaps be capable of a humanist thought then?

ryanjshaw 13y ago
Given the lack of details presented in the article the GP linked to, and the many scenarios I can think of which on the surface would have appeared "risky but not Darwin Award risky", I must conclude that either GP is psychic or is feeling insecure about knowing he'd never make the same decision in the presumed scenario that so many here are respecting, and is attempting to protect his self-esteem by asserting his perspective is the only rational perspective.
DerpDerpDerp 13y ago
The first thing they teach you about rescuing drowning people is to make sure you don't drown too. How is this any different? It's entirely possible that he made an error in judgment, and made the whole situation worse because there are two people wounded (well, one dead, one wounded), while despite any attempt he made, there would have been at least one. I wouldn't want someone to try to save me if I were going to die either way, and they were going to die if they tried.
- bdcravens 13y ago
  The first thing they teach you about rescuing drowning people is to make sure you don't drown too. Key difference is that this probably wasn't something he was _taught_. He was acting purely in the moment. I think was you take that first step you tend to throw out risk assessment. Once you've looked someone in the eye, made whatever thread of personal connection, to then walk away and choose to let them die is possibly worse than death to some.
  - 13y ago

nate_meurer 13y ago

Decisions that people make in the "rescuing someone from the tracks in front of a fast approaching train" scenario cannot, in my humble opinion, be productively analyzed in the context of our ordinary lives. The situation is simply too extraordinary, and I'm not even sure "judgment" in the normal sense is a term that can be usefully applied to many folks in this situation. Take all of your fears, drives, and insecurities, add your unreliable risk-assessing abilities (common to most humans) and an amount of adrenaline that many of us will never experience, and cram them into the space of seconds in the face of certain death, in front of an audience. I simply don't see the use of second-guessing a decision made under those circumstances. For example, it could well be that someone "freezes" in motion, unable to discontinue the effort, compelled by adrenaline and emotion and whatever else. I've experienced this myself in far less serious situations. Or it could be Mr. Scholz was in complete control of his faculties, and made a ordered, rational decision to keep up the effort at all costs. We'll never know. It's fun to think about what I might do, but I have no way to relate to the actions of someone else. It's just too complicated.

dctoedt 13y ago
> Take all of your fears, drives, and insecurities, add your unreliable risk-assessing abilities (common to most humans) and an amount of adrenaline that many of us will never experience, and cram them into the space of seconds in the face of certain death, in front of an audience. I simply don't see the use of second-guessing a decision made under those circumstances. That's why you have to try to war-game these things in advance -- because in the heat of the moment you won't have time or capability to analyze them rationally. (It's the same reason why athletes and soldiers and sailors train incessantly, so that they can rely largely on trained pattern recognition, a.k.a. reflex.) ---- > It's fun to think about what I might do, but I have no way to relate to the actions of someone else. It's just too complicated. Um, OK.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

dctoedt 13y ago
> Have you thought about that person's life? about his family? Yes I have -- and I've decided that for purposes of governing my conduct, in nearly all circumstances, my duty to my own family unquestionably takes priority over my duty to an adult stranger's family. EDIT: And so there's no confusion, I would expect the same if the roles were reversed -- if I were trapped on a railroad track with a train bearing down on me, I'd be really pissed if some other dad (or mom) were to put his own life at grave risk to try to save mine. Just because circumstances are about to inflict a loss on my family doesn't justify his risking the same for his.

squintychino 13y ago

I hope if I'm ever in trouble that you're not around. Because if you are, I'm as good as dead while you think about what the best judgement call is. This man acted bravely by trying to save this stranger, this fellow human being. Since no one else stepped up to help (or did I miss the part in the article where it talked about everyone trying to lend a helping hand?) he took it upon himself to do the decent HUMAN thing and try to help. It's easy to criticize and pick apart this man's actions and judgement from behind your keyboard and after the fact. This man did a brave thing that had bad consequences. Yes it's a sad loss for this family, but this man is a hero in my book. He died trying to help people, regardless of whether he knew them or not.

dctoedt 13y ago
> Yes it's a sad loss for this family, but this man is a hero in my book. Out of curiosity, are you married? Do you have kids, or aging parents, or anyone else to whom you feel any sense of long-term duty? I'm not trying to be snarky, just to assess where you're coming from.

mcphilip 13y ago

I don't think it's possible to evaluate the mindset of the individual attempting the rescue from the side line. All rational thought may have fled his mind and he was acting on pure impulse. The only reason I speculate that might be the case was when I was held at gunpoint (long story), my mind immediately switched to a "detached observer" point of view. No fear or heroism, just observation of events.

noonespecial 13y ago

The man he tried to rescue had a family too. Sometimes you double down when you think the odds are in your favor. It's sad that turned out not to be the case this time.

silvertonia 13y ago
Or it was the case, it was the perfectly right thing to do, and he just got unlucky.

learningram 13y ago

Reminds me of the kid in China that was run over by two trucks and no one cared http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Wang_Yue http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Wang_Yue