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Because it hits at a core philosophical dilemma. Is it ok to kill one person because their organs will save the lives of 5 others?


Right, yesterday my neighbor shot a gun at me several times but since he missed and no one was hurt, it would have been utterly inappropriate for me to contact the authorities.


Being shot at (intentionally or otherwise) is entirely different than a car in front of you slowing to a stop.


One problem with this reasoning is that the researchers really didn't know what they were doing with 100% certainty. Their code could have accidentally affected the stability control subsystem that most cars have nowadays -- the one that's designed to apply full braking to a single wheel to recover from a skid. In fact, just corrupting the data from the steering-wheel angle sensor could have had that effect (which I personally find rather terrifying in itself.) Good job, guys, now you've caused a 70 MPH rollover in traffic.

The right way to do this would have been for the researchers to call the police up front and arrange a demonstration on a closed road with police escort. That would have lent the video more credibility and shielded the researchers from liability, while addressing any concerns about safety or ethics.


Firing a gun at someone is dangerous. A car slowing down and/or with reduced visibility on a busy highway is dangerous. Then either of these situations happen by accident, we understand that there's not a lot to do about them because there was no intentional behavior that needs correction. When they are purposefully done, that's endangering people, and is unacceptable behavior that needs correcting. In this respect, they are no different.


Lots of users don't seek medical treatment because they're afraid they'll be arrested.

I know this sounds unbelievable, but it's true... I found and called in the heroin overdose of two of my friends, and not only were the paramedics very leisurely in their response (walking slowly up the stairs to get to the bedroom where my friends were unconscious), but the cops threatened to charge me with selling the heroin to my friends. I believe they were bluffing in an attempt to get me to snitch on the person who really did sell it to them, but it's apparently not unprecedented for overdose victims to be charged with possession and the people who called it in to be charged with distribution.

Thinking about that night still makes me angry. It's one of maybe three really terrible experiences I've had with police in the US. My friends both lived, though one had his heart stop completely for 1.5 minutes and had to be revived via a Naloxone shot to the chest.


Considering that children forced into prostitution are sometimes charged with the crime of being a prostitute when the police 'save' them, I'm not surprised about this.


What you interpreted as "leisurely" was likely "caution". Overdoses can be very dynamic and dangerous scenes, and EMS will approach carefully. Did the extra 5 seconds have any impact on your friend's outcome?

I don't know what actually happened, but your description is not correct. "A Naloxone shot to the chest" is not something that is done.


I didn't witness the Naloxone shot so I don't doubt that you're right about that, but I know he got one because the cops told us and we found the empty syringe afterward.

I really don't feel like it was caution. The cops were already at the scene. I talked to the paramedics as they entered the house. The whole thing was conducted with a total lack of urgency -- I got the impression from the cops and the paramedics that they were just pissed off to be there, tired of dealing with stupid junkie kids.


So, how do you know his heart stopped?

He got Naloxone because he overdosed on an opiate... That is not the least bit surprising...


Because the police told us! And I'm also pretty sure my friend was told the same when he was at the hospital.

I should have left the part about the paramedics out because it's not really central to what I feel is important about that story -- that our laws exist in a way that makes drug users afraid to seek medical attention. I don't mean to malign the paramedics, and perhaps my perception of their behaviour was off since it was a really traumatic night for me.

You're free to believe me or not. With regard to the Naloxone thing, I told it that way because that's just how I thought Naloxone had to be administered... I guess I've seen too many stupid movies (Pulp Fiction in this case, perhaps). If you knew the full context of what happened it might make more sense. My friends had never done heroin before and I've never around people who do it either, so I don't know anybody who carries around Naloxone.


> I know this sounds unbelievable

It doesn't sound unbelievable at all.

I just wish the article had asked more questions and provided more information, rather than presenting the subject uncritically.


> I see little children having curiosity about those "cassetes" thing, but it is a five minutes thing.

That's quite a condescending and misinformed attitude. Tape recordings have never gone away in certain music scenes, and those scenes are occupied mostly by older music listeners for whom it's a matter nostalgia or aesthetic preference.

Tape hiss goes well with certain extreme styles of music, IMO.


I think that being unmanned is largely what makes it seem acceptable to engage in attacks on nations we aren't at war with (or rather, to not label it as a war when we attack them).


I've seen it happen too (from my parents no less, who I have replied to 100s of times), but not recently.

Yahoo's spam filter also does this.


Haha, haven't been around many black people eh? I've lived in and walked around in many black neighbourhoods, and I have never had any bad experiences.


Many large governments do this. The US does too probably:

"It has been reported that HBGary Federal was contracted by the U.S. government to develop astroturfing software which could create an "army" of multiple fake social media profiles.[36][37]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HBGary#Astroturfing


But this would be such a sinister thing - testing bioweapons on citizens - that catching an astroturfer would be a huge scandal. It wouldn't be worth the risk. This isn't fracking.

Downvoters: If you really think I'm wrong, then this is the story of the century. Stop whatever you're doing and start a doxxing effort against these astroturfers. You believe the government is literally trying to shape opinion in favor of killing its own citizenry. What could be more important than this story? Get to it. This is Pulitzer stuff.


There's actually still quite a bit of piracy on Youtube. Channels that do this will often crop the video, or change the pitch of the audio, to avoid flagging from Youtube's piracy detection algorithm. For example, I saw the film Citizen 4 relabelled as something generic like "Surveillance Documentary" and it had millions of views.


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