<The problem however is that "intelligent management" clause. For example, normally I'd have no problem with CDMA induced gene pool cleansing if it happened all by itself against concrete bridge abutments with nobody else around.
However that's not how it works, usually. >
Actually John, that is how it usually works. Usually being 75% of the time [assuming you are using 'concrete bridge abutments' as including poles, cliffs, backs of large trucks etc].
The death rates in NZ [and I'd be surprised if it's much different elsewhere] are worth sifting through to see what the kill rates are. For years I've kept an eye on them. Certain things show up. Most interestingly in regard to the topic:
Single vehicle deaths are about 75% of the deaths.
At the very worst, only 1 in 4 people are sacrificed like soldiers in the war against evil. At least 3 of 4 are the bad guys who caused the crash.
So there is in fact a rapid gene pool cleansing under way. But of the two vehicle collisions, I'd guess that over half the deaths are of the bad guy [and it more commonly is a guy]. So we're up to around 90% of the deaths are the bad guys.
I think over half the two-vehicle deaths are the bad guys because they are probably driving faster, more likely to not be wearing a seatbelt and truck drivers are usually obeying the rules. So head-ons with those are because the dead car driver was on the wrong side of the road at the wrong time.
90% is pretty good! Wars are taken on with worse odds than that.
Everything has a cost in lives. Opportunity cost included. So, while a cellphone call in a moving car might be an economic advantage rather than a life-saving call, the economic advantage translates into improved life expectancy. People say a price can't be put on life, but it is and everyone does it and it is not very high, even in the rich countries. They might not admit that they do it, but they do. They might not understand that they do, but they do.
The value of all cellphone calls by drivers in moving vehicles must be huge. That is the value, PLUS the consumer surplus, which is the value of what is achieved by those calls. Offset that against the cost in lives and we'll be able to make a more sensible judgement.
Because people aim to enhance their lives and their productivity rather than detract from them [of course there are exceptions, which is what the gene pool cleansing is about] we can safely assume that people do what is advantageous to them.
Since using a cellphone in a car doesn't spread costs onto other people or 'the commons' other than innocent victims who suffer death or injury [property damage falls on the cellphone user through insurance costs], we should trust people to make their own decisions. It's called freedom. Not popular in Kremlin-run societies or totalitarian countries or Islamic rule-based medievil serfdoms, but freedom and self-determination have developed quite a good track record.
Trusting the broad mass of people to decide how things should run is what democracy is about. They don't always make good choices, but in the long run they perhaps do. A bit like Buffett's idea of markets being a voting machine in the short run and a weighing machine in the long run. Democracy is a voting machine in the short run and a weighing machine in the long run. Short term decisions are often nuts. In the long run things seem to muddle through better than the Kremlin way.
Mqurice |
