Safety and Legal Issues

If I point a gun at somebody's head and pull the trigger, then they have
no choice in the matter: I have killed them.

If I ask someone to smoke a cigarette for 30 years, then they do have a
choice to say "no". Even after they have started smoking, they have a
choice to stop. Many, many people have stopped smoking, my father
included.

I have no more time for this discussion today. See ya.

Ron
******

Ryan Healey
02/14/02 09:40 AM
Please respond to spacesettlers

To: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
cc:
Subject: Re: [spacesettlers] Safety and Legal Issues

--- rmenich@... wrote:
> If I take a gun, point it at someone's head, and pull the trigger
> deliberately, that's called "killing".

It is.

> If a corporation makes millions of vehicles, and >99% of the people who
> use these vehicles never die in accidents, but a few thousand do, does
> that constitute "killing"? Careful with your semantics. A lot of
> fashionable people like to say that cigarette companies "kill" people. I

> don't subscribe to that idea one iota.

If the company knows that there is something wrong with the vehicle that
will
kill people and also knows how to fix it and can do so at a reasonable
cost
then not doing so is killing as far as I'm concerned. As for cigarette
companies they sell a product that is known to be kill people and they
also
actively attempt to get more people to use them. That sure sounds like
killing
to me, particulary since they could be lowering the amount of nicotine
instead
of adding more. They are making a conscious decision to let x number of
people
die so that they can make a profit. Sounds like killing to me. Besides
with
cars most of the people who use them don't get killed by them yet with
cancer
sticks many of the people who use them end up getting a very bad diesese
that
cuts short their life span by many years.

> I auto company A spent $x million on safety instead of $2x million on
> safety, and the differential in numbers of accidental deaths due to that

> differential in safety investment equated to 200 people --- not that
> anyone can really do such calculations --- does that constitute the
> company "killing" 200 extra people? Even if >99% of the people using
the
> vehicles never die?

Probably not as they had no knowledge of any substantial safety defects.