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Comment Re:Please quit conflating TV's and monitors. (Score 1) 207

It's great for coding, webdesign or anything where you are interacting with two or more windows at the same time.

My coding days are more or less over, but I still find it very useful in almost all tasks. Keeping everything you're working on visible is a great productivity booster. I've had my monitor for roughly 3 months, and it has already paid for itself.

Comment Re:Bad example (Score 1) 800

I guess drawing the line in instances like this is difficult, but here is my thoughts:

* If you are passing by a car accident or someone bleeding out in the street, action is required (often by law - depending on the country / state).
* If you're parking your car in a downhill street, you're required to engage the handbrake/emergency brake before leaving the car - action required of you to avoid hurting other people.

As the chain of actions (or people) between the (missing) action and the outcome grows, our perceived responsibility is diminished. The same is true if the distance (or time) from us to where (when) the impact is felt increases. As you pointed out, we need some kind of filter - or the consequences of all our inactions would crush our sanity.

Comment Re:Bad example (Score 1) 800

Completely agree.

Our sense of responsibility only stretches a certain distance (or time) from ourselves. We don't let ourselves be affected by deaths far from us (either in time or distance), even if we could have (contributed) to preventing it. There are certainly interesting moral discussions to be had about that trait, but I think we would have been driven insane if we didn't have a filter like that.

Some inactions are more easily identifiable as bad, for instance not pulling the handbrake when parking in a downhill street.
Not assisting someone who's been badly injured (car accident for instance) would be criminal inaction where I'm from, but it's not like that everywhere.

Comment Re:Car driver ethics: What do I hit? (Score 1) 800

For my example I assumed identical cars and velocities, and a head-on collision. That should have been stated.
My point was that equating the other vehicle with an immovable barrier is only correct for a very specific case, and as you pointed out - I'd forgotten to include all the details (head- on collision with identical speed, mass, crumple zones, elasticity etc).

Mass, speed and angle of impact matters. GPs statement of "mass of the object you're striking isn't relevant" is wrong.

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