I'm just now watching Psych.

[conuly]

"Who walks into a known cop bar to rob $42?"

Well, putting aside "Doug Adams fans" for a second, I'm guessing people who don't know how much money is in the register is a good bet. Sheesh.

It's the same thing with muggings. If it's found out later that the old man only had $20 in his wallet, people talk solemnly about whether or not "twenty dollars is the value of a human life". But if you've already killed the geezer you might as well take his cash, even if it turns out to be only $20 and not the apparently justifiable sum of $20,000. (What *is* the value of a human life, anyway? People talk like that like there's some amount of money that's okay to kill for.)

Comments

[leora.livejournal.com]

Actually, people put a value on human life all the time. Usually when deciding how much to spend on safety features versus what percentage chance it has of saving a life or preventing a major injury. We could be safer. We could lower those risks, but there is a point where it is not considered worth it. How much money for how much percentage chance of someone's life? And if there are enough users, that likely will be someone's life out there that that small percentage represents.

[conuly]

Yes, you're right, we do, although we don't like to admit it. But there's two types of "value of a person's life" we're talking about, I think. One - the "choosing what safety features" and the "choosing medicines" argument is more passive. The other - the "mugging people for fun and profit" argument is clearly more active. And less legal.

If somebody dies because their car's seatbelt failed, the manufacturer isn't guilty of murder, just maybe manslaughter or... I don't know, whatever it's called. If somebody dies because they were shot while defending their store - that's murder.

[leora.livejournal.com]

True. And I'm not going to defend the killing of someone else. Well, not generally. Certainly not in a case like that. Although I do have some sympathy for the case of a burglary or mugging gone wrong where no violence was intended if the person doing the robbing didn't really have choices and needed money for food, shelter, or other basic needs. I think if we took care of our people better, we'd have less crime. We'd still have crime, but I have sympathy for those who feel forced into it for a lack of decent options. But then, I did see Les Miserables three times when I was still fairly young.

[neurotica0.livejournal.com]

Negligent homicide, maybe.