Thanks for that, Debbie Downer! I hope he's ok anyway.
Maybe we should start putting airbags in bumpers (bearbags?).

Such a shame they had airbags...

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

If this is the same thing as a Honda Jazz in Australia, they're not shabby for safety. Monocoque construction, ESP and lots of airbags.

It's not a "Pedestrian Airbag", it's a car airbag to protect my car from getting damaged when I hit you.

Airbags!

I'd love to feel an airbag go off in my face.

Boof... Boof!

Same here only it was 18 years ago.

There was a kid in my school, a few years older than I, who had a pretty bad accident but was fortunate to only have a broken rib. Why? Because his hand was in front of the wheel went the airbag deployed and he punched himself in the chest at a couple hundred miles an hour.

I would love to see a study where people accustomed to each driving position have to respond to SURPRISE obstacles. Maybe 8 and 4 doesn't have as many bloody noses when the airbag deploys, but I'd wager 10-2 doesn't have as many airbag deployments.

@hpqp
I am not at all ashamed of my verbose, self-indulgent dross, so here we go!

Something has to be extra-physical, as least based on our current model. I can fully accept that a brain by itself can receive sensory input, process it against memory, and thus act in a completely human way indistinguishable from a conscious human, but on its own can literally be no more "conscious" than a river flowing down a mountain. Our current view of the physical universe does not tolerate any rational physical explanation of consciousness. Any given moment of human experience - the unified sensory experience and stream of consciousness - does not exist in a single place at a single instant. To suggest that the atoms\molecules\proteins\cells of the brain experience themselves in a unified manner based on their proximity to or electrochemical interaction with each other is magical thinking. Atoms don't do that, and that's all that's there, physically.
I disagree that consciousness is subordinate to cognition in terms of value. Cognition is what makes us who we are and behave as we do, but consciousness is what makes us different from the rest of the jiggling matter in the universe.

A couple of posts back, you challenged my statement about abstinence education as demonstrating a lack of pragmatism. I didn't really address it in my reply, but I'd prefaced it with the understanding that it's not a magical incantation. I know people are still going to have sex, but I suggested that has to be a part of education. People have to know that you can still get pregnant even if you're using the contraceptives that are available. They have to at least know the possibility exists. It's one more thing for them to consider. People are still going to drive recklessly even if you tell them they can crash and kill themselves despite their airbags, seatbelts, and crumple zones, but that doesn't mean it's not worth it to educate them about the possibility. I fail to see how that's not pragmatic.

I didn't reply to your comment about adoption vs abortion because I'm not sure there's anything else to add on either side. As I've said, my beliefs on this are such that even a grossly flawed adoption\orphan care system is preferable to the alternative, even if it means that approximately 10 times the number of children would enter the system than have traditionally been adopted each year. (1.4M abortions annually in the US, ~140K adoptions, but there are several assumptions in that math that wouldn't hold up to scrutiny.) Many right and just things have unpleasant consequences that must be managed. (The typical counter here is that Pro-Lifers tend to also be fiscal\social conservatives and won't fund social services to care for these new individuals they've "protected" into existence. That's just another issue of taking responsibility for the consequences of choices. If they get what they want, they need to be held to account, but it's a separate issue. A related issue, but a separate issue.)

Criminalizing\prohibiting almost any activity results in some degree of risky\dangerous\destructive behavior. Acts must be criminalized because there are individuals who would desire to perform those acts which have been determined to be an unnecessary imposition on the rights of another. Criminalization does not eliminate the desire, but it adds a new factor to consideration. Some will decide the criminalization\prohibition of the act is not sufficient deterrent, but in proceeding, are likely to do so in a different manner than otherwise. The broad consideration is whether the benefits of criminalization\prohibition outweigh the risks posed to\by the percentage who will proceed anyway. Prohibition of alcohol failed the test, I expect the prohibition of certain drugs will be shown to have failed the test..eventually. Incest is illegal, and the "unintended" consequence is freaks locking their families in sheds and basements in horrific conditions, but I think most of us would agree the benefits outweigh the detriment there.

Is putting all would-have-been-aborteds up for adoption abhorrent or absurd? The hump we'll never get over is asking "is it more abhorrent than aborting all of them", because we have different viewpoints on the relative values in play. But is it even a valid question? They won't all be put up for adoption. Some percentage (possibly 5-10 percent) will spontaneously miscarry\abort anyway and some percentage would be raised by a birth parent or by the extended family after all. An initially unwanted pregnancy does not necessarily equate to an unwanted child, for a number of reasons. I do not have statistics on what proportion could be expected to be put up for adoption. Would you happen to? It seems like that would be difficult to extrapolate.

The "'potential' shtick" carries weight in my view because of the uniqueness of the situation. There is no consensus on the "best" way to define when elective abortion is "acceptable". Sagan puts weight on cognition as indicative of personhood. As he states, the Supreme Court set its date based on independent "viability". (More specifically, I feel it should be noted, "potential" viability.) These milestones coincide only by coincidence.
Why is it so easy for us, as you say, to retroproject? And why is this any different from assigning personhood to each of a million individual sperm? For me, it's because of those statistics on miscarriage linked above. The retroprojected "potential" is represented by "percentages". At 3-6 weeks, without deliberate intervention 90% of those masses of cells will go on to become a human being. At 6-12 it's 95%. This is more than strictly "potential", it's nearly guaranteed.

I expect your response will be uncomfortable for both of us, but I wish you would expound on why my "It Gets Better" comparison struck you as inappropriate. Crude, certainly - I'll admit to phrasing it indelicately, even insensitively. I do not think it poorly considered, however. The point of "It Gets Better" is to let LGBT youth know that life does not remain oppressive, negative, and confusing, and that happiness and fulfillment lie ahead if they will only persevere.
It's necessary because as humans, we aren't very good at imagining we'll ever be happy again when surrounded by uncertainty and despair, or especially recognizing the good already around us. We can only see torment, and may not see the point in perpetuating a seemingly-unending chain of suffering when release is so close at hand, though violence against self (or others).
This directly parallels the "quality of life" arguments posed from the pro-choice perspective. They take an isolated slice of life from a theoretical unplanned child and their mother and suggest that this is their lot and that we've increased suffering in the universe, as if no abused child will ever know a greater love, or no poor child will ever laugh and play, and that no mother of an unwanted pregnancy will ever enjoy life again, burdened and poverty-stricken as she is.
As you said, we're expecting a woman to reflect "on what would her and the eventual child’s quality of life be like", but we're so bad at that.
And all that quality-of-life discussion is assuming we've even nailed the demographic on who is seeking abortions in the U.S.
Getting statistics from the Guttmacher Institute, we find that 77% were at or above the federal poverty level and 60% already had at least one child.

On a moral level, absolutely, eugenics is very different debate.
On a practical level, the eugenics angle is relevant because it's indistinguishable from any other elective abortion. Someone who is terminating a pregnancy because their child would be a girl, or gay, or developmentally disabled can very easily say "I'm just not ready for motherhood." And who's to say that's not the mother's prerogative as much as any other elective abortion, if she's considering the future quality of life for herself and the child? "It sucks for girls\gays\downs in today's society and I don't think I can personally handle putting them through that," or more likely "My family and I could never love a child like that, so they would be unloved and I would be miserable for it. This is better for both of us."
Can we write that off as hopefully being yet another edge case? (Keep in mind possibly 65% of individuals seeking abortion declare as Protestant or Catholic, though other statistics show how unreliable "reported religious affiliation" is with regard to actual belief and practice.)

_{"Argumentation"? I have learned a new word today, thanks to hpqp. High five!}

Wrong!

Orion is designed to come down on land using airbags.

>> ^bamdrew:

eeek, check out the passenger side of the front windshield... possibly someone wearing a white shirt launched forward from the backseat


airbag

Measuring the effectiveness of a current ad campaign by comparing macro trends that have going on for decades isn't going to be accurate. Useful data would need to be obtained by measuring drivers' behavior after viewing the two ads.

Most psychologists would probably say driver behavior will be more influenced by high threat of financial loss (loss aversion) than a soft, artful depiction of an unlikely event that speeders assume can't happen to them.

If there's a lower rate of seatbelt use in the US, it's probably due to hard reasons like the higher average education level among drivers in Europe and Japan, where car use is more expensive.


Anybody conscientious enough to appreciate an artistic ad has probably only very rarely met the kind of person who doesn't wear their seatbelt.

>> ^jubuttib:

>> ^chilaxe:
If we look at the data, the American commercials likely produce more of the desired result.

I wouldn't be so sure about that. While I don't have hard data at hand, there is one big difference in American and European cars that is related to this: Airbags. The American airbag is designed to be able to stop an adult that is not wearing a seatbelt, because so many people don't use the darn things. European and Japanese cars on the other hand have much less powerful airbags, that are designed to cope with someone that is wearing their seatbelt. Cars that are imported to the States often get the "America spec" airbag added because of this. This would suggest that using seatbelts is vastly less common in the States.

>> ^chilaxe:

If we look at the data, the American commercials likely produce more of the desired result.


I wouldn't be so sure about that. While I don't have hard data at hand, there is one big difference in American and European cars that is related to this: Airbags. The American airbag is designed to be able to stop an adult that is not wearing a seatbelt, because so many people don't use the darn things. European and Japanese cars on the other hand have much less powerful airbags, that are designed to cope with someone that is wearing their seatbelt. Cars that are imported to the States often get the "America spec" airbag added because of this. This would suggest that using seatbelts is vastly less common in the States.

Gyms and diet drug manufacturers get dollar signs in their eyes when they hear that more Americans are obese or overweight. Dentists get dollar signs in their eyes when they hear that kids are eating more sugar and drinking more soft drinks. Airbag manufacturers get dollar signs in their eyes whenever there is a fatal highway accident. US grain farmers get dollar signs in their eyes when they hear there is a famine in China or Russia. Munitions manufacturers get dollar signs in their eyes every time we take a step closer to the inevitable next war with North Korea, Iran, or whoever else.

People investing in "terrible" things that make you more money when situations go from bad to worse, and companies that try to sell shares to investors based on the cynical assumption that things are going downhill fail to shock or dismay me. On the other hand, companies that spend boatloads of money lobbying to ensure that things actually do go from bad to worse deserve all the ire we can muster. So I guess that the bigger problem that I see here is the incredible extent that we've allowed lobbying, "campaign financing", etc. to corrupt and subvert our governmental system.

>> ^grinter:

>> ^westy:
I know these devises work and are excellent.
however in this case I think its highly unlikely she would have been seriously hurt /substaintaily berried without the bag.
The snow didn't have much of a chance to brake up and envelop here and was mostly large chunks rolling down the hill side , not giving much of an opertunity for the bag to really function.
obviously someone can die stuck under just a small amount of snow , There are far far more impressive demonstrations of the technology actually working with dummies falling down huge mountines in massive avalanches.

Do you have a link to one of those demos?