Nope. I don't feel bad for him.

Hey stupid, if you survive, next time try to make sure the driver is looking in your general direction before flopping out of view underneath their bumper.

Hilarious. Enjoy your exhaust burns.....

*asia

Adding video to channels (Asia) - requested by ant.

I don't know, his payday just got bigger.

Maybe it didn't go as planned, but it went perfectly!
There's no payday for human speed bumps.

Karma says: "I love it when a plan comes together."

Well, I do.

Yes, he's a con artist and a fucking idiot, but let's get some perspective here. He tried to scam an insurance company, he didn't assault or rape someone. He deserves jail time, not to be run over.

He's still a human being and he's still going to be incredibly seriously injured.

He's going to be incredibly seriously injured because he did something incredibly stupid. Whether he "deserved" to be run over or not, it occurred because of his actions; he placed himself in harm's way for no good reason. That doesn't deserve sympathy.

The consequences were way out of proportion to the severity of his actions. Everyone has done something stupid in their lives; most of us get a second chance to be less stupid.

Put it this way, if a cop had shot him for pickpocketing someone, would you feel the same?

What?! The consequence was a direct result of his actions. If I lie down on the road in front of a car, I expect to get run over. That's a natural consequence of lying down on a surface designed for the carriage of motor vehicles.

Your analogy of a cop shooting someone for pickpocketing makes no sense; no-one made the conscious decision to run over him. If he picked someone's pocket, and in attempting to get away ran out onto the road and got hit by car I'd feel the same, because running out onto a road without looking is stupid and dangerous and likely to result in serious injury, just like throwing yourself on the road in front of a car.

No one made a conscious decision to run him over? Okay, lets say a cop pulls a gun and his foot slips a bit, and he fires the gun accidentally straight into the pickpocket. You yourself imply that now the analogy is equal...

But even if it is not even, this is what it boils down to:
A completely incompetent driver, worse than a 90 year old blind man with chronic seizures, is out there driving. That is pretty evident and only an idiot would disagree with the video showing overwhelming proof. Therefore, this woman should NEVER, EVER drive. I would have hated that to be some seven-eight year old kid that she "did not see."

At the same time I understand @ChaosEngine, even if I somewhat disagree with him. The car could have easily crushed his head like a melon, left him a vegetable for the state to take of forever, and the funny part of that is even a rapist doesn't get that sentence. Obviously everyone here is for corporal punishment and the death penalty--if you believe this "karma" punishment is appropriate.

That is exactly my point. I'm not saying it wasn't his fault, I'm saying the price he paid was exceedingly high. He did something stupid and greedy, yes, but that doesn't mean he should be paralysed or even killed for it.

If the car had run over his foot or the guy filming turned out to be working for the insurance company and sued him or something, that would be karma and I'd be right there agreeing that he got what he deserved.

Yes, I'd have more sympathy if he wasn't such an assclown but I don't believe anyone deserves what happened to him.

As Clint Eastwood said as William Munny:

Deserve's got nothing to do with it.

I feel like I've tried to make this rather fine point a lot over the years on the Sift: I'm not saying he *should* or *deserves to* be run over by a car for trying to pull a con.

What I'm saying is he put himself into a situation where he could get run over by a car and did so of his own volition with blatant malicious intent. The fact that his pretending to get run over by a car actually resulted in him getting run over by a car yields zero sympathy with me.

Plus, I'm not sure what country you're in or if you're automotively insured, but if you are at fault of hitting someone with your car, you'll be screwed with insurance and paying a significantly higher rater for several years to come. It's not like a bank where your money is insured by the federal government and a robbery of the vault wouldn't affect you; the victim of an insurance scam is directly, immediately, and significantly fucked.

(Someone used my name when they were apparently at fault in an accident before I'd ever gotten my first insurance policy, and when I did first try to get insured, my premium was something like triple what it would've cost me otherwise.)

Again, not saying that ^that means he deserves to be crushed by a car, but he did it to himself. (Likewise, if he was playing Russian roulette and shot himself in the head, I wouldn't feel bad for him.)

You reap what you sow.

It would indeed be wildly malicious of anyone to say that he *deserved* to be run over, as if this were a necessary and required repercussion to his action. I would hope that everyone here would avoid running him over if they were in such a position, regardless of how stupid the pedestrian is being.

However, I believe that Lucky, who started this chain, had a highly valid point. If this person were mentally retarded and wasn't able to recognize this as a bad decision, this would indeed be a time for pity. However, when someone knowingly makes a bad decision, a person is certainly less deserving of our pity. Wishing the entire incident didn't happen would certainly be called for, but that person knew he was doing something bad when he was doing it. Perhaps we could instead pity the driver, who now must live with the horror that she has potentially killed or crippled a young man, with only a small amount of fault on her part (checking for people diving under your car isn't a normal part of making a left turn). The psychological repercussions of this will keep with her for the rest of her life.

Just read the rest of this conversation and totally agree with @Tusker.

The pickpocket analogy is no analogy for this situation. For it to be even relatable, the criminal would have to attempt and fail to pick the pocket of a police officer in uniform, then run out onto a shooting range where the officer then mistakenly shoots him without being aware the guy tried to pick his pocket.

But climb into an alligator pit? You don't *deserve* to be eaten, but if you are, how can I feel sorry for you when you made a conscious, concerted effort to put yourself into the position where that could happen to you and there's no possible way it would have ever happened to you otherwise.

I do pity the driver, and I disagree with @Lawdeedaw that she was completely incompetent. She was focusing on traffic coming from the opposite direction (i.e. the area of most concern) and there was no way she could have known he was there. She even looked in that direction but couldn't see him.

And I've already said that he certainly gets significantly less sympathy from me for being a malicious idiot, but I still do have some sympathy for him.

I guess I'm just not as much of a callous bastard as the rest of you

Yeah he's an idiot and she didn't see him, but you don't have any feelings of sympathy? I don't understand that. I always feel bad when I see bad things happen to others. Regardless of how I feel about that person's actions.

We're definitely on the same page, except that I might be guilty of being a callous bastard in this situation =P. I have many friends who aren't doing very well in life, and continue to make bad decisions for themselves to dig themselves into deeper trouble. I've offered some help a few times, and it's usually squandered. I wish they wouldn't do that, but I refuse to dwell on it or let it bother me more than a general wish for things to be better. They know they're being bad, and there's little that anyone can do about it. I may or may not be appropriately transferring the same logic to this situation, but from the information available, I abstain from letting it bother me.

I must admit that, If one of my friends did something as stupid as this, everything I said here would go out the window, and I would be messed up about it for a long time.

I only hope the conman hadn't bred yet, and is doing his part to improve the species. If "deserve" comes into this picture at all, it's that stupid doesn't deserve to breed.

I feel very sympathetic to the driver, and generally, I can and will feel bad for someone when something bad happens to them as a result of outside forces, but my sympathy ends when someone actively, intentionally manufactures a scenario wherein they directly cause themselves grievous bodily harm.

It's not that *something* bad happened *to* him; it's that he *did* something to *himself*.

@lucky760

I guess as a fellow human being, I'm a bit uncomfortable with anyone not having sympathy for another human being getting hurt regardless of whether they "deserved" it or not (i.e. whether or not external forces were involved).

I think it's easy to say stuff like "I have no sympathy for them" because you don't personally know them. Like @draak13 says you'd probably feel differently if this was a friend who did something like this because they were in a desperate situation.

@SDGundamX

Some people just have more of a bleeding heart than others.

My heart does not bleed for any given human being who happens to get hurt regardless of the circumstances.

Life is too short to spend time concerning myself with the well-being of people who themselves have no concern for their own well-being.

@lucky760

So if it was a friend who was down on his luck and desperate to get some quick cash, you wouldn't give a shit that he got run over because he acted impulsively and did something stupid? Or how about if you saw this happen on the street. You wouldn't call an ambulance because the guy got was coming to him? I find that incredibly difficult to believe.

I personally believe that not caring for other people's suffering is the primary cause of suffering in the world. Like Chaos, I'm not saying the guy's actions are excusable in any way. But he's a person who was probably in a lot of pain after this and as a fellow human being I feel bad for him, even though it was a direct consequence of the decision he made.

You call that "bleeding heart."

I call that basic human compassion.

And judging by the shit that's happening in Ukraine, Syria, and Gaza right this instant I'd say there's far too little of it in the world right now.

>> So if it was a friend who was down on his luck and desperate to get some quick cash, you wouldn't give a shit that he got run over because he acted impulsively and did something stupid?

That's correct. Things not specific to that but along those lines have happened in my life, and that was my reaction.


>> Or how about if you saw this happen on the street. You wouldn't call an ambulance because the guy got was coming to him?

There you go again mixing up not feeling sorry for someone with thinking he deserves it. Of course I would call an ambulance. I would very likely even rush over to try and help. I wouldn't *want* the guy to get maimed or killed. But if he did that to himself I'd just feel it's his own fault.


>> I call that basic human compassion.

That's where we differ. I don't.

A few days ago a team of heavily armed gunmen robbed a bank. Afterward they were involved in a chase and gunfight with police. One of the three robbers was shot dead and the others were injured.

Do you feel sympathy for the robbers? I'm sure you must. Do I? No, I don't, not even a little bit.

Not every negative event (that results in pain/suffering) in every single person's life is precious, nor does it warrant or deserve compassion when they intentionally caused it themselves and it could have been completely avoided.


Let's just call it a difference in philosophy.

I'm with Lucky on this one. Although it's not like we're these guys: http://videosift.com/video/Israeli-crowd-cheers-with-joy-as-missile-hits-Gaza-live-on

No comments on the radio lyrics yet?

"Say goodbye...
To the pain of the past
We don't have to feel it anymore!"

*squish*

The person deliberately laid down in front of a vehicle on the road (his decision).
While intelligent enough to know it wasn't good to be under a vehicle (core strategy of the scam).
He got run over because the 1 thing his disingenuous attempt relied on wasn't the case (drivers attention)

Should he receive immediate medical attention? Of course. Anything to the contrary would be unnecessarily cruel and thus shouldn't be socially acceptable.
Does his personal situation justify his actions? Justification's of right and wrong will be subjective, there is no irrefutable answer. (those gun comparisons focus on partial points, unbalanced and limited core concepts, look at 'THE' case, and judge 'THE' case. Stop misrepresenting things off limited values while disregarding other values that don't support your point [intelligence, selfish, inconsiderate, dishonest, theft via legal obligation])
Did he earn his reward? Fucking oath he did.

Someone chooses to unnecessarily risk their health to dishonestly take advantage of other parties, it happens. But to have so many normally sensible people saying stupid shit like the above, seriously people, acknowledge credit where credit is due. This doesn't make you a monster.

Disclaimer: I read first half of comments, then barely skimmed the rest once it got stupid. @Tusker commented twice, nailed it both times.

Wow.

So, smokers who get lung cancer can go fuck themselves? Same for people who live with smokers? No sympathy for those assholes. They should've known better. Having said that, Amy Winehouse can go fuck herself as well, everbody knows the risks of alcoholism. And no sympathy for Paul Walker either. Speeding, really? And those idiots dying in parachuting accidents deserve what's coming to them as well. Should've stayed on the ground. Same with every somewhat dangerous sport. Applies to you too, Michael Schuhmacher.
Fuck all those people who did something potentially dangerous and got seriously hurt or killed because of it. Empathy is for pussies anyways.
This is especially valid for people who cause others financial harm as they deserve death the most. Preferably by having the head crushed under a tire.

I call *eia. And if this guy ended up snuffing it, it would be a perfect Darwin Awards submission.

Adding video to channels (Eia) - requested by Zawash.

Insurance scammer, Sum Ting Wong was hospitalized soon afterwards.

@lucky760

Oh, I totally agree--it is a difference of philosophy. But which philosophy is going to lead to a better world?

Look, you don't care some guys got shot after committing a crime. I do. Why? Because it's all directly connected to the rest of us. Why did they commit the crime? How did they get to that point in their lives where they felt it was okay to put others in harm's way? Most importantly, how do we help prevent other people from ending up in that place, so that we're not the ones being put in harm's way next time?

A philosophy of indifference is unlikely to get one to seek answers to those questions: those guys got shot because they were "dumb" or because they were "scum" or some other simplistic answer that leads to no change happening in the world.

But on an even more fundamental level, getting shot hurts pretty bad (I've had friends who have been shot and survived) and on just that level alone I empathize with the guys. We're biologically wired to empathize with other people's pain (mirror neurons) but we can also override that biological response and act callously toward our fellow humans.

I believe compassion is the only way we are ever going to solve the world's major problems, particularly violent conflict. Lack of compassion--even for people who should know better or people who disregard their own safety--is only ever going to give us exactly the world we have now.

I would argue it's a manifestation of the same kind of thinking. Those Israelis believe the Gazan's are simply reaping what they sowed by supporting Hamas and therefore withhold compassion. Conversely, Hamas thinks it's okay to lob rockets at Israelis because the Israelis have occupied Palestine and set up the most egregious apartheid system in history (or as the UN Humanitarian Chief John Holmes called it in 2010, the world's largest "open air prison.").

Both sides have lost compassion for the other and that's why the violence continues unabated.

I bicycle around, and the one thing I note about it is that I put myself in a situation to get run over every day. See, I live in Florida, so that goes without saying. Here, people don't give the right away to shit. Red light on turn, when I have the crosswalk sigh? Well fuck me.

I find this whole thing funny because I pay attention to people walking so freaking close to my car. I mean the guy could have carjacked her because of this inattention. The guy was pretty brass about it since he made sure to flag someone before falling. Lastly, if you're the van, you don't poke your fucking van out in the middle of the street without a view of both ways. It DOES NOT MATTER if traffic is stopped one way, you don't do it. By her constant need to turn this way and that, she could not obviously, or safely, see both ways.

Ironically I thought he fell in front of the Van, but then noticed he fell to the side of it. Bad day that it turned I myself would have noticed the turn signal... But as I said, I would have also noticed someone blatantly waving and approaching my vehicle...

Another point; some would say that identity theft is the fault of most victims. You leave something if your trash with information, don't regularly clear out your mailbox, pay with a debit card, etc...not sure if you have ever done those things but if you have you definitely opened yourself up for the fraud.

Wow yourself.

Those are mostly really horrible examples and gross misinterpretation of things that've been said here.

Most of the things you're talking about are not even closely related to someone putting themselves into a position of imminent danger.

Smokers, second-hand smoking, addiction, extreme sporting, and *anyone* who does *anything* *potentially* dangerous? Say what? Your nonsensical examples have no relation whatsoever to what I've been discussing.

Laying under a moving car or playing Russian roulette or climbing into an alligator pit or shooting at cops with machine guns... Yes, those kinds of things are exactly the same as someone with a lifetime of addiction or who uses safety gear and expertise with a reasonable expectation they'll walk away from their sporting activity unharmed. Right? Pshaw.

You're either doing a really bad job of trolling or just a really bad masterdebater.

I'm glad at least your salient points have some real significance and depth, but I still think you have an unrealistic view of humanity.

Human nature is what it has evolved to be, a complex system of values and emotions dictated by your genes, environment, and life experiences.

That's the origin of your philosophy and mine. As nice as it is to imagine that the world would be a wonderful place if they all had the same compassion you have, it's just not something that can or would ever be a reality because everyone, same as you and me, cannot just dictate their core beliefs to their subconscious.

Even if I agreed that I should think as you do (and I don't), would that mean whenever I have a natural, instinctive opinion about something that doesn't conform to your beliefs I'm supposed to pretend or go to a re-education camp until I really do believe?

There's a place called North Korea where they force everyone to think a specific way or pretend they do, and it just doesn't work. That's not human nature.

I would argue it's definitely really very much not the same.

On the one hand you have someone who puts themselves in imminent danger of severe injury and then they're injured. This is the natural result of what the guy did to himself.

On the other hand they're jeering for death and destruction because they look at a whole civilization as deserving it. This is more of a vengeance mindset and just want to see anyone be punished so they feel more powerful and feel someone is being taught a lesson.

@lucky760

Showing compassion is a choice. I don't doubt for a second that a majority of people in the world agree with your viewpoint the guy in the video doesn't deserve to be shown compassion because a) he was engaging in a crime and b) his injuries are a direct result of the actions he took.

And that's specifically why I responded to your post and the point I've been trying to make throughout this conversation: choosing not to have compassion for fellow human beings--making arbitrary decisions about who deserves and does not deserve compassion--leads exactly to the kind of mess you now see in Gaza, Syria, the Ukraine, and the U.S. prison system (John Oliver's vid explains clearly that the situation has gotten so bad because it's easy for people not to care about convicted criminals).

Yes, you are right about the Gaza vid--the Israelis want revenge. They want revenge because they no longer look at Gazans as humans worthy of compassion but as "the other," an enemy that must be conquered. Again, arbitrarily choosing who to have and not to have compassion for gives us exactly the world we have now--a world where people can cheer the bombing of civilians.

Ghandi once said be the change in the world you want to see--and followed through in a way that changed not just India's future but that of the world (with his effect on the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S., on Mandela's movement to abolish apartheid in South African, etc.). I have no idea how you imagined up I was proposing compassion re-education camps. I'm simply pointing out to you and anyone else who cares to read that you have a choice. You can choose to believe and act the same as we as a species always have (and get in return the world we currently have) or you can choose to try to move beyond our genetic and environmental predispositions and work towards a potentially better world.

Then again, you've already said you'd call an ambulance and run over to help the guy in the vid if you saw this happen, so I think it's safe to say you do feel some compassion for the guy even if you think what he did was stupid and irresponsible. Your initial posts made it sound like you didn't care at all, which is partly what led me to respond because frankly I didn't really believe that--and I'm glad I was right about that at least even if I'm completely wrong about humanity as you suggest.

The distinction here is that you're talking about showing compassion, which I'm all for, versus feeling compassionate.

One cannot choose to feel compassion for someone. It either is or it isn't a person's natural reaction. If someone's visceral response to something does not include the feeling of compassion, how could they manipulate themselves into feeling it?

That's like trying to force someone to love you, except it's more complicated because you'd be trying to force yourself to love yourself. (That'd be a form of sexual assault in some municipalities.)

@lucky760

Well, the terminology you used is a bit charged, isn't it? "Manipulate oneself" into feeling something? Compassion is all about putting yourself in someone else's shoes--imagining being them. It's not manipulation; it's actually perfectly natural thanks to mirror neurons--when we see other people in pain we activate the areas in our brain as if we were experiencing pain. The thing is, our higher order cognitive abilities can override this natural function. Basically compassion is our natural state and we later learn how to turn it off. I'm sure there is some evolutionary advantage to that but what I've been trying to discuss here are the disadvantages.

But that's more of an aside to the main issue. The main point is we both agree that showing compassion is important. Splitting hairs about the semantics of feeling/showing compassion doesn't add anything to the discussion so I'll simply tip my hat to you for being willing to engage in this conversation with me for so long and be on my way.

Well, thank you for the compliment, fellow masterdebater.
Or did you mean "masturbator"? Then I'd have to disagree, I'm certainly not bad at that.

Yeah, my post was super hyperbolic but it was just a continuation of the thinking going on here. I took it to the next level. The basic message I took from this thread was "Fuck that guy, he's an insurance scammer and got what he deserved!"
I disagree.
First of all, his crime (scamming people out of money) makes him a huge asshole and definately someone I wish not much well being in general. However, he was slowly run over by a car! You have to do some really awful shit to deserve that kind of punishment. If that man was the pope, I'd have applauded the lady and asked her for a re-run because the pope supports child rapists. If that man was Jeffrey Dahmer, I'd ask if I could have a go. But he's, as far as we know, neither a rapist or murderer or anything else as horrible. He could be dead. He could be a vegetable. He could be disabled. None of that is a punishment fitting his crime. Not even a Bernie Madoff deserves that.
The second thing is this whole "he did something stupid and now he got what he deserves" debate. Look, I'm a person of schadenfreude. I have sadistic personality traits that fill my shrivelled, black heart with gleeful joy everytime somebody gets hurt. But there are limits.
My examples are horrible and gross but what sets them apart from what this guy did is mainly they're not criminal activities. Sure, if you shoot at cops and get shot, you deserve that. You committed and act of agression and got pwned. That man was not agressive towards anyone.
He didn't lay under a moving car, he lay beside a standing car that then rolled over him while making a turn because the driver didn't notice him. Misjudgement on his part? Sure. The same as playing russian roulette or shooting at cops? Nope. That's because his activity, running into a standing or slowly moving car and pretending to be hit, doesn't include certain death as certain possibility.
The only reason people here are so comfortable with this man getting run over is because he's an asshole criminal. If that would've happened to him while he was pulling an internet prank, everyone would be horrified. Imagine that guy wearing a ridiculous costume and talking into the camera at the beginning of the video how he'll make that woman think she hit him with the car and what a great prank that'll be. Is he still getting what he deserves?
People give a shit about the man in the terrible accident because they made a judgement that he is a criminal and not worth it.
See, John Oliver has a point when talking about prisons.
I saw a video of a man getting run over. It didn't upset me but the reactions to it did.

Careful what you wish for. you just might get it.


This guy definitely got his wish.


I but he is wishing for something else now.

people feigning being hit by a car has been added as a related post - related requested by blackfox42 on that post.