Besides, she could still get an honorable mention:
> Northcutt's Darwin Awards site gives "Honorable Mentions" to people who survive their misadventures with their reproductive capacity intact, by luck or chance.
Is it really going too far? With over-population being the root of most of our biggest problems, I'm starting to think things in general could be much better if we had many more people dying, why not start with the stupid?
When someone does something incredibly stupid and then has the temerity to sue others for their stupidity it's really hard to wish them anything but ill luck.
Following the article to searchengineland says she used it January 19, 2009. So winter, as well as the off chance the path didn't exist. Unfortunately common sense didn't work for her either.
There is no safety issue here, it's a stupidity issue. She could have used the walkway I commented about instead she decided to walk on what is obviously a highway.
What's the most fair and effective way to stop these types of law suits? Perhaps these can be filtered through some other group of judges to determine if they have merit?
In Canada there's a preliminary hearing of some sort (not sure about the specifics) to see if the case is even justified in being tried. The vast majority of stories like these are all thrown out.
At first I thought and typed,
"Yeah, exactly. They could add a safety warning about the health effects of eating the phone or laptop you look at Google Maps on too, but we don't because there is an assumed level of intelligence. I hope that she doesn't just lose, but is also penalized for creating a frivolous suit."
But then I reread the parent's post and now I think what they meant is that a nice feature would be one that displayed a route's level of safety. For example, if the route makes you cross a busy highway it might get a red label while a route that crosses no roads would get a green label.
I'm torn. I don't know if you saw the stop sign article but the more signage you put on something, the dumber people act. On the surface it's not a bad idea but then what happens if it's not accurate? Some of the streets in my city (Green Bay, WI) are safe most hours of the day and then you need to avoid them between 4pm and 5pm if you value your life.
It would be a nice feature but it might open them to actual liability for reporting inaccurate safety information.
It's not a very nice thing to admit but I wished more people died because of their own stupidity. (And part of me wonders if that would actually be a net benefit or loss)
You're making the assumption that "stupidity" comes from our DNA. Do you have any evidence that even remotely suggests this? Everything I see makes me think "stupid" is a learned behavior (e.g. stupid parents with brilliant kids, brilliant parents with stupid kids, etc.).
I'm a little suprised on this site, of all sites, to see people subscribing to the idea that we are constrained by the intelligence of our parents.
No stupidity as such but in general lots of traits which would have been bred out in the past will persist because many undesirable traits can be managed. I was more thinking about brain function and learning capability, not a direct stupidity from DNA.
But I've still never seen any kind of link that showed brain function or learning capability linked to genetics. If you take e.g. a racist they are ignorant and close-minded. They could learn (at least as kids they could have) but they chose not to. This has nothing to do with genetics, it is learned behavior.
If this were true then over time humans would never have evolved to be as intellectually capable as we are. Why can we do so many things ape's can't yet have a common ancestry?
It is defiantly learned behavior how you want to make use of the capability but as plenty of people with learning difficulties would attest, if the underlying function isn't as strong as in others it makes it a whole lot harder to learn even with the motivation.
But we're not talking about mental handicap here. We're talking about normal functioning people who make stupid decisions. I don't think genetics has anything at all to do with that and I've never seen anything that would make me believe it does.
Given that, the only negative influence such people have by breeding is the influence they wield over their children (which can be a lot, but can also be overcome).
Are you smarter than animals with brains a fraction of the size of yours? Why or why not?
If the answer to the first question is "yes", it shouldn't take much to extrapolate from there.
Now, how to divvy up that quality which we call intelligence into what is inherited and what is learned is an open, and difficult, question. I think it's pretty clear that both are important, and their relative weights probably vary from individual to individual. Still, is the idea that intelligence comes in part from our DNA "remotely suggested"? I think it's fair to say so.
I was talking about among humans. Obviously brain size has a direct relation with intelligence. Are you suggesting that people like the lady in question have smaller brains?
Forget the bit about brain size. It's a distraction from what I was trying to get at. Sorry.
To rephrase my question: are you smarter than most (and in all likelihood all) non-human animals?
The answer is yes, and in the case of humans vs animals, I deny that it's because of culture or upbringing or all the other stuff that gets lumped into the category of "nurture". If it were just that, well, my cats would by now be speaking about as well as human five year olds do.
It's clear to me that nature plays a role. How much of a role is unclear, and, as I said, I suspect it varies.
For historical reasons, we're stuck with both racist pseudoscience and politically correct pseudoscience to contend with. I bet the truth about these matters, if ever found, will be somewhere in between. (And, FWIW, closer to the politically correct side of things.)
Recently I was reading a debate about biking helmets (don't remember which kind of biking), and someone said something along the lines of "when you ride without a helmet, you are taking your life in to your own hands". I wonder whose hands were holding the writers life at the moment.
Without knowing the road it's difficult to say for sure, but the car driver might be significantly responsible here.
If a pedestrian is keeping as close to the side of the road as reasonably possible and is reasonably visible (e.g. not wearing all black on a pitch black section of road), then it doesn't seem unreasonable to expect a driver to avoid crashing into them - even on a highway. Especially if it's a reasonably straight road which most highways are.
Maybe this woman followed the directions exactly so that she could pursue a frivolous suit against Google. Mostly, I don't want to believe that someone could look at the situation and not see reality.
Product of our compensation culture. Honestly, I think this is one of the growing problem areas for innovation - we are all too scared of being sued now.
It's going to cripple us as a society at some point.
Eh...walking on a highway isn't a guarantee of getting run over. Nor is cycling. I biked from University of Utah to Park City once, and rode on the freeway for a few miles, because there wasn't any other way to get there without going at least 5 extra miles. It wasn't as scary as walking across the street at a four-way stop sometimes has been, when inattentive drivers are involved.
I was on the shoulder of the road, but I have ridden on highways (not freeways) without a shoulder, on a road bike, before. When I did, I often picked my bike up and stood on the dirt beside the road and waited for a wave of vehicles to pass. I've employed similar tactics while walking along highways. She may not have.
I don't think walking where she walked was necessarily stupid. I think she may have just been unlucky. Or maybe she wasn't far enough on the shoulder of the highway. I also think the lawsuit is frivolous, because it hinges on the idea that she did something really stupid with Google's help.
On the plus side Lauren Rosenberg's name is out there on the internet marking her as the person stupid enough to walk down a very busy highway and then sue others when she gets hit by a car.
This will doubtless come back to haunt her in the future.
if a human being looking at the road cannot tell that a situation is dangerous, how can a computer be expected to do it?
people need to understand that they're dealing with dumb mapping engines, not some all-seeing oracle.
if a situation is dangerous, you need to go back the way you came and get better information. if you plunge forward anyway, you do it at your own risk, just as you would be if you got directions from a human.
if your mama didn't teach you to walk on the left side of the road facing the traffic and to look both ways before you cross, it ain't google's fault.
See, there's technological prowess, and there's common sense. We haven't reached that stage where we can totally rely on machines to guide our every move. We'd be robots by then.
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[ 5.0 ms ] story [ 114 ms ] threadhttp://dl.dropbox.com/u/361483/screenshots/streetview_29994....
Upvoted just for the irony.
Come on, that's going too far.
> Northcutt's Darwin Awards site gives "Honorable Mentions" to people who survive their misadventures with their reproductive capacity intact, by luck or chance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_Awards#Examples
(Except her injury was unremarkable, even with the pedestrian walkway nearby.)
Even lawyers realize the system is broken.
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/philip_howard.html
Google used it to get Brian Reid's age-discrimination case thrown out. He appealed that decision and won so now he gets to go to trial.
But then I reread the parent's post and now I think what they meant is that a nice feature would be one that displayed a route's level of safety. For example, if the route makes you cross a busy highway it might get a red label while a route that crosses no roads would get a green label.
It would be a nice feature but it might open them to actual liability for reporting inaccurate safety information.
Who was it that said there would be no car accidents if we replaced airbags with spikes?
Imagine what would happen if someone walking a "safe" route gets mugged.
http://geographicjourney.wordpress.com/2010/01/30/google-goe...
Your Own Safety: Not Your Responsibility
I'm a little suprised on this site, of all sites, to see people subscribing to the idea that we are constrained by the intelligence of our parents.
EDIT: Spelling
This paper says IQ has 70% heritability, based on a twin adoption study. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2218526
Other twin studies have found 75-90% heritability for attention deficit disorder.
Schizophrenia is moderately heritable.
Migraine is well-known for running in families.
It is defiantly learned behavior how you want to make use of the capability but as plenty of people with learning difficulties would attest, if the underlying function isn't as strong as in others it makes it a whole lot harder to learn even with the motivation.
Given that, the only negative influence such people have by breeding is the influence they wield over their children (which can be a lot, but can also be overcome).
If the answer to the first question is "yes", it shouldn't take much to extrapolate from there.
Now, how to divvy up that quality which we call intelligence into what is inherited and what is learned is an open, and difficult, question. I think it's pretty clear that both are important, and their relative weights probably vary from individual to individual. Still, is the idea that intelligence comes in part from our DNA "remotely suggested"? I think it's fair to say so.
To rephrase my question: are you smarter than most (and in all likelihood all) non-human animals?
The answer is yes, and in the case of humans vs animals, I deny that it's because of culture or upbringing or all the other stuff that gets lumped into the category of "nurture". If it were just that, well, my cats would by now be speaking about as well as human five year olds do.
It's clear to me that nature plays a role. How much of a role is unclear, and, as I said, I suspect it varies.
For historical reasons, we're stuck with both racist pseudoscience and politically correct pseudoscience to contend with. I bet the truth about these matters, if ever found, will be somewhere in between. (And, FWIW, closer to the politically correct side of things.)
I'll just leave this here.
If a pedestrian is keeping as close to the side of the road as reasonably possible and is reasonably visible (e.g. not wearing all black on a pitch black section of road), then it doesn't seem unreasonable to expect a driver to avoid crashing into them - even on a highway. Especially if it's a reasonably straight road which most highways are.
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=San...
It's going to cripple us as a society at some point.
I was on the shoulder of the road, but I have ridden on highways (not freeways) without a shoulder, on a road bike, before. When I did, I often picked my bike up and stood on the dirt beside the road and waited for a wave of vehicles to pass. I've employed similar tactics while walking along highways. She may not have.
I don't think walking where she walked was necessarily stupid. I think she may have just been unlucky. Or maybe she wasn't far enough on the shoulder of the highway. I also think the lawsuit is frivolous, because it hinges on the idea that she did something really stupid with Google's help.
This will doubtless come back to haunt her in the future.
people need to understand that they're dealing with dumb mapping engines, not some all-seeing oracle.
if a situation is dangerous, you need to go back the way you came and get better information. if you plunge forward anyway, you do it at your own risk, just as you would be if you got directions from a human.
if your mama didn't teach you to walk on the left side of the road facing the traffic and to look both ways before you cross, it ain't google's fault.