Hacker News Reader

Comment by _quasimodo | Hacker News Reader

Those poor idiots.

I feel nothing but disgust reading the comments cheering their lethal poisoning.

You do them too much credit to call them idiots. They were armed robbers, who beat two men severely, and stole things of enormous value. They surrendered their right to be regarded as civilized people.

I would reserve 'idiot' for a citizen with poor reasoning powers. For instance, someone who pays too much for a used car.

I am pretty sure _quasimodo's point was, idiots or not, it's barbaric to celebrate someone else's slow and painful death. Regardless of whether said person is civilized or not.

That goes a bit far. I can certainly feel excitement and amazement at their folly and not be barbaric. I'm thinking folks are transferring their horror at the predicament these criminals got themselves into, to the spectators reaction which was a pretty natural one.

Well, these thieves are citizens with poor reasoning powers.

Being "regarded as civilized people" might be of interest to you, but I don't really like this habit of dehumanizing people when one doesn't like them.

You projected that; I admit they are human. So was Hitler etc. What they lose by violating the rules of a civilized society, is the protections offered by that society. That's got to be the case, else why would anyone follow the rules at all?

So yes, they Were citizens with poor reasoning powers, and that led them to violate the bounds of civilized behavior, which put them in their predicament - no protection/assistance/sympathy from those who continue to abide.

Its a spectacle to be sure - their painful death. Some will enjoy it and some be repulsed. Make your own choice there. But don't confuse that with 'dehumanizing'.

Ya they are idiots and they deserve to go to prison, but I don't want them to die for it. And radiation poisoning isn't something I would wish upon my worst enemy.

I could be wrong but it won't just be the idiots that die, innocents that come in contact with their bodies could also become ill.

I don't believe Co-60 is capable of activating (making radioactive) other materials to any significant degree, so the danger is really only from direct exposure to the source material. So you get irradiated, but you don't become radioactive. If they were handling the material directly, there's a chance they contaminated themselves and their clothing, which could be transmissible. (c.f. Goiânia incident "[The scrapyard owner's daughter] was also fascinated by the blue glow of the powder, and applying it to her body, showed it off to her mother. Dust from the powder fell on the sandwich she was consuming.")

Obviously the guys opening the shielding and anyone in the vicinity of where that happened, where it was stored, or dumped is at risk, but it also sounds like the sources were encapsulated into pellets which makes incidental dust contamination much less of a problem than in previous incidents where it gets broken up and mixed with dirt, etc.

AFAIK, non-radioactive materials are activated by neutron bombardment. Co60 is primarily a gamma emitter.

No this is not correct. Their bodies will not be radioactive (unless they ingested the cobalt!) after getting dosed by this source.

People get irradiated by similar sources of radiation everyday for cancer therapies without becoming radioactive.

There will definitely end up being others who were exposed to radiation during the transport/storage. This was linked on the reddit submission of this article and I thought it was interesting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goiânia_accident

I can't quite figure out why I should feel bad for people who get themselves killed due to their violent criminal activities. It's about on the same level as the idiots who fairly regularly electrocute themselves while trying to steal copper. I don't particularly mourn their passing.

The innocents they may have poisoned in the aftermath get my sympathy, of course. But that just reduces my sympathy for the criminals all the more.

Because death is not an appropriate response to stupidity or theft.

I don't think it is when decided and inflicted by a third party, but self-inflicted death on grounds of aggravated (c|st)upidity is hard to feel sad for.

How about for armed robbery and beating the truck driver severely?

Of course not.

I agree, but they caused it themselves.

It's hard to make judgement without all the facts. Perhaps they were blackmailed into doing it, perhaps they were evil, greedy, disadvantaged in life... who knows.

You might not feel bad, but do you let out a cheer and fist pump and yell "ANOTHER CRIMINAL GONE YEAH!"?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com