So sad :(
These incidences always force me to think something is wrong -- seriously wrong -- with this world. But keeping the faith.
These incidences always force me to think something is wrong -- seriously wrong -- with this world. But keeping the faith.
This is why drunks are dangerous - after X drinks they look at their car and think "I've got this" when in fact they are so drunk they don't know what they have anymore.
Alcohol is often used as an excuse for poor behavior, but in practice with most people it does not have the power to induce most of the behavior that has ever been attributed to it. For example, I might run my mouth and be inconsiderate of other peoples feelings when too drunk, but when I am drunk, I don't start fist fights. The difference? Being inconsiderate of the feelings of others is something that I sometimes want to do but hold back on while sober; starting fistfights is never something that crosses my mind while sober.
For most people, alcohol does not turn them into a different person. It distorts aspects of who they are, blowing some out of proportion, but it doesn't completely replace their set of priorities and desires with ones alien to them.
This is almost certainly not this persons first time driving while drunk. Almost certainly, this person has driven drunk before, sobered up afterwards and realized what the did, and then did little to nothing to prevent it from happening again. A person who drives while drunk is a person with a carefree attitude towards drunk driving even when they sober.
Even if that sort of behavior while drunk caught them completely off guard the first time it happened (which I think is very unlikely, though not impossible), they later made the decision while sober to drink again. The made that decision while sober and with the knowledge that when drunk, they do things like drive drunk.
Edit:
Brief responses, since my commenting appears to be limited at the moment:
justin66: I am not like the person that did this. I do not steal cars. I don't drive while drunk. I don't flee the police when pulled over. I would never flee on foot after crashing into other cars and people. People who drive while drunk typically do it frequently. I never have.
Codhisattva: "meta-consciousness impairment occurs well before losing consciousness from alcohol poisoning." I am not saying that I have never been impaired. I am saying that despite being impaired many times, I have never been impaired in such a way that I had any desire to drive while drunk, or any delusions about my ability to do so.
unclebucknasty: "Yet, you are questioning the judgment of someone who, instead of repeatedly drinking himself into a potential coma, stops somewhere short of that and decides he can operate a vehicle." You bet your ass I am. I may have endangered my life while having a little to much fun in college, but I never drove while drunk, and I never killed anybody.
"Well, that's the thing: the grandparent is judging people who drive drunk repeatedly, while he himself repeatedly drinks to the point of losing consciousness. I just don't see the difference."
I'm going to go with the most obvious difference being body-count. That is obvious right?
Furthermore, don't worry for my health. As I have mentioned on HN in the recent past, my current drinking is down to 4-6 nights a month. I am drawing on my experience drinking, not currently struggling with drinking.
I take exception to your implication that drunk driving is some sort of inevitable phenomenon that people who drink to the point of drunkenness are powerless to avoid through anything but luck. Drunk driving only happens if you allow it to happen. If you drive drunk, it isn't because of alcohol, it is because of you. There is nobody and no thing to blame but yourself.
As a person who drinks socially and is well-aware of my limits, I've rarely moved past a slight buzz. So, when I see a person state that they've repeatedly been drunk to the point of losing consciousness, I think, "now, why would a person do that?" I would have to think that there is at least some impairment when an already extremely inebriated person decides to continue drinking to the point where the only thing that stops him is that he physically cannot continue because he is unconscious.
Yet, you are questioning the judgment of someone who, instead of repeatedly drinking himself into a potential coma, stops somewhere short of that and decides he can operate a vehicle.
I just don't see the difference except that, of course, you can claim moral superiority in that you are presumably only endangering yourself vs. others. But, therein lies the rationalization. And, of course, if you repeatedly drink to the point wherein you literally lose control of your body, then perhaps it's only a matter of time before you endanger someone else somewhere along the continuum of inebriation.
Well, that's the thing: the grandparent is judging people who drive drunk repeatedly, while he himself repeatedly drinks to the point of losing consciousness. I just don't see the difference. Why is one "sneaking up on you" any better than the other? Why does one demonstrate better judgment when inebriated than the other?
>That said, if someone does so regularly there is probably something else going on.
Well, that would be my take. Or at least that perhaps that person isn't in the position they think to cast judgment on others who make poor choices when inebriated.
I don't know if there's anyone alive who drinks even occasionally and hasn't gone further than they expected. But, it's generally a good distance between "drunker than I thought" and "I almost went into a coma". And, if it happens once or twice, then OK, but repeatedly? Seems like you'd be aware of the dangers you mentioned at some point, which ironically was the grandparent's judgment about repeat drunk drivers.
And that's the irony that was just a bit too much. It's weird, because there doesn't seem to be contrition or anything. Just, "yeah, I'm known to repeatedly drink myself unconscious, but look at the choices those guys make when drunk".
"Why does one demonstrate better judgment when inebriated than the other?"
Well, I do think putting yourself at risk should be judged less harshly than putting others at risk.
Perhaps when judged externally by others. But, when the person is judging himself less harshly in a way that justifies his own questionable behavior, then it comes off as rationalization.
And, again, to say he is only harming himself is part of the fallacy that he is somehow exercising better judgment. That is, I believe that someone who exercises the poor judgement to repeatedly drink himself into unconsciousness is very much susceptible to exercising equally poor judgment, while in that inebriated state, that could result in harm to others. It just hasn't happened yet.
My point is that the fact that you or I believe that we can control our behavior when drunk, or that drinking does not alter our essential character (e.g. "people only do things when drunk that they wanted to do anyway) does not imply that the same is true for everyone unless you don't believe in alcoholism.
I think that not believing in alcoholism because you aren't an alcoholic is harmful.
Maybe anyone can become dependent, but not everyone _does_. I think our model of behavior ought to include the recognition that in some cases people are unable to refrain from drinking even though they know, in the abstract, that something terrible is likely to happen sooner or later. Acknowledging that alcoholism is not an excuse doesn't change the fact that some people are apparently undeterred from driving drunk by potential legal sanction. I too would hope that such people just wouldn't drink, but this seems insufficient. I admit that I haven't proposed a solution, I just think it's an interesting problem.
So, having established blame, what next? Ignition interlocks seem like a stop gap. I few months ago I watched a guy come out of a bar, and ask his friend to blow in the breathalyzer installed in his truck. No shit. A solution that is not strictly technical might be called for, but I'm not sure what a social solution looks like.
It seems like people in general are kind of bad at safely operating cars, and drunk people are just even worse. I fantasize that self driving cars. They would never get drunk, or distracted or sleepy or have road rage. Maybe someday driving your own car will seems reckless, pun fully intended.
One wonders what experimental technique you used to make this determination, if the driver of that car felt the same way, how valuable our judgments about our own behavior while drinking can possibly be, and so on.
You've outlined a belief that acknowledges the horror of what alcohol can bring about but allows you to keep drinking a lot anyhow. And it allows you to think of yourself as completely different than the guy who just killed those people. I'll just float the idea - as a fellow consumer of alcohol and not somebody interested in judging - that you might unconsciously be a little too easy on yourself here, and your drinking might actually put the rest of the world at risk to some degree.
(not to mention our erroneous human tendency to think of criminals as a completely different species as ourselves, which can also lead to some questionable ideas)
Part of the impairment is your complete unknowing of it happening. It's cognitively a blind spot, so to speak.