Many of things "should be" and "ought to be" but we all sat around a table and decided to make a neat little thing called the law because at the end of the day we're still just apes and apes don't always act in the best interest of their peers
Well no, that's my entire point, it's not about what work best for _me_, it's about what somewhat works when scaled to a whole country or continent. It's flawed in many ways, and corrupted in other ways, but it's better than the alternative
If I really wanted to do what I want whenever I want I'd live in a hut somewhere in the woods. Law is rarely about _individual you_ it's about the society you live in.
Why do I care if you have your seatbelt or your motorcycle helmet ? Because if you get injured you'll cost millions to the community. Same exact principle here, it's part of the social contract, you enjoy a lot of neat things and in returns you give up some other things.
I'm thinking through the ethics of this myself, but I think it's a reasonable argument that you can have the freedom to do what you want with things that you own _assuming you don't impact others_. The issue with a dangerous car is that it puts others at danger.
That'll make the hypothetical parents of the hypothetical kid you just ran over very happy I'm sure. "I fucked up but it's on me!" and they lived happily ever after
Yes? Society is actually completely fine with that arrangement. Every single year tons of people get drunk, get into accidents, get people actually killed and are held accountable for it. Yet nobody dares to infringe on their freedom to drink. They tried once and it just didn't work out.
This "give up freedom because kids" nonsense is seriously tiresome. I'm not engaging with these arguments anymore.
Really, come on: you can do much better than this. The hypothetical kid might be the one that was saved because some random hacker figured out why the latest generation radar based cars keep phantom braking. That argument works both ways, and typically what is fixed stays fixed.
And of course none of these hotshot programmers would ever be seen near the following bit of code[1], which probably impacted a lot of actual children and their health in a very direct way:
// in case of an emissions test ensure that we pass
// with flying colors
if (emissions_test_detected()) {
// we're sooo environmentally conscious
lean_burn();
}
else {
// roll that coal
regular_burn();
}
[1] cribbed from VW/Porsche AG's internal repository ;)
It should be a basic right no matter how "terrible" a idea it is. We bought it, we should have full control. Void the warranty or something.