1) People are still practicing blood feud where Kaloev lives. I mean, for real. Not at mass scale, but anyway. And while illegal like any murder, it is romanticized in local culture like an act of supreme justice. So, while it may sound unexpectedly medieval to some people, killing someone who killed your family was pretty much what is considered right for Kaloev and his circle. This is not true for Russia in general.
2) Russian media presented events in very unbalanced way. It is more common in Russia to blame "others". Russian pilots completely ignored TCAS resolution advisory, but were never blamed for that in Russian media.
""Kaloyev is a hero. Those guilty of causing air crashes often remain unpunished. Such a radical punishment is the only way to make them carry responsibility for their crimes," said Vitaly Yusko, a member of a Russian organisation dedicated to helping the relatives of air crash victims. "
>In 2004, Kaloyev travelled to the Swiss town of Kloten, where he killed Nielsen, who had since retired from air traffic work.
>In 2016, upon retirement from the Local Ossetian government, Kaloyev was awarded the highest regional medal by that government, the medal "To the Glory of Ossetia". The medal is awarded for the highest achievements, improving the living conditions of the inhabitants of the region, for educating the younger generation and maintaining law and order.
> A man was recently in the news for killing a man who peeped on his daughter in a public restroom in the US.
Surely we can see that there's a bit of a difference between killing someone in the heat of the moment vs. using investigators to find them, lying in wait, and then stabbing them to death in front of their children.
And you can find asshats celebrating anyone. The person in question is facing a murder 2 charge and will go away for a long time; they will not leave prison to acclaim and a cushy public job; he will not win governmental medals for "upholding law and order"; etc.
>Surely we can see that there's a bit of a difference between killing someone in the heat of the moment vs. using investigators to find them, lying in wait, and then stabbing them to death in front of their children.
Enough of a difference to matter in judgments of the behavior?
For example, the entire 'heat of the moment' is the recognition that a person can be in a mental state where their actions are abnormal. In general we recognize this mindset lasts a short time (exactly how long is legally allowed and how long is socially allowed differs, but I can't think of any case that allows for more than an hour).
But, in doing so, we have now acknowledged such mental states do exist and and given them some level of justification (enough so to be different than murder without the mental state).
So, is it possible that a person who loses their spouse and children cannot be put into a similar long term mental state? If you read the wikipedia article, the man seemed to not have been in a normal mental state at all, to the point even the Switzerland courts recognized it after the murder.
>On 8 November 2007, Kaloyev was released from prison, because his mental condition was not sufficiently considered in the initial sentence.
So, while the mental states do have some difference (one lasting minutes to an hour, the other lasting years), they also seem to not be so different in the view of the courts.
So is the difference enough to counter the other poster's comment? I don't think that has been established enough to dismiss their post outright.
> Enough of a difference to matter in judgments of the behavior?
Yes. As you indicate, we have a long legal tradition in Western countries of weighing these things.
But beyond that, someone who is one of these states and kills the wrong frickin' person is not likely to be celebrated by society as a hero afterwards ;)
> So is the difference enough to counter the other poster's comment? I don't think that has been established enough to dismiss their post outright.
That is, don't confuse escaping some degree of culpability (perhaps justified in this guy's case, but not to the extent he did...) with being officially lauded (uh, no way).
I despise Kaloev for what he did, but Swiss prosecuted Kaloev, put him in jail for 8 years and released after 2, didn't they? So, for Swiss the justice is accomplished and the punishment for killing their citizen is done.
The bigger issue is the celebration afterwards at home / giving a state office / medal for upholding law and order. These actions explicitly condone the murder.
Now the tricky part. Maybe, just maybe, the Swiss didn't screw up? Maybe that's their perception of events and consequences and crime and punishment: heartbroken father and husband at one side of Femida's scales and a culprit of his child and wife's death - on the other?
In that case, aren't you with your ideas of jailing Kaloev for life, or other voices talking about even putting him on a death row - are just a mirrored image of those who cheered him for vendetta and murder? Are you?
> a culprit of his child and wife's death - on the other?
The guy who died made a mistake when overworked and without the normal safety systems backing him up, and without the Russian aircrew noticing and with the Russian aircrew ignoring TCAS. The Swiss found fault with the management chain that made the decisions involved to create the situation and none with the individual controller who made the mistake.
Calling him a "culprit" isn't a great match for the circumstances.
> In that case, aren't you with your ideas of jailing Kaloev for life, or other voices talking about even putting him on a death row - are just a mirrored image of those who cheered him for vendetta and murder?
You're putting words in my mouth. How can you read "Yah, I think the Swiss screwed up a little [in releasing him so early]" as advocacy for the death penalty? You're outright trolling at this point and it's a little sad.
In a just world, he would have done 7-15 years, and then not come home to celebrations of vendetta.
Yes, the Swiss screwed up when they handed suspended sentences to Swisscontrol management who condoned working conditions at the Center in Zurich.
It's a problem that negligent management that causes death and misery to hundreds and thousands gets off as easily as Joe Random who though his negligence killed just one person. It does cause contempt for the law. At that level of responsibility you need strict liability, and the hammer needs to fall. Otherwise you end up with the 737-MAX.
"Trend" --- as in you're arguing that this is something on the increase?
You're missing the main problem in your post. In the example we're talking about, it's a deplorable case of the person involved not facing real justice or proportional consequence.
You can always find people advocating for deplorable things. But in the example we're talking about, this group of people was so large as to create acclaim; to give him an important public job; and to award him a medal. Surely that's different from a few people saying "THAT PEDOPHILE DESERVED IT."
We'll never get rid of the few people saying something stupid; but we can hope that the state and bulk of the populace comes to a reasonable decision, at least (8 years in prison, in this case).
Saying something is a trend does not imply it's increasing?
trend: a prevailing tendency or inclination
(And before you go and check, none of the other definitions imply an increase specifically either)
If you're going to nitpick, at least be correct about the nits you pick.
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I'm not missing the main point, I'm intentionally calling out a hypocritical, borderline racist sub-point that wasn't even needed in the original comment.
Why shoehorn this point Russians are somehow morally flawed people, what did that add to anything and how is it even supported by the story when exactly as you confirmed you'll find people cheering for murders anyways. You're literally making my point.
> Why shoehorn this point Russians are somehow morally flawed people, what did that add to anything and how is it even supported by the story when exactly as you confirmed you'll find people cheering for murders anyways. You're literally making my point.
Yah, so whether it's one person doing it or the state doing it-- it's the same. /s :P
> Saying something is a trend does not imply it's increasing?
It implies it is CHANGING IN SOME DIRECTION. Words have a definition and a connotation; better dictionaries make this information clear in the definition.
M-w says:
1a: a prevailing tendency or inclination : DRIFT
current trends in education
b: a general movement : SWING
the trend toward suburban living
c: a current style or preference : VOGUE
new fashion trends
d: a line of development : APPROACH
new trends in cancer research
2: the general movement over time of a statistically detectable change
also : a statistical curve reflecting such a change
3: a line of general direction or movement
the trend of the coast turned toward the west
We can look at etymology, too:
> Old English trendan ‘revolve, rotate’, of Germanic origin; compare with trundle. The verb sense ‘turn in a specified direction’ dates from the late 16th century, and gave rise to the figurative use ‘develop in a general direction’ in the mid 19th century, a development paralleled in the noun.
You're using the wrong definition based on context clues and trying to correct me based on your wrong interpretation of said wrong definition.
This is the most HN comment I have ever read, thank you.
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Also so you don't claim I'm just dodging the slightly on-topic part of your reply: The government that mass incarcerates it's population, started wars half way across the world for bad reasons, radicalizing generations to come in the process, kills civilians indiscriminately as long as they're brown, etc. has the moral high ground how again?
Didn't we literally just pardon a man who brutally murdered people on behalf of our nation in such ruthless fashion, our own elite soldiers turned their backs on him and called him a monster?
"Whataboutism, also known as whataboutery, is a variant of the tu quoque logical fallacy that attempts to discredit an opponent's position by charging them with hypocrisy without directly refuting or disproving their argument. It is particularly associated with Soviet and Russian propaganda."
I'd swear this was a meta-satire if I didn't know humor isn't allowed on here.
I say: It's not cool to make blanket statements about a race based on the way he was treated
You say: the state was behind his treatment so that totally makes it ok
I say: Ok well our state does terrible things to, how about we not make blanket statements about races and their morality
You say: omg argumentative fallacy!
This entire thread is a near indefensible comment about a race, you trying to defend that comment on "technical" grounds, but then you want to complain about "whataboutism" as if the root of this wasn't a racist, fallacious, statement.
Consider long and hard the case of Radonda Vaught, the nurse who killed a patient at Vanderbilt Hospital in a most dreadful manner. The investigation showed that she was overworked and stupid, and that patient safety at Vanderbilt is so bad that you should go elsewhere if you value your life.
There were no consequences for anyone, no changes in protocol or leadership; the institution covered up the nurse's error to such a degree that she still has her license. The nursing board is now looking into the case again, but that's only because of the public outcry.
There was a Gofundme campaign spearheaded by a well-known online nursing community that raised > 100 kUSD for the defense; that page mostly said that she is a nice person. (That might be at the recommendation of the defense, but it doesn't matter; there is no situational insight, consequently there won't be any improvement.) Z-Dogg MD came out in her defense as well, citing "just culture". From the outside is looks that since leadership gets off by default, consequently the scapegoat at the bottom that exposed the systemic failings should get of scot-free, too.
In the Ueberlingen case, at least someone had justice administered to him.
>Only one air traffic controller, Peter Nielsen of ACC Zurich, was controlling the airspace through which the aircraft were flying.[10] The other controller on duty was resting in another room for the night. This was against SkyGuide's regulations but had been a common practice for years and was known and tolerated by management.[10] Maintenance work was being carried out on the main radar image processing system, which meant that the controllers were forced to use a fallback system.
>Skyguide, after initially having blamed the Russian pilot for the accident, accepted full responsibility and asked relatives of the victims for forgiveness.
>Under international aviation laws,[failed verification] the compensation amount was about CHF 30,000 ($34,087) to CHF 36,000. The Swiss Federal Court turned down appeals from some relatives for higher compensation in 2011.
>A criminal investigation of Skyguide began in May 2004. On 7 August 2006, a Swiss prosecutor filed manslaughter charges against eight employees of Skyguide. The prosecutor called for prison terms of up to 15 months if found guilty.[29] The verdict was announced in September 2007. Three of the four managers convicted were given suspended prison terms and the fourth was ordered to pay a fine.[22] Another four Skyguide employees were cleared of any wrongdoing.
So a guy gets left to manage airspace by himself and was overloaded (not by his decision). A ground based collision warning system was shut off for maintenance. And he made a critical mistake and a lot of people died.
It's now "just" as a result to stab this guy to death in front of his young children? And the murderer can come home after a light punishment to celebration and acclaim? Gross, man. So gross.
It's just so absolutely misguided: "taking justice into ones' own hands," creating secondary victims in the guy's children, and further-- just chose the person who happened to be on duty and not anyone actually responsible for the policies and procedures that really created the accident.
The comment made was "Russia has a cancerously warped morality." The slap on the wrist the company received, the fighting over how much compensation to pay out, the Swiss government valuing the time they spent holding the murderer as higher than the lives of the children combined, the management who cut corners to the point dozens died. All of these are just as equal if not worse cancerously warped senses of morality. So given that as the baseline and what can count as normal (can, not should), I don't see where one has the ability to condemn that one specific part of the incident as being so much worse.
>And the murderer can come home after a light punishment to celebration and acclaim? Gross, man. So gross.
More gross than the murderers responsible for the death of dozens getting fiscal rewards by the other governments involved due to the legal systems they choose to enable? If anything, given the level of culpability and punishments handed out I would say that this particular individual did not receive the grosses treatment.
>"taking justice into ones' own hands," creating secondary victims in the guy's children
Which is why it is so important for the existing legal systems to create a sense of justice enough that people do not burn their one use of total social disregard for vengeance. When you deal with a case like this, discussions of right and wrong have little bearing on individuals who feel like they have lost everything seeking on vengeance for wrongs they do not feel were redressed. This is not advocating such behavior, only recognizing that until we achieve some level of mind control people will always have the option of throwing everything else away for the sake of vengeance. Not the right to do; the innate option and ability to do so. It isn't that such behavior is just or what is moral or what is right. It is about that (most) all of us have the ability to disregard all others and act as we desire until others use force to stop us and how society seeks to prevent people from choosing that option of last resort.
This is a factor in numerous anti-social behaviors and one reason why some behavior, no matter how much we pass and strengthen laws to stop it, continues unabated.
Well, fine, you've convinced me: if I'm wronged, it's perfectly OK to kill someone tangentially involved. As long as someone else involved did something that I consider worse, all's fair. /s
Complicated systems made out of many humans and policies break down and result in deaths. We try and make the systems better and deaths less, and look-- commercial aviation is safer than ever. But decisions made in this type of environment do not have a nice predictable cause and effect relationship like stabbing someone does.
You can be sure the next air traffic controller in similar situation (gear in service, lone shift) will voice his concerns and deny work instead of putting people in danger.
The 'Return' section is sickening. Russia has a cancerously warped morality.