Would I kill someone I don't know in order to save someone I know and love deeply? No. That is murder. Now saving a loved one vs. saving someone who is a stranger is a different scenario. The scenario depicted here is very clear. Kill or suffer loss of property that will impact your family physically.
I can see that this would be much harder to do in a collectivist society, I'll give you that much. But murder remains immoral.
I also agree that the consequence of injuring someone should be less. But I don't know what it's so high in the first place so I'm not at a point to really comment on that.
As an aside, I was not born in the U.S. and have lived the vast majority of my life in my country of origin. You stating that I would have the same perspective of those in China if I grew up there does not make that perspective the morally justifiable one. Not having grown up in that culture has given me (or most of us) the freedom of thought to come to the point where we can clearly identify it as immoral, even if we are never faced with the proposition.
By the time a comment descends to this, it's clear that it shouldn't have been posted to HN in the first place. This is supposed to be a site for civil, substantive discussion. If you can't abide by that, please don't post here.
From the article:
> With so many hit-to-kill drivers escaping serious punishment, the Chinese public has sometimes taken matters into its own hands. In 2013 a crowd in Zhengzhou in Henan province beat a wealthy driver who killed a 6-year-old after allegedly running him over twice.
Clearly people born and raised in China do not "have the exact same perspective".
Imagine you broke someone's leg. Would you rather kill the person and pay $1000, or spend the rest of your life in prison? Letting the person live and paying them $1000 isn't an option. You either get away scott-free, or ruin your life. I can completely understand a culture in which the reality of the consequences makes people choose the lesser punishment.
The solution isn't to increase the punishment for killing someone on the street. The solution is to abolish the ridiculous costs associated with merely injuring someone, especially if that injury comes from an accident.
Of course what's absolutely a joke is people acting all aghast about another country's culture from behind their white picket fences. You do realize that if you were born in their country, you would have the exact same perspective? What the fuck is with this high and mighty bullshit? Your upbringing in a privileged society doesn't make you better than those from less privileged societies, it just makes you privileged. Be thankful your day-to-day routine doesn't involve having to worry about the possibility of having to kill someone in order to keep your pristine life intact.