That's essentially what happens in real life in some places: Don't pay for the fire department (although you should have known better) and in case of a fire the fire department will protect your neighbor's house, but will watch as your house burns to the ground: http://www.kfvs12.com/story/13281481/fire-chief-responds-to-...

Worth noting that it doesn't work like that for the overwhelming majority of residences in the US. Only places where you have to pay a specific fire subscription.

I dislike this analogy as I hold human life in a much higher regard. If you replace people with something like "property with no sentimental value" then the anology would be closer, but still imperfect. In that analogy, I would give pause but "letting it burn" would be much more palatable.

No harm to any sentient being was caused by the unintended DAO usage ("hack").

A more apt comparison would be: Someone found a flaw in my distributed MMORPG and now the game isn't interesting / useful anymore to some people. Should we collectively change the rules, even though we previously committed to not doing so? And before you say "Ethereum is no game", consider how serious some people take their gaming worlds and how much resources (time and money) they invest.

No, but we're not talking about human lives. We're talking about an ecosystem that is, as I understand, built on the premise that code is law. I may be mistaken.