I don't think the people arguing for a different standard are saying that it is ok for one person to die because people die every day. They're asking for observers to look at self-driving cars in comparison to human-driven cars. Because people dying is such a bad thing that we want to prevent, the relevant question should always be, "will this change make it more or less likely that somebody will die." And that is why it is relevant to compare pedestrian deaths from self-driving cars to pedestrian deaths from human-driven cars, but not relevant to compare it to skynet or thermonuclear war.
I don't know, however, how that comparison turns out. From the other comments, it looks like Uber's self-driving cars might be less safe than human-driven cars--in which case you and I would end up on the same side of the argument.
Sure, but in the oculus rift comparison someone could have easily died because the VR surgery equipment failed for a reason so stupid as a certificate expiring during surgery.
You can make the same argument that people die in non-VR surgery all the time so it is no such a big deal.
You're absolutely right that designers, regulators and, in some cases, courts should take every death (and accident/near miss) seriously. But it seems to me like there are two questions here. The first question is, "should we have self-driving cars?" and the second is "how can we make those cars as safe as possible?" When people say, "compare it to a human driver," they are suggesting a way to answer the first question, not the second. And that does not mean that they think the second question is "no big deal."
It's also worth noting that the quote he presented from the Oculus Rift thread was criticizing someone for pointing out that it is less concerning if surgical training equipment crashes than if surgical equipment crashes, not for saying that it is no big deal if someone dies in surgery. I didn't see anyone in that thread saying it would be ok for VR surgery equipment to fail.
I don't know, however, how that comparison turns out. From the other comments, it looks like Uber's self-driving cars might be less safe than human-driven cars--in which case you and I would end up on the same side of the argument.