There’s a plethora of contradictions. Americans hate for-profit healthcare, inequality, and CEOs, but love to vote Republican and worship Elon Musk. The sad reality is the people did this to themselves and will keep doing it to themselves.
Fuck off bootlicker.
Try reading the article, moron.
Oh I’ll bet my left testicle I’m more intelligent than you, I’m just also very lazy and did not bother to even open something with such a title.
Hey everyone, we got Mr. Intelligent over here …
such a zinger
Have a great holiday season. I’m going to block you now, life is improved by your absence.
“I’m very"intelligent”, so “intelligent” that I fail to see the issue with criticizing literature based on its title. My brains, they overfloweth."
-Dasus, decidedly smarter than his left testicle
So brains, much smart
While being intelligent is better than being stupid, its not a guarantee of much. To be an American is to be played like a fiddle by a dozen interests and invisible hands every minute of every day. Its all a big show designed to keep you busy arguing about things which arent the real problems so you cant address the real issues.
Absolutely, I lived in the States for nearly a decade. The corporate influence is insidious. Living becomes a washed-out initiation of “real” life.
Acknowledging that, making and communicating criticism on the content of any writing based solely on its title is ridiculous and isn’t a particularly American problem. Doubling down and defending having done so is a special level of idiocy.
Read my new anti-pedophilia article “raping children is good”, why don’t you?
Well, it’s my fault for expecting journalistic standards.
“It’s your fault for not clicking click bait!”
Id care about your shitty downvotes lol
Today in Lemmy News: After bragging about their intelligence, Lemming proceeds to provide ample evidence of their lack thereof.
Breaking News! Super intelligent Lemming unable to grasp nuance and context, provides unrealistic, hyperbolic examples to support his very smart opinion.
Expert Commentary: It’s always interesting when people brag about how much they don’t care about downvotes when no one else has even mentioned them. If they didn’t care, they wouldn’t notice.
Yes, your pretentious bullshit is clearly so much more factual and to the point.
—NEWSFLASH—
Unable to actually address any points made despite their superior, testicle-backed intelligence, local brainiac and runner-up of the 2023 Madrid Masturbation Marathon resorts to fabrications and petty insults.
Now back to Steve in the weather-chopter!
If you’re trolling, you’re less enraging then entertaining (at your expense), so you might need to change your approach.
wink
Wow, very cool comment.
Will he get worked up and defensive? See below.
(he will)
I’m sorry but I can’t take you seriously with that username.
Did you read the article? Overall IMO the tone sympathizes with the average person frustrated and fed up with the system on their neck
One might’ve decide on another title then. Dont’ have time for bootlicker rhetoric, so no, I didn’t open it. Please do summarise.
I interpreted as “Should Ring All Alarms… because things have been rotting in society”, not that the CEO was killed, but on why he was killed.
When it’s ringing more alarms than school kids getting killed, something is wrong.
And they get killed every fucking day, these assholes once a blue moon. So if this didn’t ring any alarms as much as school shootings don’t, I’d be pleased.
I think the point of the title isn’t that the killing rings alarms, it’s that the response indicates building class tension.
What a painfully milquetoast article. The writing on the wall was there for a long time, and thinkpieces like this are nothing more than a shrug and “it do be like that”.
Again, people on Lemmy are frustrated that something “we all know already” was written down.
Can’t the world just hop on here and read our lemmy commentary instead?
Considering how many people a year die at the hands of insurance companies delaying and denying life-saving treatments to make a quick buck, the glee over this insurance CEO’s death is a fairly rational response - a reminder to the 0.1% that they’re not quite as immune to consequences as they think they are.
Structural violence is s great term that should get more use in cases like this.
I hope we’ll get some data on how much more money and effort is spend on this compared to cases where the target os just some regular nobody.
In before it gets rebranded Critical Structure Therory.
This case is a great reminder of who the police really work for. If/when the shit hits the fan, you know whose side they’ll be on.
Ring all alarms you say? Like that alarm for our world burning down? Or people living in ever shittier conditions? Or do you mean the one for sick people dying because they can’t afford the inhumane prices for treatment?
Just a rhetorical question, my friend. The writing was on the wall for a long time.
Yes. It SHOULD ring alarms. It should have rang alarms 100 years ago. It should make the rich and elite sit down and really contemplate the fact that nobody, NOBODY, gives a damn if they die, and we’ll openly celebrate the fact that they just got shot in the face. The world will be happy they’re gone.
It should make them sit down and ask the all important question of WHY.
Why would a nation cheer wildly at their death? What have they done to deserve that kind of treatment? And when they start asking those questions, hopefully they find the answers. Hopefully something is put right in their face that forces them to empathize with those they’ve hurt, and those that would not hesitate to shoot.
I do not know the shooters name. I do not know the shooters identity. However we ALL know the shooters story. We may not know the specifics. He may be dying, and was denied his own health. He may be losing or already lost a loved one. Whatever the case, we all know the motive. And what should scare these CEOs is that Brian Thompson never learned a lesson. There was no 3 ghosts of Christmas. Brian Thompson was just walking down the street one day. And suddenly he was dead. He didn’t even have time to process it. He never knew his killers name. He may not have even known he was targeted. He may have died before he even realized what’s going on.
But the rest of them? They should all be sitting in their homes, thinking about if they’re next. WHY they would be next, and what they’ve done to potentially be targeted in the future. What can they do to stop it?
Because for once in my life, I’m seeing real consequences for corrupt and evil behavior. THATS why everyone is cheering. It’s been a long time coming, and we’re all just hoping this turns into Americas version of the french revolution.
We’re not against the idea of working hard and becoming rich for it. We’re against the idea of becoming rich by exploiting the literal lives of those you step on. And that seems to be almost the exclusive way to become rich in this country. It’s sickening.
The better technology gets, the better the oppression and suppression will get, the worse it will be before people revolt, eventually they will be too feeble to revolt effectively.
Where do you think we are in that progression?
Agreed - the alarm bells should have been ringing long ago.
There was a social contract between the upper and lower class (the middle class is a lie used to further divide us) that was basically - we’ll let you have your mansions as long as our quality of life improves as well. But the rich have been hollowing out that agreement for decades. The highest tax bracket (the percentage taxed on income only above a certain amount) has plummeted since the middle of the 20th century. Regulations have been removed and replaced with weaker regulations (like Dodd/Frank) and then THOSE regulations have been hollowed out. Any sense of responsibility and duty the rich might have ever had to the people and place that rewarded them so greatly has vanished and in place of it is cynical and manipulative and greedy - because the only thing that matters is getting more and taking more - removing the safety barriers that keep them from getting more, no matter who it might hurt because somehow acquiring wealth has become the most important thing (not doing something great, improving the world, or helping others).
At each step, the social contract weakens. As long as enough people aren’t feeling the pain they’re going to abide by their part of the bargain because most of the rest of us ARE actually just trying to live good lives and make sure it’s good for those around us. But there will be a moment when enough people are feeling the pain and won’t have any other choice but to act. In a system where justice is only dealt to the lower class - that action is guaranteed to be carried out outside the system.
There was never a social contract. Sorry, but years absolute nonsense. The power of the wealthy has always been engacted through manipulation, intimidation and fraud. Claiming there was a social contract between the wealthy and the rest of us is like claiming that there was a social contract between slaves and slave owners.
There’s no contract, there’s no agreement, there’s no relationship; that’s a fantasy concocted by the wealthy to justify their wealth. There is only power and exploitation. And exploitation will always grow worse over time.
They abuse us, and we let them abuse us because we’re not desperate enough to stop them.
Not yet.
But it’s getting there.
I mean the social contract is not always a physical thing and not always by explicit consent. Just by carrying out our part of the system and accepting the benefits of it (infrastructure/protection/stability) we are implicitly consenting to it.
That being said, I absolutely agree with you that it is always slanted heavily toward the wealthy and not to benefit the working class but only to keep them in line.
I like ownership and working class. That’s the real distinction seperateing us. People who work for money, and people who own things for money. Even 6 figure doctors and lawyers are working class.
In a system where justice is only dealt to the lower class - that action is guaranteed to be carried out outside the system.
Ironically it appears that the solution is the second amendment solution that is championed by the right.
Remember when the Panama/Paradise papers came out and there were practically no Americans listed in them because American tax law is already so favorable to the rich that they don’t even need to bother hiding assets?
We (in the US) just elected a grifting, criminal “billionaire”. I don’t think the animosity so loudly and gleefully displayed in the reactions to the murder of this asshole insurance ghoul is representative of a newly heightened consciousness of wealth inequality. I hope that it is the start of something, but I’ve been disappointed in the public way too many times.
Just dropping in to remind everyone, that there have been 2 assassination attempts on the ‘grifting, criminal “billionaire”’ in just the last 8 months and he’s been hiding behind thick glass in public.
I don’t think it will stop, because however many people you manage to manipulate via targeted brainwashing (social media), you create at least a few super angry, unpredictable folks with ever less to lose. And they all have guns.
Edit: Also, nothing stops someone with a gigantic grudge, patience and high motivation from joining a private security company, getting training, a gun, and placed directly in the vicinity of a potential target. Really, there’s no good defense except not giving a ton of people reasons to want to get rid of you.
Edit: Also, nothing stops someone with a gigantic grudge, patience and high motivation from joining a private security company, getting training, a gun, and placed directly in the vicinity of a potential target. Really, there’s no good defense except not giving a ton of people reasons to want to get rid of you.
Not to mention the use of DIY suicide drones.
I’m scared of his supporters becoming disenfranchised by and turning on him. They’re already so volatile that their violence isn’t always going to be as precise as a single bullet. There’s going to be civilian collateral damage. It’s hard celebrating all this, knowing the motherfucker had it coming, but considering the reality of violence, vigilantism and the kinds of people that do this (and the state they’re in when pushed enough)… yay dead rich murderous fuck… but shit, I’m scared for all of us. That dude could have missed… a stray could have killed someone. Couldn’t have gone through his head, shattered on his skull and shrapnel ricochets through a kid walking to school. Everyone wants street justice but forgets that living by the sword means living by the sword.
Definitely. This was more of a general comment.
I will copy/paste a thought I had about more a structured approach for dealing with corruption/oligarchs:
You need to put them on trial in a legitimate court (i.e. exclude compromised judiciary systems).
If the oligarch/senior lackey is found guilty, you could use real rehabilitation methods that would creates incentives for good behaviour for other criminals:
- Full asset seizure (every last cent, home, house, everything).
- Extended family and business partners being required to sign affidavits detailing their knowledge re: assets in [1], with an understanding that if the affidavit was found to have not been signed in good faith, they will be subject to full asset seizure and their own family and business partners will also have to sign similar affidavits for their own case. No statue of limitations for affidavits.
- 20 years mandatory live-in community service as junior support person at a hospice centre (minimum wage). Exact focus of community service would depend on crimes committed.
Are you kidding? Them turning on him is our greatest hope.
Trump is already responsible for indirectly killing hundreds of thousands of Americans due to his failure during COVID.
We’re not against the idea of working hard and becoming rich for it. We’re against the idea of becoming rich by exploiting the literal lives of those you step on. And that seems to be almost the exclusive way to become rich in this country. It’s sickening.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again:
I don’t care if you make money. I don’t care if you make a lot of money. I care when you pull out all the stops in order to make ALL OF THE MONEY, FOREVER, without any regard for what you destroy, or who you hurt or even kill in order to get it.
Brian Thompson built his fortune off the pain, suffering, and deaths of others, and the world is a slightly better place without him.
If people had half a brain then the alarms have been ringing nonstop for years and any attempt to explain why so we can fix it resulted in failure.
Sadly, what they have is shit for brain.
My eyes started rolling the second the writer said “the horrifying news.”
If you push past that, they do essentially conclude that this is an inevitable consequence of our current situation. It’s a better take than I expected.
I’m more horrified that it took this long for the backlash, but I’ve been expecting it for years.
It’s really bringing the corporate shills out of the woodwork.
This incident is casting fresh light on norms that has basically become invisible to us in our lives - like the media’s natural tendency to side with the establishment.
I fear that instead of an era of reform, the response to this act of violence and to the widespread rage it has ushered into view will be limited to another round of retreat by the wealthiest. Corporate executives are already reportedly beefing up their security. I expect more of them to move to gated communities, entrenched beyond even higher walls, protected by people with even bigger guns.
Unfortunately the alarms are ringing for the wrong people. This is worrying as modern technology can allow these people to deal with mobs and riots a lot more effectively.
This is also why in certain grassroots communities people have been pressing for more radical, immediate action. If the big guys at the top start getting spooked then it could be too late for any efforts at dethroning them.
Yeah Bashar al-Assad knew there were a lot of people in his country that wanted to remove him from power. Because of this a movement to remove him from power completely failed. Oh wait, no, the opposite of that happened.
It’s actually more the norm that smaller actions (successful or not) snowball into larger actions. A movement isn’t a bunch of academics discussing ideology. It requires real actions non-academics can relate to.
Honestly it would be better for the people in power if this guy is never found. If they kill him, he becomes a martyr. If he’s put on trial, that’s an event that could spark protests. It’s better for the powers that be if everyone just forgets this ever happened.
I agree that it most likely is in the best interests for those in power to just drop the assassination story and pretend it never happened, but if it is the best choice it’s the best in a series of bad choices for the powerful. Underneath the immediate concern of one of the peonage getting up the courage to kill one of the Princes of the Universe is the general public response.
Every day the assassin stays free and in the news is a day everyone can see that the American public supports and condones the killing of people in C-suite (and likely beyond C-suite). That is one hell of a permission structure now in place. If the Powers That Be then pretend the killing didn’t even happen letting the assassin off the hook, that’s them giving carte blanche to copycats to do as they will, nobody is going to stop you. Nothing is true, everything is permitted.
I have inside me blood of kings!
Yeah, the thing about that is it extends to not just those you dislike. Using your Syria example, you as a private citizen can be murdered in the street by another private citizen with no repercussions, too.
You are an American, you don’t live in Syria. As bad as America is, it’s not Syria. Wanting it to get that bad is not smart.
expect more of them to move to gated communities, entrenched beyond even higher walls, protected by people with even bigger guns.
Protecting oneself from gunmen by surrounding oneself with gunmen with bigger guns sounds great until you think about it a bit more.
Thats when paranoia hits.
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Tiny drones with a small explosive charge, send a dozen to land on their head and shoulder area and explode. Good luck defending against that.
Aerostats. Once again, Neal Stephenson already called it.
With a big enough crowd, no matter the size of the gun, the crowd wins.
Thats when paranoia hits.
Let them feel uncomfortable for the rest of their existence.
That’s why you end up with an army that is too powerful for anyone civilian to resist.
Protecting oneself from gunmen by surrounding oneself with gunmen with bigger guns sounds great until you think about it a bit more.
Doesnt sound too great if you’re dead. Guns make ridiculously terrible defensive weapons. Gun nuts dont seem to understand this. Whoever gets bullet into meat first wins, and surrounding yourself with guns just guarantees vengeance after you’re dead meat, not safety. The size of your clip doesnt matter either. Its argued over as a distraction-- and was chosen as a legal battleground because its a pointless concern.
The only ringing in my head is that tingtingtingting of the starter ship in no man’s sky
If the murder of the United Healthcare CEO is horrible news…
At the very annual general meeting that would have occurred had this not happened, would there have been a word describing the horribleness of the news that United made billions more than last year off the backs of American policy holders, American doctors/nurses/physicians/pharmacists, American taxpayers? I highly doubt it.
Every dollar in profit is the standard extraction of value from people, which may be warranted at a fixed rate for the services provided. Every dollar in increased profit is a squeezing of their customers, hopefully for an enhanced service to them in return. In healthcare, it was found that an enhanced return in value to customers was no longer necessary, when making money in crushing people’s lives is more profitable, legal and encouraged by shareholders and management.
And the dead who they killed by denying people what they paid for…there are dead victims here from this shit company and shit leaders.
It is bad that vigilantism is being celebrated (though I’ll admit to being aboard the “laugh about this specific murder” train).
But I think the reason that this is being celebrated is that this is the only kind of justice this guy could have ever faced because his crime is legal
It’s a moment of catharsis, its that drop of blood against a psychopathic group of people using their power and control to decide whether we get to live or die and mostly choose to let us die.
At this point it feels like we’re in general are mostly out of options. Legislation hasn’t worked the ACA didn’t address the power health insurance companies have over us, voting with our wallet doesn’t work on an inelastic industry where every single person needs health care, the courts are bought out by these wealthy psychos.
Either we just live with the current and keep dying unnecessarily or we use the last box of civic engagement.
If CEOs get to celebrate making money by killing people we get to celebrate vigilantism.
At least with vigilantism fewer people die.
People should have re-optimized the economy a long time ago.
I think that what is… idk, encouraging? about it is that we finally saw them flinch. After years of seeing justice go unserved and the villains thumb their nose at the law with full confidence that they’ll walk away unscathed, we got to see a slight chill, like they just learned that they may be mortal after all. Unfortunately, it’s also shown that the institutions can’t be trusted to do the right thing, and as long as they continue to be as feckless as they are, we’re going to see more of this. So, ultimately, inadvertently, the institutions are encouraging this vigilantism.*
I fully expect this to fade away soon as our “society” has the collective attention span of a dust mite, but we have to celebrate small victories wherever they come.
*or they could be encouraging it intentionally as a means to further break down our foundations </tinfoil>
Dont beat yourself up about it. Look at the context the public still has the last time billionaire died it was a submersible.
The reaction to that and this are very similar except the challenge deep wasn’t involved to making healthcare unaffordable.
Not to mention Rick Scott also defrauded millions from medicare in Fl
Almost as if the media values billionaires way more than the average person does.
Well those are their buddies who sign their outrageous checks. Of course millionaires are protecting billionaires and other millionaires. Class interests come before all else.
One thing is that a company does work, gets a fair payment from that, and if you do a lot of work, you get a lot of payment
A whole other subject is when you squeeze every last dejt out of the people you say you work for
A completely different subject is when your company’s policies are so bad that you cause untold suffering and literally thousands of preventable deaths.
We shouldn’t need not want a vigilante shooter, these people (CEO’s of these kinds of companies) should all be in jail for life.
I’m a CTO at a small medical supplier company and I work hard to make sure we’re ethical. I can honestly claim were ethnical. We’re a bunch of people trying to make life easier for others, for doctors and patients. None of us are rich, but we are passionate and we honestly want to grow the company not by squeezing every cent out of our customers, we grow by just making sure we’re the best and fairest. It is very possible to be c level and to be ethical, but it has to be a choice.
if you do a lot of work, you get a lot of payment
Thats just not how the world works I’m afraid. At all.
Private or public company?
Finally, a genuine and intelligent question. Thanks for that, so far I just got idiots responding
Private, of course.
When having a publicly traded company, it’s almost impossible to be ethical. Publicly traded companies should be outlawed. Investments here and there are fine, but the current system as-is is indeed fucked up
Yup, that’s where I was heading with that. Its weird how hard it is to be ethical and not get your ass sued for shareholder value issues in a public company.
The way it currently works makes it that publicly traded companies basically MYST be unethical to succeed. It’s really strange how any of this is legal at all
I’m a CTO at a small medical supplier company and I work hard to make sure we’re ethical.
Good for you, tell me, what is the average wage/compensation for your company? What is the ratio of CEO pay to worker pay?
Do you know those numbers off the top of your head? Does anyone but the CFO know? If you don’t know those numbers off the top of your head, you aren’t really trying your best to be ethical.
Oh fuck your attitude already.
Sorry but you have a rotten attitude. Nothing is enough, people trying suck anyway, and no true Scotsman!
Here: I have a relatively high salary, it’s give or take a little over twice the country’s average. My salary is about twice as high as the lowest salary at the company. The lowest salary at the company is slightly below he country’s average. I’m also the first to enter, the last to leave, and I work on the weekends as well to try and give my best to everyone. Not bragging, it is what it is. I also live in a < 500sqft apartment with my wife, and I’m totally happy with it, we don’t need more. I’m not rich, I’m upper middle class at best.
I don’t know the salaries of the other C levels, but I know how they live and what they drive and where they spend their vacations; Their salaries are comparable to mine. I got my salary because of the shit tonne I give tonhe company, same goes for the other C levels.
Your attitude of " everyone who has more than me is evil" is shit and is also part of the reason why things are as bad as they are. Goes for all people who think that any company automatically is evil because some companies are. There are LOADS of people who just work hard for what they have and who really try to make sure other have it good too.
You don’t get to judge me, so take your damned attitude and fuck off until you can behave normal
Actually, those are pretty good answers. Good on you. Have a nice night.
Thumb up
That descalated quickly! Props to you both!
Thanks!
I’m sorry but you’re not ethical. I’m sure you’re doing your best but you’re a small fish in a very unethical ocean. It’s not your fault, you’re just another cog in the machine.
Are you seeing what you’re writing there?
I’m unethical because I’m a cog in a machine?
So in other words, we’re all evil, you are evil, maybe we should all kill ourselves and get it over with because why even bother trying, rite?
Fuck your attitude
I’m getting REALLY tired of reading “fuck your attitude” multiple times in your comments, chief. You need to correct that language or you need to leave-- or more preferably get tossed out on your arse.
