It appears that in every thread about this event there is someone calling everyone else in the thread sick and twisted for not proclaiming that all lives are sacred and being for the death of one individual.
It really is a real life trolley problem because those individuals are not seeing the deaths caused the insurance industry and not realizing that sitting back and doing nothing (i.e. not pulling the lever on the train track switch) doesn’t save lives…people are going to continue to die if nothing is done.
Taking a moral high ground and stating that all lives matter is still going to costs lives and instead of it being a few CEOs it will be thousands.
No
Killing the evil fuck doesn’t save any lives. The board (?) still had the meeting he was on his way to and they are still going to continue to deny basic human rights to the people who pay them for it.
The reality is that this is just yet another sign of immaturity and arrested development. I forget where I first heard it but… folk been watching WAY too much Steven Universe and similar warm and cozy shit. They think that by always taking the high road they are better people and the world will be a better place because if you do the right thing everyone else will.
When the reality is that people like the dead fuck prey on naivety like that.
If we ever find out who did it we are sure to find out they are also a pretty monstrous person. But, as satisfying as this has been, it changes nothing.
The reality is that this is just yet another sign of immaturity and arrested development. I forget where I first heard it but… folk been watching WAY too much Steven Universe and similar warm and cozy shit. They think that by always taking the high road they are better people and the world will be a better place because if you do the right thing everyone else will.
I’m confused, didn’t you just agree that killing him has no effect? If so, why are you seemingly condemning the people who are condemning the people who are celebrating the killing?
I can assure you that I have no illusions about the brutality of human existence, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t oppose senseless violence when I see it.
Its the idea that “Oh, they are a human being with loved ones just like you”. When the reality is that he was a leech upon humanity who caused internally measured suffering and death. And his family benefited from that.
But, because the power of friendship and candy cane sandwiches, he is still a human being and we need to feel bad. It doesn’t matter how many people they murder for a buck, they are still a person and you are the bad person for not feeling bad for their death.
Its the idea that “Oh, they are a human being with loved ones just like you”. When the reality is that he was a leech upon humanity who caused internally measured suffering and death. And his family benefited from that.
He literally was a human being with loved ones just like you and me. The fact that the vast majority of people seem incapable of perceiving that reality is absolutely horrifying.
A leech is a leech. A human being is a human being. If you refuse to recognize the difference, you’re just as evil as anyone else. You don’t know anything about him or his life, which is why it’s so easy for you to dehumanize him. I wonder if you would feel the same if you had been there on the sidewalk and watched him gasping for air as he bled out. I wonder if you would feel the same if you had attended his funeral. I would hope not, but I’m honestly not sure anymore, my faith in basic human empathy and decency is somewhat shaken of late.
I’m not even saying that you need to feel bad. I’m just saying that people shouldn’t be supporting senseless gun violence and extrajudicial murder, no matter who the victim is. It’s like supporting genocide, or chemical weapons. This kind of shit isn’t good for anyone, and if you don’t understand that you’re a fucking idiot.
Actually its closer to capital punishment. of course it isn’t good for anyone. but you know what else is even worse for everyone? the policies this man personally implemented unnecessarily causing death, pain, and hardship to millions. which hilariously is more similar to your examples of genocide/chemical weapons.
he is the type of person you remove (with prejudice) from your environment asap.
Got it. Being amused at the death of someone who has immensely profited off the death and suffering of others is genocide.
Thanks for the demonstration of what I was talking about, I guess?
You’ve immensely profited off the death and suffering of others. Every single amenity of modern life that you possess came at a cost. Whatever nation-state you reside in waged countless wars to secure the resources you now enjoy. Everything that you eat and drink is provided to you courtesy of a chain of exploitative corporations that are doing catastrophic damage to the planet and human lives. Everything that you have ever done, including breathing, has exacerbated climate change. Every time you have paid your bills and taxes, you have continued to support this exploitative system. You are actively ruining this planet for untold future generations simply by continuing to selfishly remain alive and being too cowardly to rebel in any meaningful fashion against a system which you clearly understand to be violent and destructive. Shame on you.
Luckily, I don’t advocate for murder under any circumstances, because I am not a monster.
He literally was a human being with loved ones just like you and me.
I don’t make millions off of denying life saving healthcare to millions of people, which I think is more important than having loved ones. The worst atrocities are committed by people with loved ones.
They are still horrible people and the world is better off when they die.
The political system needs to change, killing CEOs will change nothing. They are just some random corpo people with a good work history and education that get paid well to act in the interest of shareholders. Nothing will change with this death. The US public just seems too ignorant about this massive issue. The US is a democracy and if the public actually pushed for strong healthcare reform and didn’t vote for someone who wants to cut healthcare benefits they could get improvement. All I see is radical violence LARPing that leads to nothing and some people acting all high and mighty acting self just which argue to kill like the top 1% and redistribute it and demonize them ignoring the fact that the masses aren’t behind them. This is lemmy, this is not real life! The chaos this causes just leads to more suffering without a solution. And a random guy who had the job of CEO died because he acted as he was supposed to in his job. Returning value for shareholders, since if he doesn’t he gets replaced with the next guy.
🤡
Killing a CEO is still doing nothing about the deaths caused by the insurance industry. How would it save lives of people harmed by privatized healthcare? If anything, it makes that anti-private-healthcare crowd look like a bunch of murderous zealots and will drive away any sympathy, making the problem worse. See: effect on indian raids on views of Native American rights, effect of Hamas attacks on views regarding Palestine, etc.
This is more like you let the train go and kill 5 people, or you pull the lever and kill one person, but that track loops back around onto the same track and kills the 5 people anyway, and then keeps going and kills 5 more people just tied on the part of the track the train already passed.
Let’s be real, many would pull the lever anyway because they just want to feel like they did something about it.
This has been reported a few times for inciting violence. While it is walking a line, I don’t see OP asking for anyone to be harmed. It was presented in the context of a popular thought experiment. Other posts with the trolley problem often include wealthy people in the scenarios, so I think there is good precedence for keeping this post up.
I agree that this post is uncomfortable and possibly insensitive due to timing as someone has actually died and this post is questioning the value of that death. Many fields of economics assign a monetary value to human life, which similarly makes people feel uncomfortable, but those are valuable conversations to have.
I thought this through a bit and try to error on the side of keeping posts up, but I make mistakes and I am open to feedback. If you want to give anonymous feedback you leave a report (I can’t see who writes reports but presumably admins can).
This has been reported a few times for inciting violence
Bad faith actors trying to shut down the conversation.
Get fucked bootlickers, this what a democracy looks like. I am sorry that working class cheering a dead parasite hurting your feelings but nobody here is inciting violence or if they are please link the comment so we can examine.
Trying to muddy this issue is a threat actor behavior.
Thank you mod for a reasonable take. Comments inciting direct and actionable violence should be removed for legal reasons.
… do you think killing a few CEOs is going to stop the shitty healthcare system we have? It’s nowhere near that easy to fix this broken system. There are thousands of MBAs just waiting in the wings to take over and do the exact same things.
It’s not a solution, it’s a reaction, and it doesn’t fix shit. Just escalates an already volatile situation.
France survived the Reign of Terror.
People survive lots of heinous shit, that doesn’t mean it helps.
Modern France is better than monarchist France.
Mostly due to the efforts of a lot of people working to make things better through political and social action.
But hey, they had that one time where they killed a bunch of people, that must have been the reason their lives are so much better. Clearly
Non violent action has never brought power to the table without a separate violent movement adding pressure. Not even Gandhi or Dr. Martin Luther King.
It only took a couple more civil wars, thousands of political arbitrary executions, 2 empiralist dictatorships and 2 monarchies to get a stable democracy about a century later.
Time to get started then.
Semi-stable based on recent events.
Unstable government but still functioning as intended, no one has a clear majority in the parlement so a government who doesn’t talk to everyone is going to get trashed and that’s what happened. This was very democratic.
The US doesn’t have a parliament. Neither party talks to everyone. There are women and ethnic minorities in Congress, which is definitely not what was originally intended.
Yup. Better take the long view.
The problem with the trolley problem is that this event isn’t a trolley problem. Killing one CEO doesn’t save lives, hell just be replaced and more guarded now.
We need proper reform and regulation.
If you were to continue killing CEOs, eventually the CEOs would call for change themselves. One dead CEO isn’t going to change that. Hypothetically, of course.
In America, the right to bear arms goes hand in hand with its dislike of regulation. Maybe the system is working the way it was intended for the first time?
When 1A fails, 2A has to save the day. I think we are seeing this first hand.
Tyranny over played its hand.
What do you call an American health care CEO dead on the street in Manhattan?
You can call him anything. It’s not like he’s gonna come anyway.
A good start?
Holy fuck. Not saying I agree (also not saying I don’t) but I laught at that answer.
That’s one of those jokes that also works for any kind of hate speech. In fact, that’s where it came from.
Laughing at this shows how easily you’re mobilized for any kind of terrorism.
This won’t make you think.
It did in fact make me think and I thank you for that. You won’t like the outcome of that thinking, though.
First of all, I’m far far away from being “mobilized”. I do agree that you could call what the killer did “terrorism” though, as he seeks to influence behavior by mortal fear (terror). Wheter the end justifies the means (as some would argue for example for "eco-terrorism) I don’t know. But I see how some people may feel like all other, more civil, avenues to change their life and the system for the better have been blocked off. But again, I’m far from being “mobilized” as in encouraging such behavior or even picking up a gun myself.
Now why did I laugh at the response? Simple: It’s morbid and unexpected, which are two aspects that I often find humorous.
Do I feel bad about laughing? No. The reason and the main difference to the “hate speech” you refer to are twofold: First, this joke is punching up, not punching down, as hate speech usually is. Second, hate speech is usually about what people are (black, asian, transgender, gay). This guy in contrast was loathed for what he did. That’s a major difference, since you can’t change what you are but what you do is in your hands.
I would love to hear a response from you but the condescension and smugness in your tone of writing makes me think that this won’t make you think.
🖕
That cute reply is par for the course, too. Enjoy some more murders 😘
Preventitive services?
What do you call an American health care CEO dead on the street in Manhattan?
Your comment is about a past event.
My post is using that past event to comment about how if insurance industry reform doesn’t happen the people who believe “all lives matter” in every possible scenario are not going to see more lives saved. In effect, if there was a trolley problem before them they would opt out from doing anything at all.
[off topic]
Back in the day, I heard a lecture on the tactics of terrorist groups.
The IRA was particularly effective in assassinations. People thought they had an vast army of trained killers on hand.
Actually, the number of shooters was small, maybe fifty in all.
What made them so dangerous was that they had a powerful ‘rear echelon.’
When the shooter arrived in town, he’d have three or four drivers waiting for him, a choice of safe houses, and more than one doctor to go to if he were to be injured.
What ultimately made the IRA win and get the Good Friday agreement was they targeted (ironically) high insurance properties. Take away human lives? Meaningless. Take away the money? You get a response.
Almost as if you need a military wing and a smart political wing.
Don’t worry he’ll be replaced with someone just as bad by the end of next week and they still have the same policies in place now that they did on Tuesday, it’s like the trolley problem but the “diversion” split the train so it could kill both sides of the track and they’ll recouple the cars on the other side.
Don’t forget with a signicant pay bump
No, it sends a clear message that people are becoming willing to use force to stop injustice. When we did it in the late 1800’s, we got the weekend, the 8 hour work week, and we kept (white) kids out of the factories. They are not omnipotent, this killing is what the rich have been paranoid about for ever, they are terrified of this becoming a trend.
Only when the powerful fear the people they relinquish their privilege.
This thread is refreshing. The healthcare system needs to be completely reworked but killing executives isn’t gonna do it. They’ll replace him, set up security services, and change absolutely zero features of their business.
It aint about the dead parasite, it is about sending the message
And when other groups you don’t agree with start sending “messages”?
society is going to the gutter, if that’s how it will go down, i guess that’s what the elites delivered to us. they rule us, never forget. this guy just hurt them.
if we don’t gloat over the dead parasite, we are still fucked.
gloating does rattle their cage and that’s the point of this message.
That’s only if this becomes a trend and many rich people die.
Even then, it’s not a guarantee that the rich won’t manipulate the masses with scapegoating.
Just like with a lot of thought experiments, you have to assume people will react rationally, so far they have which is kind of rare.
AFAIK it is actually a trend in more oppressive countries like Russia. I do suspect this will be a rising trend in the US. Especially with the rise in gun violence. I mean heck it was only a few months ago there were several attempts on Trump’s life.
But then, as you can see, media will try to paint the hero as a crazy/nazi/whatever bad person.
Everyone who has half a brain is cheering this guy on.
People in the comments seem to be arguing if this will or will not save lives. I don’t really care if it does. I think it’s ironic that there’s a crowd of people arguing that human life is precious and we can’t celebrate this guy’s death when the guy in question is the antithesis of that philosophy; he dedicated his life to profiting off of the suffering of others. I’m glad to see him go. There are many more I wish would follow.
I’m arguing that death squads of one v one are like death squads of fifty v one.
That is not a country that I want to live in. That country, the death squad country, will kill more than thousands.
But whatever, OP. It is just one must actually occupy the moral high ground to claim it. And assassination is not a moral choice. But you do have a funny picture.
Haha.
I love this “greater good” end-run-around the law that we follow as members of society; like premeditated murder of a soulless CEO is somehow okay.
How is ambushing ever not weak and cowardly? Swords at dawn if you’re going to make it personal.
This is not how we solve this. Killers are tried and punished in accordance with laws we all agree on, here.
What you’re missing, I think, is that ambushing isn’t weak or cowardly. It’s just setting up the most favorable conditions for the “fight” as possible.
If you’re engaging in an unbalanced war, and anyone targeting a rich target would be since the ability to hire security means you’ll be going against superior numbers from the beginning, you use the tactics available to you.
You may or may not agree that it’s a war. You might not agree that the shooter is justified. But the shooter most likely is at war in their mind, or (assuming it is part of things) someone that hired them does.
We aren’t allowed to duel, and someone challenged to one has no obligation to agree to it. You can’t usually even make the challenge without running into legal barriers. You send a letter to someone saying “hey, let’s have a sword fight”, expect a knock on your door. It simply isn’t an option. You can’t even arrange trial by champions, where you would face off against a chosen opponent and the other person would be bound by the outcome.
Again, regardless of whether or not you agree or like it, class warfare can be literal, at least in the minds of the people willing to wage such a war. Further, when one person uses their weapons to cause death and misery to non combatants, you can’t be surprised when those non combatants find weapons of their own and fight back any way they can.
That’s the thing you’re missing. From the state of mind of the populace, the CEO I question has a track record of causing death and misery by using the weapons of wealth and power. This means that the question isn’t one of peace time, it’s a question, for that frame of mind, of using the best tactics to achieve a goal.
Like it or not, the shooter achieved the goal of disrupting the machinery of that company, at least temporarily. They achieved the goal of making it known that wealth is not bulletproof, which is a very strong idea when the populace feels disempowered. That isn’t cowardice, that’s just good tactics. It may or may not end up being good strategy, but only time can show that.
If people are in a state of war, and I promise you that a shit ton of people do view the current assault on humanity by financial means as war, then ambush is a perfect tool for asymmetric warfare. It’s a tool to magnify your forces.
Bootlicker spotted.
Also, tell their to people who got denied health insurance coverage, coward
It really is a real life trolley problem
