Is the US a dystopia?

And I'm sorry but I find it dumb and sad to pretend as if his death is anything to how insurances work

I also enjoy making up people to be mad at and then finding them dumb and sad.

I'll try to react to the messages that followed my post, even if a lot of ground has been covered by others (in orbit, ENBB, Alfred).

I don't think I posted a response?

tfw when it's already 3403AD

the year is 3403 AD, crime is legal and cop's are illegal, only one man is willing to break the law to make the law legal again: Crimecop

— thomas violence (@thomas_violence) June 2, 2014

pic.twitter.com/gHpdlxUdwn

— cHⒶN SOLO (@crime_punx) December 6, 2024

I don't think I posted a response?

― the talented mr pimply (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, December 6, 2024 11:33 AM (eleven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

You said that justice would have been better served by the CEOs slipping on a banana than being contract-killed. Which I agree with. Trump is actually a very good parallel: came close to being assassinated, prosecuted, now the legitimate president. Not liking it is one thing. Wishing othat bullets would correct history is a whole other. Others have pointed the consequences. Idk, seems pretty fundamental to me.

lol that was a joke

Constitutionally it's hard for me to wish someone death -- even a Kissinger, who deserved worse than death. But the level of stress and suffering, and, yeah, death this man brought to people indicts the insurance grift and a country that still can't see itself into paying for health care.

I’ve been struck by how widespread the reaction to this case is even in spaces that aren’t normally political; yesterday I was reading a perfectly boring post on MLBTradeRumors about Freddie Freeman getting surgery on his foot and an argument broke out in the comments about this (someone made a joke that UHC had denied him surgery until now), to the tune of maybe 1/3 of the replies?! That’s crazy reach, and shows how affected the lives of ordinary Americans are by these kinds of companies.

The biggest guitar forum is pretty boomer-conservative and the thread there barely has any ‘how dare you laugh’ types (but also no open gloating) (centrism!) and overwhelmingly the posters are mad about for-profit healthcare and insurance companies.

Seems like there might be some energy there you could get people to rally around if you were a major political party that just got embarrassed…

yes the emergent politics here is less the act per se than an extremely large as-yet-unfortmed constituency recognising itself in the strength of its reaction to the act (or in fact for the act)

unformed #ffs

Lmao I just checked back that thread and someone went on a complete tear about how Americans deserve single payer

We had an assassination with immediate political effects recently.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Shinzo_Abe

The biggest guitar forum is pretty boomer-conservative and the thread there barely has any ‘how dare you laugh’ types (but also no open gloating) (centrism!) and overwhelmingly the posters are mad about for-profit healthcare and insurance companies.

Seems like there might be some energy there you could get people to rally around if you were a major political party that just got embarrassed…

one could argue that anthem blue cross blue shield abandoning its plan to put time limits on the anesthesia it would pay for was a direct result of the outpouring of rage that followed the assassination

One could!

I’ll go with spooked, too. That was FAST.

My guess is it had nothing to do with it and they are going to do it anyway without announcing it.

I think CT did something quick policy-wise to force Anthem not to deploy that in their state. Probably other states should follow their example though that seems a bit whack-a-mole bc the companies will just think of something else even more ghoulish.

many xposts but who let Martha Wayne into this thread

only way to know for sure if that blue cross rollback was related to this is kill some more health insurance ceos and see what happens maybe try some from other industries too then we can finally answer the question does political violence work

I’ve been struck by how widespread the reaction to this case is even in spaces that aren’t normally political

― gyac, Friday, December 6, 2024 5:58 AM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

otm this country has changed a lot

in any case, to summarize for Nabozo:

scenario 1: someone follows a mid-level UHC claims adjuster and kills them in the street.

p much nobody here is going to cheer that because a job is a job and this person is someone who is just trying to get by and few of us have the luxury of working for a company that isn't problematic.
-----------------------------------------------------------

scenario 2: someone follows the CEO of UHC and kills them

dude is the face of the company and has decision-making abilities and uses them to increase profitability and dick over customers resulting in their death, disability, or financial ruin.

sorry bruh turnabout fair play etc etc

What has society come to when the head of Society Destroyer Inc can be shot and nobody treats it with the appropriate gravity

CEO needs a tribute song from Elton John

The nytimes coverage of this has had the expected maddening scold tone (https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/05/nyregion/social-media-insurance-industry-brian-thompson.html), but the fact they’re even covering the *arguments in favor of assassinating CEOs* (and doing a fairer job of articulating them than they would if this were a terrorist attack for example) feels like a thing.

I think social media just reveals how bloodthirsty Americans are in general. Like if Twitter had been around when Kent State happened we’d probably have a whole different idea of it.

uh plenty of people, wayyyy more than you'd think at first cheered on hippies getting shot by National Guard. "they shouldn't have been there," etc

people like us probably reacted similarly to this a decade ago, the difference is other people who normally would have issued platitudes are actually saying "who cares, fuck him" now since things have declined so much in the last 10 years

What if you're just a simple Austro-Hungarian archduke and you're just minding yr own beeswax

Asking for a friend

I will admit being a little surprised and discomfited by the bloodthirstiness, but I am fortunate/privileged enough not to have been significantly harmed by the practices of insurance companies.

gotta give a tip o the cap to american propaganda for recasting the civil rights movement into mlk and a white child holding hands and singing kumbaya the white people saw them and immediately realized the error of their ways and racism was defeated, 60 years later and liberals are still all violence is never the answer which as a moral stance fine whatever well get to that and further violence doesnt work which is just wildly ahistorical, the civil right act passed in the midst of riots in response to kings killing the union movement fought the only battle on american soil since the civil war etc etc, now are these liberals opposed to state violence no obviously not you cant have a state without violence just arresting someone is a violent act if i did that i would be changed with a violent crime, so why is the state monopolizing violence if its useless, in conclusion these liberals pacifist in protest and violent in patriotism are more committed to the stability of the state than they are to whatever problem people being oppressed by it are having

having said that i can certainly sympathize with people not liking violence its a bad experience and def could on any particular occasion make the situation worse but this violence is always counter productive just do peaceful protest lib talk is pure fool stuff not serious for the birds

I think social media just reveals how bloodthirsty Americans are in general. Like if Twitter had been around when Kent State happened we’d probably have a whole different idea of it.

― Grape Fired At Czar From Crack Battery (President Keyes), Friday, December 6, 2024 9:29 AM (eleven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

there was contemporaneous polling done and the majority blamed the students iirc

you know I feel uncomfortable laughing at this
― frogbs, Thursday, December 5, 2024 5:05 AM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

It's not just you. Rejoicing over someone being assassinated in the street in NYC because their paycheck or company make them unworthy of basic human dignity is beyond fucked up. But I guess it's ok because a million other people on Twitter were hoping just for this exact comic relief.

Anyone wants a laugh ? I'm in a train in a rich country that just hit a person and they're cleaning up.

― Nabozo, Thursday, December 5, 2024 3:39 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

[...]

interesting quirk of those jumping up to scold peoples reactions to this news story is once they get past vague generalities like human dignity they fail totally at simple analogies prob cause accuracy would demand something like if a weapons manufacturer was killed by someone harmed by their weapons would you laugh then huh not so funny now

― lag∞n, Thursday, December 5, 2024 9:49 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

If this CEO had slipped on a policy, gotten a concussion, and died -- now that's justice.

― the talented mr pimply (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, December 5, 2024 9:51 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

what if he denied himself coverage

― lag∞n, Thursday, December 5, 2024 9:52 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

I'm sorry that happened Nabozo that sounds extremely traumatic.

― c u (crüt), Thursday, December 5, 2024 9:55 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

The wild thing is that in 3-4 months this whole situation will be a faint, distant memory, because that’s how life is now

― Marten Broadcloak, mild-mannered GOP congressman (Raymond Cummings), Thursday, December 5, 2024 9:57 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

I'm sure it won't take Nabozo 3 whole months to forget about the train victim

― rob, Thursday, December 5, 2024 10:02 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

[...]

And now a message for rob: how I feel about people jumping under trains is my prerogative. Whether you or I feel much more deeply and humanely about them is certainly not something I have ever wondered. Or maybe you thought the occasion was too good to send an insult in passing ?

― Nabozo, Friday, December 6, 2024 3:01 AM (six hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I haven't a clue what you're objecting to wrt to my specific post, but I wasn't trying to insult you. I was pointing out that you were using the death of a real but anonymous person -- the circumstances of which were not remotely similar or relevant nor clear from your first post -- to score moral points in a message board conversation. I guess it's your prerogative to do that though, sure

xpost I know. Which is why I said that it would have been amplified by social media, rather than tamped down by somber mainstream media voices.

not trying to mess with yr point man just adding a lil info dont make me do a violence i prefer peaceful protest

is there any chance this guy actually gets away

what if he's shot by a member of the CEO's family

rob otm, Nabozo's post reminded me of the time my high school choir teacher was upset because she thought we were being unruly so she told us one of the choir members had a relative who had been in a car accident and was likely not going to make it and how insensitive were we to be acting like this when that was happening. like yeah, someone getting hit by a train is bad, but it has fuck all to do with the situation at hand here. nobody's doing Darwin Award posts in here ffs.

is there any chance this guy actually gets away

― frogbs, Friday, December 6, 2024 9:52 AM (five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

if thats actually him in the picture gotta think not, otherwise maybe

check the cast of Smile 2 imo

We had an assassination with immediate political effects recently.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Shinzo_Abe

― xyzzzz__, Friday, December 6, 2024 5:32 AM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

"Abe assassination" redirects here. Not to be confused with the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

lol

lol

is there any chance this guy actually gets away

in any case, to summarize for Nabozo:

scenario 1: someone follows a mid-level UHC claims adjuster and kills them in the street.

p much nobody here is going to cheer that because a job is a job and this person is someone who is just trying to get by and few of us have the luxury of working for a company that isn't problematic.
-----------------------------------------------------------

scenario 2: someone follows the CEO of UHC and kills them

dude is the face of the company and has decision-making abilities and uses them to increase profitability and dick over customers resulting in their death, disability, or financial ruin.

sorry bruh turnabout fair play etc etc

If my position demanded using AI to cut costs to feed my greedy shareholders & by doing so it overrode medical advice given by the doctors of sick people to condemn them to less or no treatment, I probably wouldn’t do it. Your job demands an increase in human suffering? What are you, helpless?

Otm

No, I wouldn't do it, either.

I would have an easier time cheering the death of a politician who speaks openly about his desire for cruelty and actively bends the role to his will. But I also get that the CEO is a symbolic figure.
― jaymc

Part of the irony here is that possibly no one is more accountable to for-profit corporations than elected officials, thanks to lobbying and our terrible campaign finance systems and lack of or relaxed enforcement of regulations. Like...the politician is possibly even MORE of a figurehead, while the CEOs and corporate functionaries skate by unseen.

OTM