Is the US a dystopia?

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

jaymc, are there other cases where this is clearer for you? The Sacklers, for example. It's hard for me to entirely see your POV here because capitalism being am under-acknowledged form of rule/governance is pretty key to my understanding of politics, so the idea that a CEO would be a cog while a politician is an autonomous agent is, bluntly speaking, wrong imo. Without getting too theory-brained here, privatized health insurance is a form of biopolitical and necropolitical governance that has way more control over most Americans' lives than the US govt does.

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

― budo jeru, Friday, 6 December 2024 bookmarkflaglink

Sorry just a massive fan of the Abe assassination.

This post is useful in helping me think about my discomfort. Yes, this is all true of the CEO, but I also feel on some level that he is a cog in the system. He is making these decisions not out of malice, presumably, but because is the CEO of an insurance company and that is what his position requires. I wouldn't personally want to be the CEO of an insurance company, but I assume a lot of people who rise to executive positions in the corporate world are just "good at business" (i.e., able to succeed within and uphold the capitalist system that structures society).

Yes, but an integral part of being "good at business" in this way is to have internalized an ideology that sees human lives as expendable, the suffering of others as a perhaps regrettable but inevitable part of building a good society where those Good At Business can thrive. Imo that is much more evil than a politician who is upfront about his hatefulness

xposts gyac and in orbit otm

xp at rob: i'm not sure it's as useful to try to distinguish and measure gov influence vs. private health insurance; it's more that they are interwoven

If the CEO is just another cog, does anyone bear moral responsibility for destructive decisions and actions by corporations?

The CEO is a cog in the sense that they can be immediately replaced if the stockholders aren't making enough money, which means they have very little autonomy is their actions (other than deciding to resign.) A politician cannot be replaced as easily, and can take votes that go against various donors' wishes if it will make them more popular with voters.

v dangerous to be a world leader named Abe

If the CEO is just another cog, does anyone bear moral responsibility for destructive decisions and actions by corporations?

That's the beauty of the system! The shareholders are mostly divorced from the day to day operations, the CEO is just an employee, everyone gets to feel that it's not up to them.

I pretty much agree with all of these arguments against jaymc’s thesis but I do think that people are underselling exactly how powerful a bureaucracy can be once it gets rolling and how hard it can be to change it, regardless of your position in it.

The CEO isn’t powerless in the slightest but the gestalt entity that is the corporation over which they preside can oftentimes do whatever it wants regardless of the CEO’s wishes, plus the CEO often has to answer to a board that has a financial interest in keeping the corporation as financially evil as possible.

In conclusion, I don’t think anyone on this board is wrong, you’re all just looking at different vectors of the same problem.

Aren’t there plenty of opportunities to be a CEO at places other than the killing the sick factory?

It's a particularly ghoulish industry agreed but imo you're unlikely to find a company to be CEO of that isn't morally abhorrent to some degree, tho obv there are gradations.

This is why I would never allow any child of mine to become a CEO.

xp at rob: i'm not sure it's as useful to try to distinguish and measure gov influence vs. private health insurance; it's more that they are interwoven

― budo jeru, Friday, December 6, 2024 10:59 AM (two minutes ago)

for sure! I agree they're inseparable. I was avoiding using the word neoliberalism, but that's what I'm talking about, more or less.

anyway, I'm more pushing against a kind of default libertarianism that sees the State as the primary source of domination and social control and Capital as being almost mystically market-driven (tbc that's not a comment on jaymc's post; possibly it's irrelevant to make this point here). Health insurance and healthcare companies quite literally make decisions about who lives and who dies -- they should be seen as forms of government. Naturally, this is quite obvious as soon as you live somewhere where healthcare is run by the state

"You're not leaving that room, young man, until you change that business major!"

jaymc, are there other cases where this is clearer for you? The Sacklers, for example.

That's an interesting analogy, and maybe the reason that the Sacklers are more clearly evil to me is that there has been a long-running campaign to publicize the Sacklers as evil.

This thread's been on fire the last 24 hours. Thanks, y'all. It will help focus my responses when I hang out with one of my best friends this weekend, a low-level Preferred Care Partners employee who will probably get weepy about this death.

That's an interesting analogy, and maybe the reason that the Sacklers are more clearly evil to me is that there has been a long-running campaign to publicize the Sacklers as evil.

― jaymc,

I've seen plenty of stories since at least 2018 about United's perfidious activities. Is it because until the last two days it was harder to make insurance CEOs into Marie Antoinettes?

the Sacklers fucked up by essentially acting like a drug cartel. One thought I had about the reaction to this guy's murder was to wonder if the scolds would also object to gleeful reactions to the murder of a mob boss.

The sun turned cold over Wall Street and the town of Manhattan mourned
They said a mass in the old church near the house where he was born
And someday if God’s in heaven overlooking His preserve
I know the man that shot him down will get what he deserves

i will say that another positive thing about this is that it makes apparent who the craven bootlickers are—

Health insurance and healthcare companies quite literally make decisions about who lives and who dies -- they should be seen as forms of government.

Remember when the slogan against Obamacare was that it would include - gasp - death panels, who would decide who lives and who dies? Good times, good times.

I've seen plenty of stories since at least 2018 about United's perfidious activities

Huh, guess I haven't been paying attention.

The CEO isn’t powerless in the slightest but the gestalt entity that is the corporation over which they preside can oftentimes do whatever it wants regardless of the CEO’s wishes, plus the CEO often has to answer to a board that has a financial interest in keeping the corporation as financially evil as possible.

In conclusion, I don’t think anyone on this board is wrong, you’re all just looking at different vectors of the same problem.

― DJP

Absolutely. The non-corporeal-ness of the corporation makes it impossible to hold anyone responsible and yet somehow the total system is too big to stop, too big to fail, too big to blame. That's the dystopic part. Bureaucracy substitutes for and neutralizes any possible solutions.

If this partic CEO didn't personally "deserve" to be targeted for violence (although cf gyac and Daniel et al arguably by some moral calculus he does but whatever), he's as much a random victim of the system as much as VAST numbers of people who suffered or even died bc their healthcare was denied or they were financially ruined. The system didn't care who they were or that their lives had meaning....well, welcome to the same standard being applied at 1/100,000,000th of the scale.

I don't know how many more ways to say the same thing.

I don't know how many more ways to say the same thing.

Yeah I feel you on that, it’s part of why I have been quiet/lurking here