Is the US a dystopia?

the manifesto: https://archive.is/7jUsF#selection-1051.0-1054.0

weirdly my reaction to the photo is to not feel as bad about not getting any action, on the grounds that this dude is definitely hotter than me

that's probably a bad take, right?

there don't seem to be any bad takes on the situation

"...United Healthcare changes the rules to suit their own profits. They think they make the rules, and think that because it’s legal that no one can punish them.
They think there’s no one out there who will stop them."

i'd like to think of this as a safe space for bad takes.

woah at that manifesto

Yeah

Very "everyman".... feel for the guy

A lot of bunk in that manifesto, but the blow by blow of his mother’s healthcare tragedy is harrowing. And then the money quote:

“That’s where UnitedHealthcare went wrong. They violated their contract with my mother, with me, and tens of millions of other Americans. This threat to my own health, my family’s health, and the health of our country’s people requires me to respond with an act of war.”

yep

In Gladiator 1 … i lolled

Dude misunderstood Camus

4 stars idk

I agree with the above assessment. Still alternating between cringing and nodding my head ironically at ending it with a picture of a Pokémon turning away…..

the ethical ruminations are stupid but the story about his mother's experience is all too familiar in america

he's like the Mario version of Martin Shrekli and Ross Ulbrecht. if they were Warios

Kinda wild to have a “normie” manifesto (first ever?)…. Has to be far more fearsome for the powers that be than your typical Dorner/Kaczynski affair

is it normie?

The second amendment means I am my own chief executive and commander in chief of my own military. I authorize my own act of self-defense in response to a hostile entity making war on me and my family.

?

I like the part where he sees an otter...

Do we need to poll this?

was this guy a...Fight Club fan...

why is there a picture of a pokemon at the end?

is it normie?

not 100% but it is short, to the point, and largely relatable, I agree with H.P. that it's refreshing to see a relatively coherent take on this.

like, let's not let the perfect be the enemy of the good here ;)

Can I say I want to Teorema these siblings in the Pasolini sense?

Kinda wild to have a “normie” manifesto (first ever?)…. Has to be far more fearsome for the powers that be than your typical Dorner/Kaczynski affair

― H.P, Monday, December 9, 2024 9:09 PM (twenty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah I was wondering about this, every time you see one of these from a mass shooter they're always nuts, lotta "well okay he has a point" here

The second amendment means I am my own chief executive and commander in chief of my own military. I authorize my own act of self-defense in response to a hostile entity making war on me and my family.

?

― treeship., Monday, December 9, 2024 10:12 PM (twenty-two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i mean sure why not its no more creative than the supreme courts interpretation

a well-regulated militia of one

this feels like a Taco Bell chef took the same ingredients of Steve Kerr's life story and made the Black Jack taco of life stories

the title seems to suggest his issue is with allopathic, or conventional, medicine in general and not just insurance. maybe it is just a cheeky allusion and shouldn't be read into too much

yeah, it refers to the allopathic (non-violent) solution to the healthcare problem

I agree it is a stretch

Could totally be fake

so much of it -- the potassium nitrate line, back pain, the pokemon image -- does seem to align a bit too perfectly with the small pieces of information about him that first hit the news

Yeah, if I had to bet on it I'd say this is fake. Using FurAffinity fanart of the pokemon on the guy's twitter banner is the tell for me.

if it's fake it's doing a pretty good job of making the case imho

When the imbalance of power in a society absolutely precludes the possibility of a just redress of grievances through legal and non-violent means, then seeking redress through violence is a tempting option. As a single act of defiance it is not a radical act in the sense that the primary cause of the injustice remains unaffected; it accomplishes nothing more than vengeance, along with implanting the suggestion in the public mind that vengeance is possible, if you are willing to attempt it. Given his isolation from organized collective action, he did what he could. It is something, but I can't see his act as leading anywhere beyond one man killing another man and perhaps inspiring a few similar isolated acts. It won't touch the system. That's much, much harder to do.

"It won't touch the system."

Well not with that fucking attitude.

i think it's very possible a lot people underestimated of how much these medical insurance people are downright hated. it's definitely not going to snap the industry into cleaning up their shit anytime soon. but more people are probably going to be spurred into some kind of action that doesn't involve gunning down CEOs in the street. if this makes it to trial, the media is going to have to talk about this a lot. a lot more people's stories are going to get out there about avoidable death and suffering at the hands of the insurance industry. more people pressuring politicians... etc etc
something like 2/3 of people are hunky dory with this guy getting gunned down and that's going to have some reverberations. i'm skeptical real change will come out of it, but i won't rule it out either.

let's pump the brakes on translating the response we see online into the real world.

these companies are hated, sure, but there's no way 2/3rds of people - or even half, or even a quarter, probably - are hunky dory with the CEO getting murdered. the vast majority of people out there across the middle of America would say something along the lines of "they may be bad / i may not like them, but that doesn't mean we can start killing people in the streets!"

the conversation is good, though. so far, Luigi has done a masterful job of stoking that conversation with the bullets, the monopoly money, etc., and trial coverage would certainly help.

these companies are hated, sure, but there's no way 2/3rds of people - or even half, or even a quarter, probably - are hunky dory with the CEO getting murdered. the vast majority of people out there across the middle of America would say something along the lines of "they may be bad / i may not like them, but that doesn't mean we can start killing people in the streets!"

― alpine static

i mean i'd be fucking terrified if 2/3 of people did think we could start killing people in the streets! how long has america existed in a "state of exception"? absolutely killing people is wrong, but surely under the circumstances we can make an exception for the decedent, right?

at this point i'm starting to get 2 am thoughts. it's not, maybe, that we live in a state of exception, but that we increasingly _don't_. having worked in the insurance industry... it used to be that the company i worked for made exceptions all the _time_, when it was genuinely a nonprofit. it used to be driven by values. the people who would make the decisions, one of them would cry and then they'd approve the treatment. those people aren't making the decisions, haven't been for some time now. it's a for-profit company pretending, badly, to be a nonprofit. rules are, in fact, good, but sometimes the rules are, like, arbitrary and stupid, and there's no appealing them, no exceptions, no alternatives. except... what? start a gofundme for your cancer treatment? there are a lot more people who do that than there are people killing ceos in the street.

vigilante "justice" is a poor substitute for justice. yeah, killing people in the streets? terrible idea. i'm absolutely, 100% opposed. this is, like, as close as i can think of to a "the bar is in hell" situation. somehow, though, for-profit healthcare in the united states manages to _sail_ under that bar. sail under it so cleanly that some massive chunk of americans look at what this guy did, shrug, and say, i don't know, something like "i mean, it's better than nothing. it is what it is. what're you gonna do?"

like, barely a month ago, i voted, consciously, for a genocidaire, one who lost, decisively, to another, worse genocidaire, one whose platform was, as far as i can tell, that america should genocide more people. perhaps that's why this guy killing a ceo makes me feel so relieved and hopeful, even though i'm pretty strongly opposed to murder. fuck, i don't know. usually i feel bad about people getting killed, and i feel good about this ceo getting killed. i'm relieved that i can actually say that out loud without a bunch of people shouting me down telling me how horrible i am.

https://i.imgur.com/ICxv8G9.png

open for a surprise https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ironic-suspect-unitedhealthcare-slaying-played-video-game-killer-rcna183550

lol took me a while to get to it

the manifesto: https://archive.is/7jUsF#selection-1051.0-1054.0

― I? not I! He! He! HIM! (akm), Tuesday, 10 December 2024 bookmarkflaglink

Poor guy, just awful. Painful and that's just reading it.

At least he got his revenge.

would like to see confirmation that it's real

Gotta say if the bit about his mum is fake then...that would be something.

Read this article for tips on how to evade law enforcement capture lol

https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/10/us/luigi-mangione-shooter-unitedhealthcare-ceo/index.html

pic.twitter.com/6DNlUDvXT2

— Gritty is the Way (@Gritty20202) December 10, 2024

name, face, and hotness reveal means we should start a new thread, no?

yeah seems clear that if this hit had been carried out by a real professional the police would be dead in the water.

vladimir putin has the opportunity to do the funniest thing ever (assassinate all of america's top CEOs)