[HN Gopher] What we know about CEO shooting suspect
___________________________________________________________________
What we know about CEO shooting suspect
Author : 1vuio0pswjnm7
Score : 627 points
Date : 2024-12-09 21:17 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| gregw2 wrote:
| Other links:
|
| https://github.com/lnmangione
|
| https://x.com/pepmangione - more of a reposter than a commenter,
| for example
|
| * reposts link on mental health titled "Seasonality of brain
| function: role in psychiatric disorders"
|
| * view on what's wrong with society: "I believe this book will go
| down in history as the most important philosophical text of the
| early 21st century." [Tim Urban's "What's Our Problem?"]
|
| * [ironically] on intelligence, liking the quote "Being smart
| makes you more prone to confirmation bias"
|
| * likes John Haidt's new book "The Anxious Generation"
|
| etc
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/55354261-luigi-mangione
|
| Gave a 4 star review to the Unabomber manifesto!
|
| quote from his review:
|
| "Violence never solved anything" is a statement uttered by
| cowards and predators.""
| 12ian34 wrote:
| nice investigative journalism! how did you find this when the
| profile is private? is there an easy way to search reviews by
| name?
| jbeam wrote:
| It wasn't private not too long ago
| 12ian34 wrote:
| very strange. who has access to his goodreads account to
| change it?
| jahlove wrote:
| goodreads.
| clipsy wrote:
| goodreads does.
| gregw2 wrote:
| Interesting. It was private for me too. But I clicked to
| read the full list of the 474 4-star reviews and scrolled
| and found it. From there I found a direct link to his
| review which still works (as of a few hours after his
| name leaked) at:
| https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4065667863
|
| He justifies Ted Kaczynski saying: "He was a violent
| individual - rightfully imprisoned - who maimed innocent
| people. While these actions tend to be characterized as
| those of a crazy luddite, however, they are more
| accurately seen as those of an extreme political
| revolutionary."
|
| The quote about "Violence never solved anything..." it
| turns out are not his words, they are part of him quoting
| someone else in his review; but I wasn't able to find the
| source of the long message he quoted; just news articles
| from the last few hours mentioning the quote.
|
| EDIT: nevermind, found the origin of the quote on reddit
| r/climate: https://www.reddit.com/r/climate/comments/10j1
| le5/comment/j5...
|
| Another notable GoodReads comment (from Luigi) regarding
| another book: "I love Steve-O. His life is full of wild
| stories, and his addictive personality is one I relate
| to. "
| ahazred8ta wrote:
| For posterity: https://web.archive.org/web/20241209182430
| /https://www.goodr...
|
| and his profile: https://web.archive.org/web/202412091812
| 28/https://www.goodr...
| dnissley wrote:
| TBH, this feels like some kind of psychotic break. He just kind
| of stops posting out of nowhere. On twitter there are some
| attempts from others to reach him that seem concerned for his
| wellbeing:
| https://x.com/DanielleFong/status/1866211089660477490
| bag_boy wrote:
| Totally agree.
|
| I wouldn't be surprised if he went on an adderall bender that
| he never recovered from. Adderall and rabbit hole topics
| without a resolution (societal change) are not a good mix.
| holden_nelson wrote:
| These are all strange things to tweet publicly. I would
| expect all of these to be DMs. Unless he had somehow closed
| his DMs / forced their hand.
| aprilthird2021 wrote:
| Some say he had a medical issue and saw first hand the
| reality of being sick and not an elite in America (even
| though, by all accounts he probably had good insurance and
| was quite wealthy in his own right).
| nso wrote:
| 26? I was thinking schizophrenia as soon as I heard the age.
| The weirdness of the situation, unclear motive, and how it
| seems very out of character all scream onset of some kind of
| mental illness yes.
| dgfitz wrote:
| So he meticulously planned the rest of the murder, disappeared
| for almost a year before now, and we are to believe that
| everything he did in the last year was NOT also staged?
|
| Come on.
| greenie_beans wrote:
| that tim urban book is so bad. dude wrote an entire adult
| graphic novel dismantling marxist theory without ever reading
| the source text!
| egeres wrote:
| His IG was https://www.instagram.com/luigi.from.fiji/ but they
| obviously took it down
| DebtDeflation wrote:
| https://www.linkedin.com/in/luigi-mangione/
|
| https://www.facebook.com/luigi.mangione.2
| testplzignore wrote:
| > Civilization VI Team
|
| > Fixed over 300 UI bugs (25% of UI bug count) using Lua
| language, Jira software, and Perforce version-control system
| dlivingston wrote:
| Jira and Perforce alone are enough to cause someone to snap
| kombookcha wrote:
| Making Civ VI playable locks in the folk hero status
| gehwartzen wrote:
| After seemingly acting so carefully right before and after the
| shooting I'm perplexed as to why he had so much evidence still on
| him (Gun/silencer, Fake ID, manifesto) during the arrest. One
| would think he would have discarded or destroyed those things as
| soon as possible after the incident.
| SilasX wrote:
| Just to put the hypothesis out there: because he's a fall guy
| to placate the people afraid of being killed like the UHC CEO,
| which the authorities desperately need.
|
| (Although a brief perusal of the photos in the article doesn't
| show anything obviously different between them.)
| lyu07282 wrote:
| This seems extremely unlikely in practice considering how
| many people would need to play along. Also what happens if
| more evidence appears afterwards or the actual killer gives
| himself up? You just end up playing whack a mole to keep the
| lie working. No it really doesn't make sense.
|
| Not saying it's impossible but in those cases they need to A)
| know who the real killer actually is, and B) kill/suicide the
| fall guy.
| sherburt3 wrote:
| You would probably want the fall guy to be someone who can't
| defend themselves easily, like someone with substance abuse
| issues and prior convictions, not an attractive 26 year old
| valedictorian with an affluent family.
| tim333 wrote:
| With is face pretty much being captured on camera in the hostel
| and in an Uber I'm not sure there was much point hiding it. He
| was going to get caught shortly whatever he did.
| e-clinton wrote:
| Not sure I agree with that. Had he stayed in hiding for
| months, he wouldn't have been ID'd. Why is he walking around
| bare-faced a few days later? My take is he planned the actual
| act but didn't think about much beyond that.
| DebtDeflation wrote:
| If he ditched the gun, fake IDs and any other evidence he had
| tying him to the crime and just gave the cops his real id and
| denied being in NYC recently, it would have made it much
| harder to prosecute. Without any physical evidence, he just
| looked like the shooter.
| BaculumMeumEst wrote:
| My guess is that initially he intended to avoid being caught,
| but at some point changed his mind and embraced it.
| game_the0ry wrote:
| Subconsciously, he wanted to be caught.
| hughesjj wrote:
| The three possibilities I see:
|
| 1. He wanted to get caught
|
| 2. This isn't him, and they're framing this guy
|
| 3. He figured the safest place to have that stuff was on his
| person, but then why go and get arrested at McDonald's? To be
| fair I don't know about that interaction.
|
| I don't buy 3 because there were so, so many places to ditch
| shit between Altoona and Manhattan. The Susquehanna for
| starters.
| francisofascii wrote:
| Maybe he was suffering from a mental illness and so he simply
| wasn't thinking clearly and carefully from the beginning.
| lawlessone wrote:
| >Police revealed that finding the 26-year-old was a complete
| surprise, and that they did not have his name on a list of
| suspects prior to today
|
| So when they said they knew who he was yesterday it was a lie.
| BryantD wrote:
| Eric Adams doesn't have a strong reality filter, and it's
| usually good to cross-check things he says, especially if he's
| the only person saying them. I don't think he consciously makes
| things up, he just tends to gravitate towards saying things
| that sound good in the moment.
|
| Or, if we're being really charitable, they were chasing the
| wrong guy.
| byteknight wrote:
| All you did was make the phrase "makes things up" more
| palatable. It still means the same thing. He lies.
| BryantD wrote:
| I like understanding why people are making things up.
|
| Edit: sorry, I was a bit snarky there and I shouldn't have
| been. I was in fact splitting a hair there; it's a useful
| one for me but it's far from obligatory.
| lazyeye wrote:
| What lies has Eric Adams said?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| He's currently indicted for criminal fraud.
| https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/09/25/nyregion/eric-
| adams-...
| astrange wrote:
| He lies constantly. Like, he lives in New Jersey and
| pretends to live in NYC. He pretends to be a vegan.
|
| Also continually uses strange phrases in speeches that he
| made up, like "all your haters will be waiters when you
| sit down at the table of success", or saying "New York
| City is the Dublin/Istanbul/Port au Prince of America"
| whenever he's talking to an a cultural group.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| He's a former cop and a current politician, I'd be
| surprised if anything he says publicly is _true_.
| kcplate wrote:
| Not sure why you got downvoted, no one familiar with
| either profession can argue that it's not a part of being
| a cop or a politician
| gre wrote:
| If Books Could Kill podcast got you covered
|
| https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/unlocked-eric-
| adams/id...
| astura wrote:
| He's a compulsive liar.
|
| To give you one specific - he lied about accidentally
| firing a gun at school and then he claimed that a book
| that is available for purchase "never got to print."
|
| https://apnews.com/article/eric-adams-book-
| gun-e2179cd82fc41...
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| Let me remind you here that it is the job of the government
| and specifically the police to lie to you. So if he was
| lying, he was doing his job.
| betenoire wrote:
| I don't know why you are being downvoted. My father was a
| cop, went through the academy when I was 15. I distinctly
| remember him explaining to me about how they are taught
| to lie to get people to cross their stories up.
| booleandilemma wrote:
| Eric Adams, the brilliant detective.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I think the objection was to the centrality of lying and
| intent.
|
| My home contractors might lie to me, but that certainly
| is not what I hired them to do
|
| I'm assuming your father did more than just tell tall
| tales.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| The job is not lying. If anything, lying is a situational
| means to an end.
|
| We can argue against that fact without resorting to
| hyperbole and twisting reality ourselves
| jcgrillo wrote:
| > He lies.
|
| He's a cop turned politician.. cows moo, crocodiles chomp,
| and these critters lie. It's their nature.
| _heimdall wrote:
| Cops protect and serve. I'm not sure who you're thinking
| of.
| bdangubic wrote:
| some don't
| xcrunner529 wrote:
| Lolol. Were thinking of the ones who break into your
| house and kill you thinking it was their's, the ones that
| killed Breonna Taylor, chased a black man running etc.
| _heimdall wrote:
| Oh I know, I meant this to be sarcastic and didn't quite
| land that plane.
| jcgrillo wrote:
| They protect their own and serve themselves. But they
| have the state backing them up and we don't.
| _heimdall wrote:
| Whoosh
|
| Too late to edit, but it seems the implied /s here should
| have been explicit.
| nixosbestos wrote:
| Jesus Christ thank you. I understand the political climate
| means the word "lie" is somehow a bad word but thank you
| for saying it. It's still a fucking lie. It might even be
| worse, because the bullshitters like that are often so
| oblivious that it makes it _harder to tell they 're lying_.
| And yet, it has the same damn effects in every measurable
| way.
|
| It's a lie. Call it a non malicious lie, sure, whatever.
| But it's still a lie. I swear. The bar is buried under the
| fucking ground. In the US, anyway.
| tacticalturtle wrote:
| It was specifically Eric Adams who sort of implied that - but
| it was a bit of a cagey response, and NYPD later stated that
| day they had no ID:
|
| https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/5028239-mayor-adams-sa...
|
| Given Adam's past year, there was never a reason to take what
| he says at face value.
| gowld wrote:
| I don't think that's a fair characterization.
|
| > When asked by a reporter if police had the suspect's name,
| Adams said, "We don't want to release that now. If you do,
| you're basically giving a tip to the person we are fine with
| seeking, and we do not want to give him an upper hand at all.
| Let him continue to believe he can hide behind a mask."
|
| Grammatical flub aside ("the person we are fine with
| seeking"), he is just saying that he doesn't want to say
| anything about the info being requested. The police release
| information that they have decided is in their interest to
| release. Everything else is classified confidential by
| default.
| d0mine wrote:
| "Let him continue to believe he can hide behind a mask"
| implies that he can't hide and they know his name. A lie in
| other words.
| MisterTea wrote:
| > implies that he can't hide
|
| I agree with this.
|
| > and they know his name.
|
| That is not implied anywhere at all.
| apstls wrote:
| It hinges on what the word "that" in "release that" is
| referring to. If it's referring to releasing his name,
| then he's implying not releasing his name is a choice
| which implies they have the option to release it, so they
| must know it. If it's referring to releasing whether or
| not they know his name, then it's not implying anything.
| If this was said by someone with a history of well-spoken
| and thoughtful public statements, then it'd most likely
| be the latter interpretation. Given it's Eric Adams,
| either is plausible. In fact, the bullshit-ness of the
| former may make it even more probable here.
| betenoire wrote:
| Police lie all the time, but this is police _implying_ a
| lie. To me it (clearly?) read as if they were keeping
| their cards close to their chest, not saying either way.
| Clubber wrote:
| >"Let him continue to believe he can hide behind a mask"
|
| To me that implies that they don't know who he is,
| because he is hiding.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| That's a common tactic to try and get a suspect to turn
| themselves in.
|
| Sometimes it works. (Most suspects turn themselves in for
| crimes they've committed. It's actually the exception when
| police need to go out to arrest a criminal suspect.)
| gowld wrote:
| That's when the suspect's identity is known, and the suspect
| would rather face a bail hearing then try to keep hiding.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| Sure, for nonviolent criminal offenses. It helps that
| accepting responsibility for one's actions (as demonstrated
| by turning oneself in) generally results in significantly
| reduced sentencing.
|
| For violent offenses, and especially for high-profile
| murder cases, they don't give the suspect the option of
| turning themselves in.
| jcgrillo wrote:
| > they don't give the suspect the option of turning
| themselves in
|
| That seems a lot like the responsibility of the suspect?
| Like, if you're planning on shooting a high profile
| target in midtown Manhattan isn't the exit something to
| think about? Based on what information we might actually
| have, the shooter had plenty of carelessly missed
| opportunities to not be caught. Poor planning, in
| retrospect, is a choice.
| asdefghyk wrote:
| RE "....when they said they knew who he was yesterday it was a
| lie....."
|
| Was an obvious lie ...was my first reaction.
|
| If they did know the name - it could have been used to retrieve
| numerous photos - and other evidence. That said the accused
| person left several of their online profiles online . even a
| facebook profile !!!
| jcgrillo wrote:
| Yes, they do that. Lying is how they operate, especially when
| questioning or trying to mess with suspects. You can never
| trust anything a cop says.
| tinyhouse wrote:
| It's hard to believe that this is true. There seems to be
| enough people who knew him, from friends and family who were
| worried about him, to people who went to school or worked with
| him. Do you want to tell me that not even a single person
| identified him in the pictures and notified the police? Not to
| mention that his friends and family didn't know where he is, so
| it fit the narrative perfectly.
| gexla wrote:
| They weren't lying, but it was the wrong thing to say. They had
| a list of suspects and they may have had high confidence that
| one of them was their guy. But they couldn't know that at least
| until they took someone into custody.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| ...and? Do you think police should be bound to be truthful at
| all times, even if hinders their investigation?
| avalys wrote:
| > Police revealed that finding the 26-year-old was a complete
| surprise, and that they did not have his name on a list of
| suspects prior to today.
|
| "I'd rather be lucky than good!" Impressive that they do seem to
| have found the right guy, based on the documents in his
| possession, and this was apparently due solely to the one
| photograph of his face that the police found and released.
|
| I also note that this guy apparently had back surgery a few
| months ago.
| qzw wrote:
| I wonder if the McDonald's employee really recognized him from
| those couple of off-angle photos or if Mr. Mangione himself
| initiated the action in order to let someone "deserving"
| collect the reward. It seems to me that he wanted to be caught,
| and the amount of evidence that he was carrying on him is
| obviously meant to establish his identity beyond any doubt. The
| amount of meticulous planning he undertook for the actual
| shooting contrasts with the trail of evidence that he kept
| dropping along the way. He would've basically never been found
| if he had just worn a pair of sunglasses.
| lawlessone wrote:
| >or if Mr. Mangione himself initiated the action in order to
| let someone "deserving" collect the reward.
|
| this is a really interesting idea
| Melatonic wrote:
| Very - if he hates corporate elite than a random underpaid
| McDonalds employee getting 50K or 60K or whatever it is
| might line up with that
| hughesjj wrote:
| I thought it was a customer?
| kombookcha wrote:
| Yeah, the way I read it, it was some elderly customer at
| the McDonald's who tipped off the cops.
| oneeyedpigeon wrote:
| Both are being reported, at least here in the UK.
|
| Customer:
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cly2zwqqr1ro
|
| Employee: https://www.theguardian.com/us-
| news/2024/dec/09/unitedhealth...
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| >in order to let someone "deserving" collect the reward.
|
| Government rewards are always fake. They never pay out. Ever.
| The one guy who made it possible to catch Chapo is still
| "waiting" for his payout. If you're going to be a snitch, I
| guess you need to do it for the principle of the thing, there
| won't be any cash in your future.
| shiroiushi wrote:
| Don't forget, the insurance company here (UHC) didn't
| bother to offer any reward at all.
| wretchedwon wrote:
| That wouldn't increase shareholder value
| zusammen wrote:
| > in order to let someone "deserving" collect the reward.
|
| Very unlikely. That's the most expensive $60k anyone ever
| collected. The person who made the call needs witness
| protection, immediately. He needs to start over and never go
| back to Altoona.
|
| The assumption that Mangione can protect this person by
| saying, "He's not a snitch, I told him to call me in," relies
| on his having an ability to control the narrative while in
| custody... which is generally not the case.
| hbossy wrote:
| "We dragged our feet as hard as we could, but some idiot
| decided to call us"
| xnx wrote:
| https://github.com/lnmangione
| lawlessone wrote:
| Lol this has an extra badge it didn't have when i seen it an
| hour ago.
| edm0nd wrote:
| Because 16 people have starred his "Halite-III" repo
| n1c wrote:
| There's some _interesting_ issues being created:
| https://github.com/lnmangione/Halite-III/issues
| egeres wrote:
| Compared to the amount of reactions I see in the posts, I
| suspects users are deterred to comment because a big part
| of GitHub is "work related" and it could be seen as an
| endorsement to a murderer
| impish9208 wrote:
| His followers count keeps going up every time I refresh. It's
| not like he'll be pushing commits for a while haha.
| shiroiushi wrote:
| It's too bad: they really should give prisoners like this
| computers with some limited access so they can work on coding
| projects. What else are they going to do with their time,
| after all? Perhaps they could spend it contributing to open-
| source projects and helping society.
| sureIy wrote:
| Part of prison is that you can't communicate to the
| external world without being monitored. Any shared code
| would also have to be reviewed. Even in Norway _internet
| use is banned, except for educational purposes,_ which
| presumably limits you to wikipedia and .gov
| shiroiushi wrote:
| That's understandable, but perhaps they could just give
| him an isolated PC, and let him pick some github projects
| he wants to clone, download those (after approval of
| course) and put them on the PC, let him work away on it
| for a while, perhaps allow periodic pulls from those
| repos, and then when he has something to contribute, give
| those to someone to review for anything disallowed (like
| a manifesto in the comments or whatever), and once they
| confirm it's just working source code, allow it to be
| contributed somehow to the project so they can accept it
| or not, understanding where it's coming from.
| sureIy wrote:
| It would be a good project but you need people to review
| all code. I think effort/money could be spent on more
| pressing matters in this environment; open-source
| contribution is rather niche.
| nobodyandproud wrote:
| > Any shared code would also have to be reviewed.
|
| Random thought, but this made me imagine him reviewing
| code as a punishment: A chain gang of reviewers if you
| will.
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| They could try teaching other inmates, or becoming the
| jailhouse lawyer.
| shiroiushi wrote:
| People who are good at coding frequently aren't very good
| at teaching or lawyering.
| xyst wrote:
| The glazing in the issues of this repo -
| https://github.com/lnmangione/Halite-III/issues
| lazyeye wrote:
| Programming language inventor or serial killer?
|
| https://vole.wtf/coder-serial-killer-quiz/
| xdennis wrote:
| Wow, I got tricked by the inventor of Scheme. He looks a lot
| like Son of Sam.
| fargle wrote:
| nice! i got 8/10. got tripped up by a russian programmer that
| was also a serial killer, but didn't design a language (that we
| know of)
| BadHumans wrote:
| The funniest thing about the whole thing to me is that we have
| had privacy taken away or even voluntarily given it up to the
| police state in the name of security and then this guy randomly
| walks up and offs a member of the 1% and the only reason he got
| caught was because the feds got lucky.
| zingababba wrote:
| No, because he was sloppy and lowered his mask...
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| It still came down to an old guy recognizing him in a
| McDonalds.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Which seems likely to have been due to said maskless photo.
| BadHumans wrote:
| He has a written manifesto in his pocket and was out
| eating McDonalds. It's not like he trying hard to hide
| drweevil wrote:
| Even then he might have escaped further notice if he'd
| ditched all the incriminating stuff. It's one thing to
| kind'a look like a guy in a low-quality pic; it's quite
| another to have the cops checking you out find all your
| murder gear with you.
| shiroiushi wrote:
| Yeah, that part really surprised me too. He had advanced
| degrees and top grades, so he was clearly a smart guy, so
| why did he make such a dumb mistake that anyone who's
| watched a few murder mysteries would know not to do? Like
| some others have said, it seems like he probably wanted
| to get caught.
| rozap wrote:
| It sounds like he had a mental break. Not saying he
| didn't have good reasons for doing what he did, but the
| twitter detectives posted that his family and friends
| have been looking for him for the past 6 months.
| e_y_ wrote:
| You can be smart and still slip up, especially under
| pressure (and as we're learning, possibly mental and
| physical pain). Presumably one of the reasons why
| professionals are better is that, beyond working
| experience, they have a lot of practice.
| jojobas wrote:
| Doesn't really matter. Even if the cops didn't find
| anything on him they'd ID him for real, there's no point
| trying to hide after that.
| krisoft wrote:
| > Even if the cops didn't find anything on him they'd ID
| him for real
|
| Sure thing. They would know what the guy who kinda look
| like a photo of a wanted man is called. Doesn't
| necessarily means they can pin anything on him. Obviously
| increases their chances, since they can work both
| backwards and forwards, but that is about it.
|
| Assuming of course that the "he got just unlucky, a
| random person recognised them" is true, and not paralel
| construction for some other mean they don't want to
| reveal.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| Can cops "randomly" ID people in US?
| dathinab wrote:
| is there any country (not currently in a civil war) where
| they can't do so as long as they come up with a
| reasonable pretense of suspicion?
| bagels wrote:
| In some states, under certain circumstances, yes.
| jojobas wrote:
| Matching a murder suspect photo is the opposite of
| 'randomly'.
| brailsafe wrote:
| Old guy didn't get the memo to buy him a coffee and forget
| he saw anything
|
| \s murder is wrong
| bagels wrote:
| There wouldn't be any face to recognize if he didn't pull
| his mask down during his trip.
| griffzhowl wrote:
| Well, it's not really luck. It's exactly because there's cctv
| in enough places that they were able to get his photo from the
| one moment he lowered his mask at the hostel, but even more
| significantly that they were able to piece together his
| movements enough to be able to suspect that the guy at the
| hostel was the same one that carried out the shooting. Then it
| was a matter of distributing the photo and hope someone
| recognizes him. And offering the reward ofc. Very simple but
| not luck.
| autoexec wrote:
| It still came to down to a crappy photo from a security cam
| and not the drones, internet surveillance, or facial
| recognition software in constant use against us.
|
| This crime could have been solved the exact same way in the
| 1980s. The only difference being that the guy's picture would
| have been distributed over the 6 o'clock news instead of the
| internet.
| altcognito wrote:
| Security cameras were not nearly as prevalent in the 80's.
| shiroiushi wrote:
| Their picture quality was also much worse.
| OccamsMirror wrote:
| Not only were security cameras not as prevalent as they are
| now, they had terrible video quality. We'd have an
| extremely grainy grey photo of a face. Not enough to
| visually recognise him later.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| It wasn't just the one crappy photo where he lowered his
| mask - the taxicab photos were quite clear even if they
| just showed his eyes.
|
| And they also made use of other tech, like the fact that
| the Citibike has GPS.
| lr4444lr wrote:
| The surveillance state is good at deterring people who don't
| want to get caught. If you're ready to lay down your life or
| freedom for an assassination, it's really pretty hard to stop
| such a person with the patience to prepare for it - multiple
| cops have told me this.
| duxup wrote:
| I think people assume a lot about the system, based more in
| movies than real information.
| jimt1234 wrote:
| Maybe not the _only_ reason he got caught, but a major reason
| is exactly what OP mentioned: the victim was a member of the
| 1%.
|
| Waaay back in the late-80s, I was at an underground dance
| party. Some dude shot and killed another dude in the parking
| lot. At least a dozen witnesses saw it (I only heard it).
| Everyone knew the identities of both people involved. No
| arrests were ever made. I saw the dude on the street a few
| years later, walking around like he never shot and killed
| someone - thanks to the fine work of the Modesto PD.
| crawfordcomeaux wrote:
| With programmers, hackers, computer scientists, systems
| designers/engineers carrying some of the most privileged
| skillsets needed for designing and implementing replacements to
| systems of oppression (and disruptions to said systems), I've
| been wondering where the ones working to do this can be found.
|
| I learned in Computer Ethics 101 about how the history of the
| development of radiological machines led to the realization that
| the ethical path to creating systems for our lives involves
| stopping using them when they accidentally/repeatedly harm.
|
| I'm looking for different paths than murder to accomplish this.
| Anyone else want to get together around these ideas to start
| designing?
| jckahn wrote:
| This is the main reason I built https://chitchatter.im/. I hope
| to see it be used as a tool to safely organize around building
| a better world.
| crawfordcomeaux wrote:
| Thanks for this! Gonna ask around for help in evaluating it
| for security.
| _-_-__-_-_- wrote:
| https://chitchatter.im/public/a15225a7-cf8c-4f6c-955a-e5fe15.
| .. to join a hackernews public chat!
| astrange wrote:
| If you want better healthcare you don't need to invent anything
| new or "disrupt systems of oppression". Just pick another
| country where it's working and do what they do.
|
| Largely, they have a lot more doctors, hospitals and MRI
| machines per capita than we do, and they pay their doctors less
| and require less education from them.
|
| This is particularly safer in America because the #1 thing
| voters hate is anyone doing anything new. If you ever try doing
| anything new you'll immediately get voted out. That's what
| happened after the ACA passed.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| > If you want better healthcare you don't need to invent
| anything new or "disrupt systems of oppression". Just pick
| another country where it's working and do what they do.
|
| Sure. That's like telling me that if I want to win an Olympic
| gold medal, I should just do what Phelps does. It'll work,
| right?
|
| Even those countries may only have metastable healthcare
| economics, and while it looks as if it works now it could
| fail in the future. In the short term.
|
| > Largely, they have a lot more doctors, hospitals and MRI
| machines per capita than we do,
|
| So you're saying that all we need to do is have more
| resources that we don't have more of?
| mtoner23 wrote:
| The AMA artificially caps the number of doctors and
| hospitals we have to increase salaries and costs. So no it
| doesn't necessarily take more resources to do these things
| astrange wrote:
| They've backed off on that and I think support more
| residency slots for training doctors now, but it actually
| is a funding issue because Medicare pays for a lot of
| that.
|
| We also have very high to impossible standards for
| training doctors, and our residency rotation program
| requires you to not sleep because it was designed by a
| literal coke addict.
| theGnuMe wrote:
| Which is dumb because there's plenty of money to pay the
| residents otherwise.
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| The AMA has reversed position from their 1990s lobby to
| limit residency slots (which got enacted under the
| Republican "Contract with America"). At this point,
| increasing funding for residency slots would be seen as
| increasing government spending and is politically
| unpalatable.
| rangestransform wrote:
| medical school admissions is such a zero sum pissing
| contest of schmoozing profs for research positions,
| building houses for free in africa, grinding academics
| far past the point where the knowledge is beneficial,
| sheer perseverence, and sometimes being the right skin
| colour. the US could 10x the number of residency spots
| (and therefore med school spots) without significantly
| diminishing the capability of the incoming class to be
| good doctors.
| astrange wrote:
| You can simply buy more MRI machines and open more
| hospitals, yes.
|
| The US has "certificate of need" laws saying you can't open
| a hospital unless all the nearby competitors allow it
| first. We could just not do that.
|
| > Sure. That's like telling me that if I want to win an
| Olympic gold medal, I should just do what Phelps does.
| It'll work, right?
|
| America is the #1 country at a lot of things. Surely you're
| not going to let Australia, Japan, the Netherlands etc beat
| you on this.
| rangestransform wrote:
| Unfortunately we have the AMA which won't let us import or
| bulk train doctors to the point of depressing their salaries
| shiroiushi wrote:
| >If you want better healthcare you don't need to invent
| anything new or "disrupt systems of oppression". Just pick
| another country where it's working and do what they do.
|
| This is completely impossible. We're talking about America
| here: it's utterly _impossible_ for America to look at other
| countries and just copy them. It doesn 't matter how much
| sense it would make; if America has a choice between sticking
| with some brain-dead system (perhaps, a measurement system
| for instance), or adopting a very logical and sensible
| alternative that America didn't invent, America will stick
| with its own brain-dead system, and claim that the
| alternative somehow can't possibly work in America because
| America is "different" and "exceptional". The only way
| America will adopt something new and better is if it's
| invented in America.
| meigwilym wrote:
| I've seen enough of American politics to consider that
| copying a better system and lying your ass off that it's
| American made would work (tbh this would work for most
| modern democracies).
| slavik81 wrote:
| The United States is #2 in the OECD for MRI machines per
| capita [1], with double that of France and nearly four times
| as many as Canada. Of the 38 nations of the OECD, only Japan
| has more MRI machines per person.
|
| [1]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/282401/density-of-
| magnet...
| astrange wrote:
| I was indeed thinking of Japan but didn't go look up any
| other countries.
| theGnuMe wrote:
| Just expand Medicaid.. simple.
| astrange wrote:
| I think someone could sneak in Medicare for children if
| they tried.
| sovietswag wrote:
| You're on the right path my friend, hang on to the feeling that
| drove you to write this. Not everyone has it, and you may even
| find yourself having woken up with it missing one day. So use
| it while you have it
| crawfordcomeaux wrote:
| Thanks for the encouragement! I care for a 6-year old I've
| nurtured through anarchic principles. This feeling, if it can
| go missing, is reignited by things they say and normalized
| forms of childhood oppression they experience/witness.
| randysalami wrote:
| I have some ideas. randyselimi on Discord
| crawfordcomeaux wrote:
| I'm peculiarlyrevokingconsent on Discord. Sent FR.
| greenie_beans wrote:
| civic tech! https://civictech.guide/
| autoexec wrote:
| > I'm looking for different paths than murder to accomplish
| this.
|
| It seems like our entire system has been intentionally designed
| and refined over centuries specifically to ensure that nothing
| short of radical, even violent, acts will have any meaningful
| impact on those in power.
|
| Corporations in particular have insulated themselves from any
| accountability whatsoever and there are literal serial killers
| who knowingly sold products and took actions that they knew
| would kill people who have never and will never see a single
| day behind bars.
|
| I sure hope that programmers, hackers, computer scientists, or
| systems designers/engineers find some means to improve the
| situation, and I'd certainly support the effort but I'm far
| from optimistic.
| shiroiushi wrote:
| >Corporations in particular have insulated themselves from
| any accountability whatsoever and there are literal serial
| killers who knowingly sold products and took actions that
| they knew would kill people who have never and will never see
| a single day behind bars.
|
| Exactly: look at the people behind the Ford Pinto (with the
| exploding gas tank), and more recently the people behind the
| Boeing 737MAX.
| autoexec wrote:
| Philip Morris, DuPont, Philips Respironics, Purdue Pharma,
| Johnson & Johnson, Nestle, the list just goes on and on.
| shiroiushi wrote:
| I hate to defend them, but at least with Philip Morris,
| they warn you outright that their products cause cancer,
| right on the package, yet people keep buying them anyway.
| (Yes, I know they had to be forced into this years ago by
| the government, but still that's better than Boeing where
| the government said their product was safe.)
| giardini wrote:
| It is reasonable that corporations and individuals "protect
| themselves". No one wants to work for a company that's been
| damaged by bad judgement or bad luck. So companies have
| boards of directors and stockholders to oversee operations,
| hold officers liable to varying degrees, and purchase
| insurance against risks.
|
| But corporations are guided by human beings so, in the end,
| we have ourselves to blame. If making any accusation you'd
| best put a name or names to it and forgo accusing a
| corporation purely.
|
| But that doesn't make corporations a bad thing. They have,
| quite the contrary, proven to be a wonderful economic
| construct, along with such tools as capitalism and
| insurance.
| xeonmc wrote:
| Not as a direct response to the call to action, but this
| comment reminded me of the entire plot of the 2014 videogame
| Watch Dogs[0]
|
| [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watch_Dogs_(video_game)
| ParetoOptimal wrote:
| Oddly a talk from emacsconf a few days ago comes to mind:
|
| https://emacsconf.org/2024/talks/blee/
| breadwinner wrote:
| He was carrying all of the evidence with him, including the fake
| ID he used at the hostel, the gun & suppressor, mask, and even a
| handwritten manifesto that points to his motivation. It seems he
| wanted to be found.
| qzw wrote:
| Exactly my thoughts as well. Every piece of evidence law
| enforcement has was basically intentionally provided by him. If
| he just stuffed his trash in one of his 7 pockets, or wore a
| pair of sunglasses, or didn't actually stare straight at the
| camera in the taxi like he was getting his school picture
| taken? I mean pretty much the only thing he failed to do was
| leave his business card at the crime scene.
| Smar wrote:
| But the calling card needs to be left the previous day.
| JesseTG wrote:
| They'll never see it coming!
| aorloff wrote:
| Version 2.0 of this crime will feature the shooter having
| the forethought to have put a bitcoin wallet address on the
| front of his mask as he traipsed around in front of the
| cameras.
|
| And boy howdy, the sparks will fly then
| evoke4908 wrote:
| As bad ideas go, this has to be one of the best.
| ALittleLight wrote:
| Before releasing the pictures authorities would redact
| the address.
| aorloff wrote:
| But the internet.
| worthless-trash wrote:
| I don't think they'd know what it was.
| kaladin-jasnah wrote:
| My lack of socialization really shows when I first thought
| this to be a reference to the Persona video game.
| cpill wrote:
| I guess the next one can learn from this one and they will
| iteratively get better at not getting caught.
| qzw wrote:
| In the movie "Wag the Dog", Dustin Hoffman plays a
| Hollywood producer who is hired by the President to create
| a fake war to take attention away from another scandal.
| _Spoiler alert_ Near the end, Hoffman 's character is upset
| that the President's re-election is credited to something
| else instead of his handiwork. Even when told he's risking
| his life if he says anything, he yells "I want the
| credit!". I think a similar psychology may be at work in
| this and other crimes that become (in)famous.
| elliotec wrote:
| I _think_ what you're getting at is saying the suspect
| wants the credit, in response to the parent saying the
| next one will be better at evasion by learning from his
| mistakes, right? And implying the next one might not want
| to evade either? I have no speculation here just looking
| for clarification on the movie reference.
| qzw wrote:
| Yes, that's what I'm trying to say. Obviously anybody who
| goes to the trouble of penning a manifesto is a
| hero/protagonist in their own narrative. When they see
| that their acts have captured the attention or even
| admiration of a significant portion of the public, the
| urge to stand up and say "I'm the one who did this great
| deed, and here's why" will often overpower the instinct
| for self preservation.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| This is the topic of the wonderfully named Edgar Allan
| Poe short story, The Imp of the Perverse:
|
| https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/edgar-allan-poe/short-
| fict...
| EdwardDiego wrote:
| I look forward to the retro on this.
| tdeck wrote:
| The Identity Killer strikes again
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CiVFn1vEIiM
| whaleofatw2022 wrote:
| It would be interesting to see if he's banking on jury
| nullification being within the Overton window...
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| Or maybe he's just not that smart... it's pretty much
| expected some number will lose their marbles and become
| semi-deranged or fully deranged every year.
|
| I'd guess at least 1 in ten thousand per annum. Which would
| equate to hundreds of newly deranged developers per year in
| the US.
| _heimdall wrote:
| Most people don't even know what jury nullification is, and
| even fewer realize it is in fact legal. I'd be surprised if
| he was banking on that.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| I don't think he was banking on that, but I thought it
| interesting that posts about jury nullification were all
| over the front page on Reddit today, e.g. https://old.red
| dit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/1haimhk/til_... and http
| s://old.reddit.com/r/WhitePeopleTwitter/comments/1haejf4.
| ..
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| maybe the prosecutor will refuse anyone who knows what
| jury nullification is
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| Usually it's phrased differently but it's on the form.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _maybe the prosecutor will refuse anyone who knows what
| jury nullification is_
|
| It's typically asked about. If you know about it and lie,
| that's perjury.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| It's sometimes asked about whether you'd follow the
| evidence - people aren't excluded (at least by the judge)
| for just knowing what the concept is.
|
| As for "lying" here, it's an interesting metaphysical
| question. Because you're not lying (or telling the truth)
| about some observable event, it's simply your own state
| of mind. If somebody asks "Why did you vote not guilty",
| you simply say "I didn't believe the evidence was
| convincing". There is literally no way for anyone else to
| say otherwise.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _If somebody asks "Why did you vote not guilty", you
| simply say "I didn't believe the evidence was
| convincing". There is literally no way for anyone else to
| say otherwise_
|
| Nullification needs to be unanimous. You'd get in trouble
| when pitching nullification to your fellow jurors. (Or at
| the very least, have a mistrial declared.)
|
| > _people aren 't excluded (at least by the judge) for
| just knowing what the concept is_
|
| If you want a surefire way to get off a jury, mention
| nullification in _voir dire_. (Hell, just ask innocently
| about it.)
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| > Nullification needs to be unanimous.
|
| Nullification absolutely does not need to be unanimous,
| and it rarely is. All it takes is one juror force a
| mistrial (and another if it is retried, etc.) Sure, the
| prosecutor would likely retry, but again, it just takes
| one juror out of twelve to cause a mistrial, and the vast
| majority of prosecutors don't prosecute indefinitely.
|
| > If you want a surefire way to get off a jury, mention
| nullification in voir dire.
|
| No shit, so don't mention it.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _it just takes one juror out of twelve to cause a
| mistrial_
|
| ...this isn 't nullification. A major point of
| nullification is a not-guilty verdict by a jury is final.
| No retrial. No appeal.
|
| > _the vast majority of prosecutors don 't prosecute
| indefinitely_
|
| You think this case wouldn't be re-tried?
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| of course the case would be retried, but if after the
| first mistrial there is a widespread partying in the
| streets, and then the second mistrial the same, and then
| the third trial starts there is rioting, the way the
| system currently works they might decide not to try a
| fourth trial. Of course I don't know if the U.S is there
| yet.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _I don 't know if the U.S is there yet_
|
| I do. The educated, well-to-do, urban bubble has
| convinced itself--again--that this guy is universally
| adored. Because we're mistaking--again--the difference
| between a symbol and the object, a mistake amplified by
| those who get their world view primarily from Twitter,
| Reddit, _et cetera_.
| Hamuko wrote:
| One weird trick to avoid jury duty for the rest of your
| life?
| exe34 wrote:
| that and share the statistics on eye witness testimony
| reliability.
| _heimdall wrote:
| And if that doesn't come up, mention that your favorite
| movie is My Cousin Vinny.
| bdangubic wrote:
| HN few days ago
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42332688
| grogenaut wrote:
| In the one case I sat on the jury for the judge told us
| that we had to follow their directions exactly as to how
| to interpret the law when making a sentence. We were
| informed we not allowed to choose a lighter charge
| (options were misdemeanor assault, assault and aggravated
| assault).
|
| Jury nullification wouldn't have mattered and it was
| settled in an hour, but it was interesting. But I had
| been warned by multiple lawyer friends this might happen.
|
| Even more wasteful as this was the 3rd strike so the
| difference between assault and aggravated was 25 or 26
| years, aka no difference. And the defendant had pleaded
| down already. Finally it was obvious it wasn't aggravated
| for several reasons and the prosecution was just fishing
| for convictions. Basically took 2 extra days of
| everyone's time fishing for sentence elevations.
| RHSeeger wrote:
| > Jury nullification wouldn't have mattered
|
| Why is that? Was it just the sentencing phase?
| tiahura wrote:
| Do you have a cite for it being legal for jurors to
| ignore jury instructions and orders from the Court?
|
| Is it also legal for jurors to ignore orders not to
| discuss the case, post about deliberations on Facebook,
| or decide the case based on race?
| _heimdall wrote:
| I don't unfortunately, that would be buried somewhere in
| federal codes.
|
| Orders and instructions are different though. An official
| order by a judge may fall under contempt of court if you
| don't comply. Instructions are more procedural and about
| a judge running the process of the trial. For
| deliberation, that also generally means instructions that
| really just help guide a jury of people who may not have
| done it before and aren't sure of the process or general
| expectations.
| tiahura wrote:
| My question was rhetorical. Instructions ARE an order.
| Willful failure to comply is contempt.
|
| The issue is that proving why a juror voted a certain way
| is kind of tough. The beautiful part is that this is a
| feature, not a bug.
| _heimdall wrote:
| A juror can't be punished for their decision, ever. It
| doesn't matter whether a juror keeps their reasoning a
| secret or not.
|
| Its interesting you meant that rhetorically, your premise
| is wrong in my opinion. If you want to distinguish
| between an instruction and an order I'd think it has to
| be based on how it can be enforced. An instruction can't
| be enforced by a judge, for example they can instruct you
| to only consider what was presented but they can't punish
| you if you disobey that.
| tivert wrote:
| > Most people don't even know what jury nullification is,
| and even fewer realize it is in fact legal. I'd be
| surprised if he was banking on that.
|
| Also, IIRC, the court system is pretty against it. The
| judge won't instruct the jury on it and I very much doubt
| he'd let the defense attorney bring it up to the jury
| either.
| _heimdall wrote:
| Courts can be against it all they want, it is still legal
| and well within a juror's rights. I'd never expect a
| judge or attorney to raise it as an option, but at the
| end of the day it is.
|
| Jury selection throws a wrench in the system, lawyers
| have a chance to ask questions under oath and get rid of
| jurors for most any reason. As i understand it, its
| pretty common for them to try to ferret out anyone that
| may go the nullification route.
| nozzlegear wrote:
| The judge, prosecution and defense get to vet each juror by
| asking them about their beliefs and biases. They can reject
| jurors if they believe the juror is unable to hear a case
| without being impartial. Jurors (often) won't be told the
| details of the case they'll be hearing while they're being
| vetted, only the basic details (e.g. defendant is a white
| male accused of murdering another white male).
|
| In extremely high profile cases like the ones featuring
| Donald Trump, courts focus on selecting jurors who can
| remain fair and impartial despite their knowledge of the
| case or their own personal opinions. They'll go through
| extensive vetting which can include written questionnaires,
| interviews, oral questioning about their media consumption,
| their political beliefs and potential biases, and so on.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| They don't actually verify any of this and you can just
| lie. One of the chauvin jurors lied about being an
| activist.
| nozzlegear wrote:
| That sounds more like a failure of the prosecution in the
| Chauvin trial, rather than an assumption we can make
| about all trials.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| Failure of the prosecution? No, they have qualified
| immunity.
| tomcam wrote:
| It's not. American judges, generally speaking, hate jury
| nullification with the strength of a thousand suns. They
| are petty little tyrants.
| bayarearefugee wrote:
| Judges generally hate it but there's also nothing they
| can do about it if it happens.
|
| That said its a very far leap to assume (either as the
| suspect or as a third party) that because this suspect
| has a lot of online sympathy that that will translate to
| a jury both willing and knowledgeable enough to nullify.
| Certainly wouldn't bet my life or freedom on that myself.
|
| Personally I lean toward doubting that getting caught was
| part of some master plan. People have this binary view of
| things where he's either got to be a criminal mastermind
| who thought of everything or a complete fool, and the
| reality is probably that he's a better than average
| premeditated murderer (given all of what is stacked
| against him) who still got caught due to a combination of
| bad luck and being a little bit careless. Considering how
| extensive the current surveillance state is he got closer
| to getting away with it than the vast majority of people
| would have, but also combined that with some stupid but
| perfectly naturally human oversights.
| bbqfog wrote:
| Maybe he saw how the world basically thought he was an amazing
| hero and he wanted to let people know who he really is.
| analog31 wrote:
| Indeed, when the alternative was to be a nobody, on the lam,
| for the rest of his life.
| TheCraiggers wrote:
| How so? All he had to do was continue to fly under the
| radar for a few more weeks until everyone forgot about it.
| Being on the lam implies they knew his identity; they did
| not.
| groos wrote:
| Murder is hard on your soul. He wouldn't be able to go
| back to life as usual.
| pmarreck wrote:
| If I nonjudgmentally assumed you speak from personal
| experience, doesn't it also depend on the person, their
| sensitivity, vulnerabilities etc.?
|
| I have a 3.5 year old toddler and it sure feels hard on
| my soul right now (he just behaved the worst he's ever
| behaved in daycare today, to the point that they had to
| isolate him... and this is me dealing with it after only
| 3 hours of sleep, since he also keeps waking up every
| night ever since he turned 3... "sleep regression" should
| be called "slow parricide via toddler non-sleep")
| Clubber wrote:
| It gets better.
| quantified wrote:
| It may take until their adult brain forms around the age
| of 23, though.
| waldothedog wrote:
| Wow! ... it took me another decade after that!
| bornfreddy wrote:
| > he just behaved the worst he's ever behaved in daycare
| today
|
| I'm sorry, maybe it's not my place, but... Please listen
| to him. Children are not stupid, they just lack
| experience. If he behaves some way then there is a reason
| for it. The usual suspect is lack of attention (which is
| very important for a child), since they get more of it
| (even if in form of punishment) for behaving "badly"...
| The outcome is predictable.
|
| I found that treating them as adults when it comes to
| respecting their wishes goes a long way towards raising a
| good person.
|
| Again, sorry for an unsolicited advice from a random
| person on the internet. Especially as it sounds like life
| is very stressful for you right now. Fingers crossed
| everything gets better soon.
| Clubber wrote:
| This. I recall both my mother, my wife and my daughter
| telling me they would get in trouble when they were
| younger because they wanted attention.
| sebastiennight wrote:
| Please consider reading this book. It changed my life:
| Wahlgren, Anna (2009). A Good Night's Sleep - This is how
| you can truly help your baby to sleep through the night.
| Anna Wahlgren AB. ISBN 9789197773614
|
| I'm saying this as a father who was going through the
| worst time of my life as my baby daughter's top 3 records
| for "most sleep in one night" was 5 hours (which only
| happened that one time), 3 hours (which only happened
| that one other time), and then never ever more than 2
| sleep cycles of 45 minutes on any day/night.
|
| Sleep deprivation makes your life so miserable. And it
| does so for the toddler as well. My daughter couldn't
| learn to walk and kept falling over because, well, she
| was just too exhausted.
|
| It seems the book isn't as well known in the US (where
| I'm assuming you are) as it is in Europe, and maybe there
| are equivalent approaches from American authors as well.
| But this is the one that solved the problem and taught
| her to sleep in 4 - four - nights.
|
| My wife and I applied the stuff from the book from
| Dec.1st to Dec.4th of 2018. My daughter has not had
| trouble sleeping her 11+ hours straight a single night
| since then (that was 6 years ago) except a couple of
| times when she was teething.
|
| I was recently asked on a (business) podcast what was the
| top book that changed my life and that was it. To think
| you could struggle for such a long time, and suddenly
| find out you could change that in 4 days... I have tears
| in my eyes whenever I talk about it.
|
| Anyway. Long message to wish you well, internet stranger.
| It will get better.
| mock-possum wrote:
| Well don't leave us hanging, what was the stuff that
| worked for you?
| jojobas wrote:
| I bet he saw it as just cause.
|
| The stuff found on him is irrelevant, they'd pin him down
| with dna and whatever other evidence.
| evoke4908 wrote:
| That CEO didn't seem to have any qualms about killing
| people
| tanseydavid wrote:
| They're not going to hire for a healthcare CEO with high
| empathy. I mean, think of the shareholders!
| bornfreddy wrote:
| It's like profit is at odds with taking care of the
| patients. Who would have thought.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I feel like a lot of doctors and nurses wouldn't be
| doctors or nurses without the decent profit they earn.
|
| I certainly wouldn't work evenings, nights, weekends, and
| holidays, not to mention sacrifice my life during my 20s.
| And be around gross stuff and sad people.
|
| And especially not when you can earn a comparable profit
| working behind keyboard.
| bornfreddy wrote:
| That's... not what I meant. It is one thing to earn
| (very) good wages and entirely another thing to optimise
| the whole healthcare for profit. Healthcare is, by
| definition, a cost center. If you wanted to align
| incentives (a bit better) you would be paying for it only
| when you are _not_ ill, not when you are. A decent
| compromise is what most countries do, which is that
| citizens pay a fixed sum for health insurance which
| covers most of the basic expenses. However the incentives
| are never completely aligned - someone profits from
| people being ill.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > optimise the whole healthcare for profit.
|
| I don't understand what this means. A group of doctors
| get together and open a business offering their services,
| and they distribute profits into their bank accounts. Or
| a dentist, or an optometrist, or a podiatrist.
|
| Why would 99% of people do this work if they cannot
| profit?
|
| > A decent compromise is what most countries do, which is
| that citizens pay a fixed sum for health insurance which
| covers most of the basic expenses.
|
| That is just health insurance with $0 deductible/copays.
| Some US employers do offer this, and some even pay 100%
| of the premiums.
|
| But these plans don't sell well to the broader public,
| because most people would prefer (or can only afford) a
| lower premium and accept the volatility of having to
| spend a few hundred or a few thousand before insurance
| kicks in.
| bornfreddy wrote:
| > I don't understand what this means.
|
| In some (many?) countries the options for private
| healthcare are limited (by design) and public healthcare
| takes care of people. Not in USA though. :) It has its
| pros and cons, but to be honest, neither system works
| very well. I would pick a public one anytime, but maybe
| it's just because I know it.
|
| > Why would 99% of people do this work if they cannot
| profit?
|
| They do profit, and should - they get a paycheck for
| their work.
| Clubber wrote:
| It was indirect, and people always see themselves as the
| good guy. It's easy to justify in your mind. "I'm saving
| shareholders money." "Most doctors over service patients,
| so they are the bad guys." "They would have died anyway,"
| etc.
|
| I would bet a lot of the healthcare CEO's are totally
| surprised that anyone would want to harm them.
| relaxing wrote:
| The rich don't just let go of murder investigations.
| mewpmewp2 wrote:
| Another way to think of it would be, how much would it
| cost for a very rich family or person to hire few people
| to hunt you for the following 10 years.
| jcgrillo wrote:
| So far the record indicates he was better at hunting them
| than they him.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Is there a word for these types of snarky quips that
| trigger off a single word but fail to address the point?
|
| I feel like I'm seeing them more and more.
|
| The killer didn't do any hunting. They did shooting and
| running.
| jcgrillo wrote:
| He stalked his prey and killed it. That's hunting. Then
| law enforcement tracked him and trapped him. Also
| hunting! But none of the rich family has done any hunting
| (yet). So far they are the hunted.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| why are you romanticizing him? He waited outside a
| conference. That is like saying I hunted a hamburger at
| McDonalds.
|
| All of this is besides the central point, which is that a
| killer would likely be on the run from detectives and
| maybe PIs for the rest of their lives.
| jcgrillo wrote:
| I'm not. Hunting people in a safe democratic society
| isn't "romantic", it's not "The Most Dangerous Game" or
| anything else. Your analogy is absolutely accurate.
| Harvesting an oyster would be another. Still totally
| hunting (or maybe just gathering).
|
| > the rest of their lives
|
| Only if any of their adversaries survive with sufficient
| will to fight.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| If it happened as they said, they couldn't really track
| him without the tip off.
| jachee wrote:
| He just _happened_ to be at the right place at the right
| time with the right equipment?
|
| I know a lot of game hunters who would say that's pretty
| much the definition of hunting.
| jcgrillo wrote:
| Reliable, repeatable coincidences like that are called
| "skills".
| exe34 wrote:
| but we can't call it hunting, that's too romantic! it's
| only hunting when sweaty rich dudes kill animals.
| Gud wrote:
| > Is there a word for these types of snarky quips that
| trigger off a single word but fail to address the point?
|
| No but please let me know when you find one! And indeed
| you are correct, this is a fairly new pattern and it's
| absolutely increasing.
| NikkiA wrote:
| > Is there a word for these types of snarky quips that
| trigger off a single word but fail to address the point?
|
| They're (attempts at) a bon mot
|
| https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bon_mot
| mewpmewp2 wrote:
| I think based on examples I am seeing for what qualifies
| as a bon mot, it would be different, but since you
| specified "attempt" in parentheses I guess it could
| qualify as some sort of attempt.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| The thing is I don't think it is a genuine attempt. Is
| more like an intentionally counterfeit bon mot. It
| doesn't actually engage with the parent sentiment, but
| might fool people that are only half reading.
| krisoft wrote:
| > All he had to do was continue to fly under the radar
| for a few more weeks until everyone forgot about it.
|
| That is seriously underestimating the attention span of
| law enforcement. I'm not saying that they would have
| caught him for sure, but they have motivation and means
| to keep looking far longer than a few weeks.
|
| > Being on the lam implies they knew his identity; they
| did not.
|
| At the minimum they had a picture of his face. That stuff
| will stay in databases indefinietly and face recognition
| is only getting better. They might have had his DNA from
| objects he interacted with or things he discarded. They
| could have traced his burner phone to locations he
| previously frequented, or where he bought it from. They
| could have traced him via video surveilance further along
| his escape and tied him to a location or a car.
|
| None of this is guaranteed to work. There is a certain
| amount of luck involved. But just because after a few
| days they didn't know who he is, doesn't mean they could
| not have found him months or years down the road.
| dyauspitr wrote:
| They know what his face looks like and had a bunch of
| information about his whereabouts prior to visiting the
| city. It was only a matter of time until they found him.
| His one bet might have been to cross the border in Mexico.
| Melatonic wrote:
| I think this might actually be it - he may have been
| motivated in some part by fame (but planned to be anonymous
| and get away with it) and after the hugely positive online
| response decided to purposely get caught.
|
| Trial for this could be hugely publicized
| evoke4908 wrote:
| I'm _real_ interested in how a trial goes. Can you even
| find enough people in America who _haven 't_ been bent over
| by insurance to form an unbiased jury? I find it hard to
| imagine any jury would convict him.
| senordevnyc wrote:
| I keep seeing this take, and it seems pretty bizarre to
| me. Most Americans rate their health insurance as
| excellent or good [1], and even of the ones that don't,
| most probably don't support murdering health insurance
| executives on the street.
|
| They won't have trouble seating a jury, and he'll be
| convicted of 1st degree homicide and spend the rest of
| his adult life in prison.
|
| 1. https://www.kff.org/private-insurance/poll-
| finding/kff-surve...
| ks2048 wrote:
| I think the problem is with outliers. Most people don't
| have problems with thier health insurance because they
| don't interact with it much or just have routine care.
|
| But if you're unlucky, it can ruin your life or the life
| of a loved one. It's not hard to find horror stories -
| some recent viral ones came from LinkedIn comments to the
| CEO (written before his murder)
| furyofantares wrote:
| This is wildly unrealistic.
|
| Many people have not been bent over by insurance, but
| that's the less confusing part of this post.
|
| Almost everyone who has been bent over by insurance will
| still find someone who assassinated another dude guilty.
| acdha wrote:
| I generally agree but think it'll depend on how
| sympathetic his case is and what defense he tries. I
| believe New York juries have to reach a unanimous
| decision and if he had one of those insurance horror
| stories it wouldn't be unheard of for at least one juror
| to feel sympathetic to, say, a provocation defense and
| only find him guilty of lesser charges.
| 1123581321 wrote:
| Not guilty must also be unanimous. If the jurors can't
| agree it'll be retried. Usually lone holdouts capitulate.
| acdha wrote:
| Yes, as I said the mostly likely outcome is guilty but it
| wouldn't shock me if, say, he wasn't convicted on every
| charge. Juries introduce a human element and the response
| to this murder illustrates how many people really hate
| insurance companies. Something over 10% of Americans say
| they know someone who died due to denied care, which is a
| big enough number that I wouldn't rule anything out.
| 1123581321 wrote:
| There are other stats in play, too. For example, 30% of
| Americans know a murder victim. 50% have dealt with gun
| violence. The jury system narrows down to people who can
| focus on the law and follow the judge's instructions. The
| pool of potential jurors is huge. It's been rare that a
| trial has changed counties in any state because too many
| people in a county have strong feelings about the victim
| or perpetrator. I could see lesser murder charged being
| brought to keep motivation out of the trial, though. And
| yes, rule nothing out (in any trial.)
| robotresearcher wrote:
| Anyone who has been bent over by insurance will not be
| selected for the jury.
| galangalalgol wrote:
| I'm not sure that is even necessary. I know enough people
| impacted by such things I'm not sure I wouldn't nullify
| even though I haven't been impacted myself. I don't think
| they can find 12 people who don't know someone with a bad
| story.
| Aeolun wrote:
| Isn't that a reverse conflict of interest? That way you
| are deliberately selecting people that are more/less
| sympathetic than a baseline of the US population.
| oneeyedpigeon wrote:
| It's not as if "he was mistreated by an insurer" is a
| defence, is it? That should be entirely irrelevant to the
| jury's finding, although sentencing might take it into
| account. The jury just needs to decide if he did it, so
| not having been mistreated by an insurer shouldn't
| preclude someone from making that decision.
| robotresearcher wrote:
| 'Shouldn't' is true. But the prosecution does not need to
| explain why they reject a potential juror by 'preemptive
| challenge'. Why would they take the chance?
|
| Similarly, a defendant's race is not relevant to their
| guilt, but you're not going to pick a self-declared
| racist if you don't have to.
| throwaway8754aw wrote:
| Agreed yet he'll serve some time like Gypsy Rose. A
| seemingly good hearted victimized murderer who story
| seems to work out well for her in the end in. She
| orchestrated killing her mom vs. just running away. If
| she's smart enough to get her mom killed indirectly using
| a lonely dude she's smart enough to run away. Murderer
| who is free with fame. Luigi is now the same yet is this
| murderer more liked then Gypsy Rose?
| prawn wrote:
| If you wanted to get the message out, you could go to a
| media org for interview and then call police in.
|
| I wonder if cops were monitoring major news offices because
| of this.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| If that's the case, you make a call to a reporter -- and then
| walk into a police station to surrender to authorities.
| cellwebb wrote:
| I mean if he's giving himself up, why not gift a mcdonald's
| employee 60k?
| booleandilemma wrote:
| I can't help but think of another nyc shooter, Frank James,
| who was also caught at a McDonald's after turning himself
| in.
|
| https://www.reuters.com/world/us/search-new-york-subway-
| gunm...
| Clubber wrote:
| More evidence that McDonalds is really bad for you.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Only if you have no sense for drama.
|
| That's not this guy.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Drama has too often allowed the suspect to be shot on
| sight.
| gymbeaux wrote:
| I'm sure the police have orders to "take him alive."
| thephyber wrote:
| It doesn't matter what the brass say when giving orders.
| If the officer says the magic words during debriefing
| (after the shooting), he gets off scott free.
|
| What are the magic words? I don't know them, but I know
| that the lawyers who work for police unions know them and
| the trainers who train police officers drill those into
| the heads of officers.
|
| The core problem with the jurisprudence: if a reasonable
| officer had a fear for themself or for members of the
| public, then fatal shootings in the line of duty are
| usually justified. The objective facts at the scene don't
| matter; only the officer's perception. If only all
| citizens were given the same rights...
| curtisblaine wrote:
| They have body cams don't they? If they just shoot a
| suspect and the body cam suggests no threat to the
| officer's life, they're in trouble.
| lostlogin wrote:
| Are they? Paid leave for a few years while it's
| investigated, then back to work.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| If by trouble you mean "get a pension to compensate them
| for the metal harm they suffered from the shooting" then
| you're right.
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Daniel_Shaver)
| pjc50 wrote:
| No penalty for just turning it off.
| Clubber wrote:
| The magic words are, "I feared for my life," or "I feared
| for my safety."
| autoexec wrote:
| He killed a CEO not a cop. If he'd gone after the police
| they'd likely have burned that McDonald's to the ground
| with him inside
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Dorner)
| aorloff wrote:
| The only part I don't get now is the cell phone
|
| I assumed he had some help with the timing via the burner phone
|
| But this all looks very lone wolfish now
| hughesjj wrote:
| I still don't get how he knew where the guy would be
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| If you're a shareholder you get a postcard in the mail with
| the time and address of public meetings.
| shoooooooooota wrote:
| But not "he will leave the building at this 30 second
| interval. As needed for a walk up on a busy city street
| that is well policed.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| Honestly I think it was luck.
| hawski wrote:
| He had 10 days to find out on site.
| griffzhowl wrote:
| Yeah, the timing is a question I still have. At first it
| sounded like he was only there a few minutes before the CEO
| appeared. Later information sounds like he might have been
| hanging around outside for longer. I haven't seen a
| knowledgable evaluation of how plausible it is that he would
| have known where Thompson was going to be based only on
| public information.
| eastbound wrote:
| Yes, how do you know the whereabouts of a CEO?
| InfiniteLoup wrote:
| > Yes, how do you know the whereabouts of a CEO?
|
| You might know about their public appearances such as for
| shareholder meetings but how would you know which hotel
| they're staying at and that they would leave said hotel
| at 6:45 AM(!) and walk(!!) to the meeting venue?
|
| Either massive luck on the shooter's side or there is a
| source of information that hasn't been discovered yet.
| two27 wrote:
| https://support.substack.com/hc/en-
| us/articles/360037870412-...
|
| If real, he scheduled a post to be released everyday at ~6pm
| EST. If he wasn't caught that day he would delete the
| scheduled post, and reschedule for the next day at 6pm.
|
| I say 6 because it was the earliest snapshot of the site.
| Looks like the post just got taken down off sub stack and I
| can't view the exact time of post.
|
| That's likely how it happened
| anothernewdude wrote:
| 1. This guy has a tight alibi and the shooter is elsewhere.
|
| 2. This guy has a terminal illness.
|
| 3. This guy is bankrupt after healthcare debt + buying
| backpacks.
| K0balt wrote:
| It's all very convenient and airtight, very nicely packaged.
|
| I'm not saying it's not exactly what it looks like, just kinda
| makes me think huh. Either the perp really wanted to be caught,
| or someone really wants to close this case. I'm going with he
| wanted to be caught, since he's apparently not an actual idiot.
|
| So just a relatively smart privileged dude swept away by dark
| ideology? It wouldn't be the first time. If there's any more to
| it, we won't likely know.
| tomlockwood wrote:
| Maybe he was planning to do another.
| typeofhuman wrote:
| This fits.
| pcblues wrote:
| Agreed. He seems to be smart enough to never be caught. Could
| just be the need to be liked/famous/known. On the other hand,
| he might not have expected to be noticed by someone who knew
| him. That's a real 0.01% you can't predict in your perfect
| planning.
| kadoban wrote:
| How many similar crimes go unsolved? It can't be common. I
| doubt it's a matter of just being smart.
| garrettgarcia wrote:
| He doesn't seem smart at all... He took off his mask in front
| of a camera to flirt with a receptionist. He left a long
| extensive trail of evidence. He manifesto sounds like it was
| written by a 14 year old. It only took him four days to get
| caught. Like most criminals, he is not smart.
| Vampiero wrote:
| Like most criminals who get caught*
| hsavit1 wrote:
| It's very difficult to not get caught in a total over
| militarized surveillance state. He is not stupid
| davidcbc wrote:
| Less than 50% of murders are solved these days[1]. If he
| hadn't been carrying around all of the evidence and was
| more careful with the mask he very well may have gotten
| away with it, the NYPD had no clue who or where he was
|
| [1] https://www.npr.org/2023/04/29/1172775448/people-
| murder-unso...
| Gud wrote:
| Most murderers don't target the capitalist elite though.
| Cumpiler69 wrote:
| This. If you or I would have been gunned down on the
| street, do you think the police would have had such a
| manhunt going on?
| bdangubic wrote:
| name 5 high profile ones in the last decade? :)
|
| all of those you are referring to are not plastered 24/7
| over all media world-wide
| rixed wrote:
| Do you honestly believe all crimes are equally
| investigated with the same diligence and budget like in a
| tv show?
| davidcbc wrote:
| No, but most murders aren't done by complete strangers
| who live far from the crime scene either. When they are,
| and they are careful, they are extremely hard to catch
| tbrownaw wrote:
| Is having bugs in your code proof that you're not smart, or
| is it more likely momentary carelessness or even just that
| humans always have a non-zero error rate?
| vFunct wrote:
| And he really could have gotten away with it if he wanted to.
| Im sure he noticed online the vast population of people willing
| to hide him or provide an alibi.
| xivzgrev wrote:
| I don't think so, per article:
|
| He "became quiet and started to shake" when asked if he had
| recently been to New York, according to the criminal complaint
| filed in Pennsylvania.
|
| Being smart can lead to arrogance, which leads to stumbles.
| like carrying evidence, dining in public, etc.
| nashashmi wrote:
| I doubt he was arrogant. I think he was on the run and didn't
| have any place to put away the evidence. Probably homeless
| this whole time. And had to go to get food at some point.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| It's been several days, he had plenty of time to wipe stuff
| down and dump it. I don't think this is arrogance
| necessarily, perhaps isolation and paranoia.
| RajT88 wrote:
| Probably hadn't really thought through the specifics of
| tossing evidence.
|
| Bodies of water are popular for disposing of things,
| because it's a huge PITA to find things there. Imagine how
| hard it might be in a large local pond, and then multiply
| that in complexity for a rather big river. Or an inland sea
| like the Great Lakes. Don't even multiply for those; it's a
| stupidly big irrelevant number.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| It's hard to find cars 20 ft from the shore and a huge
| number of missing persons disappear that way accidentally
| driving in.
| garrettgarcia wrote:
| He says in the manifesto that they won't take him alive. He
| planned to go out shooting, then wimped out.
| thatwasunusual wrote:
| _Alleged_ manifesto. We still don't know if it's real.
| Cumpiler69 wrote:
| This. I expect a lot of fake/AI generated scams will be
| banking on this media hype to make some money while the
| iron is hot.
| justanotherjoe wrote:
| I am reading 'The Man Who Fell To Earth" and it's about this
| supposedly very smart martian who makes very basic mistakes
| that led to his capture. There is a quote, something to the
| effect, 'it's amazing the number of things you just don't
| think about'. Which I think is true and why people got
| caught. Truth is, he had a lot on his mind and that can make
| you very clumsy.
| djent wrote:
| Ah yes, stupid people, famously never arrogant
| lgrapenthin wrote:
| Could as well have walked into a police station or uploaded the
| manifesto on his GitHub.
| 77pt77 wrote:
| > including the fake ID he used at the hostel
|
| I've stayed at that place multiple times, though years ago.
|
| They did check ID, but never copied it.
|
| I wonder how they knew it was fake.
| wildzzz wrote:
| Do they record names of guests? It would take two seconds to
| ask the NJ DMV if someone by that name exists. If they don't,
| then the ID was probably fake. If there is someone by that
| name, showing the real ID photos to the hostel receptionist
| would quickly clear up whether the ID is fake or not. The
| receptionist flirted with him and got him to show his face so
| there's a good chance she'd be able to look at some photos
| and say whether any of them look like the guy.
| 77pt77 wrote:
| Last time I was there they wouldn't even record NJ.
|
| They recorded name on reservation and maybe DOB.
|
| The place had cameras everywhere apart from inside rooms
| and bathrooms.
|
| I can't believe that was the only time they got him on
| camera.
| gruez wrote:
| >Last time I was there they wouldn't even record NJ.
|
| >They recorded name on reservation and maybe DOB.
|
| I'm sure the cops can run the same name/DOB combination
| through the databases of all 50 states + DC, and rule out
| any that don't match the surveillance footage.
| mmooss wrote:
| Once the police traced the suspect to the hostel, wouldn't
| they check the relevant IDs?
| 77pt77 wrote:
| What ID?
|
| The hostel had none. They never copied it.
|
| They never wrote ID numbers either.
|
| They checked the name and that was it.
|
| Unless it changed in the last year or so.
| 77pt77 wrote:
| They saved the ID number at least:
|
| https://www.foxnews.com/live-news/unitedhealthcare-ceo-
| brian...
| 77pt77 wrote:
| So, according to this:
|
| https://www.foxnews.com/live-news/unitedhealthcare-ceo-
| brian...
|
| "I was informed... that defendant presented a forged New
| Jersey Driver's License with the name of Mark Rosario as his
| identification, which based on the number on it was the same
| identification defendant presented at the hostel,"
|
| So the hostel saved at least the number.
|
| This was not the case at least 2 years ago. I'm absolutely
| certain.
| fsckboy wrote:
| or, he didn't think he would get caught and his plan to was
| move on to victim #2.
| bufferoverflow wrote:
| Or the most obvious case of setup ever.
| NooneAtAll3 wrote:
| can be both killer's and police's setup too
| xwrzz wrote:
| He didn't want to be found but thought it was a non-zero
| possibility is being ruled out why?
| ProAm wrote:
| Jury nullification!
| pmontra wrote:
| If this is a vendetta, the goal was achieved and there was
| nothing more to do. He had to give himself two goals, the
| vendetta and not get caught, which is more difficult than one
| goal. A hired killer would pursue both goals routinely as a
| mean to stay in business but not an amateur and anyway not as
| effectively.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _seems he wanted to be found_
|
| He was presumably en route somewhere. Disposing of a fake ID
| such that forensics can't get anything useful off it isn't
| easily done on the run / incognito. (And if his inspiration is
| the Unabomber, he presumably had more targets.)
| someotherperson wrote:
| Surely you recognize that all you need to do is to rub it on
| some concrete for a couple of minutes to completely destroy
| it right? Not to mention if you owned a pair of scissors or a
| lighter or something...
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _you recognize that all you need to do is to rub it on
| some concrete for a couple of minutes to completely destroy
| it right_
|
| You're going to take time away from your actual escape to
| make yourself less incriminating in case you are caught?
| Should he have been grinding up IDs at the Greyhound bus
| terminal in New York? Right after the whole city heard
| about the shooting? Or should he have waited until after
| the FBI plastered the nation with his face?
|
| > _if you owned a pair of scissors or a lighter or
| something_
|
| Scissors won't take care of fingerprints, let alone DNA. As
| for the lighter, again, where do you propose he do this
| without attracting attention?
|
| Actually, I could see him having thought this would be easy
| to do, maybe even packing a lighter and scissors, only to
| realise in execution that you can't start burning IDs on a
| bus without someone noticing.
| someotherperson wrote:
| Respectfully, none of what you're describing is real
| life. Police don't go around fingerprinting random pieces
| of plastic.
|
| You can just deface it in any way and throw it out the
| window on a highway or into any trash can and it will
| quite literally never be found.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Police don't go around fingerprinting random pieces of
| plastic_
|
| No. But you don't know how far behind they are when you
| dispose of it. It only becomes random plastic after
| they've lost your trail.
|
| > _can just deface it in any way and throw it out the
| window on a highway or into any trash can_
|
| Sure. Or you can keep it until it can be safely disposed
| of. Which carries fewer risks? We don't even have to
| hypothesise, we know for a fact that the IDs on his
| person didn't cause him to get caught. We also know him
| _not_ having the IDs on him wouldn 't have caused him to
| be less caught.
| hawski wrote:
| I would think that getting rid of the evidence is the
| integral part of planning a crime. Otherwise it is
| sloppiness. There is a lot of ways to do such things I am
| sure, but you have to thought it through before. He
| didn't or the adrenaline was too much for him.
| nadermx wrote:
| What about those eye brows though?
| qingcharles wrote:
| A lot of people who commit crimes are suffering from a range of
| untreated mental illnesses. They are not always firing on all
| cylinders all of the time, leading to weirdness like this.
| jajko wrote:
| Most folks with mental illnesses live among us, not in mental
| institutions. If on a scale 1-10 you have something like
| bipolar on 1 or 2, you can sort of function with some meds.
| Sort of, until SHTF and emotions go haywire. Keeping
| relationships is hard, be it personal or professional, so
| folks struggle but from outside they often just appear
| 'weird'.
|
| Wife is a GP doctor, maybe 1/3rd of her patients have some
| form of this.
| qingcharles wrote:
| 100% this. I've seen stats saying 20% of people in jail
| have untreated mental illness. I've spent a lot of time in
| jails and I would say it has be 80%+ because a lot of
| people can function enough to live in society and hide
| their symptoms until the point where they do something
| criminal.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| This guy had bad back problems and got surgery but it was
| probably ongoing. He got kicked off his parents insurance at
| 26 and ran out of money.
| zusammen wrote:
| This sounds ridiculous, given his family background, from
| which running out of money seems unlikely, but it's
| actually plausible. I know a lot of people who came from
| wealth but who insisted on fighting their own battles. I
| personally wouldn't recommend it, though.
| shalmanese wrote:
| He was working for TrueCar as a data engineer, he had
| employee provided health insurance.
| another2another wrote:
| Also (I'm hoping) the trauma of taking another person's life
| must be hugely upsetting. I'm hoping it's not something you
| do lightly, and is not without personal consequences
| (guilt,shame, shock,.. dunno).
| jjallen wrote:
| He could be taking lots of medication for his back pain which
| could cause him to think not so rationally
| gwd wrote:
| > It seems he wanted to be found.
|
| I talked to someone personally who at some point had committed
| a series of crimes, and at some point they started doing things
| that were more and more likely to get them caught; they told me
| they thought to themselves, "What am I doing?" But they didn't
| stop, and eventually got caught.
|
| In a different story, a few years ago I dropped my wallet on
| the sidewalk outside my house, and someone picked it up and
| tried to use one of the credit cards in it. Then they got in a
| fight which got them arrested; and the police found my wallet
| (with my ID and everything) in their possession. Why get in a
| fight that's going to get you arrested just at the moment when
| you have stolen property in your pocket?
|
| My take is this: We present to others, and even ourselves, the
| illusion that there's just one unified "self"; but really
| inside there are a number of independent motivations within us.
| In both cases above, I think there was _a part_ of those people
| who felt guilty and actually did want to be caught and
| punished.
|
| It's possible there was something similar going on with the guy
| who shot the CEO: one part of him had managed to plan
| everything perfectly so that he could get away; but there was a
| saboteur. It couldn't ahead of time prevent him from doing the
| shooting, but it could afterwards prevent him from disposing of
| the evidence and ensure that he got caught.
| navane wrote:
| There's a decent book written about exactly this, Crime and
| Punishment, by one of those Russians. Pretty hilarious read
| too.
| alabhyajindal wrote:
| I immediately thought of this when I read the parent
| comment.
| shishy wrote:
| one of those Russians... lol
|
| Fyodor Dostoyevsky
| kiba wrote:
| "Wait, this doesn't make sense", believe it or not, is not
| the default state of humanity, nor is it even the majority of
| our thoughts.
|
| I know I am not doing my body and health a favor. There's a
| tool called journaling, but I am not even using it right now.
| It's a very useful tool to get your mind into thinking "wait,
| this doesn't make sense", or "why am I behaving this way?"
|
| Everyday, I say to myself that I am speeding up my decline in
| health, and yet nothing changes(because I don't journal).
| noisy_boy wrote:
| > My take is this: We present to others, and even ourselves,
| the illusion that there's just one unified "self"; but really
| inside there are a number of independent motivations within
| us. In both cases above, I think there was a part of those
| people who felt guilty and actually did want to be caught and
| punished.
|
| I have a different take. Assuming his crime is driven by his
| beliefs/mission, not being found will not further it.
| Logically you may argue that it would afford him more chances
| to carry on but given that we assume him to be driven by
| strong and passionate belief, he would want to be clearly and
| explicitly recognized for those beliefs and would want those
| thoughts to take center stage of public opinion. Carrying
| evidence also is his way of broadcasting the signal that he
| doesn't care about getting caught since he did the right
| thing and has nothing to be ashamed of.
| tivert wrote:
| > I have a different take. Assuming his crime is driven by
| his beliefs/mission, not being found will not further it.
|
| I'm not so sure in this case. It would have been hard for
| the perpetrator to predict beforehand, but there was so
| little public sympathy for the victim, and there are lot of
| people who said they would not help the police catch him.
| Him getting away would have _shown_ that insurance
| companies are _so terrible_ and _so hated_ that the public
| is OK with the murder of those responsible (because if they
| weren 't, they'd help the police and he'd be caught).
|
| Escape would have sent a much stronger message than
| whatever he could hope to accomplish by grandstanding in a
| courtroom.
| salawat wrote:
| Welcome to Jungian Psychology and the wonderful world of
| enantidromia. As humans are General Intelligences, we're
| capable of entertaining contradictory courses of
| action/thinking at the same time. At some point our conscious
| faculties "meet" our unconscious faculties, and the period of
| time when the two start to integrate into a whole individual
| is a bit of a wild ride that practically no modern
| practitioner of psychology I've met seems to even be aware of
| anymore, and can absolutely go awry.
| DamnInteresting wrote:
| There is a hypothesis/philosophy called Society of Mind [1]
| which posits that our minds are a collection of individual
| 'agents' that each have their own motivations, sometimes
| cooperating and sometimes competing.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_Mind
| prawn wrote:
| My guess is that he assumed he'd be caught early, wasn't, and
| then got a bit overwhelmed with the reality of staying on the
| loose. That would've been overwhelming: finding places to
| sleep, transport, eating, etc. A gun and ID might've felt like
| tools that still had use, so he was yet to discard them.
|
| Why you'd eat-in at a fast food place rather than just go via
| some low level Chinese takeaway though!
| Cumpiler69 wrote:
| _> A gun and ID might've felt like tools that still had use_
|
| Exactly. A gun, even without ammo, still allows you to get
| out of hairy situations: steal a car, force someone to drive
| you somewhere, etc
|
| _> Why you'd eat-in at a fast food place rather than just go
| via some low level Chinese takeaway though!_
|
| Maybe he though he'd be more anonymous in a major fast food
| chain, and you stand out more in a Chinese place.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| [dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42369465
| dredmorbius wrote:
| dang's redirected that here actually, for those reading
| ChrisArchitect's comment:
|
| <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42374292>
| readyplayernull wrote:
| > Mr Mangione previously worked as a programming intern for
| Fixarixis, a video game developer.
|
| What? Do they mean Firaxis? Devs of some Civilization and X-Com
| versions?
| sneed_chucker wrote:
| Yeah, there are screenshots of his LinkedIn floating around
| that show he apparently did Bugfixes on CIV 6. (The profile has
| since been scrubbed of course)
| yobananaboy wrote:
| It's not scrubbed, still here:
| https://www.linkedin.com/in/luigi-mangione/
| readyplayernull wrote:
| Interesting. The relation with Civ gives a kind of grand
| scheme. Let's see what his dead man account brings up:
|
| https://youtube.com/@PepMangione
| megadopechos wrote:
| Aaaaand it's gone.
| tomjakubowski wrote:
| no telling whether that account is just somebody who
| renamed after the guy's Twitter handle leaked. it wasn't
| archived on the way back machine
| Miner49er wrote:
| Might be fake, but looks like he may have had a dead man's switch
| upload a YouTube video: https://youtu.be/bdhs9g3Wwg0
| breadwinner wrote:
| It ends with "All is scheduled, be patient". Presumably it
| means more videos are coming, explaining his motivation.
| delecti wrote:
| At 1:20, a small bit of text pops up in the lower right, just
| right of the "Soon..." which says "Dec 11th".
| letmevoteplease wrote:
| From the font and awkwarding positioning I'm guessing the
| date was overlayed on the video with a script or something
| (i.e. "two days after whenever this deadman's switch gets
| triggered")
| chaospossblity wrote:
| look at his youtube profile pic
| joekrill wrote:
| It flashes "Dec 11th" at the 1:20 mark. I thought for sure this
| must be a prank, but the account says "Joined Jan 20, 2024". It
| seems it's possible to change your YouTube username, though.
| Could it be that it was a different account and someone just
| changed the username as a troll?
| Miner49er wrote:
| A 2nd video is premiering in like 40ish minutes, might be
| fake.
| hoten wrote:
| Apparently his other social media doesn't link to this YT
| account. Also there's an active "live premiere" which I don't
| think you can automate.
|
| random comment on said live premiere:
|
| > the account is fake. the video wouldve been made public
| instantly. there would be no premire time. you can change your
| youtube handle. this account isnt linked to his x account
| Miner49er wrote:
| I would guess you could automate premiers, since they're used
| by large companies and such, but maybe not?
|
| Probably is fake, can someone decode the binary in the
| thumbnail? I can't ATM.
| letmevoteplease wrote:
| The video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCvKPBebNTk) was
| taken down 33 minutes before it was set to premiere, and now
| the account (https://www.youtube.com/@PepMangione) is
| deleted. The thumbnail had "The Truth will set me free"
| written in binary. Screenshot:
| https://i.imgur.com/ovODSvx.png
|
| Here is a mirror of the short video linked in the OP (no real
| content, just a countdown and date):
| https://files.catbox.moe/jxtf97.mkv
| Miner49er wrote:
| Probably was fake, but if it was real, not very smart of
| him to have it take so long. Should have been an immediate
| upload so people could download it.
|
| Maybe he was thinking they would leave it up so police
| could use it as potential evidence.
| hughesjj wrote:
| It would have been a thumbnail of a magnet link to a
| torrent if anything
|
| I'd be shocked if someone used normal social media to
| distribute something like that. Meanwhile, drugs and
| warez and pirated content have developed a well known,
| well supported, internationally censorship resistant
| ecosystem.
|
| Why would you not use that?
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| > Apparently his other social media doesn't link to this YT
| account.
|
| But according to another comment in the thread YT confirms
| they removed the fake account AND _three_ real accounts
| associated with the guy.
|
| Begs the question of why did they remove those? What content
| was in the real accounts to grant removal?
| xyzzy4747 wrote:
| Deadman's switch crypto token launch?
| motohagiography wrote:
| There was one after McAffee died as well. I think there is a
| group who just does this. Costs nothing and if their shitcoin
| launches, they exit scam as quickly as they appeared.
| Probably the same people. There are people who fake recent
| obituaries to drive advertising traffic and rob peoples
| houses when they are at funerals. There are also people who
| withold lifesaving care and deny legitimate claims using
| bullying tactics. It's a dark world.
| whatnotests2 wrote:
| .com
| double0jimb0 wrote:
| YouTube account was terminated at 4:11PM MST, I was watching it
| live as it switched to this message:
|
| "This video is no longer available because the YouTube account
| associated with this video has been terminated."
| nicelunch wrote:
| Did the premiere video provide any useful information before
| it got terminated?
| e_y_ wrote:
| CNN quoted someone from Google saying it was a fake (old
| account that just changed its handle today).
|
| IMHO there ought to be restrictions and transparency on
| channel name changes because it gets abused all the time.
| Miner49er wrote:
| At the very least they should display when the
| username/display name was last changed.
| breadwinner wrote:
| Confirmed as fake. CNN reports: "YouTube on Monday removed
| three channels belonging to Luigi Mangione, the suspect in the
| killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, as well as a
| channel that was altered Monday to look as if it belonged to
| him..."
|
| "... channel was removed for violating YouTube's impersonation
| policies, after the channel name and handle were updated on
| Monday following news of Mangione's arrest to appear as if it
| belonged to the suspect. That channel on Monday posted a
| cryptic countdown video that said, "If you see this, I'm
| already under arrest."
| shiroiushi wrote:
| >the channel name and handle were updated on Monday following
| news of Mangione's arrest to appear as if it belonged to the
| suspect. That channel on Monday posted a cryptic countdown
| video that said, "If you see this, I'm already under arrest."
|
| I guess that's one way to get a LOT of clicks on your
| account.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| Fine, confirmed as fake but he also had three real ones,
| "YouTube on Monday removed three channels belonging to Luigi
| Mangione ..."
|
| What was the content in those channels and why were they
| removed?
|
| All other online footprint of this guy is still online (even
| his github!), what content was there on YT to grant it being
| removed?
|
| Lack of transparency will just generate more questions and
| doubt.
| astura wrote:
| >All other online footprint of this guy is still online
| (even his github!)
|
| Not true, Meta removed his Facebook and Instagram.
|
| https://www.sfgate.com/tech/article/luigi-mangione-social-
| me...
| Bjorkbat wrote:
| I'm weirdly not too surprised due to this belief I have that
| software developers would make effective criminals. A lot of this
| boils down to a belief I have that not getting caught in the
| first place is easy. Murders have something like a 50% solve rate
| and you can decrease your chances of getting caught with a little
| knowledge on how to evade common forensic techniques along with
| some planning. Those who get caught doing one crime or another
| either were dumb to begin or eventually got lazy and made a dumb
| mistake in hindsight.
|
| Besides that though, the ethos that we have lends itself well to
| acquiring advanced knowledge in more-or-less all domains, crime
| and forensics included.
| tzs wrote:
| Careful. That solve rate is overall. When planning your life in
| crime you probably want to use the solve rate for the
| particular type of people you plan to murder.
|
| The solve rate for murders of white people is generally in the
| 80+% range, which is probably what you'd want to use if going
| after CEOs.
| pfannkuchen wrote:
| I think race of victim is probably not the root cause in the
| solve rate.
|
| There is a high correlation between being a non-white murder
| victim (in America) and being targeted by or involved in gang
| violence.
|
| Gang violence seems to be less moderated by the police, for
| probably a variety of reasons both practical and political.
|
| But yes, if you aren't killing a rival gang member, you do
| probably have worse odds than the overall stat.
| kenjackson wrote:
| And 50% is a horrible baseline for 25 years to life in
| jail. Even 5%, with no statute of limitations, would make
| me uncomfortable my whole life.
| Panzer04 wrote:
| Gang violence would often be random offender, random victim
| too. I imagine a motivated murder by a related party is
| significantly easier to solve than a random shooting where
| the perpetrator hightails it immediately.
|
| Related parties are easy to name and find, unrelated
| murderers which you don't find immediately are only going
| to get harder to catch - where do you even start when with
| something like that?
| User23 wrote:
| A lot of gang violence is at parties and (sadly)
| funerals. The demographics of the injured bystanders thus
| tend to reflect the demographics of people who attend
| those events.
| chimpanzee wrote:
| > A lot of gang violence is at parties and (sadly)
| funerals
|
| Nice just-so argument.
|
| Any basis in fact? Stats maybe?
| chimpanzee wrote:
| - Gang-related homicides are less than 20% of all homicides
| in the US.
|
| - Gang-related homicides includes the homicides of innocent
| bystanders of gang-related shootings.
|
| - Over half of all homicide victims are non-white.
|
| These three facts make it obvious that well above 60% of
| all non-white homicides are NOT "gang-targeted or
| -involved".
|
| If it is true that 80% [EDIT: not true (I misread stat in
| another comment) but gist of argument still stands] of non-
| white cases go unsolved, then more than 50% of all unsolved
| non-white homicides are NOT gang-related in any way.
|
| And this is an extremely conservative estimate. Just fixing
| unfavorable rounding adjusts the percentage of unrelated
| unsolved homicides to above 65%.
|
| Given that, it doesn't seem wise to presume gang-
| involvement on the part of non-white unsolved homicide
| victims solely on the basis of them being... non-white
| unsolved homicide victims.
| tzs wrote:
| > If it is true that 80% of non-white cases go unsolved
| [...]
|
| It's not nearly that bad. Around 40-50% are solved. There
| are around 30% more non-white homicides than there are
| white homicides per year in the US, which means that the
| overall homicide solve rate is closer to the non-white
| solve rate than to the white solve rate.
| chimpanzee wrote:
| Thanks for catching my mistake and updating. I misread
| earlier comment.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| With the ubiquity of cameras, tracking, I suspect _any_
| murder can be solved if we are suitably motivated.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| Any one murder can be, or almost any one. It's generalising
| that effort to all murders that's hard.
| astrange wrote:
| More importantly, engineers are for some reason especially
| likely to be terrorists.
|
| https://eprints.lse.ac.uk/29836/1/Why_are_there_so_many_Engi...
|
| I think it's related to old physicist brain where you decide
| you know everything about everyone else's field.
|
| https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2012-03-21
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Osama bin Laden had a degree in civil engineering. I wonder
| how mathematicians rank against engineers
| rangestransform wrote:
| I remember reading something like this but in relation to
| elite overproduction, how if you have engineers sitting
| with their thumbs up their asses instead of working, they
| will disrupt society in a bad way
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Overproduction theory, whether you believe it or not
| isn't really about engineers.
|
| The idea is that you get a lot of elites which are highly
| educated and expect high positions in society, but end up
| bitter because reality falls short. Engineers break with
| this because in general they are actually quite well
| compensated.
|
| The targets of the theory are essentially people with
| non-stem post-secondary degrees
| garrettgrimsley wrote:
| This doesn't align with the scholarship on the subject.
| See Gambetta and Hertog https://www.nuff.ox.ac.uk/users/g
| ambetta/engineers%20of%20ji...
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Im not saying it is impossible, so I dont see that as
| some sort of gotcha.
|
| From Wikipedia: >Elite overproduction is a concept
| developed by Peter Turchin that describes the condition
| of a society that is producing too many potential elite
| members relative to its ability to absorb them into the
| power structure.[1][2][3] This, he hypothesizes, is a
| cause for social instability, as those left out of power
| feel aggrieved by their relatively low socioeconomic
| status.
|
| Im focusing on the USA, where engineers, STEM, and the
| like have high social standing, and do relatively well
| economically. Your "scholarship on the subject" is from
| 2007 and is from before the term elite overproduction was
| even coined.
| datadrivenangel wrote:
| Engineers are technicians/craftspeople, not elites. They
| are compensated well much of the time, and respected,
| which means that many of them have more opportunities to
| become elites, especially when considering the
| intelligence that engineering degrees tend to
| filter/correlate with.
| garrettgrimsley wrote:
| You hadn't mentioned that your focus was on the USA, but
| rather a general "The targets of the theory are
| essentially people with non-stem post-secondary degrees"
| which is why I provided a paper that directly contradicts
| your statement. Elite Overproduction is not a US-specific
| topic, and the paper being from 2007 does nothing to
| invalidate its findings or lessen its relevance to Elite
| Overproduction. Funnily enough, I hadn't checked
| astrange's reference that prompted this discussion, which
| is Gambetta and Hertog.
| roenxi wrote:
| Probably fairly peaceful, intelligence or weirdness aren't
| at play here. The dangerous ones are those who deal in the
| practical realities of the world in ways that can effect
| change - they are more likely to have the means to do
| something. Engineers and chemists are ones to watch
| (whoever did the script for Breaking Bad knew his chemist
| stereotypes).
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| In my mind, the common threads with organize terrorism is
| utilitarianism and consequentialism. This way of thinking
| has a big overlap with stem fields based in logic and
| physics.
|
| The perhaps concerning thread socially is the rise of
| utilitarian and consequentialist morality.
| tbrownaw wrote:
| Hm... Widespread adoption of utilitarianism is a net
| negative for societydeg, therefore utilitarianism says
| that promoting utilitarianism is bad?
|
| degI guess because it's too easy to make calculation
| errors that lead to major badness?
| mythrwy wrote:
| Maybe mathematicians just theorize about committing
| violence while engineers lean more towards the application.
| Tryk wrote:
| Well there was this guy called Ted...
| analog31 wrote:
| But not physicists (at least, scientists), according to the
| article.
|
| Reminds me of the Salem Hypothesis.
| davorak wrote:
| > More importantly, engineers are for some reason especially
| likely to be terrorists.
|
| Seems more likely you learn about engineers who become
| terrorists because they have the tools/knowhow/resources to
| pull something off. Without that it seems like it is more
| likely to get caught, give up, or do something no one would
| label terrorism.
|
| edit - and it seems likely that this stat encourages
| terrorists organization to send members to get those degrees
| and recruit from engineers so it might be self reenforcing to
| boot.
| hughesjj wrote:
| Also, this assumes a similar demographic distribution to
| identified terrorists to unidentified ones. It's quite
| possible another class of people are more likely to be
| terrorists murders etc but don't show up in the data
| because for whatever reason they're better at hiding it.
| e_y_ wrote:
| "Engineers are more likely to be terrorists" is different
| from "terrorists are more likely to be engineers".
|
| You can imagine that engineering is a useful skill for
| terrorism and thus terrorist organizations might spend extra
| effort trying to recruit engineers. They may also have a
| higher survival rate working on behind the scenes tasks
| rather than firefights and suicide missions, which could
| cause a survivorship bias in data collection.
|
| (It's also interesting how many foreign leaders and dictators
| have engineering or science degrees, and/or went to US
| universities prior to becoming leading figures in their home
| countries.)
| shiroiushi wrote:
| It's not Dunning-Kruger, it's because engineers have a very
| black-and-white view of the world. When they're engineering
| something, either it works according to specs or it doesn't.
| Also, engineers tend to be more religious and conservative
| for some reason; this is _very_ different from scientists who
| are the opposite. I think this all works together somehow to
| make engineers more prone to extremism, to try to force the
| world to act the way they think it should.
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| "due to this belief I have that software developers would make
| effective criminals. A lot of this boils down to a belief I
| have that not getting caught in the first place is easy."
|
| Ummm.... You understand that the software developer was just
| caught by a McDonald's cashier?
| tedunangst wrote:
| Hans Reiser was far too smart to ever get caught.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| Reiser killed his wife. Suspicion was always going to
| immediately fall on him.
| jmyeet wrote:
| Murder is a really interesting crime. There are really two
| kinds of murder: those where the perpetrator and victim are
| known to each other and those where they are not. The first
| category is way more common [1]:
|
| > Among homicides in which the relationship could be
| determined, between 21% and 27% of homicides were committed by
| strangers and between 73% and 79% were committed by offenders
| known to the victims
|
| Another data point is that the recidivism rate for murder is
| _incredibly low_ , roughly 2% [2], among the lowest of any
| crime.
|
| The point is that the vast majority of murders are personal in
| nature. Police will tell you that when someone dies, it's
| always the spouse or boyfriend or girlfriend as the prime
| suspect until it isn't. Murders with no personal relationship
| (eg serial killings) are quite rare.
|
| So if you, as a software developer, want to get away with
| murder you first have to be irrational and/or insane enough to
| murder people for pretty much no reason, which will get you
| pretty far to not getting caught, but still want to murder
| people you really have no reason to.
|
| You can further increase your odds of not getting caught by not
| leaving a crime scene or a body but also picking a victim who
| won't necessarily be missed. It's why serial killers end up
| preying on runaways and prostitutes. There's also the MMIW
| phenomenon [3]. Lastly, going outside your geographical area
| would further help your odds.
|
| This suspect allegedly had no relationship to the victim but
| they still had a reason (it seems). Now it so happens that
| being upset about private health insurance quite literally
| would leave police with millions of suspects. But the point is,
| they weren't necessarily acting rationally even if it was
| premeditated and planned.
|
| I still find it insane that the suspect didn't rid himself of
| every identifiable possession. Had they done that, I think
| they'd have a shot at acquittal (depending on DNA evidence from
| the water bottle and/or coffee cup). Now? Almost impossible.
|
| As much as we talk about jury nullification, people like there
| to be something to hang their hat on in terms of doubt. If a
| blurry partial photo was the only evidence I could see that as
| being way more likely. Having the ID used in the hostel and the
| mask, bag and clothes as well as the gun makes that harder to
| justify.
|
| [1]: https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/vvcs9310.pdf
|
| [2]: https://www.sentencingproject.org/reports/a-new-lease-on-
| lif...
|
| [3]: https://www.nativehope.org/missing-and-murdered-
| indigenous-w...
| mewpmewp2 wrote:
| I think it was insane to go somewhere like McDonalds or
| anywhere, even the Starbucks anytime near that time period.
| There was just no need. Unless he was toying with the idea of
| getting caught, surely he would have just gone to some
| prebooked motel type of thing somewhere far away and huddled
| in there for quite a bit.
| autoexec wrote:
| You have to eat. If you're in a strange city with limited
| transportation options a fast food place seems pretty
| reasonable. I'd have probably taken the food to go, but
| realistically you can eat in ~15 minutes and depending on
| the route back to where you're staying you might be seen by
| fewer people.
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| There's always delivery.
| mewpmewp2 wrote:
| Given enough resources dedicated to hunting you, it doesn't
| seem that easy to be sure, considering how many cameras there
| are, how easy it becomes to narrow down DNA considering
| services like 23andme etc.
|
| Most murders wouldn't have this much resources dedicated to it
| though.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Software developers are also more likely to have weird
| eccentric beliefs, and to take them to extreme endpoints.
| Hilift wrote:
| Location seems to be a factor. NYC has better statistics.
| Overall it is 54% since 2020. Washington DC had 1,088 murders,
| 559 clearances (51%) from 2020-2023. Baltimore is 1,042 and 315
| (30%). NYC is notably better: 1,740 and 1,190, (68%).
| https://www.murderdata.org/p/blog-page.html
| nobody9999 wrote:
| > Those who get caught doing one crime or another either were
| dumb to begin or eventually got lazy and made a dumb mistake in
| hindsight.
|
| >Besides that though, the ethos that we have lends itself well
| to acquiring advanced knowledge in more-or-less all domains,
| crime and forensics included.
|
| I wouldn't give too much credit to law enforcement.
| Perpetrators need to get it (opsec/disposal of evidence/etc.)
| right _every single time_ , sometimes for decades. Law
| enforcement only needs to get it right _once_. And yet,
| clearance rates for murder are still pretty low.
| frud wrote:
| I think that, more generally, intelligent people don't get
| arrested for crimes for several reasons. First, because they
| are smarter, they just don't get themselves into jams where
| murdering someone seems like the best way to get out of the
| jam. Second, because they are more successful they have more to
| lose in terms of wealth, happiness, good living situation, so
| they risk more when choosing crime, so they're less likely to
| choose it. Only thirdly is actual proficiency in the planning
| and execution of the crime.
| imglorp wrote:
| His Goodreads comment on Ted Kacyzinski's book (better known for
| other work). https://i.redd.it/j9n3oplojv5e1.jpeg
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| More or less lays out his motive right there.
|
| I disagree with his thoughts on violence. When you try to solve
| a problem by inviting violence to dinner you'll find you have a
| guest you are unable to excuse.
| xyst wrote:
| The USA re-elected the man which basically encouraged the
| January 6th insurrection and has been suggesting vengeance
| for a long time now. This is no longer a civil society. Best
| you rip that bandaid off now, otherwise the next 4 years are
| going to be rough for you.
| shiroiushi wrote:
| >The USA re-elected the man which basically encouraged the
| January 6th insurrection and has been suggesting vengeance
| for a long time now.
|
| On top of that, he's going to pardon everyone convicted for
| that insurrection, and wants to attack the Jan 6 committee
| somehow.
| energy123 wrote:
| Take a moment to refresh your memory of the Pol Pot regime.
| If half the population aren't literally getting bludgeoned
| to death in the streets, remember it can get so, so much
| worse, so tread carefully with accelerationist sentiments.
| jwarden wrote:
| This is still a very civil society, but these hysterical
| cries to abandon civility aren't helping.
| Eextra953 wrote:
| I feel like I've ripped off the bandaid for a few weeks now
| and I'm left with a 'now what?' feeling. I'm stuck trying
| to think of ways we can bring the temperature down and
| bring us back to being a civil society.
| diob wrote:
| Part of the reason we established courts was to avoid angry
| mobs dispensing justice, but we've let the courts become
| captured to a large extent.
|
| If you don't allow folks to seek justice in the courtroom,
| they'll inevitably return to "the jungle" so to speak.
|
| It's our job as participants in society to do our best to
| avoid that, but we have to make changes. We can't be idle and
| wring our hands saying "it can't be helped" or "it's not
| illegal". We have to change things so that folks will be held
| accountable.
|
| If we don't, this sort of thing is inevitable.
| Eextra953 wrote:
| How do we change this?
| vouaobrasil wrote:
| Violence is very effective. The authorities use it to
| subjugate the population and the American military uses the
| threat of violence and the action of actual violence to keep
| the United States the way it is. Except when it is used by
| governments, it is often called defense and when it is used
| by the police it is often called 'keeping the peace'.
| Violence as a tool for revolution is quite effective -- only
| pacifism is strongly ingrained in us to make us "good
| citizens".
| njtransit wrote:
| Violence certainly can be effective, but also not.
| Everything is situational. See the Black Panthers vs.
| peaceful protesting during the civil rights movement. See
| also the American Revolution. Whether or not violence makes
| sense likely depends on how strong you and your friends
| are.
| vouaobrasil wrote:
| True. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. Obviously, in
| order for it to be effective, you need a good strategy.
| Clubber wrote:
| >See the Black Panthers vs. peaceful protesting during
| the civil rights movement. See also the American
| Revolution.
|
| Some believe King was successful in part because of the
| threat of violence from alternative groups like the Black
| Panthers.
| hughesjj wrote:
| King was originally for violent protest until Bayard
| Rustin convinced him of nonviolent protest
| sitkack wrote:
| This is also why the state apparatus like it incite
| violence in the opposition, this gives them authority to
| respond with violence.
|
| Nonviolent protest and organizing is more dangerous
| because it could quickly become a populist movement. A
| small group of people incited into violence, is already
| fringe and can be quickly suppressed.
| hughesjj wrote:
| Yup, this is why you always shut down instigators at
| protests. Could very well be an agent provocateur.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| Violence is only ineffective when you lose.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| I wasn't suggesting that violence is ineffective. The
| French Revolution is an obvious example. I'm thinking about
| the "Reign of Terror" that followed though.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| The French revolution was extremely ineffective. It
| turned a short term food crisis due to drought and
| hailstorms into a long term food crisis that lasted
| decades. It was a complete failure at addressing the
| suffering of the people, which only got better after they
| abandoned their revolutionary ideals, embraced an
| emperor, and raped and looted the rest of Europe.
| vdupras wrote:
| Is it the period between 1789 and 1804 that you are
| quantifying as "decades"? A bit overeasy on the rounding,
| no?
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| In my post, I thought it was clear that I blamed the
| Napoleonic wars on the French revolution, carrying the
| resulting damage and suffering longer than that. An
| estimated 2 million French (more than 5% of France's
| population) died during the Napoleonic wars, and that
| obviously doesn't include the maimed, injured, or
| otherwise harmed.
| vdupras wrote:
| I must have gotten confused by "which only got better
| after they [...] embraced an emperor".
| sitkack wrote:
| You aren't going to gain much by arguing with Curtis
| Yarvin.
| vdupras wrote:
| Am I arguing? I didn't notice. I like Napoleon too and
| I'm intrigued that someone blames the casualties of the
| Napoleonic wars on the Revolution rather than, you know,
| Napoleon.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Blame isn't zero sum or mutually exclusive.
|
| Events can have an unlimited number of necessary causes
| or preconditions.
|
| Great men of History can have huge impacts, but usually
| ride massive tides of population level phenomenon, like
| economics, culture, and public sentiment.
| vdupras wrote:
| Of course, it goes without saying. But at some point, I
| think one has to keep a certain restraint on that blame
| game. I think blaming the Revolution for Napoleonic wars
| causalities is crossing the threshold of acceptability.
|
| The Zionist movement had a certain role to play in the
| Holocaust, didn't it? But most people would consider it a
| grave error in judgment to attribute blame to this
| movement for a certain part of Holocaust victims.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Never heard of him. Wikipedia lists him as an alt-right
| blogger.
|
| I assure you, criticism of the French revolution is not a
| hot new take.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| Paine wrote Rights of Man in defense of the revolution
| against Burkes critiques.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I deeply appreciate the sentiments of the French
| revolutionary philosophers, and think we should strive
| for many of their ideals.
|
| I just dont think mobs parading around the heads of
| bakers helps advance those ideals, let alone get the
| bread that doesn't exist for their hungry children.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Is that how kids use quotation marks these days?
|
| "...embraced an emperor, _and raped and looted the rest
| of Europe._ "
| vdupras wrote:
| Then I'm genuinely confused. The meaning of that
| sentence, to me, was that pillaging has helped with the
| famine. It would have been a sentence that was consistent
| with your previous one, except for the "decades" rounding
| error. Isn't it not what you meant?
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| yes, pillaging the rest of Europe helped with famine and
| other economic issues at home. This is consistent with
| claim of decades because we are looking at 1789-1815(ish)
| although I think the end is a blur, not line. The
| Consequences of actions cascade throughout the future,
| even to today, and just become more dilute as time passes
| on.
|
| The number of years is really besides the point, which
| was to call out the consequences were long lasted, not
| just limited to the terror, and and included the wars.
| goatlover wrote:
| Why does everyone forget the French Revolution led to
| dictatorship and a war of conquest?
| meiraleal wrote:
| If the revolutoon Led to it, what led it was what was
| there before the revolution
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| And the first truly global war didn't? The 7 years war is
| overlooked.
| vdupras wrote:
| You don't know beforehand what bold collective actions
| lead to. Abolishing slavery lead to a pretty ugly civil
| war in the US. Does it mean it wasn't worth it?
| 0xDEAFBEAD wrote:
| >Recent research suggests that nonviolent civil resistance
| is far more successful in creating broad-based change than
| violent campaigns are, a somewhat surprising finding with a
| story behind it.
|
| https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/02/why-
| nonviolen...
| salawat wrote:
| >The second thing is that [the movement] needs to elicit
| loyalty shifts among security forces in particular, but
| also other elites. Security forces are important because
| they ultimately are the agents of repression, and their
| actions largely decide how violent the confrontation with
| -- and reaction to -- the nonviolent campaign is going to
| be in the end. But there are other security elites,
| economic and business elites, state media.
|
| Get the violent ones on your side to ultinately win. Got
| it.
|
| I don't think she's making the point she thinks she's
| making. And yes, I read the rest of the article. It
| focused primarily on events taking place in places where,
| lets face it, there's not quite the ah... oomph in gen
| pop that exists in the U.S. It's ulitimately a nice
| thought. It's absolutely accurate in that things like
| generalized striking and boycotts are great preambles as
| well. They're also considered illegal in the U.S. to
| coordinate btw, because of previous run ins with said
| efficacy during wartime in WWII. Secondary striking was
| outlawed. So formal unions can't use that as a tactic.
| You can thank the Taft-Hartley act for that.
|
| So... Yeah. Might want to meditate on that one a bit
| harder.
| vouaobrasil wrote:
| 1) The changes there are changes _within_ the system.
| That narrative only covers changes that are compatible
| with the industrial capitalist system. Indeed, the author
| focuses only on "transition to democracy". But I'd argue
| that nonviolent push for capitalism already has
| capitalism as a foregone conclusion because it is also
| more efficient, so even "doing nothing" can often bring
| it about.
|
| 2) Therefore, one could say that nonviolent action is
| most effective and bringing about the current corporate-
| controlled system.
|
| Of course, that makes sense. But let's say you want to
| take down a corporate-controlled system. Then violence is
| likely to be much more effective.
| 0xDEAFBEAD wrote:
| You haven't explained why the effectiveness of violence
| should differ depending on the change that's desired.
| vouaobrasil wrote:
| The change to democracy doesn't happen in a vacuum. It's
| the most likely system to come about due to an advance in
| technology. So people advocating for it are already
| swimming with the tide. Also, if a large majority want
| democracy, then it's more likely to happen, especially
| due to pressure from other countries who are also
| democratic and have a vested interest in democracy.
|
| If you want to make a change where the majority (or at
| list the rich majority) don't want, then violence will be
| much more effective. For example, I think it's likely
| that this one killing will do more to cause a renewed
| vigor in revamping America's health care than any
| nonviolent protest, because the richest capitalists and
| shareowners are against it.
| 0xDEAFBEAD wrote:
| >If you want to make a change where the majority (or at
| list the rich majority) don't want, then violence will be
| much more effective.
|
| So you're saying violence is a morally acceptable way for
| a minority to force its will on a majority? This just
| sounds like an argument for dictatorship.
|
| - - -
|
| I think whatever argument you make in favor of violence,
| you should anticipate that your political opponents will
| make the exact same argument to excuse _their_ violence.
| So whatever argument you make -- be sure it 's an
| argument you are OK with your political opponents using.
|
| A social contract regarding the times and places where
| it's acceptable to use violence is actually a really
| valuable thing. Confucius was actually on to something.
| hnfong wrote:
| Violence creates a lot of problems, but it does solve
| some issues. Morals is a totally different topic, and
| whether "political opponents" will resort to violence is
| yet another topic.
|
| Heck, even the mere fact that the suspect was arrested
| was based on state-sanctioned "violence". If the police
| didn't have guns and weren't allowed to use force to
| arrest people, no amount of non-violent actions would
| convince a murder suspect to voluntarily present
| themselves and subject themselves to trial in court.
|
| Violence is probably generally bad overall, but the
| original statement that "Violence never solved anything"
| is just plainly false and a lie. It's not a defensible
| position.
|
| > A social contract regarding the times and places where
| it's acceptable to use violence is actually a really
| valuable thing.
|
| Right, this statement itself shows violence does work in
| a particular context and situation. Far from "violence
| never solved anything".
| jstanley wrote:
| I think you're confusing an argument about violence's
| effectiveness with one about its morality.
| vouaobrasil wrote:
| > So you're saying violence is a morally acceptable way
| for a minority to force its will on a majority? This just
| sounds like an argument for dictatorship.
|
| No, I think it's a much more subtle concept than just
| giving a binary yes or no. Definitely willing to discuss
| away from this forum though.
|
| > I think whatever argument you make in favor of
| violence, you should anticipate that your political
| opponents will make the exact same argument to excuse
| their violence.
|
| They (capitalists) already use violence to enforce their
| society.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| There's a lot of flaws with Chenoweth & Steph's widely-
| lauded study; in many respects it tells a certain class
| of people what they want to hear.
|
| https://roarmag.org/essays/chenoweth-stephan-nonviolence-
| myt...
|
| Chenoweth's own subsequent research indicates the issue
| is far more nuanced, and that states have to some
| extended adapted to/exploited the strategic challenges
| posed by nonviolent resistance.
|
| https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/an
| nur...
|
| https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/002234332210
| 929... (paywalled, sorry)
| rangestransform wrote:
| It's effective if you're fine with your own life and other
| regular peoples lives sucking for 20+ years vs. The status
| quo
| lelandbatey wrote:
| It's quite effective at causing _something_ to happen, but
| what that something is isn't controllable; the volatility
| in outcome can be sculpted via a lot of different
| approaches, but smaller actors have fewer tools to sculpt
| the outcome. And it's very easy to enter a state of total
| commitment from both sides no matter the other costs,
| essentially forcing other systems to be sacrificed toward
| what is now a "totally committed conflict." This happens on
| the small scale (person to person) and on the large scale
| (state to state). Violence forces shifts in every facet and
| system at every scale, shifts towards total commitments to
| more violence. Violence is the _final_ means of trying to
| enact social change; there 's nowhere else to go.
|
| Those who've lived total commitment to violence are it's
| loudest opponents. I hope we can continue to listen to
| their stories.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Violence _can_ be very effective. Violence is not effective
| by definition.
|
| Somehow people miss the fact that the difference and power
| to effect change resides in the context, not with violence
| itself.
|
| The list of failed revolutions that left everyone worse off
| is far longer the the list of revolutions that resulted in
| the betterment of society.
| vouaobrasil wrote:
| Depends how you define betterment. I'd say putting
| society under global capitalism was worse for society
| (especially native tribes, but everyone I'd argue).
| goatlover wrote:
| Colonialism predated global capitalism, and there's
| always been various forms of trade routes and wars over
| the course of civilization, and likely going back far
| before then. Global capitalism has raised the standard of
| living over the past century.
| vouaobrasil wrote:
| Depends how you define standard of living. In some
| respects, such has being able to live close to nature,
| global capitalism has made that worse.
| mewpmewp2 wrote:
| Yet, violence is constantly used by governments and
| countries. If it is not effective why are the only surviving
| countries the ones who which have been willing to use
| violence?
| tines wrote:
| > I disagree with his thoughts on violence. When you try to
| solve a problem by inviting violence to dinner you'll find
| you have a guest you are unable to excuse.
|
| This is a pretty shallow opinion imo. The government operates
| on violence. America was founded in a violent revolution. The
| question people are asking isn't about whether violence has
| its place (it does); it's about how bad things have to get
| before you stop considering your government to have a
| legitimate monopoly on the use of violence, and people can
| start justly using violence themselves.
| atlintots wrote:
| "Non-violence is a very non-functional approach in a
| society that's based entirely on organized force and
| violence."
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Non-violent economic power is an extremely powerful tool
| within systems that restrict the use of force.
|
| If the vast majority of the public actually agreed on
| something, they could non-violently change anything in
| days.
|
| The allure of violence is that people mistakenly think
| that they make change without support, when in reality,
| they are usually just creating effects, not the change
| that they want.
|
| Shooting a school or rioting has a lot of _effects_ , but
| they almost never make the desired change.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| _If the vast majority of the public actually agreed on
| something, they could non-violently change anything in
| days._
|
| This might be more persuasive if you supplied some
| examples.
| noisy_boy wrote:
| > If the vast majority of the public actually agreed on
| something
|
| Huge ask right at the beginning. If that is met, there
| are several examples such as The Velvet Revolution,
| Iceland's Financial Crisis Protest, The Women's Suffrage
| Movement, Philippine People Power Revolution (1986) etc.
| oneeyedpigeon wrote:
| Such a huge ask, I think that most of western society is
| not in a state to be able to fulfil it. Especially in the
| US and UK (but probably many others), we've become so
| polarised that there's some kind of perceived honour in
| opposing the other 'side', regardless of your own actual
| opinion. If we needed to fight for suffrage today, for
| example, I don't think there would be a "vast majority",
| just two roughly equal sides taking opposing views for
| the sake of it.
| noisy_boy wrote:
| Well, the internet has finally helped realize the
| politician's dream - making the voter believe that:
| 1. They are in the right (no pun intended) group
| 2. All other groups are in the wrong 3. Their
| leader cares about them 4. He/she has the
| solution
|
| When the reality is: 1. Most of us are
| in the same group 2. The group is of screwed over
| people 3. The leaders only care about gaining and
| staying in power 4. Why would the leaders find
| any solution that won't help with gaining and staying in
| power?
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| There is no difference between economic power and
| violence, it is it's currency. Rioting begot the civil
| rights act.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Sure seems different when my employer pays me to work
| instead of beating me.
| goatlover wrote:
| Do you have any idea just how bad a violent revolution in
| modern day America would get? The recent Civil War movie
| doesn't do it justice. I'm assuming anyone advocating for
| this has swallowed Russian propaganda.
| the_mar wrote:
| I was there during the revolution in Ukraine. Life isn't
| the movies.
|
| I'm not advocating for violence. On the contrary. But one
| has to wonder sometimes what percentage of the population
| has to work full time while not being able to afford
| basic necessities, until violence becomes an option
| booleandilemma wrote:
| Tell that to the Syrian rebels.
| maeil wrote:
| People act based on incentives and disincentives. As of 2024,
| there are big incentives to cause great damage to society at
| large for pure personal gain in a manner like this CEO, with
| no disincentives.
|
| This brings back a potential disincentive, and is what has
| been incredibly sorely needed.
|
| The French revolution is often brought up here as a case that
| is supposed to show that this kind of violence leads to
| horrific outcomes. This is ironic as on the whole, its
| results were fantastic. Reason being that it didn't just
| affect France - all over Europe, the monarchies were suddenly
| much more willing to restrain their power and care a lot more
| about the peasants.
|
| This is exactly what is needed. This doesn't have to happen
| to every similar CEO to have an incredibly positive effect.
| oliv__ wrote:
| Only four stars though...
| ks2048 wrote:
| Final sentence is telling (among others):
| "Violence never solved anything" is a statement uttered by
| cowards and predators.
|
| Although I'm not sure what "predators" means here. Don't
| predators use violence?
| relaxing wrote:
| Yes. They say it because they want to be the sole wielders of
| violence.
| fshr wrote:
| My guess is he was referring to financial predators. Greed
| and lust rather than wrath.
| tines wrote:
| No, he's saying that predators tell their prey not to fight
| back.
| vouaobrasil wrote:
| [flagged]
| tines wrote:
| I don't think this is true. How many popular movies are
| war movies where the heroes are most certainly not
| pacifists? Even the movie starring a real-life pacifist
| (Hacksaw Ridge) is about how he, too, fit into the war
| machine.
| vouaobrasil wrote:
| First, I meant pacifism is promoted as the only recourse
| for the general citizen, not for the government. Of
| course, war movies promote the acceptability of _violence
| by the state_. Two totally separate phenomena.
|
| The state promotes violence by the state, and being
| docile for the citizen.
| tines wrote:
| Ok, but the word pacifism means something specific. I
| agree with your statement about docility, I think many
| would call it "civility." Same thing that black people
| were accused of, being "uncivil," when they were rioting
| for civil rights.
| vouaobrasil wrote:
| That is true. It's an important definition distinction.
| munificent wrote:
| _> I meant pacifism is promoted as the only recourse for
| the general citizen_
|
| What media are you consuming? Take a look at any list of
| top-grossing films of the past few decades and it's
| riddled with non-state lone wolf actors using violence to
| solve their problems.
|
| You're saying that John Wick, Creed, Spider-Man, The Fall
| Guy, Furiosa, Venom, etc. are teaching Americans to be
| pacifists?
| tines wrote:
| This misunderstanding was already solved in a sibling
| comment.
| vouaobrasil wrote:
| Of course. Movies are an outlet to let off steam. We
| experience the violence in the theatre that is
| increasingly precisely because the pacified masses need a
| strong outlet to escape the lack of recourse for
| injustice in the real world.
| throw310822 wrote:
| This is a good explanation without supporting the idea
| that there is no propaganda of violence. There is. And
| btw, the US are one of the most violent advanced
| countries.
| vouaobrasil wrote:
| Only because the violence is a side effect of having
| fairly unregulated capitalism. But eventually the system
| will stop that.
| munificent wrote:
| You're moving the goal posts. First you said that
| "pacifism is heavily promoted in mainstream media". When
| I pointed out that American mainstream media is
| absolutely riddled with "non-state invidualist hero uses
| personal violence to solve their problems", now you claim
| that the media is for "letting off steam".
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _why pacifism is heavily promoted in mainstream media
| and society_
|
| Yes, America's problem is it's just too peaceful, at home
| and abroad.
|
| Like, it's a neat hypothesis. The data just don't fit,
| certainly not for America. We have high rates of gun
| ownership and gun violence (as well as other violence,
| _e.g._ at bars and schoolyards) precisely because we like
| taking justice into our own hands.
| mewpmewp2 wrote:
| Presumably he means those in power who say it because they
| don't want anyone to challenge their power.
| sureglymop wrote:
| Do note that he apparently quoted someone elses sentence
| there. A quote from the review before this paragraph:
|
| "A take I found online that I think is interesting:"
| dyauspitr wrote:
| Predators try to dissuade use of violence in their victims
| while freely using it themselves.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| They are monopolists.
| dev1ycan wrote:
| I see nothing wrong with this comment, what it's implying,
| predators want to be the only ones inflicting the damage and
| have its prey not defend itself.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| I think Putin and his lackeys have exemplified this countless
| times in recent years. They perpetrate horrors but will cry
| foul when someone dares punch back.
| shoooooooooota wrote:
| Also see... that other war.
| anon291 wrote:
| He's basically correct though. This statement has also sat
| terribly with me. Especially given how much we glorify
| documents like the constitution or declaration of
| independence.
|
| Like many absolute statements, this claim is just plain
| wrong. America (and many other countries) were started by
| revolutions. The revolutionaries had guns.
|
| Countries like India are unique for gaining freedom without
| violence.
|
| I mean just look at Syria. I don't have any feelings good or
| bad towards the rebels. But people have been trying to get
| rid of Assad for ages and it just took the right people with
| guns.
|
| One man's violence is another's righteous revolution. All
| political power is at the end of the barrel of a gun.
| aprilthird2021 wrote:
| > Countries like India are unique for gaining freedom
| without violence.
|
| There was a lot of violence leading up to and, sadly, after
| the independence of India. Gandhi was nonviolent, but many
| of the freedom fighters for India's independence were not.
| shipp02 wrote:
| Additionally, the British couldn't hope to hold onto
| India without the support of the British Indian army
| which at that point seemed ready to revolt.
|
| The US's antiviral anti colonial stance also helped.
| anon291 wrote:
| Sure. There's basically no examples of non-violent
| revolutions. India is the closest thing I can think up
| today.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| What country before ever existed a century and half without
| a rebellion? And what country can preserve it's liberties
| if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their
| people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take
| arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon
| and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century
| or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to
| time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it's
| natural manure.
|
| -Jefferson
| anon291 wrote:
| The founding fathers of the United States were -- above
| all -- realists
| dennis_jeeves2 wrote:
| >glorify documents like the constitution or declaration of
| independence.
|
| It's worth the paper it's written on, perhaps less. It
| gives fools the fodder for the braying the rhetoric they
| speak and argue.
| jmyeet wrote:
| Personally, I don't put a lot of weight on that. Particularly
| for people who are terminally online, the Unabomber manifesto
| is kinda "edgy content". A lot of these people want to come off
| as "edgy". He had Mein Kampf in his Goodreads profile too.
| Without other evidence, I don't think that really says anything
| either.
|
| Good example: his Goodreads had "Introduction to Algorithms" in
| it. This is the de facto textbook at MIT, Stanford, etc and
| likely UPenn (where he got his undergrad and Masters). Does
| that mean he read it? Not necessarily.
|
| Put it this way: the number of people who have read Knuth's
| volumes is a lot smaller than those who own them as essentially
| expensive bookends or paperweights. But it's a nice way to
| signal your technical chops.
|
| All of these things need to be taken in a broader context.
| vouaobrasil wrote:
| Ted K's book is a lucid commentary on technology and society
| and recommends the dismantling of technological society. Not
| sure why it would be considered "edgy".
| lazide wrote:
| Probably all the mail bombings.
| whateveracct wrote:
| hilarious GP called him "Ted K"
| goatlover wrote:
| Dismantling technological society isn't realistic and
| wouldn't be remotely a good thing, so yeah, that's very
| edgy.
| vouaobrasil wrote:
| It would be a good thing for every other species besides
| humans, that's for sure.
| hnfong wrote:
| There are domesticated species that depend on human for
| their survival.
|
| Think crops like maize, pets like dogs (some breeds more
| so than others), etc.
| vouaobrasil wrote:
| I am only concerned with wild species, not domesticated
| ones.
| NalNezumi wrote:
| The take he mention in that is an old reddit comment:
|
| https://old.reddit.com/r/climate/comments/10j1le5/has_anyone...
| bag_boy wrote:
| His x posts read like he was on an adderall bender.
|
| I wouldn't be surprised if he went into psychosis after losing a
| lot of sleep and never really got back to stability.
|
| Adderall and a passion rabbit-hole like societal change are a
| dangerous combination. The more deep you dive, the more
| disinterested people become with you, and the more disconnected
| you become with other people.
| justanotherjoe wrote:
| i don't know how it is on adderall but he posted like, once a
| week, and they often are just retweets.
| DontchaKnowit wrote:
| Have you, perhaps, had an adderall problem before? I have, and
| I used to say things like this a lot, but really I think its
| projection. How could you possibly know?
| bag_boy wrote:
| Yeah, speaking from experience, unfortunately.
| neogodless wrote:
| Sorry we're talking about the alleged United Healthcare CEO
| shooter. Not Elon Musk.
| JSDevOps wrote:
| [flagged]
| Miner49er wrote:
| He actually flirted with an employee at the hostel he stayed
| at, probably days before the murder. But yeah, the rest seems
| about right.
| roncesvalles wrote:
| Since when did making small talk become "flirting"?
| delecti wrote:
| As I've heard it, it was characterized as flirting by the
| employee.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| Filtered through the police and then through the media.
| It's a game of Chinese telephone and a lot gets lost in the
| translations, which leads to a huge amount of
| misinformation. Case in point b and t 9.
| soperj wrote:
| Since when is it "chinese telephone" and not just
| "telephone"?
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| Pick a common language in a different language family
| that results stilted translations. It was always Chinese
| telephone.
| hinoki wrote:
| It's a mixture of Chinese Whispers and Telephone, two
| names for the same game.
| plasma_beam wrote:
| I agree. The media seemed to have jumped on the flirting
| angle because he was smiling. Isn't that a little insulting
| to the hostel employee? I smiled at my barber today.
| Definitely wasn't flirting.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _Isn't that a little insulting to the hostel employee?_
|
| Why would that be "insulting"? HE was supposed to be
| flirting, not necessarily her.
|
| Plus, even if both were flirting, there's nothing insulting
| about that.
| plasma_beam wrote:
| If I am the employee, I don't want my employer to think
| I'm flirting with customers when it's just small talk.
| And..uhh..if I'm married, etc. Anyways, we don't know for
| sure either way
| FooBarBizBazz wrote:
| Since the Millennial generation, pretty much, at least among
| the (over-)educated. It kills me; I'd prefer to pretend we're
| all participating in some shared project called
| "civilization".
|
| But, as the shooting in the street and the cheering on the
| Internet have shown (and the price gouging before that), our
| society has been coarsening along a great many dimensions.
| blast wrote:
| Some criminals want to get caught.
| cj wrote:
| Or push their luck to the limit because they think they're
| invincible. To be fair I was losing confidence they'd ever
| find him until today.
| jethro_tell wrote:
| lol, those videos of the NYPD 'searching' Central Park look
| like my kids looking for a homework assignment they don't
| want to turn in. Until the FBI got involved I thought he
| was pretty much off the hook.
| HPsquared wrote:
| Probably a kind of "boundary-pushing" personality type.
| bawolff wrote:
| Sometimes people do crime to be famous, this pattern would fit
| that.
| astrange wrote:
| Yes, he's not acting rationally because he's having a mental
| health crisis.
|
| If you look at his Twitter account, he disappeared a few months
| ago and all the replies were friends asking where he went.
|
| (Also, he's a tpot poster, which is a kind of tech bro that
| likes tweeting about how great it is to do psychedelic drugs.
| This is bad for your mental health!)
| bearincar wrote:
| ahhh mental health humans have figured out how to read and
| rewrite neural pathways
| cariaso wrote:
| Nit
|
| https://github.com/lnmangione
|
| ...."Active" GitHub?
| wslh wrote:
| The Unabomber case was more complex to track [1]. I'm not
| suggesting it was because he had a higher IQ, as someone with
| an average IQ could have executed similar actions successfully.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski
| jethro_tell wrote:
| It was also in a time where not everything got recorded. You
| have to think that having cameras everywhere and much more
| complex package tracking systems like we do now would have
| made staying hidden quite a bit harder.
| danso wrote:
| He took his mask off at the hostel, the kind of place that
| often requires its employees to verify that a photo ID matches
| the holder's face. "Let me see you smile" is a common thing
| that service employees learn to say to get strangers to take
| off their masks without angering them
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| Exactly. I don't think anyone in the media commenting on this
| ever worked in the service industry and therefore doesn't
| understand the obvious.
| carabiner wrote:
| Ever seen white lotus season 2? Stanford grad falls for a
| prostitute. Italians cannot resist.
| swesour wrote:
| Why is this comment so similar to this tweet:
| https://x.com/peruvian_bull/status/1866213955687022656
|
| Are you a bot?
| sccomps wrote:
| could be the same person?
| wendyshu wrote:
| Doesn't look like it
| 01100011 wrote:
| Or someone who read the tweet, liked it, and wanted to
| share on a forum where they more actively participate.
| dnissley wrote:
| Probably not a bot. Just reposting content from twitter over
| here.
|
| It's quite entertaining though that this particular
| conspiracy theory is catnip to HN users. Perhaps it's for the
| same reason it's blowing up on twitter: vague enough to
| capture the imaginations of people who might be imagining
| wildly different concrete scenarios?
| dang wrote:
| Yeah, we can't have people doing this kind of thing, so I've
| banned the account, at least until we have some reason to
| believe it won't happen again.
| eddsolves wrote:
| Where'd you get that IQ? His GitHub isn't active either.
| radicalbyte wrote:
| He went to a selective school.... but 130 isn't particularly
| high. It's common in engineers.
| 535188B17C93743 wrote:
| It's in the 98th percentile, lol. Yes, it's very high.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| High, but not particularly rare. IF you see a movie,
| there are probably several people >130 in the audience
| with you. When you filter by education and other factors,
| it goes up quickly. Depending on your line of work, a
| majority of your coworkers might be over 130.
| radicalbyte wrote:
| Very few people understand this. It's why it's very hard
| to understand how normal people think wrt politics.
| coldtea wrote:
| While "normal people" often have crude political
| opinions, the stupidest political takes often (usually?)
| come from high IQ, well educated, people.
|
| And among those are also the ones with real influence and
| power to promote and/or enforce them.
| emptiestplace wrote:
| > Depending on your line of work, a majority of your
| coworkers might be over 130.
|
| This seems pretty reasonable, but once you start to get
| to know people a bit...
| plaguuuuuu wrote:
| Then you realise that trying to quantitatively test
| intelligence only goes so far :D
| suzzer99 wrote:
| The road to hell is paved with smart people who think
| they can become experts in something just by reading some
| blog posts and thinking about the subject for a few
| hours. As one example, see successful poker players who
| become amateur economists, geneticists and virologists.
| wordofx wrote:
| 30 points higher than the average person on HN!
| montag wrote:
| Ha ha. If anything, HN skews quite high.
| radicalbyte wrote:
| Unless he went to a tiny high school it's unlikely that
| he was the smartest person in the school. Possibly in his
| year.
| jart wrote:
| Not really. Half of people are barely literate. Maybe the
| top 10% have writing and language skills cogent and
| coherent enough to hang out on a website like this. So
| realistically we're talking about maybe 20% of the people
| you're interacting with. Possibly more, since this is the
| modern USENET where all the shape rotators hang out.
| People who can rotate shapes at all probably score at
| least that on tests.
| maxerickson wrote:
| Shart taters
| manquer wrote:
| I don't know that means anything, I score well above 130,
| yet I will likely make ton of mistakes even if thought it
| about it and planned for months.
|
| IQ tests are a single dimensional psychometric
| measurement tool that when if administered correctly only
| measures some attributes of what would be considered
| intelligence.
|
| While those skills correlate to your ability to perform
| as a engineer it doesn't always translate to aptitude
| towards this sort of crime.
|
| There are plenty of people who will score poorly in IQ
| tests but are "street smart". the good criminals (i.e.
| those have a long successful run or never get caught) are
| of this category.
|
| For example Al Capone never got caught tied to any of his
| actual crimes, he had intimate understanding of the legal
| system and how not to get tied to evidence, he wouldn't
| score over 130 in IQ test probably
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| Al Capone had the police working for him.
| manquer wrote:
| I am sure the various other parts of judiciary too,
| bribing takes skill, knowing who to bribe, how to make
| them vulnerable to bribery and so on, all these are
| important street skills that a criminal of his stature
| has to have. IQ doesn't teach you those
| tbrownaw wrote:
| > _While those skills correlate to your ability to
| perform as a engineer it doesn 't always translate to
| aptitude towards this sort of crime._
|
| A smart n00b is still a n00b.
| tbrownaw wrote:
| Well, "very high" according to what comparison group?
|
| The overall general public? Sure.
|
| People with STEM graduate degrees? Maybe not so much.
| llm_trw wrote:
| There are two people that smart in every NYC subway car
| during rush hour.
| 015a wrote:
| And what percentage of the world do you think are
| engineers/STEM?
| eddsolves wrote:
| Sharing a fact as a defence of someone (he has an IQ of 130
| but did X) without having any basis for that fact is worth
| calling out.
|
| Same way they said an active GitHub while the repo is the
| opposite of that.
|
| If your argument is "This is weird because of X and Y and
| Z" but Z is false and Y is unsubstantiated then it breaks
| the argument.
| PleasureBot wrote:
| Putting on my tinfoil hat for this: It sounds like parallel
| construction to me. I wonder if the FBI doesn't want it to get
| out what kind of technology the US government can use to track
| citizens in real time. Something like 24/7 facial recognition
| running in major chains like McDonalds.
|
| The police showing up for a random tip in the boonies in PA
| fast enough to actually catch the guy at McDonalds and he just
| happens to have method and motive on him 5 days later seems too
| convenient. I think they ultimately got the right guy, but I
| don't think the 'tip' was a phone call from a McDonald's
| employee.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| I don't think they should tell people exactly how much tech
| they have. Why give people intelligence briefs on your
| capabilities? The point is to catch criminals and terrorists.
| If those criminals and terrorists believe that Palantir or
| whatever is the most they need to worry about, then society
| has the advantage.
| bbqfog wrote:
| The point is to define who a "criminal" and a "terrorist"
| is and use that as justification for mass surveillance.
| Palantir is far worse for me as a US citizen than any
| "terrorist".
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| Why even have public trials or juries then? Just slows down
| the process.
| SlightlyLeftPad wrote:
| Right. Transparency is a really important aspect of a
| functioning democracy. Without it, there's less and less
| separating democracy from authoritarianism
| HPsquared wrote:
| Most important is the _appearance_ of transparency.
| coolThingsFirst wrote:
| yet 50% of murders go unsolved
| booleandilemma wrote:
| If they solve every murder then they make it obvious. Maybe
| they just solve the ones involving millionaire victims and
| let the murders of the poors go unsolved.
| idontpost wrote:
| Maybe? That`s fairly obvious.
| booleandilemma wrote:
| Is it? I thought I was sounding like a bit of a
| conspiracy theorist. Thanks for validating me :)
| mathgeek wrote:
| If you're interested in such statistics, there's a
| related data set at
| https://linzmacd.github.io/Final_Project/
| fragsworth wrote:
| They only care about certain murders.
| jmward01 wrote:
| This has been my thought over and over as this. has been
| going on. So many people are murdered in this country and
| this one murder probably got 1000x the resources applied to
| it compared to the rest. Justice should be impartial so
| this case makes it look like some people's lives are more
| important than others.
| colechristensen wrote:
| With justice and healthcare, people are absolutely,
| explicitly, and intentionally treated differently based
| on their position in society. If you're a CEO you get
| treated 1000x better.
| 01100011 wrote:
| > makes it look like some people's lives are more
| important than others.
|
| Sorry but they are. That's not me saying that. That's
| pretty much the entirety of human civilization. It's nice
| to think otherwise, but we as a species have made it
| clear that people are far from being equally important.
| whycome wrote:
| It also seems like there might have been some "regular police
| work" going on at the beginning but when that didn't work
| fast enough, some bigger tools were called in.
| jmward01 wrote:
| No need for conspiracy here. I'd be surprised at this point
| if McDonald's wasn't running that type of software on all
| their cameras 24/7 and using to better profile their
| customers. Is there actually a law against it? There should
| be, but is there? It likely isn't hard and I am positive the
| data could be useful to them in many ways so if they aren't
| then it would only be because they thought it wasn't legal.
| Terr_ wrote:
| Now I'm feeling really paranoid about finding a McDonald's
| ordering kiosk broken mid-software-update on Friday 6th: I
| bet that was when they were updating the facial recognition
| tech to spy and track everyone walking past. :p
| e_y_ wrote:
| The guy's face has been plastered over the news for several
| days and there's a $60,000 reward. Getting a tip from a fast
| food worker is very plausible.
|
| More plausible in my opinion than the FBI having some kind of
| agreement with McDonald's to access their store surveillance
| network in real time.
| jcgrillo wrote:
| People vastly overestimate the ability of giant
| bureaucracies to keep secrets. It only works if a few
| people are in on it (that's part of what
| compartmentalization is for). I'm always suspicious of
| claims that federal agencies are colluding with companies
| for the purposes of mass surveillance because while I trust
| those agencies to keep secrets, I absolutely do not trust
| the vast majority of companies to do so. There are narrow
| exceptions--defense industry, telecommunications, aerospace
| industry--but mostly secrets like that are hard to keep
| unless your org is built around keeping secrets. The orgs
| I've worked for are the opposite of compartmentalized. I
| doubt McDonalds' software engineering org is, but I'd be
| curious to be surprised!
| Voloskaya wrote:
| Much simpler explanation: he wanted to get caught to increase
| coverage of his political views.
| 01100011 wrote:
| Yeah I think it's very easy to forget we live in a
| surveillance state. Periodically something happens that lets
| us see it but we somehow, as a society, stop talking about it
| and next time something like this happens we're surprised.
|
| We have the DEA and other three-letter agencies stashing
| cameras all over highways and even in residential areas.
|
| We have mass surveillance of communications.
|
| We have license plate readers everywhere.
|
| We literally carry tracking devices everywhere we go.
|
| Our cars also have their own tracking devices.
|
| Facial recognition(and probably other recognition tech like
| gait) is widespread.
|
| We have systems that can mass surveil entire cities from the
| sky.
|
| And these are just the confirmed systems that we know about.
|
| Parallel construction is frequently used and it's not even a
| secret at this point.
|
| That said, don't underestimate the ability of a criminal,
| even a smart one, to screw up. As a group of smart engineers,
| we all know too well that even smart people make mistakes.
| They make even more mistakes when they're operating outside
| of their domain and under pressure/nervous. It shouldn't be
| surprising that the perp got caught.
| bluedino wrote:
| If you were a murderer on the run and there was a manhunt for
| you, wouldn't you still be carrying a gun?
| Jtsummers wrote:
| That's the sort of thinking that helps them get caught.
| McVeigh was initially caught because his car didn't have a
| license plate and he had a concealed weapon. If he'd had an
| ordinary vehicle with a tag and no weapon, he wouldn't have
| been found so quickly and might have even evaded capture for
| years (even if his identity as the bomber were discovered).
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| He was always going to be the fall guy. The groups he was
| involved in was full of federal informants and agents. Why
| such elements didn't try to stop him is another question
| for a FOIA that won't be returned for 100 years.
| manquer wrote:
| A gun perhaps, not the same gun used in the murder, that
| would be dumb to be caught with evidence directly connecting
| you with the murder. This is America, getting guns is not
| that hard. Gun owners tend to usually own more than one.
|
| Also you would want to carry a weapon in a manhunt only if
| you intend not to be caught alive, because firing your weapon
| in a manhunt would only end in one way for the hunted.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| The weapon used in the murder? I've seen enough movies to
| know to get rid of it as soon as possible.
| tbrownaw wrote:
| The reason it's been made common knowledge is because it's
| what they want you to think.
|
| </tinfoil>
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| This would seem though to be a case in point that hanging
| on to it was not a good idea either.
| plaguuuuuu wrote:
| Hell no. Try to blend in as much as possible and book it to
| South America via Mexico or something.
| rurp wrote:
| No, not at all. You're extremely unlikely to win a shootout
| in the event law enforcement catches you, and having a gun
| makes it much more likely you get arrested and convicted. But
| even if a gun seems worth it, it should absolutely not be the
| famous murder weapon you just used! I mean, JFC, keeping the
| distinctive murder weapon on himself was either incredibly
| dumb or something shady is going on with the story.
| stuckinhell wrote:
| sounds like bs. it's parallel construction
| coolThingsFirst wrote:
| >Inactive GitHub profile
|
| >how did you decide his iq was >130?
|
| he threw his life in the dumpster and will spend the next 30
| years in a 2x2 cell. smart guy indeed.
| ghyuhg wrote:
| A smart person like that would now it would have been a matter
| of days until they were caught.
|
| It's just too high profile, everybody would be on the case, all
| the experts in everything.
| ks2048 wrote:
| This post is dumb in many ways not worth listing. And because
| of that, I realized I just read something nearly word-for-word
| on twitter (@peruvian_bull). Is that you or is this just copy
| pasta?
|
| https://x.com/peruvian_bull/status/1866213955687022656
| jcgrillo wrote:
| ..And he was smart enough to ditch the burner phone, clothes,
| and the backpack but he kept the untraceable weapon and the
| fake ID? Seriously what..? I hope we'll learn something that
| brings this all to a sensible narrative but here and now it
| seems like completely incoherent behavior.
| dang wrote:
| I've banned this account for reasons explained in the sibling
| subthread.
|
| If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email
| hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you won't
| do this in the future.
| spicyusername wrote:
| It's hard not to see this person as being the fall guy.
| ajbt200128 wrote:
| anyone find his hacker news account yet?
| kc711 wrote:
| No but here is the github
|
| https://github.com/lnmangione
| senderista wrote:
| Some perspective: https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/insurance-
| companies-arent-the-...
| 05 wrote:
| The guy was charged with fraud and insider trading, his company
| denied 2x claims than industry average - in this case it wasn't
| the providers..
| warner25 wrote:
| This reminds me of two excellent back-to-back episodes of This
| American Life in 2009, when the debate leading up to the
| Affordable Care Act was at its peak:
| https://www.thisamericanlife.org/391/more-is-less and
| https://www.thisamericanlife.org/392/someone-elses-money
|
| It has been a while since I listened to these episodes, but my
| main recollection is the argument that insurers are the _only_
| entities in the system actually fighting to _reduce_ costs
| (and, of course, high costs are what underlie most of the other
| problems with the US healthcare system).
|
| To be clear, I don't think insurers (and United Healthcare in
| particular) and their owners (all of us with index funds in our
| retirement accounts?) and boards and executives are blameless,
| but I do think this idea should be more central to the
| discussion and less contrarian.
| kbolino wrote:
| I don't think modern health insurers want to lower costs.
| Middlemen benefit from an increase in costs because they
| operate by skimming off the cashflows passing through them.
| This has been codified with the 85-15 rule in the ACA but
| there were less formal incentives pointing broadly in the
| same direction even before then. If you take a fixed
| percentage of every dollar you get, you're going to want to
| get more dollars.
| warner25 wrote:
| So one of the problems is indeed that insurers have
| conflicting incentives, as you correctly described one of
| them, and it's possible (although I don't know enough to
| argue either way) that ACA actually made this worse. I
| think one of the big arguments for a single-payer system,
| or at least the "public option," is that those middlemen
| could (ideally, in theory) embrace the position they're in
| to fight for lower costs without the conflicting incentives
| that come with being a for-profit entity. I guess that's
| basically what Noah Smith (author of the parent's linked
| article) is saying in his conclusion. There are, of course,
| other arguments for and against. Healthcare is a
| fascinatingly (and maddeningly) complex problem.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I agree this is a bad incentive, but a conflict of interest
| alone does automatically mean an ability to act on it.
|
| In the case of health insurance, driving up the costs
| requires a monopoly or collaboration of firms without
| defection. As a result, this means one firm cant act in
| isolation, and cost increases usually come from the
| industry not pushing back on outside changes that impact
| all the firms equally. Examples could be more training for
| healthcare workers, more expensive standards of care, more
| regulation and paperwork, ect.
|
| It is pretty telling that UHC prices are not that different
| than similar plans at Kaiser (which is a vertically
| integrated non-profit insurance, hospital, pharmacy, and
| PBM provider). About 15% different when I was picking
| between them during open enrollment this year.
| nradov wrote:
| The incentives go both ways. In the short term, the minimum
| medical loss ratio rule incentivizes payers to approve more
| claims and allow network providers to charge higher rates.
| But longer term payers can only maintain market share with
| their most important customers (the large self-funded
| employers) by lowering total medical expenses.
| rozap wrote:
| Kind of a silly take in my opinion. While it's may be true that
| the majority of money in a medical transaction (which is
| inflated) doesn't go to the insurer, it goes to the provider,
| it doesn't change the fact that "insurers" absolutely add a
| layer of uncertainty to the process. In times of uncertainty
| (ie: getting sick) anything that adds uncertainty will
| rightfully be hated.
|
| In Canada, their system has a number of major shortcomings. But
| in college when my girlfriend got appendicitis, I just took her
| to the hospital without worry about in/out of network, and
| without worrying about if we'd get a claim rejected after the
| fact and have our small college student bank accounts drained.
| That is huge, and should not be underestimated. Here I do not
| have that luxury. Even though I have plenty of money saved up,
| it doesn't ever feel like enough. If one of us has a major
| illness, it can get wiped out due to a claim denial. And who
| makes the approve/deny choice?
|
| The author of that post does some bad thinking here by
| completely missing the source of the vitriol directed at
| insurers. While providers do charge out the ass, at least they
| are _doing something useful_ , while in these times of great
| uncertainty and pain, insurers only rent seek, blood suck, and
| do not offer anything of value.
| 0xDEAFBEAD wrote:
| >it doesn't change the fact that "insurers" absolutely add a
| layer of uncertainty to the process.
|
| Not relative to the case of having no insurance.
|
| You're implicitly blaming insurers for the fact that the US
| doesn't have universal public healthcare. Don't hate the
| player, hate the game.
| acdha wrote:
| Now, why doesn't the United States have universal public
| healthcare? Because every time it's been proposed since the
| 19th century there's been stiff opposition from doctors,
| hospital owners, and private insurance companies. So while
| it's true that they didn't start the problem, it's fair to
| blame all of them for the problems of a system they've
| poured enormous amounts of money into preserving.
| fastball wrote:
| The US doesn't have universal public healthcare because
| it is a country of 350M people and would probably be a
| disaster. Significantly smaller countries (UK/Canada)
| have major issues with their systems with a fraction of
| the population.
| acdha wrote:
| That's just silly. What mechanism do you believe makes
| healthcare fall apart in a larger country but not, say,
| the larger EU? Similarly, these alleged major problems
| don't seem to show up in stats where residents of those
| countries live longer and healthier lives at much lower
| cost, and medical bankruptcy is rare.
| rozap wrote:
| > probably be a disaster
|
| disaster is a strong word, but yes, it would definitely
| have issues. but would it be an improvement over what we
| currently have, for most people? that is the standard
| that matters.
|
| no system will be perfect. i'd argue that no healthcare
| system will even be that good, knowing human nature,
| especially given the culture in the US which values the
| individual's right to obtain money over most everything
| else. but even given these facts, i think it's defeatist
| to think that this is honestly the best we can do.
| echoangle wrote:
| How does that make any sense? Would having public
| healthcare per state suddenly work? What prevents scaling
| the healthcare to more people?
| warner25 wrote:
| I think most of what you said is on the mark, but the core
| problem is still what the providers are charging. I wouldn't
| worry so much about in/out-of-network or claim denials, and
| might not even worry about having insurance coverage at all,
| if: a 90-minute ER visit (even for a false alarm) didn't cost
| $10k; or if one night in the hospital (just for observation
| and a couple blood tests) didn't cost $50k; or if anything
| actually serious didn't cost hundreds of thousands or
| millions of dollars.
| FpUser wrote:
| BS diatribe trying to tell that since asshole X does not do as
| much damage as asshole Y is not an asshole.
|
| Well they both are
| A_D_E_P_T wrote:
| Additional perspective:
| https://www.propublica.org/article/unitedhealth-healthcare-i...
|
| The health insurance industry is effectively a maximally
| hostile middleman. It's hostile to service providers, and it's
| hostile to service users. (The most charitable thing you can
| say about it is that it creates enormous amounts of paperwork,
| thereby creating jobs and boosting GDP.) It's not difficult to
| see how it has become so widely hated.
| elliotec wrote:
| It's the healthcare industrial complex. Just like the military.
| You get back some percentage of what you charge. They're
| incentivized to charge more because they'll get more, and
| sometimes it's an all-or-nothing.
|
| I have doctor friends who quote they spend over 60% of their
| time dealing with insurance and it's intricacies. It's the
| fault of the system, with large foundations on insurance and
| perverse government policy to enrich the leaders therein, and
| the providers are simply making do with the system they must
| operate in.
|
| I'll never forget the story I heard about a military squadron
| that needed like one bolt to fix a relatively important piece
| of equipment, and it cost like $10 itself.
|
| But the only way they could get it was through a package deal
| of a million dollars of other insane amounts of equipment that
| was entirely superfluous and they ended up getting shitloads
| too many guns and threw away thousands of hardware bits just to
| get that one screw.
|
| Similar systems at play here.
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| "I'm a Substack Author and Lemme Tell You How I'm Going to Make
| It About Me This Time."
| sssilver wrote:
| > [United Healhcare] net profit margin is just 6.11%
|
| Is this before or after their CEO's 23.5 million compensation?
| kbelder wrote:
| Both?
|
| If the guy worked for free, it would have increased margin by
| about 0.002%.
| sssilver wrote:
| He's not the only person being compensated at United
| Healthcare though.
|
| I've asked this in a different thread, but I'll repeat it
| here: how much of the remaining "operational expenses"
| actually add meaningful value to the patients' healthcare?
| aprilthird2021 wrote:
| As a counterpoint to many of the other commenters, it is 100%
| true that providers way overcharge for healthcare in the US.
| Specialized nurses and doctors have salaries that exceed nearly
| every other profession in the US. But they are not even the
| main employees! The healthcare industry in the US employs a
| substantial chunk of all of America, largely in bloated
| administrative jobs that aren't really necessary for patients.
|
| I'd say, it's also true that this specific company UHG,
| specifically had policies in place that led to people dying
| over denied claims. The author of this piece himself said
| 10-20% of claims are outright, flatly denied by health
| insurance. That leads to a world where people die unable to
| afford healthcare they already paid for. I think both parties
| are at fault here, and yeah insurance is easier to be mad at,
| that's an idea that makes sense to me.
| bn-l wrote:
| What a garbage milketoast read.
| strken wrote:
| This is a bit ridiculous, because part of the reason that
| providers are overcharging you is that they need huge finance
| departments to get their cash back from you or your insurer,
| which wouldn't be necessary if you had a single government
| insurer.
|
| Also, the quote from the Courtney Barnett song about Australian
| healthcare only applies if you somehow end up in a private
| emergency department, which is extraordinary unlikely since
| they're often underprepared for critical emergencies and for
| non-critical stuff you can ask to be taken to a public hospital
| in the ambulance. You're likely to get charged a couple of
| thousand dollars for the ambulance ride (depends on state; in
| mine, membership of the ambulance org is $53 a year and
| automatically covers you for any ambulance trip Australia-wide,
| no denials; others are free), plus a few hundred for the
| consultation. I believe Medicare will pay for some private care
| in an emergency department.
|
| She's talking about calling 000 because of an asthma attack but
| also alludes to a panic attack, which means she's not
| rationally discussing how much it will cost. It's not a
| scenario where she will have _actual crippling debt_ like it
| would be in the US. A non-artistic non-panic-attack analysis of
| the situation is that she 'd pay literally nothing as a public
| patient in a public hospital, and would pay a few thousand in
| the unlikely possibility she got admitted to a private
| hospital. Which, yes, would suck, but her worst case is an
| order of magnitude or two away from the expected cost in the
| US.
| dematz wrote:
| Imo, spherical cow economist take on a field they know little
| about. The graphic lumps all "Inpatient & outpatient care"
| together, which is insane. Is it saying all that money is going
| to physicians, nurses, etc? It seems to imply that, but my
| guess is much of it ends up in hospital administration costs.
| Also in this way the cost of UHC etc isn't just their own admin
| overhead; it also add the _hospital 's_ admin and billing costs
| of dealing with them.
|
| As for the author's claim that the doctor/nurse/admin assistant
| should know how much your treatment costs beforehand, lol. Yes,
| in an ideal world they absolutely would tell you. No, in
| reality they do not know. There's a whole apparatus of
| administrators and software spanning the hospital and insurance
| companies with bajillions of codes and negotiated rates. Noah
| Smith instead thinks doctors/nurses/admin assistants know ahead
| of time what each treatment costs but decline to inform
| consumers? A slightly dated but still relevant book is O'Reilly
| Hacking Healthcare. Iirc there are whole chapters on billing.
| It's just very complicated to figure out costs before
| treatment, and that's the fault of insurance/administration,
| not doctors/nurses/admin assistants.
|
| It at least implies 2 anti medical worker claims. 1) excess
| healthcare costs are driven by medical worker salaries 2)
| medical workers could clarify prices but do not in order to
| mislead patients. Both totally miss the real problems of
| healthcare cost: the complexity of admin/billing leads to not
| just increased costs in insurance companies but also in
| hospital administration, and obscures costs for patients.
| dematz wrote:
| Btw, there are good ways of reducing physician costs. Allow
| straight to med school with no college, reduce med school
| requirements, maybe let residents change programs. If you
| make it much easier to become a physician without hurting
| care too much you then naturally pass savings on to patients.
| You can have legitimate criticisms of the AMA or hospital
| administration without jumping to ah greedy providers.
| kjgkjhfkjf wrote:
| I don't think it's particularly relevant that the suspect is a
| software dev. Many people in the US are software devs nowadays.
| It has become a completely mainstream career option.
| fma wrote:
| Poking through some more conservative news outlet, they are
| using some loosely tied together facts to insinuate he's left
| leaning.
| baby_souffle wrote:
| That's just basic engagement strategy. Speculation and "the
| other tribe did it, those assholes!" Go hand in hand and will
| boost engagement on the site which is going to make
| _somebody_ money they otherwise wouldn't have made...
| cruffle_duffle wrote:
| I mean tribalism is already at play. Apparently finding
| cheering somebody's murder incredibly tasteless and gross
| puts you in the wrong tribe.
| bufferoverflow wrote:
| But it's pretty obvious left-wing communities are
| supporting this guy, while right-wing ones are condemning .
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| It's pretty obvious that's bullshit. I was pretty shocked
| at how broad-based the lack of sympathy for the CEO was.
|
| Ben Shapiro and Matt Walsh got destroyed in their
| comments when they tried to make this into a "look how
| evil the left is" issue, e.g.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bimRF1K3Bzw , and note
| his YouTube comments are usually very supportive. The
| contrast in the audience reaction to
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Agu2gRzUSDY , his
| commentary on the Daniel Penny case, is stark.
| bufferoverflow wrote:
| You realize you linked to a video of a right-wing persona
| condemning the killing?
|
| I can't determine who is downvoting/commenting on the
| video, but I know for sure the speaker is a right-winger.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Yes, my point is that right-wing talking heads are trying
| to make this into a "right vs left" issue, and they are
| getting destroyed for that characterization by their
| right-wing fan base. When you say "I can't determine who
| is downvoting/commenting on the video", that's
| specifically why I added the Walsh's video of the Daniel
| Perry case. Or heck, look at any of his videos, which
| normally always upvote his main ideas and tilt heavily
| right. If you think it's just a left-wing brigade
| flooding his comments, why don't you think they'd do the
| same on any of his Daniel Perry videos?
| bufferoverflow wrote:
| It could easily be a brigade by the left-wingers, because
| he is explicitly blaming them.
|
| Daniel Perry video doesn't blame anyone. And most people,
| even on the left (though definitely not everyone), seem
| to have a normal reaction to the outcome.
| dtquad wrote:
| >It could easily be a brigade by the left-wingers
|
| I am surprised that more people don't know this type of
| brigading to influence public opinion. Left-wing brigades
| are orchestrated on private Discord servers. Smaller
| right-wing brigades are orchestrated on private Telegram
| channels.
|
| The left-wing brigaders pretending to be right-wing CEO-
| killing-supporters could have gotten away with it if they
| had limited themselves to populist MAGA spheres.
|
| However the Ben Shapiro fanbase are boring middle of the
| road pro-capitalist/neocons who would never support
| killing CEOs. Pretending to be his fanbase was their
| fatal mistake.
| itchyouch wrote:
| The amount of conservative comments stating to the effect
| of, "today I learned that I'm a left winger." would say
| otherwise.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Yeah, was glad to see some Reddit posts that when folks
| like Ben Shapiro and Matt Walsh tried to say "This is why
| the crazy left is OK with CEOs being shot" that they were
| bombarded with comments saying "It's not just the left".
|
| On that point, Zeynep Tufekci once again shows to me how
| she has the most insightful analysis (I became a big fan of
| her during Covid, I thought she had the most measured
| takes). I totally agreed with what she wrote in
| https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/06/opinion/united-health-
| car...
| threeseed wrote:
| To quote a Reddit comment:
|
| looks like he followed/retweeted rogan, trevor noah, ezra
| klein, elon, AOC, rfk jr, peter thiel, bernie on twitter.
| very concerned with falling birthrates, anti-capitalist but
| pro musk, supports AI, dislikes overwatch but is a pokemon
| enjoyer. eats mcdonalds but is super ripped, gave positive
| reviews to ted kaczynski's manifesto as well as jd vance's
| hillbilly elegy
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Sounds like a terminally online edgelord.
| duxup wrote:
| Lotta folks like that online, STRONG feelings but it's not
| at all clear if their opinions are thought through... lots
| of sentiment and mismatched identities.
| itchyouch wrote:
| The problem with tribal (political) identities is that to
| hold independent and opposing tribal ideologies (ie pro-
| choice but also pro-gun) is isolating from all groups.
| Thus, many people end up choosing to belong at the
| expense of the inconsistencies in the respective group
| they have decided to be a part of.
|
| I'd say that to hold anti-capitalist ideals while liking
| Musk is reconciled through varying lenses. Musk can be
| idolized for his impact on the environment and moving
| various initiatives forward such as self-driving. One
| could argue that Musk is capitalist, but it could also be
| argued that Musk would drive these "good" initiatives
| even in a non-capitalist structure, thus the respect.
|
| I'm not supporting musk, but merely illustrating how a
| certain level of rationalization can take place, counter
| to your insinuation that "opinions may not be thought
| through." It's the same thinking that also gives way when
| understanding the psyche behind various voters in this
| recent election.
| shiroiushi wrote:
| He sounds very confused, and reminds me of the kid who
| tried to shoot Trump.
| paxys wrote:
| Sounds like most 20-something terminally online people out
| there.
| dyauspitr wrote:
| It's relevant to this forum.
| VectorLock wrote:
| According to his LinkedIn he worked on Civilization VI
| bearincar wrote:
| thread should start consulting crime organizations everyone here
| would know how to evade the feds lol
| breadwinner wrote:
| He gave the Unabomber's manifesto four stars on Goodreads, and
| described Unabomber as a "political revolutionary".
|
| Excerpts from his review:
|
| "It's easy to quickly and thoughtless write this off as the
| manifesto of a lunatic, in order to avoid facing some of the
| uncomfortable problems it identifies. But it's simply impossible
| to ignore how prescient many of his predictions about modern
| society turned out."
|
| "He was a violent individual - rightfully imprisoned - who maimed
| innocent people. While these actions tend to be characterized as
| those of a crazy luddite, however, they are more accurately seen
| as those of an extreme political revolutionary."
|
| https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/luigi-mang...
| vouaobrasil wrote:
| I don't see the point. The Unabomber manifesto had nothing to
| do with bombs. It is a commentary on the state of technology in
| society and a commentary on leftism.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| You can't say it had nothing to do with them. At a minimum,
| the manifesto directly motivated them.
|
| Im not a Kaczynski scholar, so maybe it is possible to
| embrace the philosophy and come to sperate conclusions, but
| that is rarely the case for manifestos. They usually make
| strong positive claims about the necessity and justification
| of the author's actions.
| vouaobrasil wrote:
| The objective of the killings was to get the manifesto
| published in mainstream media. If you actually read it,
| which I'm guessing you didn't, then you'd see that Ted K
| did not really advocate random killings. He was concerned
| about taking down industrial civlization entirely.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| 1) I dont think you are engaging in good faith. Good
| faith discussions dont include cynical asides, but I will
| give it one last chance.
|
| 2) There is a contraction in saying the manifesto has
| nothing to do with the killings, while its pulication is
| the primary motivation for the killings.
|
| 3) Kaczynski started bombing in 78 and mailed the
| manifesto to the news in 95. Kaczynski has similar essays
| before bombing, but at no time between 78 and 95 tried to
| leverage killings for exposure.
| margalabargala wrote:
| I'm not the person you originally replied to, but I tend
| to agree with them in the sense of the writings not
| having much to do with the bombings.
|
| There can exist a corpus of ideas, and there can be
| actions people take due to their beliefs in those ideas,
| but if those actions don't particularly have much to do
| with the actual ideas, we can say one doesn't have much
| to do with the other. I'd give the New Testament as
| another example where the idea corpus and actions taken
| in its name tend to diverge.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| The philosophy _could_ be separated in concept. My point
| was that, in reality, it absolutely was not.
|
| The claim "The Unabomber manifesto had nothing to do with
| bombs" is one of fact and easily refuted by history.
|
| In a parallel universe, someone else could have penned
| similar ideas and not conducted the bombings. In this
| universe, the bombings were entirely motivated by the
| ideas stated in the manifesto.
| margalabargala wrote:
| Okay, that's a reasonable distinction. I agree with you.
|
| I think the reason this discussion is frequently had, is
| that people will read the manifesto, recognize that it
| discusses some interesting issues in a self-consistent
| way, and want to discuss those ideas without
| simultaneously heading off semi-veiled accusations of
| "are you going to blow stuff up now too?".
|
| In fact, I would argue that considering that the
| Unabomber manifesto has been inspiration to at least two
| very intelligent people as they commit targeted murder
| against strangers, there is something interesting and
| unusual about that corpus of ideas compared to other
| writings by other figures.
|
| I'm unaware of any highly educated people who have become
| similarly radicalized after reading Mein Kampf. Something
| is uniquely appealing about Kaczynski's writings.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| On that I agree. When I read the manifesto, I thought
| there were a number of incredibly prescient ideas. Other
| parts I disagreed with.
|
| I agree that there's a distinction between having an
| outside opinion about the direction of society, and
| becoming a terrorist.
|
| It ultimately comes down to if someone truly believes
| that the ends justify the means.
|
| In my opinion, deontological morality is primarily what
| prevents terrorism, followed by individual humility and
| acceptance of fallibility.
|
| Unfortunately, I think utilitarianism and
| consequentialism are currently in Ascension in the USA.
| shepherdjerred wrote:
| What's your point? I haven't read the manifesto, but I have
| read that many consider it uncomfortably correct
| sdwr wrote:
| The Unabomber's MO was politically-motivated terror attacks
| aimed at high-rank targets. That's exactly what the NYC
| killing was, so it supports the claim that this guy did it.
| autoexec wrote:
| The Unabomber killed innocent people. That's a very
| different MO from this guy.
| cruffle_duffle wrote:
| Did I miss something? Under which court of law was the
| person this dude murdered found guilty of something?
| hughesjj wrote:
| Innocence and morality isn't restricted to the
| determinations or domain of the legal system.
| oaththrowaway wrote:
| You don't have to go through the courts to be guilty of
| something
| latentcall wrote:
| Do you need to be tried in court to be guilty of
| something? The guy he killed contributed to the suffering
| of many Americans. In this country that should be illegal
| but it isn't, it's rewarded.
| hellojesus wrote:
| It's very interesting to me that everyone is blaming the
| CEO and not the system. The tethering of health care
| coverage to employment is the real issue. If decoupled,
| people could actually shop around and not purchase from
| companies with high denial rates.
|
| It's baffling to me that people are calling this a
| righteous cleanse when it was purely the murder of an
| innocent man with a family.
| brendoelfrendo wrote:
| Innocent? No, he was a bad person with blood on his
| hands, made rich by the pain and suffering of the sick.
| Those people have families, too.
|
| I think all of these things can be true. It is possible
| for one person to be ambivalent about the killing of a
| bad man, acknowledge that he had a family and that is
| unfortunate, and accept that the system is flawed and
| that systematic change is required to materially improve
| things.
| ithkuil wrote:
| I agree that the system needs to change.
|
| I agree it's fair to criticize executives who are
| responsible for suffering.
|
| But I also think we have to be very careful with the
| messaging about that.
|
| Because I don't want to live in a society where we think
| that violence is an acceptable solution to injustice.
|
| It doesn't lead to a good place.
|
| Yes, sometimes it's necessary. But very very very rarely.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| Violence is _always_ the solution. We just usually
| deputize the police and courts and prisons to do it for
| us.
| ithkuil wrote:
| Even that violence is better when minimized right?
|
| You don't want police to apply excessive force. You won't
| want innocent bystanders to be shot by the police. You
| don't want the police to hurt people just because they
| think they may be guilty, etc. Those things do happen and
| when they happen people get upset and rightfully so.
| keiferski wrote:
| People are lazy, and blaming an individual is easy, while
| understanding complex systems is hard.
|
| Understanding that the role of a CEO is essentially a
| replaceable cog in a vast and complex machine is beyond
| the capabilities of most people's good-bad moral system,
| and so it's easier to scapegoat one guy instead of
| looking at the deeper structure.
| ithkuil wrote:
| The concept of a "chief" is deeply rooted in human
| psychology and thus also in the circuitry behind moral
| intuition.
|
| We spawned an emergent disembodied super-human organism
| called "society" that lives through the action of
| individual humans like an ant colony lives through the
| actions of individual ants.
|
| But yet we have the strong need to put a human face on
| it. We need to attribute agency to something that has
| behaviour.
|
| In order to explain phenomena like thunder, earthquakes
| etc, humans throughout history have often felt it much
| easier to imagine some "person in the sky" being the
| cause of it.
|
| The same mechanism powers many conspiracy theories.
| "Global financial system that's hard to understand? Nah,
| it's just the Rothschilds".
|
| Now, in some cases like CEOs of companies that do harm,
| it's harder to dismiss the individual responsibility,
| because there is a freedom of choice that the individual
| could do.
|
| It's easier thus to pin the blame on that single cog
| rather than blaming the whole society for not voting the
| right people who would fix the problem at the root.
|
| But ultimately, if that one cog would refuse to do harm
| then another person would take their place until the
| rules of the game would be patched to prevent that.
|
| Punishing culpable people is effective only inasmuch it
| deters from the unwanted behaviour.
|
| Letting people administer "justice" via violence is not
| conducive to a just and peaceful society. The side
| effects of letting that happen will backfire and will
| undo any "justice" improvements you may seek to achieve.
|
| I think we all can personally loathe big bad CEOs and
| still think that murdering them is the wrong thing you do
| no matter what your moral theory is.
| hellojesus wrote:
| I agree fully. One additional comment I have is that,
| while the CEO chooses to work in that role, the general
| public is not always privy as to what their influences
| are.
|
| It's possible this CEO was fighting to reduce claim
| denial rates but was squeezed or cutoff from his legal
| team in every attempt. It's also possible he pushed to
| deny as often as possible. But until we have evidence, it
| seems a bit wild to attribute "willingness to work in an
| influential role at a company massively disliked" with
| complicity in crimes against humanity. And as you point
| out, it is never acceptable to use violence offensively
| against such a person, even if he was foaming at the
| mouth to hit the deny button daily.
| meiraleal wrote:
| No man that gets a bonus when people that could be saved
| die is an innocent man
| shoooooooooota wrote:
| HN is quite a glass house. Moralizing then back to
| selling peoples data and ensuring warehouse workers
| suffer and get our kids get addicted to doomscrolling,
| while selling people more shit they don't need. Then use
| that money to push up house prices.
| meiraleal wrote:
| What makes you think that people supporting the exit of
| evil CEOs also support evil CEOs selling people's data?
| oneeyedpigeon wrote:
| Literally every single one of us is guilty, then. You
| could personally do something today that would save a
| life, instead of what you'll actually do. That doesn't
| make you guilty of anything, though.
| meiraleal wrote:
| > Literally every single one of us is guilty, then
|
| Yes, all of "us" doing it industrial scale and getting
| paid for it are guilty. Not me, but maybe you.
| oneeyedpigeon wrote:
| I am not, as I'm sure you guessed, the CEO of a
| healthcare corporation. I'm probably as equally guilty as
| you are, in your own terms.
| hellojesus wrote:
| As always, there is a cost benefit analysis one must
| perform when doing anything, including administering
| healthcare treatment. Is it worth $40M in costs to save a
| 94 year old from death today when the expected payoff is
| 2 more months of life?
|
| I'm all for changing the system, but this action likely
| won't do that.
| qaq wrote:
| Being part of the system does not absolve one of
| consequences of one's actions. Auschwitz management was
| part of the system. UHC wasn't an average participant it
| was really pushing the boundaries of abusive practises to
| the extreme. Go to any place where medical professionals
| hang out online and read their accounts of UHC
| shenanigans.
| mmustapic wrote:
| Ah, right, it's never the CEOs blame for bad things,
| that's why they get they are paid so little. Or was it
| the other way around, they are paid a lot because of
| their responsibility?
|
| Anyway, it's the State's and regulations fault, as usual.
| kortilla wrote:
| This is the legislation's fault though. As long as
| insurance payments have to balance with insurance
| payouts, insurance companies need to strictly control
| payouts. An insurance company with no checks on
| treatments will have premiums significantly higher than
| the ones that do and ultimately won't get picked.
| mmustapic wrote:
| Yes, of course, of course. CEOs just follow the laws
| strictly. That's why Thompson is accused of insider
| trading, because of legislation.
| ulbu wrote:
| the system _is_ the people propelling it.
| Hikikomori wrote:
| Bureaucrats of the holocaust were also innocent?
| keiferski wrote:
| You haven't missed anything, we are merely witnessing the
| scary, pathetic beginning of the internet version of
| medieval peasant mob violence.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Well, Kaczynski thought they were guilty. The intended
| recipients that is; not sure if he made any statement on
| employees who were injured by opening mail intended for
| their boss.
|
| In his later writing like _Anti-tech Revolution_ he
| advocated for strategic actions that would make a return
| to a pre-technological society (apparently 18th century
| pastoralism or something similar) inevitable, but sort of
| threw up his hands over figuring how to meet that
| criterion.
| tptacek wrote:
| Did he think the people on the airliner were guilty?
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Maybe? If I recall correctly his original moment of
| radicalization was having the peace of his rustic cabin
| disturbed by some tourist loudly operating an ATV or
| jetski. However as far as I'm aware that's the only
| indiscriminate mass attack he undertook; I don't know if
| the change was motivated by a shift in his moral
| viewpoint or he decided narrow targeting was a more
| effective tactic.
|
| Context for the confused: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A
| merican_Airlines_Flight_444
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| They weren't "high-rank targets". At least, many were not.
| They included a university president and an airline
| president, several college professors, but also grad
| students and owners of small computer stores. And the
| president of the California Forestry Association, who was
| probably an important person among foresters, but not so
| much in wider society.
| areyousure wrote:
| In case anyone was curious, Wikipedia calls the
| California Forestry Association a "timber industry
| lobbying group".
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| The unabomber made some good points though. First quote is
| solid analysis of him
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Indeed. I wish he found a productive way to get some real
| traction on his ideas.
|
| I think it has been long enough to say that the bombings were
| not productive.
| vouaobrasil wrote:
| Actually, his bombings got his manifesto published and the
| manifesto did get some traction in places.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I think you are confusing exposure with productivity.
| vouaobrasil wrote:
| Since the manifesto advocated taking down industrial
| society and that hasn't been done, it's hard to judge the
| productivity of the thing while the outcome isn't known I
| guess.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Like I said:
|
| >I think it has been long enough to say that the bombings
| were not productive.
|
| We can revisit this conversation in another 30 years if
| you wish.
| tern wrote:
| He's had a huge societal impact:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degrowth. The lack of
| apparent "productivity" is caused by forces beyond
| anyone's control (nature of market economies, etc.)
| toenail wrote:
| Oh wow, you're attributing this ideology to Ted? There is
| a long history..
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malthusianism
| vouaobrasil wrote:
| I will say that Ted's manifesto certainly inspired me to
| work on degrowth and alternative ways and I know quite a
| few others too.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| Like primarily HN, the only place I've ever heard people
| speak positively of it. Amazing how frequently this comes
| up here too, y'all have to be the guy's biggest remaining
| fanbase at this point.
| vouaobrasil wrote:
| I have a feeling that most people who think positively
| about it also know that there's not much point by
| definition in talking about it in mainstream society
| since it is fundamentally incompatible with modern
| society itself.
| oneeyedpigeon wrote:
| I'm seeing similar sentiments anywhere there's a
| significant American audience -- e.g. reddit, bluesky.
| Starlevel004 wrote:
| The manfiesto is a 1960s screed about SJWs. You might as well
| just read a Neo-Twitter thread and get the exact same
| experience.
| vouaobrasil wrote:
| Only part of it is about what Ted called 'leftists'. About
| 2/3rds of it has nothing to do with leftism.
| mcshaner1 wrote:
| For anyone reading stuff like this, read Ellul's Technological
| Society instead. Optionally followed by "The Meaning of the
| City." I haven't read the manifesto and don't plan to; it
| apparently cited Ellul a fair amount and Ellul seems like a
| saner guide.
| vouaobrasil wrote:
| Actually, David Skrbina's "The Metaphysics of Technology" is
| the most easily readable, comprehensive cover of critical
| philosophical views towards technology from the ancient
| greeks until modern time.
|
| Ted K made virtually no reference to Ellul in his manifesto
| either. In either case, both were quite sane. Ted's manifesto
| is not a philosophical analysis of technology like Ellul or
| Skrbina. Ted's manifesto is a practical treatise agains
| technology and its primary thesis is that technological
| society must be destroyed.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Why not both? Ted Kaczynski was an important thinker whether
| or not you agree with his thesis and methods. _ISAIF_ was
| published in newspapers and the sky didn 't fall.
| keiferski wrote:
| "Important thinker" is a stretch. Most actual philosophers
| of technology are far more coherent and knowledgeable.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| I think his ideas come across more clearly and coherently
| in his later work than in his manifesto, but that's often
| the case.
|
| I don't regard him as a philosopher but rather an
| agitator, not unlike Thomas Paine or (insert your
| preferred historical figure here). This largely because
| his writing is not in a spirit of inquiry over where
| technology might go, rather it is conclusory -
| industrialism is path-dependent and net negative, with
| the only open questions being how to undermine it
| effectively.
| keiferski wrote:
| His works read like a book-smart guy that thought his
| intelligence in X field translated into intelligence at
| large. It didn't, and frankly his actions were so
| illogical and nonsensical that it's a puzzle why people
| think he is some sort of misunderstood genius.
|
| He's no different than the many, many cranks writing ill-
| informed manifestos online.
| asveikau wrote:
| I tried to read Kaczynski's manifesto once and came away
| with the impression he was mentally ill. I think there's
| stuff in there that impresses people with personality types
| who are disposed to agree with him, and it sounds cogent to
| those people, but I found it hard to escape that he was
| pretty incoherent and made logical leaps into a private
| reality.
| RUnconcerned wrote:
| I mean, he was mentally ill. He was literally a victim of
| MKULTRA. That does not necessarily disqualify everything
| he wrote, however.
| asveikau wrote:
| I can't recall the details, but I saw a documentary that
| made me doubt that the mkultra experience was very
| formative for him. Iirc he had a big change in his
| outlook and demeanor at around the typical age of onset
| for schizophrenia and similar issues. According to what
| I've read, these conditions seemingly have multiple
| causative factors within an individual, genetic and
| environmental, where "environmental" factors can include
| stuff that started in the womb.
| beeflet wrote:
| You should read it, It did not cite Ellul.
| oldsklgdfth wrote:
| +1 on Ellul's work. Though it is quite long.
|
| A book with similar sentiment that is more approachable is
| Neil Postman's Technopoly.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Good-looking Unabomber with terrible opsec is pretty spot on
| for this guy.
| tern wrote:
| My takeaway from this is that what would have saved this man is
| a proper liberal arts degree. I can't deny that there are
| reasons for engineering degrees being as focused as they are,
| but he clearly didn't get the chance to work out his
| philosophical ideas in an appropriately challenging
| environment.
| ladyanita22 wrote:
| My takeaway is that an engineering degree doesn't have
| anything to do with a guy that, from that message, looks to
| me as an arrogant narcissist (by how smart he tries to be)
| who likely doesn't have trained too well his acceptance for
| frustration and who seems to give in his impulses
| disregarding anything else.
|
| And your takeaway is, for me, infantile, naive and dangerous.
| This guys is not a victim of a system, this guy is a killer,
| whether we like that CEO or not.
| aprilthird2021 wrote:
| Very contrarian take I think. Most people see that the CEO
| isn't just unliked, he's actively responsible for the
| deaths of many. So, for many, his death is justified. As
| the legal system would never find him guilty for something
| all knew he was guilty of.
| wordpad25 wrote:
| [flagged]
| oneeyedpigeon wrote:
| > So, for many, his death is justified.
|
| For the majority? Come on, if you guys don't like private
| healthcare (and why would you?) then there's a democratic
| process you can follow to change it. Encouraging
| executions on the streets might feel good, but it's not
| going to achieve anything, even if you think it's
| justified.
| krainboltgreene wrote:
| [flagged]
| oneeyedpigeon wrote:
| No, of course not. Have you honestly given up on
| democracy over there? If your country weren't so damn
| big, I would just pity such a descent, but as it is, it's
| terrifying to the rest of the world.
| meiraleal wrote:
| Are you seriously asking people that lost family members
| because of the greed of C-level individuals to not lose
| hope on allegedly democratic processes that can't solve
| their issues?
| oneeyedpigeon wrote:
| No, I'm asking them not to murder people.
| meiraleal wrote:
| You are asking them to not kill CEOs
| breadwinner wrote:
| > _Have you honestly given up on democracy over there?_
|
| Pretty much. Look up "citizens united". It turned USA
| into an oligarchy. Billionaires are allowed to buy
| elections, and politicians are beholden to the
| billionaires.
| ok123456 wrote:
| Or, it's good he didn't get a proper liberal arts degree, so
| he wasn't saddled with mealy-mouth excuses for why things are
| the way they are.
| agilob wrote:
| What you're missing here (and all the media copy-pasting the
| review) is that the review is a quote from reddit.com/r/climate
| https://old.reddit.com/r/climate/comments/10j1le5/has_anyone...
| mock-possum wrote:
| I still don't get how people miss this - he explicitly states
| it's a quote, he even puts it in quotation marks.
|
| People see what they want to I suppose.
| oneeyedpigeon wrote:
| I think at least part of the problem was that the quotation
| contained quotes itself--we could probably turn this into a
| discussion about nested quote marks, unicode quotes vs.
| ascii, and character escaping if we really wanted it to be
| relevant to HN's core domain...
| SifJar wrote:
| The excerpts from the review posted here were _not_ from the
| section that was quoting the reddit post
| Macha wrote:
| Side note: I guess the original typo was the AP or someone, but I
| assume Fixarixis is supposed to be Firaxis, given the suspect's
| connections to Maryland and the fact that all search results for
| Fixarixis are copies of this story. It's interesting how that
| spreads.
| shalmanese wrote:
| Yeah, he worked on Civ VI as a software intern.
| chaorace wrote:
| Whoa... I might've actually tinkered with some of this guy's
| code back in my modding days. What a strange contradiction it
| is to think that we can unknowingly interact with so many
| different people and never once get to know any of them.
| deadbabe wrote:
| I just think it's great that for a short time, we got to live
| this fantasy that being a rich CEO is no guarantee that someone
| couldn't easily just walk up to you one day, kill you off, and
| then disappear without a trace as a hero to those you did wrong.
|
| The fantasy of jury nullification is still alive, but very
| unlikely to happen. If someone can turn the guy in, then someone
| could easily find him guilty.
| profsummergig wrote:
| How did someone recognize him from that half-face photo?
|
| There must be millions of people in the East Coast who look like
| that.
| sapiogram wrote:
| Judging by the mugshot, he might have been wearing the same
| clothes as well.
| sameAsYou wrote:
| I think police only released half-face photo to media. They had
| more angles and pictures of the person. Could also be that they
| got additional photos from a car ride that has been mentioned
| in many reports.
| yencabulator wrote:
| What if they first noticed a gun bulging in a pocket, and then
| made the connection?
| rvba wrote:
| Conspiracy theory below, so beware, I warned you.
|
| What are the odds that since case is high profile they probably
| used some grey area or illegal surveillance tool from their 3
| letter agency friends and made up some story how a patron
| recognized him.
|
| Convinently guy also had a copy of all the incriminatint stuff
| with him. (In russia he would also have sims3).
|
| Since he talked on phone, they used some voice recognition
| software. They probably record all the calls and the system
| recognized him when he made a new one (or even worse - from
| someone elses' phone).
|
| Then they used this whole doctrine of not revealing the real
| source.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| Why stop there? Thompson was allegedly set to testify on some
| insider trading hearing while he knew about an anti-trust
| case before the public. Maybe those same TLAs found a guy
| with a grudge and nudged him up to take care of a witness who
| might testify to something they didn't want public, or maybe
| some of their superiors were just upset about the $25B in
| lost shareholder value in the whole situation.
| rvba wrote:
| Well the guy is alive (so far) and if I understand
| correctly he will testify in public
| dfxm12 wrote:
| No, Brian Thompson is very much dead.
| lr1970 wrote:
| > Maybe those same TLAs found a guy with a grudge and
| nudged him up to take care of a witness who might testify
| to something they didn't want public, or maybe some of
| their superiors were just upset about the $25B in lost
| shareholder value in the whole situation.
|
| Since he got caught alive this theory does not look
| plausible. Those guys who were to hire him would make sure
| that he will not be talking to police.
| francisofascii wrote:
| A young guy wearing a mask in Altoona would stand out. He
| probably would have been better off not wearing the mask in
| that case.
| hi41 wrote:
| It's one thing to be upset and angry about capitalism and
| businesses. How does a person go from there to being able to
| commit premeditated murder because it means seeing a human being
| die in agony. That's a jump of several magnitudes. It's terribly
| sad.
| brailsafe wrote:
| Whatever his motivation, it has seemed to me that if you put
| enough people in a certain kind of pressure cooker, with no way
| up, no way out, and a clear target, you've created a pretty
| volatile situation where rational people start acting
| rationally.
|
| Granted, you'd need to be in a very dark place, but it doesn't
| take the greatest stretch of the imagination to create a
| hypothetical scenario in which someone just thinks to
| themselves "Well shit, I guess I don't have too many options
| here, and the only thing stopping me is the tacit acceptance
| that I shouldn't use violence". People do have addresses after
| all, and perhaps should be more afraid than they are of
| screwing people at a large scale.
| tomlockwood wrote:
| I wonder how many denied claims both pumped up his yearly bonus
| and resulted in an innocent person dying in agony?
|
| This CEO may as well have pulled the trigger.
| Wherecombinator wrote:
| Exactly. The only difference is the layers of abstraction.
| shiroiushi wrote:
| There's a lot of comments coming out now that both he and his
| mother suffered from some kind of terrible chronic back pain,
| and he himself had some kind of surgery on his back and that he
| and his mother both had big problems with UHC in this regard.
| It might still be a bit early to say if these stories are
| correct or not, but if they are, it would provide ample motive
| for the crime. It's a very small step from seeing your mother
| suffer greatly (and you too) because of insurance company
| malfeasance to wanting to kill the guy in charge.
|
| Also, this is a quibble, but I don't think he saw the CEO "die
| in agony": he fired his 3 shots (with some difficulty because
| of the particular way the gun and suppressor worked), and then
| took off to get his bicycle. The CEO later died in the
| hospital.
| genezeta wrote:
| _Disclaimer_ : I don't know shit about this guy. I can't speak
| about his particular case or personal motivations and
| circumstances. With this in mind, let me _instead_ answer the
| more generic aspect of your question.
|
| ---
|
| Some illnesses are hard. But even so, they are temporarily bad.
| You suffer some time, get some treatment or procedure and then
| it's -mostly- over. You may lose something in the process, but
| generally you can _go on with your life_ after it.
|
| Sometimes there are permanent effects. Like maybe you lose an
| eye, or maybe you have to be medicated for the rest of your
| life, or have to keep a special diet or something. Or you may
| get some permanent discomfort. But again, even with this, you
| can generally continue otherwise "well enough".
|
| Some other illnesses are hard, and lethal. You may suffer, go
| through some process -or not- and then die. These are hard to
| endure because, well, you know you're dying. But then again, it
| happens _fairly_ quickly.
|
| Some other illnesses can be hard and _recurring_. Like a cancer
| or lymphoma. The treatment is hard and exhausting. But you go
| through it and it either works and you get some additional
| years to live fairly ok, or it doesn 't work and you rapidly go
| away. Then they return and you repeat the loop. But again, you
| mostly live mostly ok some years and then get hit again, go
| through treatment and then the fork of either having some years
| more or dying "quickly".
|
| Some are _constantly hard_. In the sense that they don 't kill
| you but make you live with constant and relentless suffering.
| The psychological impact this has is hard to overestimate and
| while you don't die, it can be said that they take you life
| because they change it so completely that you have almost
| nothing else but fighting constantly against the pain and
| suffering.
|
| When you are the subject yourself of such a situation, the
| effect can be devastating. Different people react differently,
| of course, but there's always _some_ psychological damage. This
| can sometimes produce its own neurological illnesses that pile
| on top of it all.
|
| But you may not be the subject of such an illness and still
| suffer the psychological impact. If you're a person that cares
| and someone close to you falls into that situation it's very
| easy to be affected. You won't experience it first-hand but you
| will see a person you love suffering every single day. It's
| worse when it also happens at night. Because then they will
| suffer _and_ they will be significantly impacting their own
| health through sleeping badly or not sleeping at all. And if
| you 're close enough to be there, chances are _you_ will also
| sleep badly and affect your own health too.
|
| Sometimes the situation means that you really can't do shit
| about it. Sure, you can be there, give them support, your love,
| your care, etc. And that _is_ indeed a lot. But it has no
| particular effect on the illness itself so it can easily _feel_
| worthless, pointless, useless. The psychological effect of all
| this is both subtle, in the sense that you may not even be
| aware of it, and fairly impactful, producing changes in your
| personality and mental health.
|
| Sometimes, other circumstances work together with the illness
| for the caring person to have to make big sacrifices. Like
| maybe quitting their job or career, or their own family or
| friends, or whatever. Sometimes they end up developing their
| own maladies because of this situation -or sometimes
| _apparently_ because of it-.
|
| And so, a person who is generally healthy gets to see someone
| they care for suffer continuously every moment of their life,
| and they are forced to renounce big parts of their own life to
| care for them, and then they are impacted with subtle but deep
| psychological problems. The description of "it breaks your
| heart" is quite appropriate because you may be giving all your
| love and effort while simultaneously feeling completely
| useless, and end up inflicting hard damage on yourself.
|
| Different people will react differently to all this. But it's
| hard to predict how any of us would react until you've actually
| gone through it. Sure, you can say "I'd seek help" or "I'd try
| to stay positive" or even "I'd certainly go crazy", but the
| truth is you don't actually know.
|
| For some people it's not uncommon to react by looking for an
| "ultimate cause", something they can attribute all the problems
| to. It can be a generic cause like "life sucks" and they may
| end up bitter against life in general. Some turn religious.
| Some do the opposite. Or it may be that they find fault on
| something they did or didn't and so they end up blaming
| themselves, with various outcomes. It may also be that they
| blame another close person, a parent, a sibling, and it's not
| uncommon to see families split over such illnesses. Sometimes
| they may find a cause in "the system", in a negligent doctor,
| in an "uncaring" administration, in causes with different
| degrees of distance and specificity.
|
| The problem has many aspects contributing to it and each
| person, again, will react differently. But sometimes it just
| happens that this one person under the accumulated effects of
| suffering, of seeing someone not die but _live in agony_ every
| moment, finds this "ultimate cause" personified on some
| organization or some one specific person who can maybe -in
| reality or in their reality- have caused that pain or have
| profited from it or whatever, through their actions or
| inactions. With enough persistence, it's not hard for all of
| that to transform into rage or hate and, sometimes, produce the
| effect you see here.
|
| I'm not saying this reaction is inevitable, or logical, or
| forgivable, or anything. That's up to you to think. Just that
| it's not impossible to understand and that there _may be_
| circumstances that push people... that _crush_ people and them
| push them into tragic actions.
|
| Finally, yes, I agree with the conclusion that _it 's terribly
| sad_. In a lot of ways.
| ocular-rockular wrote:
| > It's one thing to be upset and angry about capitalism and
| businesses.
|
| Right, we should all continue grumbling about it for the rest
| of our lives as law and government intended. Nothing will
| change and the meat grinder will continue churning. Imo, this
| line of thinking of "they're angry and upset in a way that
| upsets me!" is easily exploitable towards complete inaction.
|
| Also I'm so sorry but having sympathy for effective oligarchs?
| Come on. Wishing their death might be a bridge too far but at
| best these people deserve ambivalence, not pity.
| chasd00 wrote:
| This seems like the 20-something version of a school shooter.
| Some people just lose it and go after their current list of
| enemies in their mind with lethal force.
| sfryxell wrote:
| Maaaan, The NYPD will take credit for oxygen. Right now their
| talking like they solved it. a "combination of old-school
| detective work and new age technology"
|
| it was an employee at McDonalds. McDonalds solved this crime.
| Like god intended.
| GuardianCaveman wrote:
| It was actually a patron at McDonalds.
| sfryxell wrote:
| Even better
| HaZeust wrote:
| That's gotta be the cover-up so they can quickly so, "oh! It
| was an anonymous tip. No one to blame or possibly endanger
| for you crazed vigilantes--sorry, thanks!"
|
| I firmly believe it was an employee.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| I feel like when you start conspiracy theorizing you're
| obligated to follow it to its logical conclusion. If I
| thought it were a cover-up to protect the store from crazed
| vigilantes, the last thing I'd do is try and put the store
| back in danger!
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| Plot twist, he hates McDonald's.
| hereme888 wrote:
| He may have been there to kill that McDonald's manager
| shrubble wrote:
| If the ice-cream machine was working properly, then they
| have one or more competent employees; which points to
| employee involvement.
|
| If the ice-cream machine was broken, then the likelihood
| is less and the employees may not have been involved.
|
| It's all very logical.
| swader999 wrote:
| Those machines are broken by design. Another instance of
| corporate capture. https://www.wired.com/story/they-
| hacked-mcdonalds-ice-cream-...
| HaZeust wrote:
| Based on your last sentence: Looks like my conspiracy
| theory holds some water then!
| lyu07282 wrote:
| Giving the reward to a minimum wage worker seems like
| something he would do if he wanted to give himself up to
| the police, like why just go to the cops, the reward would
| be wasted. Although his politics seem incongruent so maybe
| not.
| burningChrome wrote:
| Does it matter?
|
| The point is, the NYPD was compiling evidence for the media to
| release. Part of that evidence nobody had included:
|
| - the original surveillance video of the murder
|
| - the video capture of him at the hostel (with his mask down)
|
| - the video capture of him inside the cab after the murder with
| his mask
|
| Without a decent photo, he probably would still be on the run.
| Had it not been for the NYPD releasing the images of him, the
| patron or employee would not have recognized him and called the
| cops.
|
| The cops were closing in on him regardless. The photos being so
| widely circulated were a primary reason he got caught. He was
| probably forced to try and wear a mask to conceal his identity,
| but at the same time, doing so made me stick out enough that
| they called the cops.
| catlikesshrimp wrote:
| You can use makeup to change your skin color (ashen, icteric,
| black). And fake facial hair covering bone features. And
| contact lenses.
|
| Enough for a cab camera
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| That seems quite unfair. The NYPD was the one that located
| multiple pictures of the suspect, and I'm assuming did a good
| bit of detective work to ensure the pictures they released
| actually _were_ of the suspect in question. Of course at some
| point after releasing photos of the suspect one would
| anticipate that someone who recognized them would turn them in.
| xcrunner529 wrote:
| So, eyes like every human being has?
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Let me guess, you're the type of developer that says "Hah,
| it's crazy they have so many people, I could code up that
| project in a weekend!!"
| djent wrote:
| Downvoted because you are flinging personal insults
| nozzlegear wrote:
| Did you intentionally skip over this part of their comment?
|
| > _did a good bit of detective work to ensure the pictures
| they released actually were of the suspect in question_
| xcrunner529 wrote:
| "Detective" work is carrying a lot here which is really
| just comparing clothing, pictures, following the journey
| etc. all made possible from the surveillance resources
| and not their work. And after all that they didn't even
| have him as a suspect lol.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _"Detective" work is carrying a lot here which is
| really just comparing clothing, pictures, following the
| journey etc. all made possible from the surveillance
| resources and not their work_
|
| Do you remember the Boston Marathon bombings [1]?
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_of_Sunil_Tripathi
| zzbzq wrote:
| If you're more conspiratorial, nobody called from McDonalds.
| That was just a cover for whatever creepy spy tech they used.
| rKarpinski wrote:
| Basically the same thing that happened with the rapist in June
| who kidnapped and raped two random middle schoolers in broad
| daylight. Prints & and DNA were in the system, he was living in
| an apartment NYC was paying for and people called into the tip
| line with his name. It wasn't NYPD, it was a guy working at a
| bodega who apprehended him 5 days later.
| siliconc0w wrote:
| Kinda amazing someone with enough foresight to plan this and
| conceal their identity doesn't burn their ID and destroy the
| weapon as like the priority 1 after getting out of the city.
| autoexec wrote:
| If he planned to go after others he'd still need that gun, and
| he might have needed the IDs to get to his next target.
| warner25 wrote:
| Even if this were the case, I think that the fake ID would no
| longer be helpful to him once investigators were aware of it.
| I'd assume that scanning it anywhere would set off some
| alarms.
| autoexec wrote:
| > I'd assume that scanning it anywhere would set off some
| alarms
|
| I'd be worried about that too, but certainly better than
| using his actual ID. I've never tried, but I'm guessing
| it's not easy to get good fakes on short notice in strange
| cities and lots of people these days demand ID, even just
| to get a room for the night.
| dathinab wrote:
| Is that just me or does the head shape not quite match between
| releases CCTF footage and the BBC picture and (supposed) mugshot
| I have seen elsewhere.
|
| Like it's similar but not quite the same mainly less pronounced
| cheek bones, wider less "bubbly at the tip" nose.
|
| But honestly maybe I'm just hallucinating this due to differences
| in angle light conditioning etc.
|
| EDIT: To be clear I'm not saying "it's not him" (implying
| conspiracy or similar), but saying "my first reaction was huh did
| I click the wrong link that looks like someone else".
| archagon wrote:
| Back in June, an innocent Latino student was shot in Dolores Park
| around 10pm. (Dolores being one of the most popular parks in SF,
| with people walking their dogs and playing tennis late into the
| night.) His family put up fliers all over the neighborhood
| begging for any leads. I've barely heard a peep from the media or
| authorities about the murder since it happened.
|
| In contrast, how many man-hours went into investigating Mr.
| Thompson's assassination? The wealthy and powerful will sleep
| more soundly with the suspect under arrest, yet I still feel a
| bit nervous walking around my neighborhood after dark.
|
| Is there even a question that we have a two-tiered justice
| system?
| rockorager wrote:
| I understand the fear of living near such a heinous crime, but
| you have to see the difference between the two situations.
| Random crime is scary, but is random. All signs point to this
| being an _assassination_. Brian Thompson wasn 't the victim of
| a random criminal, nor was he murdered by some person he has a
| connection with. He was assassinated. So the right question is
| why do we investigate assassinations differently than murders?
| And to me, the answer is clear - an assassination has far
| larger societal implications than a murder.
| kevinventullo wrote:
| Yes, the purpose of an assassination is to have societal
| implications. In this case, the implications primarily
| threaten the people in power. Thus, those people direct their
| forces at preventing and prosecuting such acts.
|
| This is all totally consistent with OP's charge that there is
| a two-tiered justice system. Personally, I would much rather
| see the man who murdered OP's neighbor in jail than Luigi
| Mangione.
| kc711 wrote:
| Found his github
|
| https://github.com/lnmangione
| cdfuller wrote:
| Does anybody know if his employer, TrueCar, had UHC as their
| health insurance provider?
| hippich wrote:
| Glassdoor shows:
|
| Medical PPO (All states) and HMO (CA only) Aetna PPO Aetna HMO
| (CA only) Kaiser HMO (CA only
| Miner49er wrote:
| He is 26. He likely was on his parent's insurance until very
| recently.
| zac23or wrote:
| [flagged]
| anon291 wrote:
| Do things that don't scale
| ipaddr wrote:
| His photo doesn't match the chin we saw. Something doesn't add
| up.
| bikamonki wrote:
| Easy: run both pics through a biometric check
| bikamonki wrote:
| I did it for you (using AWS compare faces)
|
| Full face pic compared to taxi pic: 81.94% similar
|
| Full face pic compared to hotel pic (not smiling): face
| matches not found
|
| Full face pic compared to hotel pic (smiling): face matches
| not found
|
| I am guessing the quality of the hotel pics I found online is
| too bad for a good test and/or biometrics work better
| comparing eyes than other face features.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| Half of NYC murders go unsolved but the entire nation's resources
| can be summoned instantly if a CEO that destroys lives by denying
| claims to increase profit margin dies. Clearly this reveals the
| hypocrisy of the justice system, and power of elites.
| game_the0ry wrote:
| Check out the PR comments on one of his projects on GH.
|
| > 'Missing Implementation for "Deny, Defend, Depose"'
|
| "Could you clarify:
|
| What machine learning model is best suited for the "Deny" phase?
| (I'm guessing a GAN for plausible deniability?) Is "Defend" using
| a reinforcement learning approach with adversarial training? For
| "Depose," are we looking at a classification problem or full-
| blown unsupervised chaos?
|
| A README section explaining how to integrate this strategy into
| Halite III bots would be invaluable to the community. Until then,
| I feel like I'm shooting blanks here."
|
| https://github.com/lnmangione/Halite-III/issues
| hawski wrote:
| I don't understand what is notable about this. Looking at
| timestamps those are all jokes, not even good ones.
| lopkeny12ko wrote:
| Regarding the title, "Software developer arrested in connection
| with murder of healthcare executive," what is the significance of
| him being a software developer and why is that relevant to the
| assassination? "Software developer" is not even mentioned once in
| the article. Is this BBC article the wrong link? Am I missing
| something?
| juunpp wrote:
| The significance is that this has been posted on HN if you
| hadn't noticed.
| matrix87 wrote:
| I don't know if this has been posted already, but here is his
| manifesto
|
| https://archive.is/2024.12.09-230659/https://breloomlegacy.s...
|
| Sounds like both he and his mother were suffering from chronic
| pain and UHC dicked them around and refused to act in good faith
| nadermx wrote:
| There is a front page reddit post showing bushy eyebrows vs
| none. So more likely not the guy
| bushbaba wrote:
| Hopefully this is the catalyst to major reform. Insurance
| companies have a deal with us, yet constantly find ways to deny
| claims. Even pregnancy I had a claim denied, from a procedure
| the INSURANCE demanded I get.
| numbsafari wrote:
| Expect no changes.
|
| He's been caught, Atlas shrugs.
| pakyr wrote:
| Was this linked from any of his existing social medias? Do we
| have any way of knowing it's actually him? I'd be just a tad
| cautious at this stage, given that the Substack page says it
| was 'Launched an hour ago' as of writing. The article, sure,
| dead man's switch, but the Substack publication itself was only
| created after his arrest?
|
| Edit: also worth noting that whatever this is, it's not the
| document he had with him when he was arrested, since that
| apparently contained[0] the following excerpt, while this
| doesn't
|
| > "These parasites had it coming," one line from the document
| reads, according to a police official who has seen it. Another
| reads, "I do apologize for any strife and trauma, but it had to
| be done."
|
| [0]https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/09/us/unitedhealthcare-ceo-
| brian...
| matrix87 wrote:
| this archive link is floating around on blind and reddit. I
| have no idea if it's authentic. I didn't find a link to his
| other social media but the part about back pain lines up with
| this bit I found in a nymag article [0]
|
| > Something seems to have changed in recent months. Martin
| told a Hawaii publication that his friend had suffered
| chronic back pain and texted him images after getting surgery
| before going "radio silent" over the summer. Asked in court
| if he was in contact with family, Mangione said "until
| recently."
|
| [0] https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/luigi-mangione-
| unite...
| pakyr wrote:
| The Substack is still live[0]. Anyway, one of the images in
| his Twitter banner[1] is an X-ray of a spine with a bunch
| of screws in it. The Substack is also named after Breloom
| and has a picture at the bottom, and that's also in the
| Twitter banner but doesn't seem otherwise prominent in any
| of his social medias. Not very hard to figure out a spinal
| issue as a potential motive and guess at an interest based
| on the banner and cook up a quick viral post. I'm not
| saying it's definitely fake, just urging a bit of caution
| for the time being.
|
| [0]https://breloomlegacy.substack.com/p/the-allopathic-
| complex-...
|
| [1]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GeYOLH2WgAA16X7.jpg
| matrix87 wrote:
| > The Substack is still live
|
| This might be a bug in substack? If you go to
| https://substack.com/@breloomlegacy it says "Profile not
| found", so they might've tried to scrub it
|
| maybe some cache ttl hasn't run out yet or something :/
| pakyr wrote:
| I dunno, but the article continues to be live, and I
| can't imagine Substack doesn't know how to scrub posts
| from their platform if they wanted to. We'll find out
| eventually I guess, so I'll continue to urge people to be
| cautious with this and wait a bit.
| lolinder wrote:
| It's gone from Substack now, but I agree with you that we
| should be cautious in assuming anything at this point.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| Why would substack scrub it? I thought they were anti
| censorship.
| ayewo wrote:
| I'm guessing they are afraid of inspiring copy-cats.
|
| Not that it would stop a really determined copy-cat from
| taking notes from Luigi Mangione.
| burningChrome wrote:
| My buddy sent me a link to that archive.ph version of the
| substack, but it showed it was published today??
| WD-42 wrote:
| That is an intense read.
| xcrunner529 wrote:
| I really don't think we should be giving it any attention
| right now without any verification of it. Probably some loser
| asked ChatGPT to spit shit out.
| ALittleLight wrote:
| I doubt this is real. The New York Times mentions that he comes
| from a prosperous family - seems incongruous with his mother
| lacking healthcare desperately.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/09/nyregion/who-is-luigi-man...
| Blackthorn wrote:
| Joe Biden, the _vice president of the United States_ at the
| time, was seriously struggling with healthcare costs.
| Prosperous families can quickly become unprosperous from
| healthcare in this country.
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| I would buy that a wealthy person would have the anger and
| the resources to learn how to stalk, make a plan, use a
| weapon. Poverty is a drain on your mental capacity for nearly
| everything else besides survival.
|
| Also I don't doubt that his mother would lack healthcare
| desperately even when wealthy. Women in pain are one the
| biggest demographics of denied healthcare. Even extremely
| wealthy, well-connected women.
| burningChrome wrote:
| So instead of using her money to find care elsewhere with a
| different company or even in a different country, he just
| decided to murder the CEO of the company that denied his
| coverage?
|
| How absolutely insane does that sound?
|
| My buddy was a pro hockey player. He retired and a few
| years later, he blew out his knee. He didn't have insurance
| and was in a lot of pain every day. He knew he couldn't
| afford a 25K bill for surgery so he got on a plane, flew to
| Argentina, got his surgery done, stayed for two weeks and
| flew back. The whole ordeal cost him around 8K for the
| whole deal.
|
| Instead of plotting to kill the CEO of some healthcare
| company, he found a solution to his problem instead.
|
| This is the difference between this guy and thousands of
| other people who are in chronic pain. Some smoke weed, some
| find treatments in other countries, some find homeopathic
| remedies and many other combinations therein. They don't
| just go off the deep end and plot to murder someone because
| they felt so wronged by a health care company.
|
| What has he accomplished by doing what he did? Nothing.
| There's already been a video of the new CEO to employees
| about how they intend to stay the path of denying necessary
| treatments and expenditures. All of that pent up hate and
| anger and instead of channeling that into doing something
| positive for himself and his mother, he just took out on
| the CEO of a company instead.
| xcrunner529 wrote:
| So you acknowledge a problem and think it's perfectly
| acceptable to have our healthcare broken and using some
| other country's resources is an ok substitute? Laughable.
| And this isn't even getting into all of the denied cases
| under the direction of this CEO for actual insurance that
| is supposed to cover you. Kids not getting cancer meds.
| Give me a break.
| computerthings wrote:
| > some find homeopathic remedies
|
| What the actual fuck.
|
| Look up neuropathy. I know someone suffering from it.
|
| > What has he accomplished by doing what he did?
|
| He accomplished that this particular CEO no longer goes
| to bed smugly each night, resting in wealth, while
| profiting of the suffering of others. It also made social
| media fun as it hasn't been in a long, long time. It's
| bringing all sorts of people together, wondering if they
| might not be so different after all. It's also causing a
| lot of people to get tattoos.
|
| Probably more importantly, it causes all sorts of people
| to come out with stories about their or their loved ones'
| experiences with the health care system in the US.
|
| Then there are all the news pieces where people in golden
| cages express shock at the pesky rabble celebrating. The
| pesky rabble notices and discusses that, too. They
| particularly notice the hypocrisy, how their lives are
| worth nothing, and how they once again are told what to
| think.
|
| It put little a crack in the scheme of riling poor people
| up against each other, where there was _no_ crack at all
| before.
|
| What did your buddy achieve? He fixed his problem for 8k
| dollars which is still insane considering health should
| not be for profit. And if he wouldn't have have had 8k,
| he maybe would have just stayed in pain with a weed
| addiction, but at least he didn't become a murderer. Good
| for him, but if he wants to sit here and judge this dude
| for losing it after what his mother went through, let him
| speak for himself maybe.
| FactKnower69 wrote:
| >Instead of plotting to kill the CEO of some healthcare
| company, he found a solution to his problem instead.
|
| invoking "bootstraps" unironically in this exact,
| specific context is one of the dumbest fucking things
| I've ever, ever seen
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| How does your buddy feel about the shooter, given his
| experience with the medical system? Would he approve of
| you using him as an example of why an elderly woman with
| a severe, largely untreated nervous system chronic
| illness, which cannot be solved by any one procedure
| domestically or abroad, should just fix herself somehow?
|
| This reads very "I have black a black friend, so I can
| speak on race issues".
| burningChrome wrote:
| >> How does your buddy feel about the shooter, given his
| experience with the medical system?
|
| He's already said he would never support what he did,
| regardless of what happened to him or how he was treated.
|
| >> Would he approve of you using him as an example of why
| an elderly woman with a severe, largely untreated nervous
| system chronic illness, which cannot be solved by any one
| procedure domestically or abroad, should just fix herself
| somehow?
|
| He's already told multiple people in multiple
| conversations I've been around him that he felt compelled
| to leave the country to get treatment because the system
| is so broke here. I don't need his approval or permission
| to use his experience.
|
| Its been widely reported the shooters family is wealthy.
| With such financial resources, both the shooter and his
| mom could've easily sought treatment elsewhere, but did
| not. Apparently people don't like the idea that life is
| hard and sometimes caring for your loved ones isn't easy,
| is time consuming and takes a lot of energy to endure.
|
| Its clear the shooter decided he didn't have the
| constitution to do something different and instead of
| taking the decision process out of UHC's hands and do
| something himself to help his family, he merely
| acquiesced to what UHC was doing until he decided he
| needed to murder the CEO of the company.
|
| >> This reads very "I have black a black friend, so I can
| speak on race issues".
|
| "Those who preach about tolerance and acceptance rarely,
| if ever, practice it themselves."
|
| Thanks for confirming this is your level of discourse.
| itchyouch wrote:
| As someone dealing with a similar health journey of loved
| ones as the killer's, it takes a tremendous amount of
| time and effort to finally come to the conclusion that
| the medical system as a whole isn't very helpful for
| certain conditions, before one takes treatment into their
| own hands.
|
| Doctors fear of malpractice and pressure to fit in as
| many billable moments in a day means that there's really
| no deep "engineering" of someone's problems that doesn't
| fit neatly into their mental diagnostic flow chart. So
| it's presented as needing expensive diagnostic work, to
| which the insurance companies also put up their hoops.
| And doctors are also not trained in nutrition and its
| effect on chronic illness such as this shooter's mothers.
|
| So what it ends up feeling like is that if only the
| insurance companies were efficient, we could have an
| efficient route to hope while the insurance companies
| block such efforts.
|
| Healthcare in America is one of those areas where
| unintuitive solutions are needed, and I would argue that
| it starts at the lifestyle prevention level before it
| even gets to the medical doctors and insurance companies.
| goodluckchuck wrote:
| The underlying point of the manifesto is that insurers have
| corrupted medicine itself. Regardless of whether the care
| would be covered, the doctors were trained to diagnose and
| treat in a way that isn't designed to cure, but to "care."
| Sure, she had visits and specialists and diagnoses and it was
| largely incompetent, because incompetent doctors are cheap in
| a system where inaction has no real consequence.
| nradov wrote:
| Which is total nonsense. There is certainly plenty of room
| for improvement in the healthcare system. But the average
| competence level of doctors is higher now than ever before.
| If you think we have problems now than look how many quacks
| there were a century ago, before health insurance even
| really existed.
| goodluckchuck wrote:
| I think both views are partially right. Yes, medicine has
| advanced. There are many areas where the treatments
| simply didn't exist, even 20 years ago. There are
| different people involved with different incentives.
| However, that doesn't mean that insurance hasn't also had
| a negative effect on quality of care. The example that
| comes to mind the standard of care for back injuries.
| Treatment begins maybe with an x-ray to check for
| fractures, but then NSAIDs. If that doesn't work, then
| physical therapy a couple times a week for a few weeks.
| Then patients may get an MRI a couple months later...
| after it's too late to see bruising to the spinal cord.
| So, there's almost never direct evidence that a
| herniation is work-related, and thus it isn't covered by
| workers compensation. The path of escalation is designed
| to reduce costs, but starting with an MRI on day one is
| decidedly better for patient outcomes.
| nradov wrote:
| Regardless of insurance issues, are there actually
| evidence-based medicine guidelines to support an
| immediate MRI for back injuries? By injury do you mean
| some kind of specific trauma, or any serious back pain
| regardless of suspected cause? Many patients do recover
| with OTC analgesics, proper physical therapy, and time.
|
| https://peterattiamd.com/stuartmcgill/
|
| What you'll find with imaging for those structures is
| that many patients appear to have abnormalities or
| apparent pathologies, including patients who don't have
| any pain. So while MRI can be helpful for diagnosis and
| treatment it isn't necessarily definitive.
|
| There is always going to be a resource allocation and
| care rationing issue with expensive services like MRI.
| Other countries with socialized healthcare often have
| long queues for non-emergency MRIs. In fact, we often see
| affluent Canadians coming to the USA as medical tourists
| to skip the queues.
| allturtles wrote:
| Medicine, like engineering, is a domain of trade-offs.
|
| You _could_ order MRIs for every back pain complaint,
| which would improve outcomes for some % of patients,
| while probably worsening outcomes for others (due to red
| herring findings that lead to unnecessary treatments),
| but at what cost? Who will bear this cost? Regardless of
| health care system, someone will have to. Most back pain
| self-resolves with home care, so it makes sense to try
| that first, unless you have reason to suspect severe
| trauma that needs immediate treatment (e.g. the patient
| just fell off a ladder).
| Dem_Boys wrote:
| He would be awaken in the night to his mother screaming in pain
| while United healthcare denied claims and refused new
| treatment. She had severe neuropathy.
|
| Holy shit this would leave a scar on anyone. I couldn't even
| imagine the emotional pain this causes.
|
| Not saying this justifies murder but what would you do if a
| close loved one was screaming in agony daily and there's
| nothing you can do about it because the insurance company is
| blocking treatments?
| tanseydavid wrote:
| And then later: _" Now my own chronic back pain wakes me in
| the night, screaming in pain."_
|
| What an interesting coincidence that he developed a medical
| condition that wakes him with screaming as well.
| runako wrote:
| [flagged]
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| Hypermobile Ehlers Danlos (hEDS) can cause Small Fiber
| Neuropathy and back pain, as well as poor healing from
| surgery. It's also more common in engineering type
| people, higher IQ, ADHD, anxiety disorder etc
|
| It's probably the most under-diagnosed condition in
| general. It's also autosomal dominant. Can present as
| psychosomatic - gaslighting from doctors is typical.
|
| It's a shame more people don't know about it because
| there are ways to effectively treat it - it's an area
| where patient communities are far ahead of the medical
| community. So this could be a failure on two fronts, a
| failure of insurance but even if they had unlimited
| coverage there still would have been a failure in
| treatment.
| searealist wrote:
| You are talking about schizophrenia, right?
| iterance wrote:
| My grandfather suffered chronic sciatic nerve pain. My
| father suffered chronic sciatic nerve pain. Now I, too,
| suffer chronic sciatic nerve pain.
|
| I wonder why that is?
|
| You have no idea how bad it can get.
|
| No, surely it's made up. Nevermind: how foolish was I...
| scruple wrote:
| I don't have sciatic pain, thank God, but I have bulging
| discs from a spinal compression injury. The first few
| months were excruciating -- I couldn't exist without
| horrific pain, no position I could lay in, sit in, stand
| in, etc., would provide any relief. I couldn't stand
| fully upright for weeks. And, even post-recovery, the
| last 2 years haven't exactly been pleasant. I am still
| managing my lower back on a day-to-day basis but I am
| primarily pain-free today.
|
| Chronic pain really takes you somewhere else mentally.
| Now that I am, for the time being, on the other side of
| it, it has also made me _extremely empathetic_ to people
| who suffer through it.
| kernal wrote:
| His X profile picture showed an X-ray of him with 4 screws
| in his lower spine that was likely due to an injury he
| suffered as he was very athletic.
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| Reposting since my other comment is hidden under a flagged
| comment.
|
| It really sounds like he has hEDS. Hypermobile Ehlers
| Danlos (hEDS) can cause Small Fiber Neuropathy and back
| pain, as well as poor healing from surgery. It's also more
| common in engineering type people, higher IQ, ADHD, anxiety
| disorder etc
|
| It's probably the most under-diagnosed condition in
| general. It's also autosomal dominant. Can present as
| psychosomatic - gaslighting from doctors is typical.
|
| It's a shame more people don't know about it because there
| are ways to effectively treat it - it's an area where
| patient communities are far ahead of the medical community.
| So this could be a failure on two fronts, a failure of
| insurance but even if they had unlimited coverage there
| still would have been a failure in treatment.
| garrettgarcia wrote:
| He could have asked for charity, or asked hi multi-
| millionaire grandfather or fabulously wealthy family for
| help, or sued the insurance company, or taken out loans, or
| made a ton of money of his own and paid cash and negotiated
| directly with the providers, or mortgage the family mansion,
| sell everything he owns. There are millions of things he
| could have done.
|
| "Nothing you can do about it" is just a lie people tell
| themselves to justify violence.
| adamc wrote:
| A good lawyer might argue insanity from that. You never know
| what the jury will buy. Insurance companies are not loved.
|
| I agree that murder is not a solution, but the reality is
| that we need a real health care system.
| latentcall wrote:
| Some say it's fake, some say it's real. I think it's very well
| written and raw and therefore if it is fake, it's very
| convincing.
|
| He could have help on the outside to post things also.
| grandmczeb wrote:
| This is an extremely obvious fake.
|
| Here's a description of the actual manifesto from the NYT:
|
| > The 262-word handwritten manifesto that the police found on
| Luigi Mangione begins with the writer appearing to take
| responsibility for the murder, according to a senior law
| enforcement official who saw the document. It notes that as
| UnitedHealthcare's market capitalization has grown, American
| life expectancy has not. "To save you a lengthy investigation,
| I state plainly that I wasn't working with anyone," he wrote.
| The note condemns companies that "continue to abuse our country
| for immense profit because the American public has allowed them
| to get away with it."
|
| > The handwritten manifesto found on Mangione contained the
| passages "These parasites had it coming" and "I do apologize
| for any strife and trauma, but it had to be done," according to
| a senior law enforcement official who saw the document.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/12/09/nyregion/unitedhealt...
| almost_usual wrote:
| No idea if this is real or not but neuropathy is horrible. I
| had a mild case of it after hurting my back which caused spinal
| inflammation.
|
| Sensations of tiny zaps all over my body 24/7, most noticeable
| when falling asleep. Ibuprofen helped a bit, fortunately it
| went away after a few months.
| uhtred wrote:
| One too many retros
| Aeroi wrote:
| Logically, he had a mental breakdown post surgery with all the
| characteristics and data trail leading to the outcome. However
| _tinfoil hat goes on_ , his station in Hawaii/Japan and
| background indicate he may have been recruited by the agency and
| was completing a task, and/or is just taking the fall on behalf
| of some random guy who actually committed the crime and is
| already in a black site.
| Animats wrote:
| A few days ago, HN had "The pitchforks are coming for us
| plutocrats."[1] I wrote, no, otherwise the US wouldn't have
| elected a billionaire as a populist president.
|
| Maybe that was wrong.
|
| The US has historically been a safe space for the rich. There's
| never been anything like the French Revolution, or the Russian
| Revolution, or the Maoist revolution. The people in charge of the
| American Revolution were mostly well off. The US hasn't even had
| a period of high taxes intended to impoverish the rich, as the UK
| did after WWII.
|
| Occupy Wall Street, the Reparations movement, and its
| predecessors, such as the National Welfare Rights Organization,
| went nowhere. Organized labor is barely alive in the private
| sector. Don't expect much from that direction.
|
| There's the possibility that the coalition the incoming president
| created might go beyond what he intended and become a radical
| populist movement. That's happened in other countries when some
| rabble-rouser got the population wound up, then lost control of
| them.
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42335797
| mmooss wrote:
| > There's never been anything like the French Revolution, or
| the Russian Revolution, or the Maoist revolution.
|
| US culture has long actively reviled and denied power to
| aristocracy.
|
| The story that the rich are in physical danger is used by
| Trump's supporters to create a paranoid victim mentality among
| the wealthiest and most powerful. (America - anyone can be a
| victim!)
| keiferski wrote:
| Unlikely. Here's what will happen instead:
|
| Corporations will beef up security and keep doing what they
| were doing before. Police and government will increase
| surveillance budgets, citing this event as reasoning. And no
| one will interpret this act of violence as anything other than
| a random event to prevent.
|
| You don't get structural change by extreme singular events.
| That's not how it works.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| > You don't get structural change by extreme singular events.
|
| The word _singular_ is doing a lot of work there.
|
| Historically 'propagande par le fait' has had a massive
| effect on policy.
|
| The implication that you have to not only focus on EBITDA but
| also on social responsibility (in a real non-PR way) is ever
| lasting if this propagates to more than a single occurrence.
|
| Which is why mainstream media and authorities are so worried
| about controlling the narrative of the events (depicting
| Brian as a loving father etc.)
| keiferski wrote:
| _Historically 'propagande par le fait' has had a massive
| effect on policy._
|
| What examples are you thinking of, exactly? When,
| precisely, did a person/group assassinate someone and have
| that act push forward their cause?
|
| _Which is why mainstream media and authorities are so
| worried about controlling the narrative of the events
| (depicting Brian as a loving father etc.)_
|
| Or, maybe the idea that killing a random healthcare CEO and
| acting like that will solve the healthcare disaster is a
| childish idea that belongs in a movie like _The Purge_ or a
| Marvel film?
|
| The world isn't that simple. It's incredible that people
| have such a one-dimensional moral worldview.
| spencerflem wrote:
| Being charitable, it's not that it will *solve* the
| disaster, but that its justice applied. Does locking up a
| single drug dealer solve the war on drugs, or jailing a
| murderer solve anything for the victim of the murder?
| keiferski wrote:
| No serious definition of justice includes shooting people
| in the street because they committed a supposed crime.
| This is literally the basis of civilization.
| spencerflem wrote:
| It is illegal, for obvious reasons, but justice is a
| moral question.
|
| We have trials to apply justice because it's not always
| clear who did what and it would be terribly unjust to
| lock someone up for something they didn't do.
| keiferski wrote:
| And precisely what wise, intelligent definition of "moral
| justice" includes shooting people on the street?
|
| The answer is: none. This wasn't some elaborate ethical
| act, nor is the pathetic justification of it online. It
| is boring old mob mentality, combined with class
| resentment and a number of other things.
| spencerflem wrote:
| Imagine someone has taken something of yours- would it be
| just to take it back, even if it could not be proven in
| court? I'd argue yes, though the trick is convincing
| everyone else that it was just.
|
| Imagine someone murders your brother. They are friends
| with the judge so they are let to walk. Have you been
| denied justice?
|
| Again, the reason not to shoot people on the street is
| not because it is always unjust but because its not
| always clear what is just and we would like a fair
| consistent way to decide that, in a way that's legible to
| other people.
|
| If you think the death penalty is fair, then you admit
| that you are fine with people being killed in the name of
| justice. The only question is, is the person the one who
| did the crime. Normally a judge would decide that but I
| don't see why that's a prerequisite
| keiferski wrote:
| No, the reason not to shoot people on the street is
| because it undermines a basic function of civilization.
| Even when someone is clearly guilty, the legal system
| must still have a monopoly on violence. Otherwise, you
| get anarchy. This has been a basic assumption of
| civilization going back thousands of years.
|
| And there's still the question of exactly what
| culpability a CEO of a major insurance corporation
| actually has, what supposed crime he has committed, and
| what the appropriate punishment should be. As far as I
| can tell, pretty much no one applauding this act has any
| real understanding of how corporations actually work, or
| what this specific CEO did that warranted him being
| murdered. As I said above, there is no intelligent
| defense here. It's just populist street violence.
| spencerflem wrote:
| I don't see how it divolves into anarchy if you only go
| after people who ~everyone agrees is guilty. The point of
| judges is to decide who that is and communicate it so
| people can convince themselves that justice is done, or
| at least close enough.
|
| It devolves if its unclear, or someone takes it too far
| and then there's a reprisal etc.
| keiferski wrote:
| Because there is no scenario where everyone agrees. Even
| if someone agrees that the person is guilty, they may
| disagree on the punishment.
|
| And to use the recent situation as an example: no one
| other than the shooter decided that the victim was
| guilty, or what his punishment ought to be.
| spencerflem wrote:
| Yeah totally-
|
| That's why its illegal and I agree it should be illegal.
|
| I personally feel like the CEO was guilty and the
| punishment was deserved. That it was just. Based on what
| I've heard, a lot of other people agree too.
|
| This is irrespective of whether the prescident is good
| etc. All I'm trying to say is that this is what the guy
| deserved and its a failing of our government that these
| types live as lavishly as they do on our backs. That is
| unjust. We willingly trade some justice for social
| stability and that's a good thing and I hope there's not
| follow ups to this with more sympathetic targets. I don't
| want to be subjected to everyone's conflicting ideas of
| justice.
|
| I'll ask you this before continuing to argue:
|
| Can you imagine any situation where the courts are not
| willing or able to supply justice? Is there any other
| country or hypothetical country where the courts are
| corrupt enough that something could happen outside of the
| courts and you would approve? Should one ever trade
| political stability for justice?
| gorfian_robot wrote:
| Archduke Ferdinand has entered the chat ...
| s_dev wrote:
| >The US hasn't even had a period of high taxes intended to
| impoverish the rich, as the UK did after WWII.
|
| Effective US Corporation tax was as high as 50% post WWII.
| Effective income taxes were between 70% and 90%.
| throwaway314155 wrote:
| Why not use the original title ("Luigi Mangione: What we know
| about CEO shooting suspect")? Why the need for sensationalism
| over his status as a software engineer?
| dang wrote:
| We've reverted it now. (Submitted title was "Software developer
| arrested in connection with murder of healthcare executive")
| fhub wrote:
| Keeping a lot of the incriminating evidence on him (including, it
| seems, the jacket) can't be a careless mistake (in my opinion).
| So what are some of the possible reasons?
|
| - He committed the crime and had another target in mind
|
| - He committed the crime and really didn't think he'd get away
| with it so he kept it to keep some unknown options open.
|
| - He committed the crime and didn't want any doubt that he was
| guilty when he got caught. Perhaps he wanted the media to be
| focussed more on the "why" than "is it him?" speculation.
|
| How about some of the possible reasons he was at a McDonalds
| instead of many other ways to get food that wouldn't have
| security cameras
|
| - He was ready to be caught as the media cycle was moving on and
| he perceived momentum of empathy for him right now
|
| - He was ready to be caught because being on the run was too hard
| and not inline with his goals
|
| - He wasn't thinking clearly and didn't really have much of a
| post-shooting plan outside of getting out of NYC
|
| - He felt safe in that town
|
| - He overestimated his support
| datadrivenangel wrote:
| - He wasn't thinking clearly and didn't really have much of a
| post shooting plan outside of getting out of NYC
|
| Seems pretty likely that this was the case. Getting away from
| the site of the crime is challenging enough!
| that_guy_iain wrote:
| Getting in and out of NYC leaving as little as he did was the
| challenge. Getting across the border or camping out in the
| Forrest for a few weeks shouldn't be that much of a challenge
| in comparison.
| itishappy wrote:
| A few weeks in an NY forest in December? That's a challenge
| even if you're prepared.
| nozzlegear wrote:
| You're missing one of the most obvious reasons: he might not be
| as smart or as clever as the internet's romanticized version of
| the assassin.
| abc-1 wrote:
| Plenty of smart and clever people make mistakes all of the
| time and you're only oppressing yourself if you think
| otherwise. For fear of making mistakes is foolish pride.
| tern wrote:
| Crime and Punishment (Dostoyevski) illustrates this. It's
| probably wasn't a conscious process or well thought out plan,
| and it's difficult to imagine and prepare for the pressures of
| a life-and-death situation in advance.
| agilob wrote:
| > (including, it seems, the jacket)
|
| Just 2 days ago, the police reported they found his backpack
| with jacket inside and a veterinary gun nearby... now he had
| the same jacket, backpack and another unlicenced gun with him.
| His eyebrows and nose are different, can clearly see it from
| the few released pictures.
| mandmandam wrote:
| It's surprising how many people are missing this crucial
| step.
|
| CCTV footage shows a guy with certain features.
|
| Days later, after no leads whatsoever, another photo shows a
| guy with markedly different features.
|
| Now authorities say they have caught a guy matching the
| second footage. He conveniently walked into a McDonalds with
| his manifesto, fake ID, and a 3d printed gun. ???
|
| Idk man, _could_ be legit I guess... But it is a bit wild
| that so many people are taking all this at face value,
| unquestioned; as if there isn 't tremendous pressure on
| authorities to deliver a neatly packaged conclusion to the
| story at almost any cost.
| catlikesshrimp wrote:
| Any sane person would discard the evidence by scattering it.
| Any homeless will take anyone of the items.
|
| He was smart enough to carry away the feat without getting
| caught. He is not smart socially, his demise doesn't serve his
| purpose. Sounds like fit to be an engineer. And kind of
| suicidal.
| Uptrenda wrote:
| I find that the gun and silencer were 3D printed really quite
| fascinating (also maybe why people were saying the gun jammed --
| less reliable?) I knew you could 3D print guns (not sure if the
| whole thing can be 3D printed.) But it would seem that most parts
| (including the ammo) can be easily moved. That would make it
| trivial to bypass firearm restrictions the world over? Though I
| imagine getting caught with a ghost gun would ruin your life.
|
| Note: I am a law abiding citizen, don't raid me, lol...
| bdangubic wrote:
| whether or not it would ruin your life largely depends on your
| skin color
| ranger207 wrote:
| The only parts that really need to be metal are the barrel and
| bolt to contain the burning of the powder, and springs.
| Although, you can get by with plastic barrel and bolt if your
| design is sufficiently strong, and you don't have to have non-
| manual reloading, obviating the need for springs. The
| silencer's important parts are simply pressure baffles that
| don't need to be metal (although it helps significantly).
|
| In this case, the design was replicating that of a Glock 43
| IIRC, which is already mostly plastic. Guns are modular of
| course, and so there's a part that's legally designated the
| firearm to avoid ship-of-Theseus problems. For the Glock that's
| the frame, which includes the handle. That part's made out of
| plastic (except for a metal plate that has the serial number
| and can be detected by metal detectors). Since the frame on the
| original gun is plastic, it's designed not to have much force
| put on it, so it's not a technically difficult 3d print either.
| In the US (federally; states may have further restrictions)
| it's not illegal to manufacture your own firearm as long as
| it's for your own use. All the other parts, like the barrel,
| trigger, etc (not the silencer though), are unregulated, so
| it's perfectly legal to 3d print your own or just buy them and
| have them shipped to your house. (There's also the concept of
| an "80% lower": at what point does a piece of metal become a
| gun? Generally it's held to be that before the gun's than 80%
| complete then it's just a piece of metal, so you can buy <80%
| complete guns with no regulation that include a jig and
| instructions for completing the last 20% work yourself to make
| a ghost gun at home. Selling any unregistered firearm is very
| legally fraught.) Silencers (aka suppressors) are heavily
| regulated and it's not legal for just anyone to make one, but
| if you're not concerned with longevity or legality you can make
| one out of plastic easily with a minimum of design work.
|
| The Glock uses a tilting barrel system: the barrel and slide
| are joined by a set of lugs on the barrel that fit into
| recesses in the slide, and after the bullet is fired are pushed
| back together by the force of recoil. The slide slides on
| linear rails, but the barrel has a pivot, so eventually as the
| barrel and slide travel back together, the barrel will tilt out
| of the recesses in the slide and allow the slide to continue
| backwards, opening space between the barrel and slide for the
| previous round to be extracted and a new round to be loaded
| automatically. You can imagine that hanging a big heavy tube
| off the barrel in the form of a silencer can be detrimental to
| the working of this system. In fact, you're supposed to use a
| recoil booster to increase recoil while using a silencer on
| tilting-barrel pistols to ensure more reliable operation. It's
| unlikely that malfunctions were because any parts were 3d
| printed in this case.
| rightbyte wrote:
| How do you make the 'spike' that sets of the primer in
| plastic? Does that work?
|
| Edit: Maybe only rifles have those?
| rightbyte wrote:
| I don't get it. Why would an American need to make the gun
| himself? Just go to Walmart. Was he on psychopharmaca maybe.
| giardini wrote:
| There is a similar thread on zerohedge.com:
|
| https://www.zerohedge.com/political/person-interest-nyc-assa...
|
| It contains _much_ discussion regarding esp.
|
| - the police finding a gun, multiple IDs and a "manifesto" on his
| person. Much suspicion of the suspect being a "patsy", i.e.,
| someone falsely incriminated.
|
| - questioning of the rationality of the suspect, i.e., was he
| mentally ill, a drug user, etc.
|
| Best segment [copied here] concerned the suspect's travels: ...
|
| 12 hours ago iamtheghostofeustacemullins:
|
| I don't understand how this guy could be on the lam for five days
| and only get as far as Altoona PA?
|
| 12 hours ago iamtheghostofeustacemullins:
|
| Note to self: It takes me around 8 hours to drive to JFK Airport
| from Wheeling WV.
|
| 12 hours ago ElChapocabra:
|
| He rode an actual lamb?
|
| 12 hours ago J Jason Djfmam:
|
| Specifically, an escape goat.
|
| 12 hours ago _0000_:
|
| lol
|
| 7 hours ago PressCheck:
|
| Worth reading thru all the stupid comments just to read ones like
| this ...
| ablation wrote:
| > Worth reading thru all the stupid comments just to read ones
| like this ...
|
| I'm not sure that's true, given that it's Zero Hedge and
| therefore like wading through a toxic stew of stupidity and
| sub-4chan conspiracy theorising.
| giardini wrote:
| C'mon, laugh a little!
|
| When I got up this morning I was still laughing about the
| "escape goat" reference in a long dreary thread raising the
| possibility of outside actors, planting of evidence, and
| other wild speculations.
|
| Zerohedge used to be good - maybe it could be good again. It
| certainly has participation.
| rajnathani wrote:
| Valedictorian in high school, from a well-off family, studied
| computer science in college that too from a pretty good college,
| founded / involved-in a game dev club in college, had people
| around him refer to him as nice, also had familial relations to
| someone in a good post such as in his case in a state
| legislature.
|
| He unfortunately sounds very similar to people like you and I
| here on Hacker News, rather than what we all had in mind about
| his possible persona.
| silexia wrote:
| Sounds like drug abuse hurt him.
| xyst wrote:
| A couple of theories:
|
| - person clearly had meticulously planned the execution of the
| hit and exfiltration. Even leaving red herrings on his way out of
| the city (backpack full of Monopoly money). Yet clumsily keeps
| _all_ of the evidence that would implicate himself in this
| murder. Not to mention he is wandering about in public while a
| multi-state manhunt is underway with the full weight of alphabet
| soup agencies, and state and local LEOs? To me, this suggests it
| was part of his plan to get caught. There was no escape to a non-
| extradition country. The "shaking" mentioned while talking with
| police could just be a massive surge of adrenaline as he sees his
| plan unfold before his eyes. Then use the live streamed and
| televised court to spread his message. Then live out the rest of
| his life as a political figure as the media continue to analyze
| this persons life and motivations. Just like Ted.
|
| - Or the internet, media really over-estimated this persons
| competence. It was really just dumb luck that he even escaped
| NYC. At that point, he was just improvising after leaving NYC.
| His arrogance to keep the evidence as some sick mementos or
| trophies ultimately did him in. Likely try to plead insanity with
| the manifesto. Probably fail to do so, then eventually get
| convicted on all charges and end up in a supermax penitentiary
| for life.
| jjallen wrote:
| If you wanted to get caught then why not just stay at the crime
| scene or surrender a few days later?
|
| But maybe he knew it was inevitable so he spent his last few
| days living life normally.
| 4gotunameagain wrote:
| Maybe to create clout ? (assuming he really intended to get
| caught eventually)
|
| Reportedly he is smart, so he probably knows the value of a
| good mystery.
| mdanger007 wrote:
| We amateur criminologist assume intent in every clue. But
| Luigi, just like Roskalnikov, probably was a mixture of
| guilt, incompetence, and mental breakdown, as the reality
| of his situation and its hopelessness took over his
| thoughts.
| karmakurtisaani wrote:
| Anyone speculating too far should think how well they
| would sleep after shooting someone on the street and
| fleeing the biggest manhunt in recent history. Then ask
| themselves what kind of decisions they could make after 2
| days of no sleep and immense stress.
|
| People watch too many movies.
| rob74 wrote:
| I imagine a person who stays at the crime scene after
| shooting someone several times is in much higher danger of
| being shot himself than if he flees and is captured later.
| ithkuil wrote:
| Another option is to flee and shortly after turn yourself
| in into a police station unarmed
| bbqfog wrote:
| He probably didn't want to get caught until he saw millions
| of people were on his side, then he changed his mind. Smart
| move imho. He started a movement he probably didn't
| anticipate.
| troyvit wrote:
| I don't know if it was intentional but he certainly drummed
| up the hype over the murder by staying free as long as he
| did.
| lm28469 wrote:
| It wouldn't be the first time the police/three letters agencies
| lie about how they identified/located a suspect to not leak
| potentially illegal surveillance processes
| patrickk wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction
| lazystar wrote:
| and its looking like they jumped the gun on brian
| kohberger. they keep delaying the trial; i would not be
| surprised if he goes free.
| __alexs wrote:
| Agree but doesn't explain why he would be carrying so much
| incriminating stuff around with him.
| Cumpiler69 wrote:
| Maybe because he wanted to get caught? Or at least expected
| it and knew there was no way he'd get away with it.
| CPLX wrote:
| My theory is that he wasn't done assassinating CEOs.
|
| It's the obvious answer as to why he still had the gun on
| him.
| ayewo wrote:
| Assuming this (now deleted) post outlining his
| justification was indeed penned by the killer, he clearly
| had a motive to kill UH's CEO but not others.
|
| https://archive.is/2024.12.09-230659/https://breloomlegac
| y.s...
| jampekka wrote:
| Given the wealth of Luigi Mangione's family, if he's the
| killer, this sounds unlikely to be penned by him (or at
| least his own story).
| itchyouch wrote:
| Just because his family is wealthy does not mean that his
| mother was financially supported for her healthcare. It's
| quite possible that the family patriarch held the purse
| strings and deemed that health insurance was the line for
| their financial support.
|
| I'm in a similar situation with a family member and we
| are spending around 4-5k/month in a variety of non-
| allopathic strategies for this family member's health
| care. However, the family patriarch has drawn the line
| where his financial support is in providing housing, so
| the 4-5k is picked up by other family members.
| ashleyn wrote:
| You can be a literal millionaire and bled dry by mounting
| health insurance claim denials. There is little anyone
| can do to protect themselves from this outcome, save for
| not getting sick or becoming a billionaire. The health
| system in the US is insanely broken.
| dwallin wrote:
| All evidence points towards this being post being fake.
| gruez wrote:
| source?
| hnbad wrote:
| It seems far more likely to be a case of incompetence. Law
| enforcement actually has an extremely low rate of "solving"
| cases, especially if you exclude all the "solved" cases where
| the suspect is caught on scene or that end in a plea bargain
| (i.e. did not have to establish sufficient evidence in the
| first place).
|
| Ever since he got "caught" (if you can call someone literally
| telling the police where he is "the police catching him"),
| all I've been hearing about is how the police wants to use
| DNA evidence and bullet "fingerpints" (i.e. attempting to
| demonstrate that a bullet was not only fired from a given
| type of gun but a specific singular gun of that type) and
| other CSI woo to now tie the actual crime to him. They might
| actually be lucky and produce matches in this case as they
| have the actual suspect and murder weapon (assuming this
| wasn't an extremely unlikely 5D chess move of using a body
| double fall guy and/or different gun) but both of these types
| of evidence are extremely unreliable and rarely help actually
| finding the suspect even if they make for good television
| when they work. As I understand it the police even walked
| back on the mayor's initial claim about "having a name" to
| "having a list of names" - not to mention that you don't call
| in the FBI when you already have good leads yourself (if only
| for optics/political reasons).
|
| He seems to have been mentally unstable for a while before
| engaging in this killing and the fact he wrote a manifesto
| strongly suggests he had an intention of being caught or at
| least considered it highly likely. The monopoly money bag
| wasn't necessarily a "red herring" as everyone I heard talk
| about it interpreted it as intending to send a message, which
| seems to agree with the apparent contents of his manifesto
| (based on what news reports have cited from it). The water
| bottle the police now wants to use for DNA evidence may have
| been deliberately left there for this purpose, too.
|
| Based on what I've heard of his manifesto, he may have
| intended to kill other people too but have realized the
| difficulty involved given that his very public first killing
| likely spooked the other people on his list. I think it's
| more likely he didn't fully plan out an entire sequence of
| killings or didn't account for these complications and
| essentially gave up, settling on being caught sooner rather
| than later. People generally don't write manifestos when they
| don't also want to take credit for their actions.
| lazide wrote:
| They don't even need to actually tie him to the killing to
| put him in jail for a long time - possession of an illegal
| suppressor is a slam dunk here, and that's major jail time.
| InfiniteLoup wrote:
| Would this also apply if he were no longer in possession
| of the suppressor? Keep the gun, but ditch the
| suppressor?
| lazide wrote:
| It wouldn't help him with any of the rest of this mess,
| but possessing the illegal suppressor is an easy 'we can
| keep him in jail until we figure out the rest of this'
| situation.
| brokenmachine wrote:
| Was there a picture of the suppressor?
| kiba wrote:
| People can have contradictory motives. People in real life
| aren't driven by carefully considered system of beliefs.
| Only in fiction are people required to make sense.
|
| We just make enough sense to mostly get by in the world.
| liontwist wrote:
| Remember all those movies that show the government tracking
| people on satellites and using phone echolocation, etc?
|
| Where is that shit now for a guy they have VIDEOS of?
|
| Remember when osama bin Laden was staying a relatives house
| and not in a secret underground cave network?
|
| This CSI/Navy seal messaging is compliance propaganda.
| michaelt wrote:
| _> all I 've been hearing about is how the police wants to
| use DNA evidence and bullet "fingerpints" [...] and other
| CSI woo to now tie the actual crime to him_
|
| I don't know about your country, but in my country if you
| look like the person shown on CCTV committing a crime,
| you're wearing the same jacket, you're carrying the same
| illegal gun, and you're carrying a handwritten manifesto
| justifying the crime?
|
| That's enough evidence for a normal jury of normal people
| to convict. The cops don't really _need_ to add any DNA or
| CSI woo, juries are capable of exercising common sense.
|
| Only way there's reasonable doubt here is if the guy's
| carrying the first place trophy for the CEO shooter
| lookalike contest.
| likeabatterycar wrote:
| Educated people tend to overestimate their abilities outside
| their domain. We've all known someone with an "I can do
| anything" complex. Anyone can do anything... poorly. He likely
| deluded himself into believing he already outsmarted the cops
| so why even bother. Having two degrees doesn't make one a
| competent plumber, electrician, or in this case, criminal.
| Cumpiler69 wrote:
| _> Educated people tend to overestimate their abilities
| outside their domain._
|
| This. And HN is the perfect example to observe this
| phenomenon.
|
| I lost track how many highly confident but incorrect takes I
| read here on semiconductor topics from people who assumed
| they know everything about any tech topic because they earn
| sich figures from writing crud web software.
| smgit wrote:
| Go one step further. Why does that happen?
| laidoffamazon wrote:
| Ivy Leaguers are trained, often from birth, that they are
| better than the rest of us plebs because of their "merit"
| and represent a superhuman caste. This guy was most
| likely the same way.
|
| If you're told that you're a superhuman, then why not
| think you can get away with it?
| hnbad wrote:
| Oh, it's not just Ivy League although of course that
| usually comes with a background of privilege and prestige
| that further compounds on this tendency. STEM people in
| general heavily demonstrate this tendency. MBA types too,
| although they tend to think the solution always comes
| down to treating everything as a business or
| privatization.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| This is a good overview of some of your biases, but I
| don't think it generalises to reality.
| quonn wrote:
| > MBA types too, although they tend to think the solution
| always comes down to
|
| treating everything as a market or something to be solved
| with a market mechanism
| nickserv wrote:
| Intelligent people are not any less likely to be
| delusional than anyone. They are however, much better at
| convincing themselves and others of their delusions.
|
| People that have logic training such as lawyers and
| engineers even more so.
| goatlover wrote:
| Michael Shermer's book Why Smart People Believe Weird
| Things.
| hennell wrote:
| Probably because people on the internet like to hear
| opinions on things like psychological and sociological
| factors from people who have simply stated an expertise
| in semiconductors...
| bmitc wrote:
| Institutionalization of engineers and physicists thinking
| they are smarter than others.
| rkachowski wrote:
| overconfidence leads to participation which results in
| measurable statements and artefacts, under confidence
| does not. people are loud and (mostly) incorrect or
| silent.
| bumby wrote:
| But why would those "measurable statements and artefacts"
| lead one to believe they are competent? Presumably,
| wouldn't they also provide evidence of one's ignorance if
| they were evaluated objectively?
|
| (If it wasn't clear, I'm poking at the idea that we have
| numerous biases that prevent objective evaluation)
| lores wrote:
| People on HN skew young, smart (in one domain), and tend
| to live in a bubble of similar people. If you know you're
| smart, the smart people you talk to validate your
| smartness (in one domain), society validates it some more
| by paying you massive amounts, and you're not experienced
| enough to know better, you're bound to overestimate your
| abilities and knowledge.
|
| It needn't be most, or even many on HN, and people of all
| kinds vastly overestimate their abilities. It's just that
| on HN it's overestimating with great ambition.
|
| (I say this very confidently, don't I?)
| ethbr1 wrote:
| You sound like an expert in psychology.
| lores wrote:
| Eh, I'm nothing of the sort, I'm only advancing in years
| and have made it a point to exist in as many segments of
| society as I could. I was that cocky engineer once, my
| words are only anecdote from first-hand experience and
| observation. I never expect to be right, only hopefully
| more right than wrong.
| gosub100 wrote:
| How would discourse change to eliminate this problem?
| Should we only speak about topics we are employed in?
| Lead each comment with a summary of our qualifications,
| or a proclamation of humility where we signal how little
| we know?
| ethbr1 wrote:
| I mean, hypothetically MS or Meta could already
| automatically do this...
| abnry wrote:
| See, you put the caveat at the bottom, but I think you
| are just having a normal discussion. You aren't speaking
| "very confidently," you are just making an argument.
|
| What I think happens is people who are very knowledgeable
| about a subject are hyper-sensitive to slightly incorrect
| information. And to boost their egos they like to
| diminish the people making the incorrect statements as
| not just incorrect, but confidently incorrect, a la
| Dunning Kruger.
|
| See how confidently I made the exaggerative statement
| above? I don't necessarily mean it to be completely true,
| but I am making an argument. I think an assessment of
| confidence requires more than seeing no mollifying
| qualifiers like "I think" or "it might be". There's no
| verbal tone on the web.
| beepbooptheory wrote:
| So funny to jump to the "they're just kids" explanation
| for this when we are literally talking on a forum hosted
| by a VC incubator.
|
| Is it not Occam's razor that people are like this because
| this world of startups, "cutting edge tech", "move fast
| and break things", etc. gives quite clear incentives to
| be like this? The entire of financial world of tech is
| quite significantly propped up by the inertia of unearned
| confidence!
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Also, lets not discount the fact that people can have a
| lot of success stepping out of their core domain.
|
| People can do this repeatedly with positive feedback and
| increasing scope until eventually it doesn't work.
| danudey wrote:
| > If you know you're smart, the smart people you talk to
| validate your smartness (in one domain), society
| validates it some more by paying you massive amounts, and
| you're not experienced enough to know better, you're
| bound to overestimate your abilities and knowledge.
|
| And then you become the richest man in the world and buy
| Twitter and show everyone that you're kind of just
| clueless outside of your area of expertise, but putting
| up with you is profitable enough that people just go with
| it.
| nyarlathotep_ wrote:
| My (unpopular) take--programmers have been 'gassed up' by
| a decade of overcompensation + title inflation.
|
| People think the high pay and the fancy titles* they're
| (often) given reflects their value or intellect* _, even
| subconsciously, and they behave in such a manner.
|
| *Sorry, I don't consider web programming (which comprises
| a majority of modern software development) "engineering"
|
| *_Many are some of the most intelligent people quite
| literally on Earth, or are otherwise exceptional.
| chasd00 wrote:
| heh yeah i think we're coming up now on two generations
| of our brightest minds being spent on making us more
| isolated from each other and clicking on ads.
| drcongo wrote:
| I like coming here to remind myself how many things I know
| almost nothing about.
| amtc80 wrote:
| Being educated isn't really representative of Hacker News.
| There are very clear dynamics here where being more
| knowledgeable makes the discussions irrelevant.
|
| There are generally two ways of doing hard things. Either
| you are knowledgeable enough to be aware of the challenges
| and work around, or overcome, them. Or you are unaware, or
| shameless, enough to do it anyway. The later is much easier
| than the former. (Then you also have those who believe they
| could do something but never does because they can't).
| (Also not entirely mutually exclusive).
|
| Sometimes this is a feature of education, but most of the
| time it is just a feature of ignorance. Being educated
| doesn't also prevent you from being ignorant. It is very
| much expected that most willing to do something hard are
| smart enough to do it, but not smart enough to do it well.
| Unless it's been made easier, but then it is no longer as
| hard.
|
| It is also perception. Knowing both software and hardware
| would make you a technologist, or when talking about
| hardware someone who knows hardware but also knows
| software. Not knowing hardware but talking about it would
| more likely make you perceived as someone who knows
| software. And going back to the beginning, it is easier to
| think you know software than to actually know it.
| laidoffamazon wrote:
| Looking at his tweets he looks like a perfect example of a
| smug "TPOT" postrationalist that identifies themselves as
| "gray tribe" and then mainlines figures like Bret and Eric
| Weinstein and has retrograde views.
|
| Thinking he's smarter than the rest of us is most likely a
| big part of his identity.
| hnbad wrote:
| He's definitely fitting the cliche of "STEM graduate who
| thinks they have all the answers to social problems without
| reading any previous works on the subject". E.g. he thinks
| Japan's cultural problems are a bigger issue than its birth
| rate itself (correct) but thinks part of the solution
| involves banning conveyer belt sushi bars because they
| enforce social isolation by having machines instead of
| workers (incorrect). He clearly takes inspiration from the
| Unabomber Manifesto but seems to focus on the primitivism
| instead of trying to understand the underlying social
| dynamics and power structures (which you might expect if he
| were a "leftist" as many initially assumed).
|
| You can take a person out of his ivy league STEM background
| but you can't take the ivy league STEM background out of a
| person, or something.
| rjh29 wrote:
| I hope he's not right about Japan because since covid I
| talk to even less people. Restaurants have automated not
| just ordering, but reservations and payment too now.
| lupusreal wrote:
| Of course he's right. The influence of conveyor belt
| sushi specifically seems very dubious (isn't it just an
| unusual novelty?) but any social trend that has people
| meeting and talking to others less frequently will have
| people meeting potential partners less frequently. What
| is the advice always given to people looking for a
| partner? Go out and meet people. Meet as many people as
| you can to increase your odds. Any aspect of Japanese
| society that reinforces or facilitates social isolation
| has a share of the blame for their demographic problem.
| HPsquared wrote:
| Surely the issue in Japan (and the West, tbh) is that
| people don't actually WANT to meet each other.
| gyomu wrote:
| Well, this is the defining trend of our technological
| progress. People getting what they want makes them
| unhappy in the long, multigenerational term.
|
| We innovate because we like being comfortable. We don't
| want to tend to a fire constantly to be warm. We don't
| want to depend on the randomness of hunting/foraging to
| have a full belly. We don't want to take days and days of
| travel to go a few towns over. We don't want to have to
| deal with people we don't know because that's anxiety
| inducing.
|
| So we invent all those things that means many modern
| humans can just stay comfy, warm and fed at home with all
| their basic needs met without having to go through all
| this discomfort.
|
| The problem now is that we're all unhealthy, lonely, feel
| purposeless (and to top it all the planet is on fire).
| goatlover wrote:
| > The problem now is that we're all unhealthy, lonely,
| feel purposeless (and to top it all the planet is on
| fire).
|
| None of that is true. You're projecting what some people
| struggle with onto everyone, when the data indicates
| people are better off today. And mental health issues
| aren't unique to the industrialized world. Also, the
| planet is warming, but it's not on fire. Total
| exaggeration.
| HPsquared wrote:
| There is plenty of data saying the average person is more
| unhealthy, lonely and unhappy than 50 years ago, at least
| in the developed world.
| lupusreal wrote:
| The less you meet people, the less comfortable you are
| with meeting people, the less you want to meet people.
| It's a death spiral.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > but thinks part of the solution involves banning
| conveyer belt sushi bars because they enforce social
| isolation by having machines instead of workers
| (incorrect)
|
| Why are you thinking he's incorrect? I mean, a debate can
| be had if _bans_ are the correct tool, but there is a
| massive trend in hospitality in general (both restaurants
| and lodging) to de-personalize the entire experience, to
| take the human service out of the loop and make it
| invisible where it still needs to take place:
|
| - hotel booking? no travel agents, no phone calls, anyone
| can just do that themselves with bookingdotcom and other
| aggregator service.
|
| - hotel on-site service? no check-in at the reception,
| you go to a terminal, enter your booking id, get a
| keycard and that's it. when you check out, you close the
| door, dispose of the key card, and you haven't seen or
| interacted with any human during the entirety of your
| stay.
|
| - food ordering? you sit alone at home, scroll through a
| list of restaurants that might not even exist ("ghost
| kitchens"), a computer orders a human to make the food,
| said anonymous person (and maybe some colleagues) makes
| your food, another anonymous person gets ordered by a
| computer to deliver it to your doorstep, and if you
| specify a non-contact delivery you didn't have to
| interact with a single human for anything. And I think it
| won't take long for the cooks to be replaced by machines
| as well, delivery robots are already a thing.
|
| - on site food eating: you don't order at a server any
| more, you order at a terminal, a tablet or even your own
| phone, the computer dispatches cooks and servers, some
| even don't have human servers any more but only robots or
| running-sushi-style conveyor belts, and in the end you
| pay at a machine.
|
| So yes, "running sushi" is definitely a good example how
| human to human interactions are outright eliminated from
| our lives.
| brailsafe wrote:
| Fwiw, the conveyor belt sushi place I last went to did
| not feel any less personal than a typical restaurant, and
| did not seem to have fewer interactions with people than
| any place below a relatively fancy date spot
| Tiktaalik wrote:
| An Ivy League _STEM_ background is not capable of
| educating him on the issues he 's grappling with. Now an
| Ivy League _Arts_ background might.
|
| Unfortunately there's just not enough time in the day to
| really dig into the issues he's grappling with when
| there's an overwelming course load of databases and
| physics etc.
| Melchizedek wrote:
| This is supposed to be his "manifesto".
|
| https://x.com/SyeClops/status/1866353712148685002
|
| Doesn't seem to me like he has a superiority complex. He is
| devastated by his mother's illness and the actions of
| United Healthcare.
| greenie_beans wrote:
| i wouldn't be sharing stuff like that unless you know for
| sure
| andsoitis wrote:
| I don't know that I would trust that to be his manifesto.
| The BBC article says it was handwritten.
|
| Why would someone post a typed version rather than a
| photo of the real thing (which they would need to have to
| be able to type it up)?
| lkramer wrote:
| Wasn't his family incredibly wealthy? Wouldn't they be
| able to pay for healthcare out of pocket?
| dwallin wrote:
| All signs point to this being fake.
| ralfd wrote:
| TPOT?
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| Yes, _that_ part of Twitter, tpot.
|
| "many of those who participate were formerly part of the
| Rationalist and Effective Altruism movements. [...] What
| makes TPOT a "post-rational" community is an interest in
| topics that are not traditionally rationalist, such as
| spirituality, occultism and conspiracy theories."
|
| https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/subcultures/tpot-postrat
| voidfunc wrote:
| Back in my day we just called these people crackpots.
| ifyoubuildit wrote:
| I don't understand most of these terms, and I'm curious how
| much of that is me being a dummy, or just not consuming a
| generous amount of some very specific bubble's jargon.
|
| Edit: to clarify, when you go down the rabbit hole of
| certain bubbles, you come across terms that nobody will
| know unless they've gone down those same rabbit holes.
| Occasionally when you come up for air, you might find
| yourself using those terms as if they're broadly known.
| gpvos wrote:
| They seem to be rather recent terms, say the last year or
| so. I found this just posted article helpful:
| https://knowyourmeme.com/editorials/guides/what-is-tpot-
| twit...
| liontwist wrote:
| > then mainlines figures like Bret and Eric Weinstein
|
| I'm sorry are these supposed to be extremists? These are
| status quo western liberals, secular humanists, and science
| enthusiasts.
|
| > retrograde
|
| Is this a derogatory term in the human progress narrative?
| laidoffamazon wrote:
| Yes, they're both very credulous.
| torginus wrote:
| To be fair, if you are very smart / quite determined to pick
| up a skill / have a good mentor, you can get good enough in a
| lot of skills, that you can pass off your work as
| professional quality.
|
| I have seen this happen people do this with programming / CAD
| / 3D modeling / various crafts etc.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| The reverse where people project insane complexity onto
| everything they don't understand is also true and common.
|
| You see this all the time where people on HN, Reddit,
| wherever, will act as though roughing in the plumbing and
| electrical for a home addition is comparable in complexity
| and fraught with similar nuances as doing all the process
| electrical and plumbing for an industrial facility when it
| very much not.
| russellbeattie wrote:
| It never made sense to me why he was wandering around the city
| in the same exact clothes he used during the murder. If he had
| simply worn another jacket, he may never have been identified.
| How could he not have realized he'd be on camera or described
| by witnesses?
|
| Now he gets caught with all the incriminating evidence you
| could ask for? I'd say Occam's Razor points to your second
| theory: He's not playing some sort of 4D chess. He just decided
| to go kill this guy for some reason and went and did it. Dumb
| luck and a dense population easily explains how he was able to
| escape the city.
| dexterdog wrote:
| That's the part that baffles me. Whenever something like this
| happens I re-engineer the planning as a mental exercise. I
| have never had any interest in offing anybody, but I never
| understand not having a plan and a basic disguise. The guy
| had IDs, but he also did nothing to hide his p[articular
| characteristics. If he had thinned his eyebrows and worn fake
| glasses and kept his mask on he'd likely still be at large. I
| would have ditched or reversed the jacket right away and
| thrown on a hat at the very least.
| 542354234235 wrote:
| I think it is more informative to think of a time you
| planned a big trip, especially if things went really wrong
| on the trip or there was a significant problem. Looking
| back with hindsight, I can see how I may have failed to see
| and adapt to an issue before it got bigger or that I act
| irrationally because I'm stressed and I haven't let go of a
| preconceived notion and accepted the new situation. I have
| wondered why I didn't investigate something beforehand that
| now seems obvious and important. There have been cases
| where sheer dumb luck saved me or screwed me. Afterwards I
| could say I should have had a backup X or should have
| planned Y ahead of time, but I didn't see or do those
| things.
|
| There are so many moving parts in a situation like this
| that it is impossible to think of everything, and the
| things you don't think of will look obvious to people after
| the fact. The dumb luck situations that save you or screw
| you can be interpreted as inside knowledge. His bumbling
| actions afterward from the outside might seem like a "why
| wouldn't he just do this instead" without thinking about
| how the mental toll, stress, and panic of being hunted by
| the whole country could degrade your judgement.
| bryan_w wrote:
| I think he might have expected private security guards to
| tackle him as soon as he did it.
| chasd00 wrote:
| My guess is he didn't spend a lot of time thinking about his
| emotional state after pulling the trigger. He probably
| immediately regretted the decision and half heartedly
| followed some sort of escape plan.
| danudey wrote:
| Or he realized that he'd become a folk hero and wanted to
| try his chances in the court of public opinion, try to
| inspire others, etc.
| wisty wrote:
| Disposing of evidence can sometimes be more incriminating than
| not.
|
| Let's say he shuts up and gets a lawyer. His lawyer can say
| that maybe the real gunman noticed he looked similar, then
| switched bags on a bus. It's weak, but it's something.
|
| If he tossed it in NYC, he leaves possible DNA at the scene. If
| he tosses it at home, the cops will likely find it and take his
| disposal as an admission of guilt.
|
| IANAL but while I guess it's not good to have your lawyer run
| the Shaggy defence ("it wasn't me!") if the police have made an
| effort in the investigation then there's a surprising chance
| they'll find the evidence anyway.
|
| At the very least that could be his rationale.
|
| He didn't know if they had a van watching his house, and if his
| bins were being collected by the police. He might have been too
| scared and paranoid to do anything.
| lazide wrote:
| He could have stopped at any number of bridges along the way,
| filled the backpack with bricks, and tossed it into the
| river.
| prmoustache wrote:
| and could have been caught doing it.
|
| I can see someone planning meticulously the murder, the
| immediate fleeing thereafter but not the rest. If I
| remember images, he wasn't wearing gloves so he may have
| had to clean it before he planned to get rid of it. Plus he
| may have hit hiccups in the process that may have derailed
| part of his plans. The fact he had cash both in local and
| foreign money probably means he had planned to move out of
| the country but was kind of waiting for the dust to settle.
| Mo3 wrote:
| Plus, the release of all these unofficial pictures, and his
| capture being paraded by the media. They're trying to set an
| example.
| lr1970 wrote:
| Neither of your theories answer the question -- how did he know
| that the CEO was staying in a hotel other than Hilton
| (conference venue) and would arrive by foot 1 hour and 15
| minutes before conference opens at 8am (CEOs do not typically
| arrive so early in advance). The shooter was caught on camera
| talking on a burner phone 15 minutes before shooting. Who did
| he talk to? Was he acting alone or received some help? The
| shooter only had to wait for 15 minutes or so before his target
| arrives. Pure "luck" or help from inside?
| jimbob45 wrote:
| This is my sticking point as well. The bullet messages only
| made sense for this specific guy and that's a whole lot of
| work to engrave bullets, take a multi-state bus ride, camp
| out in a hostel, etc if you're not 100% sure the guy is going
| to be there.
|
| I'd feel more confident if he'd staked the route out for
| multiple days or if there was a plausible backup plan like
| breaking in to the CEO's hotel or the conference.
| brookst wrote:
| Isn't this just selection bias? If he had been wrong and
| not seen the CEO, we would never have heard about him.
|
| For all we know he made 15 attempts before this.
| notahacker wrote:
| Yep. Also, if you're trying to surprise someone at their
| arrival to an event, you absolutely do arrive super early
| to wait for them rather than try to guess their exact
| arrival time. If the target had arrived in mid morning
| after missing the opening speech instead, his killer
| would have waited. If the target had made a late decision
| not to attend, we'd have probably found out about the
| killer via the next event or next target
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > that's a whole lot of work to engrave bullets
|
| They weren't engraved. It was just Sharpie.
| https://www.cbsnews.com/news/united-healthcare-ceo-brian-
| tho... "A source briefed on the investigation said each
| word was meticulously written, not etched, onto the casings
| in Sharpie."
|
| > 100% sure the guy is going to be there.
|
| One can be 100% sure the guy is gonna at least be at the
| conference, and humans tend to be predictable. He was also
| fairly likely to be at the venue the day before getting
| prepared.
| dev-ns8 wrote:
| This is exactly what us hunters do year after year, time
| and time again. Drive for hours, hike for miles. Gathering
| what information we can. Then at some point we have to make
| assumptions and commit to some scenario in hopes it pans
| out the way you assume.
|
| A tremendous amount of time and effort is spent with it all
| riding on a few, hopefully, well placed assumptions.
| Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't. Usually your
| acquaintances only hear about the times the hunt works out.
| Same with this. We only hear about it, because it _worked
| out_ for the _hunter_
| sizzle wrote:
| Also I read it was a 3D printed gun and silencer which is
| hard to believe just printed it and never practiced or is he
| trained at shooting?
| sroussey wrote:
| It does explain the malfunction though.
| chasd00 wrote:
| Yeah if a 3d printed silencer works at all it will only
| work once. It will be deformed by the heat and obstruct
| the bullet on the next shot.
| dole wrote:
| No, it won't. It's possible to 3d print suppressors that
| withstand multiple shots, even mag dumps if they're made
| robustly enough.
|
| He needed a Neilsen device or piston in the suppressor to
| assist with cycling on the action, which he didn't have.
|
| He's not surprised that he has to rack the slide after
| every shot, he knows that it most likely will not cycle
| and he'll have to work it manually and he reaches
| immediately to do it.
|
| edit: i'll speculate and say the suppressor still worked
| after the shooting because he still had it on him. if it
| was melted or broken, he may have been more apt to toss
| it.
| JeremyNT wrote:
| There are plenty of plausible explanations, but it probably
| wouldn't have been a huge lift to get Thompson's itinerary
| from his secretary by spearfishing or some other form of
| social engineering.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| Find when CEO is going to speak at conference, work backward
| from there.
|
| Conference probably had a hotel block they were booking and a
| link to book so you know which hotel to camp.
|
| Not rocket science at all, just basic OSint
|
| Waiting 15min instead of 1hr 15min was probably luck though.
| lr1970 wrote:
| > Conference probably had a hotel block they were booking
| and a link to book so you know which hotel to camp.
|
| In this case it was Hilton. And if the CEO stayed at Hilton
| he had no reason to be on the street outside the hotel
| where the killer was waiting for him. Somehow the shooter
| knew that the target is not staying at the Hilton and will
| be walking to the front entrance. BTW, the normal practice
| for high profile individuals to arrive in a car to a
| service entrance hidden from the public.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > how did he know that the CEO was staying in a hotel other
| than Hilton
|
| Because someone paid that much money stays at a fancier
| place, like one of the Conrads or Waldorf Astorias. Hilton's
| a mid-level brand.
|
| Or, you follow him from the conference center the day before.
| Symbiote wrote:
| > CEOs do not typically arrive so early in advance
|
| But they may well have arranged other, small meetings with
| people also attending the same annual meeting. It's then
| convenient to have them all in the same hotel.
| Supermancho wrote:
| Was this the first time he tried it? Probably not.
| llm_nerd wrote:
| >media really over-estimated this persons competence
|
| It is a bit of psychological blindness where we convince
| ourselves that random murders aren't as easy as they really
| are. The truth is that almost anyone -- including people with
| lots of security theater -- can be nullified by random people.
| This is quadruply true in the era of drones.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| There's very little in America to stop a person who is
| willing to die (or spend life in prison) from killing others.
|
| Most normal people just have a healthy self preservation
| instinct, so aren't willing to accept those consequences.
| ANewFormation wrote:
| It's not just America. Shinzo Abe was assassinated, with
| security and at a public event, by somebody using a
| homemade gun with homemade ammo.
|
| As tech advances over time, this will all only become even
| more true.
| hedora wrote:
| Mass shootings in the US don't even make the news any
| more. I don't think that's true in most countries:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in
| _th...
|
| 547 so far this year. If we had equal justice for all in
| this country, this CEO shooting would have barely made
| local news, maybe.
| wat10000 wrote:
| The disparity is laid bare by the fact that this wasn't
| even the only murder in lower Manhattan on that day. One
| gets a multi-state manhunt and the top spot on national
| news for days. The other got a shrug.
| gruez wrote:
| Doesn't it make sense for police to go after high profile
| killings? If they catch the CEO killer that's more good
| press for them, and if they were slacking there's more
| chance that they'll get hounded for it.
| wat10000 wrote:
| Sure. NYPD is doing the rational thing in a society that
| treats the murder of a wealthy CEO as a much worse crime
| than the murder of a semi-homeless maybe-illegal
| immigrant.
|
| And in a society that strongly valued equality before the
| law, they wouldn't dare treat the two cases so
| differently. Thus we can see that we don't live in such a
| society.
| gruez wrote:
| >And in a society that strongly valued equality before
| the law, they wouldn't dare treat the two cases so
| differently. Thus we can see that we don't live in such a
| society.
|
| How would "equality before the law" as you described even
| work? If some celebrity got killed and people wanted to
| contribute their resources into finding their killer, is
| that suddenly bad now? If my son got killed and I'm
| trying to find his killer rather than doing the Right
| Thing(tm) by devoting my time equally among all unsolved
| murder cases, am I a bad person?
| wishinghand wrote:
| You wouldn't be, but the police doing so would be in such
| a situation, if there was equality.
| gruez wrote:
| Is a police department that shrugs and says "we'd want to
| solve this high profile murder that everyone wants
| solved, but because of 'equality' we have to solve this
| gangbanger murder that nobody cares about" really what we
| want? Isn't a government that's responsive to citizen
| demands also an ideal? What happens if they conflict?
| wat10000 wrote:
| I mean, yes, I do want a world where the police feel like
| they need to solve murders even when the victims are
| considered distasteful.
| spencerflem wrote:
| Keep in mind, for this case in specific, a huge number of
| people did not want it solved
| gruez wrote:
| >Keep in mind, for this case in specific, a huge number
| of people did not want it solved
|
| Where? If you go by reddit, there's a "huge number of
| people" who want to see society collapse in a socialist
| revolution, but that's clearly not representative of the
| overall population. Even the disparity between the
| support for kamala vs at the polls was stark.
| seanw444 wrote:
| Only two of those sources exclude gang and organized
| crime-related shootings, which have made up a large
| portion of the statistic in the past.
| JCharante wrote:
| Gang and organized crime-related shootings are very bad
| to have, most developed countries don't have them either.
| Kye wrote:
| It's always weird to me when people want to exclude them
| from stats.
| seanw444 wrote:
| Because it paints the image that normal innocent people
| are getting shot up in schools and markets more often
| than they really are, primarily to push the narrative
| that guns need to be taken from people who have committed
| no crimes, to stop crime.
|
| In reality, the majority of shootings are done by people
| who will find a way to kill someone, one way or the
| other. Whether it be with a legally-purchased gun, an
| illegally-purchased gun, a homemade gun, a knife, a
| homemade shank, a baseball bat, a vehicle.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| The majority of shootings are actually gun owners or
| their family members killing themselves. 60% or so.
| seanw444 wrote:
| True, let me revise. The majority of "shootings" are
| suicides, which can be carried out in all manner of ways.
| The second largest contributors are gangs and organized
| crime. The smallest, by far, is what people actually
| picture in their mind when they hear "mass shooting".
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Suicide makes up 55% of gun deaths, and the US is
| literally the only country in the world that counts these
| as gun violence. The remainder is primarily gang
| violence. Shooting of non-gang affiliated people is
| extremely rare, and noteworthy because of this rarity.
| Murder-suicides are also rare, about 1% of suicides.
|
| Most discussion and statistics about gun violence
| intentionally obfuscates these facts. We could speculate
| about the motivations why, but it is largely irrelevant.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Do you have a source on gang violence?
|
| Of the numbers I've seen, in total gun related dealths
| are evenly split between suicide and homicide.
|
| Of the homicides, ~10-50% are gang related (depending on
| source) and ~50% are drug-related (including overlap with
| gang).
|
| F.ex. intimate partner violence being another major
| homicide category.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Not off-hand. Last time I looked into it, tagging
| homicide associations was a pretty messy business. I
| think drug related gun homicides and gang homicides two
| side to the same coin.
|
| I've seen numbers on the order of 10% for intimate gun
| partner homicide. The percent is much higher for women,
| but women are a minority of gun homicide victims overall.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| I looked at a variety of sources for the above numbers,
| but it certainly didn't seem like gang- or drug-specific
| associations drove the majority of non-suicide gun
| deaths. A decent chunk, but there are other reasons.
|
| One surprising / not surprising other fact: ~50-75% of
| gun deaths involve alcohol and ~25% meth.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Would be curious to see what you are looking at too. Many
| deaths have no attribution as well, which could well fall
| into drug or gang.
| dTal wrote:
| You seem to be hinting, by your choice of statistics,
| that gun violence in the USA is not the pressing social
| issue it is commonly made out to be. (We could speculate
| about the motivations why, but it is largely irrelevant.)
|
| Since I disagree, I will offer my own statistic: the
| leading cause of death in the United States among
| children and adolescents is gunshot wound.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I would agree that gun violence is a serious issue.
| However, I think most people are misled/misinformed about
| nature of the problem, who is at risk, and their personal
| risk.
|
| I think that the risk is highly concentrated on a subset
| of people, an individuals can take simple actions to
| remove themselves from that subset.
|
| Examples would be if you steer clear of gangs, drugs, and
| abusive partners, your risk is drastically lower than the
| national average. The same is true for your kids,
| especially if you don't keep guns in your house.
|
| Now, I still think it's a problem that other Americans
| are dying from gun violence, even if I don't think I am
| personally at much risk. I will admit that this does
| reduce the sense of urgency I feel, and I suspect that
| this is why the numbers are obfuscated.
|
| The groups that want to reduce gun violence rightly
| understand that personal fear is a greater motivator then
| general concern for the well-being of others, so the
| narrative exaggerates the former and not the letter. This
| is why you get lone suicide grouped with home invasion
| for gun violence statistics. It is why you get 2 gang
| members shot in a drug deal gone bad classified with
| school massacres as mass shootings.
| dTal wrote:
| >normal innocent people are getting shot up in schools
| and markets [often]
|
| >the majority of shootings are done by people who will
| find a way to kill someone, one way or the other
|
| Both of these things can be true. You can have a rampant
| gang violence problem, and also a rampant school shooting
| problem. The fact that the gang problem is _worse_ doesn
| 't make the school shooting problem _okay_ , and to use
| this to argue _against_ gun control is... odd.
| seanw444 wrote:
| The point is that gun control isn't solving anything but
| eliminating what many Americans perceive as a fundamental
| right, because bad people do bad things with neutral
| items. You can stab dozens of people mortally before
| you're put down. You can mow a crowd of people down with
| your vehicle. But I carry a gun every day out of the
| possibility that someone might do one of those things to
| me, or my loved ones.
|
| Banning a right is the worst bandaid "fix" possible, on
| top of what is a much more fundamental problem that can't
| be solved by merely stopping one of its symptoms. Our
| people are sick in multiple ways. Let's fix that.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| Because it's mostly business dispute resolution and it
| dominates the stats if you include it.
|
| It's not like you can ask the courts to use state
| violence on the guy that shorted you come coke or to kick
| that other gang's dealer off your turf because he's
| already been warned once. Illegal industry has to DIY it.
|
| To include it would be like compiling a list of extortion
| and including government fines and civil judgements. It
| dominates the stats so much that if you include it and
| evaluate it you're not actually looking at the thing you
| want to be looking at, you're measuring by proxy the size
| of something else. You'll wind up deriving conclusions
| like "most mass shooters are low level gang members" or
| "the threatening party in most extortion is the state"
| that is nominally true but also absurd doublespeak not
| actually congruent with the meaning of those words.
| User23 wrote:
| Well, they're working on that[1].
|
| [1] https://www.euronews.com/my-
| europe/2024/10/15/swedens-homici...
| potato3732842 wrote:
| >547 so far this year. If we had equal justice for all in
| this country, this CEO shooting would have barely made
| local news, maybe.
|
| Don't lie at us with statistics like that. The bulk of
| those so called "mass shootings", normal crimes gone off
| the rails and other things that are nowhere near what
| people think when you use the words "mass shooting",
| which is almost certainly the slight of hand you're going
| for.
|
| 2+ victims is a mass shooting per the FBI definition.
| While what you say and like you reference is technically
| true it's also a particularly evil way to mislead the
| reader to portray it as you did. The typical mass
| shooting on that list consists of 2-4 people shot over
| the course of an otherwise normal crime (usually a crime
| for profit gone off the rails or the drug industry DIYing
| dispute resolution) wheres the colloquial definition of
| "mass shooting" is more along the lines of a crazy
| suicidal person killing as many others as they can.
|
| Pretty much every mass shooting by the colloquial
| definition makes the national news. I am unaware of any
| one that has not.
| waterhouse wrote:
| > Pretty much every mass shooting by the colloquial
| definition makes the national news. I am unaware of any
| one that has not.
|
| Now _that_ sounds like obvious selection bias. Also, the
| Wikipedia article says "specifically for the purposes of
| this article, a total of four or more victims". But the
| point about the categorization is well taken. As the
| article says: "Many incidents involving organized crime
| and gang violence are included."
| wat10000 wrote:
| Most normal people have a healthy aversion to killing.
| That's what stops it, not fear of consequences.
| DontchaKnowit wrote:
| Eh honestly I think its both but probably suprising
| amounts of the latter
| wat10000 wrote:
| People sometimes end up in situations where there would
| be no consequences, and killing rarely ensues.
| cal85 wrote:
| We all agree most normal people have an aversion to
| killing. You're saying that having an aversion to killing
| stops people killing, which is a tautology. And then you
| say it's not about consequences. What's your explanation
| then?
|
| It seems intuitive to me that the awareness of
| consequences plays a central role in preventing anger
| from turning into violence, every day, everywhere. Have
| you never seen a fight/argument on the street suddenly
| diffuse when a cop appears? Or eg, a guy drunk at a bar,
| starting to raise his voice in anger at someone, only to
| simmer down when he sees the bartender walking over
| because he doesn't want to be kicked out?
|
| Awareness of consequences is a necessary precondition for
| people to course-correct. That's an essential feature of
| people: we are able to notice when we're on course toward
| a bad outcome (whether that's harm to oneself, or harm to
| someone/something we care about, or any undesirable
| situation), and so take responsibility for our actions
| _in advance_ so we can change course. Without that we 'd
| be amoral creatures. This is what makes us moral beings -
| that we can take responsibility for the outcomes of our
| actions. This is a good thing. It's what makes us people,
| and it's the basis of having a civilisation that is
| mostly peaceful.
| heyjamesknight wrote:
| One can have an aversion to the act itself without
| considering the consequences. People who have never
| gotten in a real fight before don't understand that its
| actually quite difficult to throw a full-strength punch
| at someone if you've never done so before. It's not the
| consequences that you're considering in that moment, but
| an aversion to the violence itself.
| wat10000 wrote:
| It's not a tautology. The aversion to killing is an
| inherent psychological thing. Some things are just
| fundamental to a person's psychology. Some people have
| such a strong aversion to spiders that they can't go near
| one, even when they know for certain that it's harmless
| and there would be no consequences. And psychologically
| healthy people have that sort of aversion to killing
| another person. It's inherent programming.
|
| How often do fights end without police intervention? How
| many times do people get angry and decide not to escalate
| it to the point of murder even when they could get away
| with it? People do sometimes end up in situations where
| they could get away with killing. They rarely take
| advantage.
|
| You're probably familiar with _The Lord of the Flies_. We
| need order and authority, otherwise we'll descend into
| savagery, right? Except this scenario has actually
| happened, and in real life the boys worked together
| peacefully to survive until help came.
|
| When you mention "a bad outcome" you include harm to
| someone we care about. The vast majority of people
| consider a person's death to be a bad outcome even if
| they don't care about that person in particular.
|
| I think you're conflating two very separate ideas here.
| There's the idea of the natural consequences of an
| action, and then there's the idea of consequences imposed
| by some authority. The original comment I replied to was
| talking entirely about the latter. Here you discuss both
| but you treat them the same. But someone who refrains
| from killing because they don't like the consequence of
| someone being dead is very different from someone who
| refrains from killing because they don't want to go to
| prison.
|
| There are really three different things here: 1) people
| don't kill because of the legal or physical consequences
| to themselves 2) people don't kill because they don't
| like the outcome of a dead person 3) people don't kill
| because they fundamentally don't want to. There are
| examples of all 3. The vast majority of people aren't in
| category 1. I think they're almost all in 3, but there's
| no practical difference between 2 and 3.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > You're probably familiar with _The Lord of the Flies_.
| We need order and authority, otherwise we'll descend into
| savagery, right? Except this scenario has actually
| happened, and in real life the boys worked together
| peacefully to survive until help came.
|
| Just figured I'd throw a cite in on this.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tongan_castaways
|
| William Golding had no special anthroplogical
| knowledge/training, he was just writing fiction.
| bumby wrote:
| > _You 're saying that having an aversion to killing
| stops people killing, which is a tautology. And then you
| say it's not about consequences. What's your explanation
| then?_
|
| It's a fairly straightforward understanding. If I said I
| have an aversion to the taste of steak, would you require
| additional information to why I don't eat steak? Or, to
| put it in your terms, eating steak causes a negative
| internal state for me and doesn't require any external
| consequence to make me avoid it.
|
| > _It seems intuitive to me that the awareness of
| consequences plays a central role in preventing anger
| from turning into violence_
|
| There's a problem with relying on "intuitive"
| understandings in some cases, especially when there is
| contradictory evidence. I think the term for your stance
| is "deterrence theory/effect." In this case, I believe
| there are plenty of studies that show harsher
| consequences do not reduce crimes rates (or at least have
| marginal effects). People are not rational actors,
| especially in highly agitated emotional states.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| There is a difference between a bar fight and killing
| someone with intent. A bar fight is a fight for
| dominance, like you see in animals, the outcome is rarely
| fatal as the point is just to establish who is stronger
| and who should submit.
|
| We have an aversion to killing that goes further than the
| fear of consequences. It can be seen in the military,
| where soldiers naturally don't want to kill their
| enemies, even when they have incentives to do so. To be
| effective, soldiers have to be desensitized to killing
| through their training. Enemies are dehumanized, they
| train on human shaped targets, etc... And even with all
| that training, after a few years of active service, many
| start questioning their life choices. It is common for
| military pilots, who enlist for the love of flying, until
| they realize what they are really doing, i.e. killing
| people. When that happens, it is time to retire to a
| noncombatant job.
|
| Punishing crime is not useless, but I think saying that
| consequences are the cause of aversion for killing is
| backwards. We have a natural aversion for killing,
| especially when we are in a prosperous situation like we
| (the first world) are now in. And that's why we take
| murder so seriously.
|
| And speaking of murder, our natural aversion for killing
| shows when we see how we treat the death penalty
| nowadays. The death penalty is (generally) for the worst
| people humanity has to offer, their killing have been
| approved by the highest authority, and there is still
| opposition. We even have rituals to offload the
| responsibility of killing from the executioners. For
| example by having a random person in a firing squad fire
| a blank round.
| mordymoop wrote:
| We came within a literal inch of witnessing the assassination
| of a presidential candidate earlier this year, by a kid with
| no particular skills and an easily obtained rifle. We are
| lucky that people are mostly nonviolent.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Twice, even!
| goatlover wrote:
| How rulers like Putin survive so long though?
| clarionbell wrote:
| By making it appear, and actually, much harder. More
| surveillance, more body guards, stronger loyalty checks can
| get you a lot of security.
|
| And let's be honest. Who would take a bullet for this CEO
| of one of the most despised corporations in USA (that's
| saying something).
|
| I honestly think, that the general distaste for this
| particular industry, is why the law enforcement had such a
| hard time catching him.
| llm_nerd wrote:
| I did say almost. Putin is kind of the extreme example.
|
| If someone is willing to live like an absolute hermit in
| basically a police state, hiding behind layers and layers
| of security apparatus, engaging lookalikes and only
| allowing the loyalty-tested anywhere near him, survival
| odds improve quite a bit.
|
| But for anyone trying to live anything remotely approaching
| a normal life, or with any real freedom, your continued
| survival is completely due to the fact that the
| overwhelming majority of people in your world have a
| personal breaker against murder.
| guerrilla wrote:
| Well his manifesto seems to imply that he is sacraficing
| himself and expects to suffer but that he beleives its the
| honorable thing to do.
| bena wrote:
| Although, if the evidence is damning and you don't want it
| found, keeping it on your person is not the worst idea. That
| way you know the only way they find any evidence is if they
| find you.
|
| Even if you try to destroy the evidence, evidence of you
| destroying the evidence works just as well for a lot of cases.
| nostrademons wrote:
| This looks like a case of "suicide by revolution". Various
| media reports (including this one) suggest that he had a back
| injury in 2023, has not worked since 2023, started losing touch
| with friends in 2023, has been reading books about back
| injuries and chronic pain, etc. If you've ever known someone
| dealing with chronic pain, it can easily make you decide that
| you're better off dead than continuing to live. Likely he's
| been seeking medical treatment for his injury, his insurer is
| United Health, they've done nothing but "delay, deny, defend",
| he's already decided that he's better off dead, and he might as
| well take the CEO of the health insurer with him.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| When I heard about the Monopoly money I wondered if it
| matched up with the amount of a specific denied claim.
| cedws wrote:
| But he's not dead, he's going to prison. Does he plan to
| commit suicide behind bars? He'll probably be on tighter
| watch than Epstein - that's what happens when you mess with
| the ruling class.
| User23 wrote:
| I wouldn't be shocked if he walks. There is something crazy
| in the air and I could see a jury nullification happening
| here. It only takes one. Where are you going to find a jury
| where nobody on it has the same grudge for more or less the
| same reasons?
| diggan wrote:
| > I wouldn't be shocked if he walks.
|
| Just for curiosities sake, who did you think would win
| the latest US presidential election?
|
| I feel like many (most?) people on the internet are kind
| of disconnected from people's everyday life outside of
| the internet. I'm guessing that most of the average folks
| (people outside the internet zeitgeist) never even heard
| about this assassination, even less cares about the
| assassin going free if they did.
| ecshafer wrote:
| I guessed correctly on the last 6 elections personally.
|
| I was at a party over the weekend. I asked a room of 30
| people what they thought of the assassin and the
| overwhelming consensus was hero, they wouldn't say
| anything if they saw him, and if they were on the jury
| they would acquit. I wouldn't be surprised if we saw a
| replay of OJ Simpson where one of the jurors gave OJ a
| power fist as he walked out for the verdict. It only
| takes 1 person to get onto the jury and acquit. Americans
| love a robin hood.
| diggan wrote:
| > the overwhelming consensus was hero
|
| I'm guessing that makes it pretty clear that it wasn't
| really a mixed of "real Americans" as almost nothing is
| so black & white, especially if you compare people who
| live very different lives.
|
| But, I could be wrong, it has happened before and it's
| bound to happen again at some point :)
| ryandrake wrote:
| I had the same experience talking to others around here.
| I guess they aren't "real Americans" either. Or, maybe
| this is an unusually black & white event.
| arkh wrote:
| > Or, maybe this is an unusually black & white event.
|
| I'd say the HN public is the bubble there. Lot of
| aspiring CEO who take the "don't care with rules if you
| can get away with it" message to heart so they feel like
| they have more in common with the victim than with the
| perpetrator of this murder. While I would not be
| surprised if it is the reverse for 90% of the USA
| population.
| ryandrake wrote:
| HN is literally the only place (online or in the real
| world) I've seen anyone defending this CEO and trying to
| drum up sympathy for him. You're absolutely right: It's
| likely that _we_ are the weird bubble outside of everyone
| else.
| brokenmachine wrote:
| Trump just got voted in.
| datatrashfire wrote:
| Had a similar experience. All our guests at a dinner
| party were hoping he would escape.
| coldtea wrote:
| Probably they were no true scotsmen either
| sigmar wrote:
| >internet are kind of disconnected from people's everyday
| life outside of the internet.
|
| Are insurance companies more liked among internet users
| or less liked among internet users (than the population
| at large)? I presume that internet users tend to be
| wealthier (due to more free/leisure time, better browsing
| technology) and less angry with their insurance than non-
| users, but could be wrong.
| nostrademons wrote:
| Maybe, or the country collapses before he goes to trial.
|
| I'm reminded of the trial of John Brown. For those who
| aren't history buffs, John Brown led a raid on the
| federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, VA in October 1859,
| hoping to steal weapons to arm the slaves and fuel a
| slave revolt. He was caught and executed in December
| 1859. The country collapsed into civil war 17 months
| later, at Lincoln's inauguration. Historians wryly note
| that John Brown was executed for doing, on a small scale,
| the same thing that Lincoln did on a large scale 2 years
| later.
| giardini wrote:
| nostrademons says _> "Maybe, or the country collapses
| before he goes to trial."<_
|
| which seems pretty far-fetched to me.
|
| But poster ablation earlier spoke of the:
|
| _" toxic stew of stupidity and sub-4chan conspiracy
| theorising." on ZeroHedge."_
|
| Is HN immune to what happened to Zerohedge? Some of the
| posts here are pretty speculative, to put it mildly.
| gosub100 wrote:
| They will ensure the selection of the absolute dumbest
| and most docile jurors possible to prevent this outcome.
| Supermancho wrote:
| I was thinking suckers, but I guess it's the same thing.
| coldtea wrote:
| Doesn't the defense also get a say on the juror
| selection?
| bityard wrote:
| > Where are you going to find a jury where nobody on it
| has the same grudge for more or less the same reasons?
|
| Jurors are screened for bias, likely questions from the
| prosecutors will include, "Have you ever been denied a
| medical insurance claim?" Those who answer yes will
| definitely not make the jury. Lots of people can answer
| with a "no" quite truthfully, myself included.
|
| (Note also that I am not making a comment on whether or
| not I approve of how juries are selected, this is simply
| how it works.)
| zippothrowaway wrote:
| Counterpoint: I don't know anyone who could answer "no"
| truthfully. Maybe it's because I am in an older age
| group?
|
| You're right there are lots of people who can answer
| "no". However, it's also possible that such a cohort is
| not a true jury of peers, and remember that juries skew
| older.
|
| It's possible that screening everyone out who answers
| "yes" would not be allowed by the judge for this reason.
| Then, the prosecution would only have a small number of
| "no reason" exclusions.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Counterpoint: I don't know anyone who could answer "no"
| truthfully.
|
| People who have never personally been insured would
| answer "no" truthfully, people who have been insured but
| only consumed in-network, fairly routine services might
| be able to answer "No" truthfully (though hiccups even
| with that leading to initial denials are not uncommon),
| and people under 26 who have only been on their parents
| insurance and have been shielded from the details of
| insurance interactions would be able to answer "No" often
| without _intentional_ misrepresentation.
|
| > However, it's also possible that such a cohort is not a
| true jury of peers,
|
| "Jury of peers" is a line from Magna Carta referring to
| barons' right to have their guilt or innocence determined
| by other barons and does not appear in the US
| Constitution. The limitation on excluding jurors in the
| US system is that the unlimited number of exclusions _for
| cause_ that attorneys for either side may request are
| determined _by the judge_ on the basis of whether the
| potential juror has sufficient evidence of bias that
| would make them incapable of rendering a fair verdict,
| and other exclusions (peremptory challenges) are sharply
| limited in number, not some assessment of whether the net
| result is "a true jury of peers".
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > "Have you ever been denied a medical insurance claim?"
| Those who answer yes will definitely not make the jury.
|
| That's not a sufficient basis for a dismissal for cause,
| most people who have ever had insurance would answer
| "Yes" to that question, and prosecutors don't have an
| infinite number of peremptory challenges.
|
| So, they probably won't dismiss on the basis of that
| answer alone, but do some followup if the answer is
| "Yes".
| capybaraStorm wrote:
| The best question is "do you think wealthy CEOs
| disproportionately evade justice."
|
| One of the more sympathetic views towards the murderer is
| that there was no legal avenue to pursue the CEO for mass
| fraud under which the plaintiffs would get a fair shake.
| Vigilantism is more welcome by the public when it appears
| to be the only recourse.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _The best question is "do you think wealthy CEOs
| disproportionately evade justice."_
|
| What prevents the juror answering "no", and then acting
| precisely on this belief?
| doubled112 wrote:
| A lot would say "yes" though. It doesn't have to be
| something major.
|
| My wife's eye exam was scheduled a day early. Denied,
| though I'm not that annoyed over $250.
| joquarky wrote:
| That's over 30 hours of work for a very large portion of
| the population.
| echoangle wrote:
| > ... I could see a jury nullification happening here. It
| only takes one.
|
| Does a hung jury not just lead to a retrial?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Does a hung jury not just lead to a retrial?
|
| A hung jury leads to a mistrial. After a mistrial, the
| prosecution _has the option_ of trying the case again,
| but it gets harder (you've got more time from the events,
| a more-tainted jury pool, etc.)
|
| Also, if there are _multiple_ charges, and the jury
| reaches a not guilty verdict on _any_ charges, that may
| impact the ability to refile other charges, or make it
| harder to try them if they can be refiled, because any
| fact that the jury necessarily rejected in an acquittal
| is finally decided by that acquittal.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Where are you going to find a jury where nobody on it
| has the same grudge for more or less the same reasons?
|
| By having a filtering process before the jury is
| empanelled to identify that.
| coldtea wrote:
| Good luck with that...
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Life in prison is just a delayed death sentence.
| ARandomerDude wrote:
| Life outside prison is also a delayed death sentence.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| The difference between life-in-prison and a death
| sentence is pretty minimal, given the length of time it
| takes in the US to get through the death row process.
| Decades, typically. Many are never actually executed. In
| either case, you are expected to die in a jail cell after
| many, many years of incarceration.
|
| The difference between those two and a non-imprisoned
| life is... significant.
| tshaddox wrote:
| But not as bad of a sentence, since you're not in prison.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| A "delayed death sentence" is awful if you if you have
| chronic pain and are seeking suicide by revolution.
|
| I dont think the two are equivalent
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Death by suicide is entirely attainable in prison, if
| desired.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| so what? that still doesn't mean that life in prison is
| the same as suicide.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Correct. I'm asserting life in prison and _a death
| sentence_ are functionally identical. (In the US.)
|
| Both can be ended via suicide, if the inmate so chooses.
| capybaraStorm wrote:
| Death sentence is often seen as better because you might
| get an individual cell, and copious pro bono appeals for
| your case.
| jkaplowitz wrote:
| He won't get a death sentence for the charges which have
| been announced so far. Those which are severe enough to
| carry a death sentence in many US jurisdictions (like
| murder) are New York state charges, and NY law hasn't had
| a death penalty for two decades now or an execution in
| roughly 8 decades.
|
| If there somehow end up being Pennsylvania or federal
| charges against him in connection with the murder, those
| criminal law systems still have the death penalty.
|
| He does currently face some Pennsylvania charges as well,
| such as firearms charges in connection with the encounter
| where he was arrested, but none of those are severe
| enough to warrant a death sentence.
| wutwutwat wrote:
| life anywhere is just a delayed death sentence...
| ConcernedCoder wrote:
| my money's on him being "suicided" with the cameras off
| before a public trial can take place...
| Supermancho wrote:
| I dont think so, but it wouldn't surprise me.
| listless wrote:
| That's what happens when you commit a crime. It doesn't
| matter who you kill or who you are when you do it. If the
| CEO had killed this guy in the same manner, he'd be facing
| the same consequences.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| This is _generally_ true for something like gunning down
| someone in the street.
|
| (Even then: being a cop or the President helps...)
|
| For almost all other crimes, no, probably not.
|
| Even for murder, it's not _entirely_ true;
| https://nypost.com/2024/12/05/us-news/teen-killed-
| another-wo... happened on the same day, but certainly
| didn't see the level of police resources involved in
| finding the killer. Teams of cops with drones weren't
| searching large swathes of NYC for those perps.
| Wytwwww wrote:
| I'd be surprised if they NYPD and the FBI spent anything
| even remotely close to e.g. 10% of what they did in this
| cases to investigate any random average murder.
|
| If he just shot someone randomly in a poorer
| neighbourhood he likely would still be free.
| listless wrote:
| Your point is well made. If someone shoots you in a
| trailer park or the hood, nobody is launching a
| nationwide manhunt.
|
| I redact my previous comment but leave it for posterity.
| alsetmusic wrote:
| He could have planned to have a shootout and suicide-by-cop
| but that didn't happen. I was genuinely surprised that they
| took him alive.
| Libcat99 wrote:
| Where he'll get treatment on the taxpayer dime?
| LinuxBender wrote:
| For what it's worth there have been a number of cases of
| elderly patients _holding up_ a bank for $1 and then
| sitting in the waiting area to be arrested with the
| stated goal to get medical treatment. I have no idea how
| many of them actually end up in jail or get the treatment
| they desired.
| coldtea wrote:
| Oh, the precious taxpayer dime! Given to overspending
| public works, bureucracy, foreign wars, and other
| bullshit, as well as all kinds of private companies who
| sculp him!
|
| But god forbid it's also used to treat sick people! Or
| prisoners.
| xyst wrote:
| I can understand the symbolism here between the backpack of
| game money then.
|
| I haven't gotten all the details, but something like this
| makes sense. It was a personal vendetta from a person out of
| desperation/frustration.
|
| I guess as more details come out we will know
| y-c-o-m-b wrote:
| > If you've ever known someone dealing with chronic pain, it
| can easily make you decide that you're better off dead than
| continuing to live
|
| I'll confirm it for you right now. For me it's not just the
| back, it's areas along the entire spine. I've had spinal cord
| compression on my thoracic spine since late 2017 and nobody
| will touch it. My lumbar spine has many herniations and
| "schmorl's nodes" (where it's chipping away at the actual
| vertebrae) in addition to clamping my nerve roots shut. I had
| emergency surgery in my neck in early 2018. Prior to the
| thoracic spine injury, I was in the best shape of my life;
| very muscular and healthy with a 6-pack like you see in
| Luigi's pictures.
|
| It's been an absolute miserable experience for the last 8
| years. Being gaslighted by doctors before and after my
| surgery didn't help. Insurance tried to deny my emergency
| surgery at first despite the fact I lost all sensation from
| the neck down almost overnight. When you're dealing with
| trauma and the system works against you, very dark thoughts
| start to form. I'm not going to _say_ I condone what Luigi
| did, but if you think people go through these events and don
| 't think _those thoughts_ on _many_ occasions, you 're so
| very wrong. There's a HUGE range of emotions that comes with
| it all. Suicide was definitely one of them for a long time as
| well. I have a wife and kids though and do not wish to burden
| them further by adding to the list of problems. They're the
| only things that's kept me going strong this whole time.
| nradov wrote:
| I'm sorry you've gone through that and I hope your
| condition improves. While I don't know the specifics of
| your case, in general there aren't a lot of real solid
| evidence-based medicine guidelines for treating back pain
| or injuries. Ask 10 different physicians and you'll get 10
| different treatment plans. Surgery has made many patients
| _worse_ in the long run. Obviously there are some traumatic
| injuries where emergency surgery is medically necessary,
| but for most patients the standard of care should be
| physical therapy first with surgery being a high-risk last
| resort.
|
| https://peterattiamd.com/stuartmcgill/
| y-c-o-m-b wrote:
| You can't get approved for surgery without PT in many
| cases anyway, so by default, most people will have to
| undergo PT regardless. In a lot of cases, you still can't
| get surgery; insurance will request pain management via
| injections and stuff before approving surgery. In my
| case, I had to go through 6 weeks of PT, then insurance
| asked me to do another 6 weeks after the first 6 failed
| to produce benefits. PT accelerated my decline because
| they didn't understand the mechanics in my case, so it's
| not always beneficial either. Also some of those
| conservative treatments (injections) are still being
| denied by insurance. My dad recently went to get another
| series of injections and was denied because they didn't
| think it would be medically beneficial despite the fact
| that he improved significantly from the first set and it
| lasted over 6 months.
| MichaelRo wrote:
| Spinal problems are definitely on the list why seemingly
| "not terminally ill" people might want to take the option
| of euthanasia. Healthy imbeciles will scream with outrage
| "it's a sin, one must keep them alive at all costs" but
| that's because it's not them tortured 24/7 but other guy.
| And people are able to do monstrous things to other people
| without as much as loosing a night sleep.
|
| Overall, the options for severe chronic pain are: heavy
| painkillers, physical therapy, wait-and-see (hope they
| improve) and if not ... dignified exit.
|
| If they improve it takes years. And painkillers are
| ABSOLUTELY a must during that time but the innocent
| monsters (largely the rest of the population that is) will
| cry out "opioid addiction!!!", cut them off and
| sadistically (in their mind, gently) advise to get over it.
|
| I have no words how much I despise this world. It's all
| fine and dandy until you lose your health, afterwards you
| really see it for how it is.
| joquarky wrote:
| "The road to hell is paved with good intentions"
|
| As I get older, I understand this phrase more and more.
| vacuity wrote:
| I've learned that most people don't consider themselves
| to be "bad" or "malicious" overall. People will earnestly
| espouse opinions of arbitrary quality, with unknown
| justification and intent, and expect others to agree with
| them. They don't consider that they may be speaking out
| of severe lack of empathy or knowledge (Gell-Mann
| amnesia!). We're extremely limited and oftentimes we
| don't even recognize it.
| bbqfog wrote:
| The most likely scenario is that he was planning on not getting
| caught, saw the _massive_ amount of support he had, then
| decided to attach his name to his actions.
| e-clinton wrote:
| I don't think people are over-estimating his competence. He set
| himself a goal and achieved it... getting away with it simply
| wasn't important so it wasn't the thing he obsessed over.
| MisterTea wrote:
| > Probably fail to do so, then eventually get convicted on all
| charges and end up in a supermax penitentiary for life.
|
| Where he will finally get decent health care for free.
| Sindisil wrote:
| Decent health care? In prison? Are you serious?
| MisterTea wrote:
| Re-calibrate your sarcasm detector.
| jjfoooo4 wrote:
| It seems implausible that he was competent enough to locate his
| target and escape the day of yet so incompetent as to hold onto
| the gun. I think he definitely wanted to get caught.
|
| I'm curious about what exactly prompted whoever called him in
| to become suspicious - was the profile released from photos
| good enough? Or was he acting suspiciously with his backpack?
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| If he wanted to get caught, he didn't need to wear a disguise
| all the way from Georgia or wherever he came from. He didn't
| need to use a fake ID. He didn't need to flee the scene - at
| least, flee outside the city.
|
| Why would he do all that if he wanted to get caught?
| dudeinhawaii wrote:
| Here's another option, combining the two.
|
| - The intelligent individual is also self-absorbed and believed
| that they would be able to continue to kill CEOs without
| getting caught. A narcissistic streak that allowed them to make
| no attempt at concealing their identity in public. They kept
| the weapon in order to move to a new target (or they 3D printed
| an identical if the reports of a 3D printed gun are correct).
| They believed they would either not get caught or that the
| public would not turn them in. They may have envisioned
| themselves the Ted of Healthcare.
| lamontcg wrote:
| > Or the internet, media really over-estimated this persons
| competence.
|
| definitely this one. there was a lot of projection of
| competency onto him, wanting him to be some kind of superhero
| assassin that would disappear. when in reality, he wasn't using
| that welrod pistol clone, and his gun was jamming with every
| shot.
|
| but also he was self-destructive and definitely wasn't trying
| hard enough to not get caught. and that comes with the
| territory because you're not going to be well-adjusted and
| decide to assassinate someone in broad daylight. and i would
| pick self-destructive over arrogant. and he may just have not
| realized how distinct his facial features were.
| dole wrote:
| He knew it was going to jam because he didn't have a proper
| device on his suppressor. He's not surprised that he has to
| rack the slide after every shot, he knows that it most likely
| will not cycle and he'll have to work it manually and he
| reaches immediately to do it.
| randyrand wrote:
| He was also probably watching the news.
|
| At some point you know you've already been caught.
| agilob wrote:
| The wealth gap in 2012 US is larger than it was in pre-revolution
| France. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/09/us-
| inco...
| sladoledar wrote:
| I am not sure this is a fair comparison. Wouldn't this be true
| if we compare any pre-industrial society with any post-
| industrial society?
| lukan wrote:
| "Wouldn't this be true if we compare any pre-industrial
| society with any post-industrial society?"
|
| Technically not in socialist soviet union for example. (But
| de facto the top party members did control way more wealth
| than common people.)
| lores wrote:
| Wouldn't the opposite be expected, an aristocratic caste
| system less equal than an ostensibly democratic society
| ostensibly based on fairness and human rights?
| guerrilla wrote:
| No, I would expect exactly what we have because both debt
| and capital accumulation are positive feedback loops.
| lores wrote:
| You're talking about expectations from economic theory,
| while I'm talking about expectations from societal
| values; or, in other words, the economy defining society,
| vs society defining the economy. Obviously the first is
| factually correct in the US at the moment, but I think
| the second is what most people believe/wish for. Worth
| noting that other capitalist countries put better brakes
| on those feedback loops, they're not inherent to the
| system.
| fransje26 wrote:
| > Worth noting that other capitalist countries put better
| brakes on those feedback loops
|
| Seeing how the wealth gap is increasing between them and
| the US, most politicians and wealthy individuals are
| doing all they can to remove those brakes, pushing
| evermore to follow the US. Defund, privatize, deregulate.
| guerrilla wrote:
| I understand. You mean why would a liberal democracy
| choose the system with the positive feedback loops,
| right?
| NoGravitas wrote:
| What you're describing is "idealism" - the idea that
| people's ideas are not conditioned by the material
| conditions of their lives. That doesn't seem to be true.
| Instead, "The ideas of the ruling class are, in any age,
| the ruling ideas". Most people believe the things that
| are necessary in order for the conditions they live under
| to perpetuate themselves. People's ideas change mostly as
| a result of change in their material conditions.
|
| After the Great Depresson and the second world war, most
| capitalist countries put brakes on those feedback loops
| in order to keep the whole system functional, especially
| in view of the apparent success of a socialist
| alternative. But those brakes have been in the process of
| being gradually stripped away since the 1970s, and even
| faster since the failure of the Soviet Union.
| pwillia7 wrote:
| the real unfairness is they didn't have Netflix and dairy
| queen -- just brioche
| fransje26 wrote:
| Let them binge-watch Netflix.
| wongarsu wrote:
| [1] has some actual numbers to answer that question, with
| e.g. [2] for modern US numbers (since [1] has only Europe).
| The wealth gap peaked in 1910, took a nose dive until the
| late 1960s (though much more pronounced in Europe than in the
| US) and is on the rise since then.
|
| The post-industrial US dipped as low as ~1300 or ~1650
| Europe, but is now back to levels Europe only reached in
| 1750, well on track to repeating the rising inequality during
| industrialization. Sweden is still at 1280/1600 Europe
| numbers, better than 1960s USA.
|
| Actually it probably has risen a bit more since then since
| those are 2010 numbers, hence the comparison of US numbers to
| the French Revolution
|
| 1: https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/top-rich-europe-long-run-
| hist...
|
| 2: https://www.blogscapitalbolsa.com/media/images/69b536a6046
| 24...
| fransje26 wrote:
| From [2], why is there a huge drop globally following 1910?
| froidpink wrote:
| World Wars
| wongarsu wrote:
| From what I gather a number of factors. As one article
| puts it: "Social solidarity engendered by the wars,
| wartime experience of governing the economy, unemployment
| in the 1930s and the rise of socialist ideas."
|
| Both pension systems and labor unions were first created
| in the late 1880s/1890s and got a lot of steam in the
| early 1900s. Similarly with the modern iteration of
| minimum wages. Both the Nordic Model and Rhein Capitalism
| were created in the 1930s. On the more extreme spectrum,
| the Russian Revolution brought communism to Russia in
| 1917.
|
| In a way you can see this as the fruits of the critique
| of capitalism by Marx in the 1840s. They grew and took
| root in light of rising unsustainable inequality and lead
| to mostly positive reforms that brought down inequality
| even in societies that retained capitalism at the core.
| Then the trend reverses as the US starts their war on
| Socialism and Communism, and Reganomics and Thatcherism
| become dominant.
| fransje26 wrote:
| I understand how those elements would lead to a decrease
| of wealth inequality past 1920/30, but it doesn't
| directly explain why the decrease seems to start before
| World War I.
|
| If the unionizing and minimum wage movement was the cause
| of the big drop, wouldn't the drop have started before
| 1910?
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| 1914-1918 is the more precise date range that you are
| looking at for causation.
|
| One of the victims of war is Capital. Much Capital is
| destroyed in some places, and countries generally begin
| to do things that look an awful like command economics
| (i.e. Your factory is a tank factory now, you will make
| tanks, we will tell you how much you are getting paid. If
| you resist we will use the propaganda machine to make you
| look like our enemy). During both world wars the returns
| on capital were well below the rate of growth, and what
| would otherwise be expected.
|
| On top of all that, the world wars were huge events for
| income taxes. If you look at a history of income taxes in
| the US, you see three local maxima for the top brackets.
| The Civil War, and the two world wars. The same is true
| of estate taxes in the UK, for example.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| How does a rich person existing affect me? Is it just because
| I'm jealous that I don't have a yacht and so I should try to
| overthrow the system that doesn't let me have a yacht? Even
| though I'll never get a yacht in any system?
|
| Can we look at the graph of wealth disparity of America versus
| other nations?
| unknownsky wrote:
| Extremely rich people control every aspect of your life, how
| your city is planned, the state of the job market, the state
| of the economy, the laws, the state of the planet itself. One
| way that got a lot of attention lately is that extremely rich
| people prevent access to health care for everyone else.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| This seems like a pretty conspiratorial view on how society
| operates.
| archagon wrote:
| How so? The richest man in the US just bought himself a
| president. And now he intends to dismantle half the
| federal government.
| goatlover wrote:
| You think Elon Musk swung the election all by himself?
| archagon wrote:
| It's certainly plausible: https://mastodon.social/@carnag
| e4life@mas.to/113617945750132...
| bpt3 wrote:
| Except Harris outspent Trump overall by a significant
| amount.
| archagon wrote:
| But would Trump have won without Musk's support? The
| answer may well be no.
| bpt3 wrote:
| Polling indicates that his support didn't move the vote
| totals that much.
|
| Wouldn't the major Harris donors have bought the election
| if you are correct though?
| goatlover wrote:
| Nobody has that much control. Human systems evolve from
| many different interests and lots of unforseen
| consequences. How are the extremely rich preventing access
| to health care for everyone else? The US is a democracy,
| people do vote and have a say in what they want their
| representatives to do. If universal healthcare was the
| priority for a majority of voters over time, it would have
| happened.
| itishappy wrote:
| > Before accounting for taxes and transfers, the U.S. ranked
| 10th in income inequality; among the countries with more
| unequal income distributions were France, the U.K. and
| Ireland. But after taking taxes and transfers into account,
| the U.S. had the second-highest level of inequality, behind
| only Chile. (Mexico and Brazil had higher after-tax/transfer
| Gini scores, but no "before" scores with which to compare
| them; including them would push the U.S. down to fourth
| place.)
|
| https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2013/12/19/global-
| in...
| chaorace wrote:
| How does a king existing affect you if you live in a
| monarchy? One does not need begrudge the king his power to
| live in fear of it.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| A king in a monarchy generally has absolute power to
| enforce his will. A rich person living in a society of laws
| does not.
| chaorace wrote:
| A rich _person_ certainly does not. Rich people as a
| collective class, however? You 're kidding yourself if
| you claim that the people who make the laws and run our
| institutions aren't a nearly exclusive subset of the rich
| class.
|
| Nevertheless, distributed power certainly _is_ less
| dangerous than concentrated power, isn 't it? Inequality
| is a metric of the overall concentration of such power in
| our free market society. More inequality means more power
| in the hands of fewer. They become more like kings each
| day, when does it stop?
| banannaise wrote:
| Because the existence of these people means that we
| concentrate economic resources toward building yachts that
| might otherwise be concentrated toward growing food or
| building homes.
|
| Rational economic actors who produce goods and/or services
| will tend to supply what there is the most economic demand
| for (what brings them the most profit). If half the
| population has almost none of the money, then their needs
| have little economic demand behind them. So then what is the
| economic incentive to supply them with the things they need?
|
| In other words, producing a hundred-million-dollar yacht is a
| hundred million dollars (less profit margin) that could have
| been invested toward a more collective good, thus increasing
| the supply of those goods, thus reducing their scarcity, thus
| reducing their price.
| gruez wrote:
| There's plenty of countries that are higher:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_in...
|
| Most of those countries aren't exactly paragons of political
| stability, but they're probably not going to undergo a french
| revolution any time soon.
| hellweaver666 wrote:
| In one of the BBC articles when talking about the ghost gun in
| his possession, they have added "possibly 3d printed". This is
| the only place I have seen this mentioned and it's really
| annoying because there is already enough rhetoric about 3d
| printed guns and various groups trying to regulate 3d printers,
| the last thing we need is something as big as this for them to
| attach to!
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| Everything is a ghost gun if you're a journalist. Just like how
| everything is an ar15.
| munksbeer wrote:
| Usually I don't tend to get caught up in stories like this. But
| one thing has me completely fascinated, is how far off the deep
| end the internet went over the last few days. A murderer became a
| cult hero online. I saw many posts even suggesting "the snitch"
| should be hunted down and get what's coming to him/her.
|
| I try not to overreact to stuff online, but this took me a bit by
| surprise. Things really feel like a melting pot at the moment,
| with so much pent up anger amongst people who actually lead
| pretty decent lives.
| benterix wrote:
| > who actually lead pretty decent lives.
|
| It's because the whole image is fake. In theory everything is
| fine but you know there is something very bad about the
| healthcare system, and the power of an institution to decide
| about someone else's life or death is just one aspect of it;
| prices inflated beyond imagination is another one (these two
| are related). So we pretend to live normal lives but in the
| back of our head we pray we don't ever need to become a victim
| of this system. But on the outside yes, it looks like
| everything is fine and we have decent lives.
| jml78 wrote:
| I can explain my perspective which echos kinda what you say.
|
| I am in my 40s, I make pretty good money. My life is good.
|
| My mom died last year. The medical system and her medicare
| "advantage" plan killed her. She had a stroke. However,
| within a day, she was up and walking around with assistance.
|
| However, the hospital was understaffed so two things
| happened. She fell going to the bathroom AND after that
| happened, they did not get her moving enough and she got a
| huge bed sore.
|
| The huge bed sore would not have happened if her medicare
| advantage plan hadn't denied denied denied having her moved
| to get physical, occupation, and speech theray. If she had
| just good ole medicare, they would have approved it the day
| of request (it was requested the day after the stroke, I was
| warned that her plan was going to deny because they always do
| where medicare always approves). Instead, she rotted in an
| understaffed wing of the hospital for a week while I fought
| to get shit approved.
|
| After getting approval to be moved, she was making slow slow
| progress due to the bed sore. It is hard when your body needs
| to recover and you have a huge wound on your back.
|
| Once again her medicare "advantage" plan denied giving her
| more time in therapy. Guess what? Medicare would have just
| approved. Her advantage plan said the "community" could care
| for her and she could just get better over time. Do you know
| what that means? They wanted me to quit working and care for
| my mom 24/7. That is what they meant by community care. I am
| an only child with no other family except my wife and kids.
|
| The hospital social worker was great and refused to discharge
| my mom because she knew I couldn't physically move my mom
| around or give her the care she required. That started a
| month battle where her insurance was refusing to pay anymore
| hospital bills, refused to get her more therapy, and
| essentially killed my mom. If the social worker had allowed
| my mom to be discharged, I would have been fucked.
|
| She slowly got worse and died. The american medical system
| with its private "advantage" plans took what would have been
| a recoverable bad health incident and allowed it to kill my
| mom for greed.
|
| BTW, after a month of fighting, emails to the insurance board
| of directors and CEO, I got more therapy approved for my mom
| but it was too late by then. She died a few days later.
|
| You can probably guess how I feel about the CEO's
| murder........
| greenie_beans wrote:
| that sounds like a true nightmare. i'm sorry that happened.
| jml78 wrote:
| Yep, and it is preventable. The one thing I can say is
| NEVER let your parents sign up for a "medicare" advantage
| plan. There is no advantage. The company my mom was with
| is one of the largest and profited something like 18
| BILLION off medicare last year. How do you think that is
| possible? Because they overcharge medicare and deny
| coverage.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Source? UNH's entire net income in 2023 was $22.3B, and
| their market cap is more than 5x the next biggest managed
| care organization (MCO).
|
| The other MCOs all had net income less than $8B
| (CVS/Elevance/Cigna/Humana/etc).
|
| There is no way a business earned a profit of $18B just
| from Medicare and it not being visible on their net
| income figures.
|
| That is not to say Medicare Advantage is good for most
| customers (the common advice is to stay away from it),
| but fantastical numbers don't help arguments.
| wyre wrote:
| Profit is not income. That $18B could be spend on
| salaries, bonuses, company assests, etc, and I'm not an
| accountant but if it's getting spent on the business it
| doesn't have to be included in their income reports.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Profit without a qualifier is assumed to mean net income,
| which is all revenue minus all expenses.
|
| But even supposing that the business earns $18B from
| Medicare Advantage after all is said and done, it doesn't
| pass the smell test because at that level of profit,
| these businesses should shut everything else down and
| just do Medicare Advantage.
| sizzle wrote:
| Wish I could upvote this more. Switched mine to BCBS PPO
| with medigap supplemental plan for their Medicare
| provider. They got to go to the best cancer hospital and
| specialists you can just call up the office and schedule.
| It costs like $900 a month though and they pay 20% with
| 80% plan coverage up to catastrophic out of pocket limit.
| PPO if you want to give your loved ones a fighting
| chance.
| tpmoney wrote:
| People sign up for (or are tempted to sign up for)
| Medicare C because traditional Medicare is too complex
| and bafflingly bad. Traditional Medicare requires paying
| for your Part B premium, a separate Part D plan and
| premium (from the private insurance companies), likely a
| third "Medigap" plan and premium (also from the private
| insurance companies IIRC) and then separate private
| vision and dental coverages.
|
| And for all of that, you're stuck paying at least 20% of
| everything, on top of separate deductibles for each part
| and no out of pocket caps at all (meaning Medicare isn't
| even an ACA compliant health care plan). Part C
| simplifies this for so many people by rolling all of Part
| B, Part D and usually vision and dental into a single
| premium and puts out of pocket caps on the amount of
| money you might need to shell out. Is it any wonder
| people keep choosing Part C even if it means their
| providers have to fight the insurance more?
| flerchin wrote:
| It makes me want to commit a murder just reading this.
| fazeirony wrote:
| this right here. all the people in this thread acting like
| "everything is fine" and things aren't so bad for most
| people...i sincerely hope they get the reality check they
| deserve but not like this. to see a loved one - who did
| nothing wrong other than existing - to be murdered by the
| system? i've witnessed this first hand and to say one's
| blood boils is understatement of the century. all
| preventable but when profits are always always always
| always the most important thing...you're nothing but a
| cost; an expense to others' egregious profit motives. and
| as such....expendable.
| jml78 wrote:
| I will freely admit, I didn't know shit about medicare
| advantage plans prior to this shit show happening. Most
| people don't have a clue. But if you talk to a social
| worker at a hospital, they see it every single day. They
| are beat down trying to fight for their patients while
| watching them get fucked by insurance.
| sizzle wrote:
| Never go HMO, PPO is worth the extra $ when you want to
| choose hospitals and specialists.
| FrameworkFred wrote:
| How's that work? My employer doesn't offer health
| insurance, just reimbursement and every plan on the
| marketplace is an HMO.
| rifty wrote:
| I'm not sure all of this is profit seeking caused given
| their small margins. It feels like it could be a down
| stream effect of business sustainability and competition.
| The bag is necessarily covered by those who have less
| long running health complications, and so you need to
| provide a competitive price to them so they pay in with
| you. The price offered when you don't need care becomes
| lower than the amount needed to cover everyone when you
| do. Which would incentive denials out of necessity as
| well.
| fireflash38 wrote:
| It's bureaucratic violence. Slow. With maximum kafkaesque
| torture to draw it out.
|
| How many people die for greed? Is that not violence?
| gen220 wrote:
| "The noble person that goes to work and pray like they
| s'posed to? Slaughter people too, your murder's just a
| bit slower."
|
| - Kendrick Lamar
| galimaufry wrote:
| I wonder if there is a niche to ameliorate this sort of
| thing by offering payday loans on insurance payouts.
|
| The incentives are pro-social: insurance companies have an
| incentive to delay payouts, because their profits come from
| interest (they pay out more money than they take in) so the
| longer they can hold onto money the better. But that's
| reversed for this hypothetical loan issuer - they want to
| make the payout as fast as possible in order to earn as
| much interest as possible as quickly as possible.
|
| And if there's a systematic tendency for medicaid advantage
| plans to deny claims that eventually get approved, and if
| you could predict which ones will get approved 'just' by
| really understanding what medicaid would approve, then this
| might be self-sustaining or even profitable?
| jml78 wrote:
| The solution is disallow private insurance being the
| middle man between medicare and the patient.
|
| What possible benefit to the patient is having a whole
| bureaucracy sit between the gov't insurance and the
| person in need of medical care? It only exists to make
| money off the backs of the people they are harming.
|
| Now, if you don't know why people sign up for them, you
| don't understand what they are doing. My mom, like many
| others, was on a fixed income. If you sign up for a
| medicare advantage plan, they will do things like give
| you an extra $100 a month to you directly. Why would
| insurance be willing to PAY you? Because they make all
| their money billing medicare and denying you coverage.
|
| 18 billion in profits last year running a middle man
| between patients and medicare
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > Why would insurance be willing to PAY you?
|
| Why would the government introduce an intermediary in the
| first place?
| jml78 wrote:
| I haven't researched how all these came to exist but I
| assume it is the typical conservative talking point about
| the free market being more efficient so why wouldn't we
| want this. It will save us all money. And no, I don't
| believe any of that BS.
| sizzle wrote:
| Network effects. They outsource all the medical billing
| and management to the big insurance racket companies.
| Protip: go with a PPO Medicare plan and medigap
| supplemental plan if you want your loved ones to see any
| specialists and go to any hospital. I switched mine off
| the HMO advantage plans to BCBS PPO cause HMO Medicare
| advantage plans deny everything by default fighting tooth
| and nail.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Wikipedia says the government introduced intermediaries
| to cut costs (i.e. create a scapegoat people can blame
| for denying claims or reducing payments to providers and
| not have the finger point at the government).
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balanced_Budget_Act_of_1997
|
| > The act had a five-year savings goal and a ten-year
| savings goal following its enactment in 1997. The five-
| year savings goal was $116.4 billion which would be
| achieved by limiting growth rates in payments to
| hospitals and physicians under fee-for-service
| arrangements.[7]
|
| >This plan also involved the change of the methods of
| payment made to rehabilitation hospitals, home health
| agencies, skilled nursing facilities, and outpatient
| service agencies as well as the reduction of payments to
| Medicare managed care plans and the slowing of growth
| rates of these same care plans.[7]
|
| >The ten-year savings goal was $393.8 billion using the
| same savings methods as the five-year goal to achieve the
| savings in 2007.[7]
| lenerdenator wrote:
| Or, I don't know, maybe we do what every other Western
| nation has done and just present a public option for
| healthcare coverage to the average person?
|
| Nah, better to have millionaires lying to the sick and
| dying about the company not having the money to pay for
| the coverage that the sick person paid a hefty monthly
| premium to provide.
| intended wrote:
| There is no niche, that makes a fundamentally inefficient
| system, more efficient.
|
| If any such niche existed, for any system, then this
| niche would be the system.
| sofixa wrote:
| Nice, a hyper capitalistic solution to a problem which
| only exists because of a hyper capitalistic system. Why
| not add another middleman with a financial incentive to a
| system overburdened by middlemen with financial
| incentives?
|
| The solution would be to remove useless leeches providing
| no value or benefit to anyone other than shareholders,
| not add more of them.
|
| And what do you know, most of the rest of the developed
| world has managed to do that. And even the parts that
| have private healthcare have managed to put strict rules
| controlling it, and costs _and_ outcomes are much better.
| andrelaszlo wrote:
| I'm so sorry about what happened to your mom. I'd be
| furious, too. It sounds like you did everything you
| possibly could and really fought for her.
|
| It really makes me sad, but thank you for sharing your
| story.
| mattw2121 wrote:
| This is my story, just replacing "mom" with "dad". Thanks
| for telling it and sorry for your loss.
| sizzle wrote:
| Medicare Advantage is HMO right? I just switch my folks to
| BCBS PPO with Medicare and a "medigap" supplemental plan to
| cover things that Medicare won't. My head is still spinning
| up to my neck in paperwork for the cancer and hemorrhagic
| stroke bills from out of network physician groups billing,
| truly 24/7 job. Sorry for your loss. You did a lot to help
| I can tell after going through this myself. Be kind to
| yourself. They denied my mom's chemo drugs it's absurd. She
| paid into the system for decades without incident.
| svara wrote:
| I'm genuinely amazed by the distribution of opinions in
| this thread.
|
| If y'all feel that way, why don't you vote for a
| "socialist" healthcare system like we have over here in
| communist Europe?
|
| I mean, I'm over here in Germany and I'm not going to claim
| the system is that great, but it's really not half bad
| either, and it does seem to prevent the most extreme
| tragedies.
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| Your description reminds me of the opening scene of Blue
| Velvet.
| noisy_boy wrote:
| Its because the generally applicable standard way globally to
| know if things are bad for someone, doesn't work in US. Most
| people have homes, there is a car standing outside, they have
| clothes to wear, people are generally private (due to high
| focus on individualism) and unless you try, you can't really
| overhear your neighbour - so these issues hide behind closed
| doors.
| blantonl wrote:
| The problem is I don't see any "easy" solution to this issue,
| simply because there will always be an institution in place
| to decide about someone else's life our death.
|
| Be it a privately run for profit insurance system that runs
| on perverse incentives, or a government agency that runs on
| power and influence and corruption.
| bendauphinee wrote:
| The "easy" solution is to try and remove profit as much as
| possible from the equation. Pretty much every other high
| GDP country in the world has single payer healthcare.
|
| Guess how many people get told their anaesthesia won't be
| covered for their full surgery. That shouldn't even be a
| question, and yet the US system makes it one.
| Thorrez wrote:
| Two people I know who moved to the US from countries with
| single payer healthcare said that in their previous
| countries they would have to wait a long time for certain
| operations, but in the US can get them almost
| immediately.
| harimau777 wrote:
| From what I understand, wait time can certainly be an
| issue with single payer healthcare. However, there's
| people in the US who have effectively infinite wait time
| because they can't afford treatment at all.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| I have an excellent insurance plan and ready access to a
| large US hospital system. The wait to see a dermatologist
| as a new patient is ~6 months. Definitely not unique to
| single-payer systems.
| alostpuppy wrote:
| Also, this wait times in many part of the US are in line
| with the single payer countries. The quality of care in
| the US is heavily dependent on location.
| bendauphinee wrote:
| Depends on criticality. Yes, the US beats Canada for
| example on wait time in a lot of cases, however, as a
| Canadian I can walk into a ER and not have a co-pay.
|
| I had my appendix out a few years ago, I walked into the
| ER at 2PM, had the surgery done by midnight, and was able
| to be discharged by 9AM the next day. The only cost was
| my parking, because I drove myself over. Meanwhile, I've
| also had friends in the US who were clearly quite ill,
| and made the conscious decision to not go to the ER
| because it would have cost them hundreds of dollars.
|
| It's all a balance, but I'm happier with my single pay
| system, because for the most part, health decisions
| aren't at the whim of my bank balance being too low. I
| personally wouldn't be as disappointed in the US system,
| if the reason someone can get a surgery immediately
| didn't balance out with something like UnitedHealthcare's
| 32% rejection rate, because someone wanted a $10MM / yr
| salary or a $40MM yacht.
| contagiousflow wrote:
| Some problems in those countries are also caused by for
| profit healthcare existing in America. The shortage of
| doctors in Canada is not helped by the appeal of making
| much more money down south.
|
| Not to mention Canadian expats are generally the ones who
| would be able to afford the American healthcare costs.
| goatlover wrote:
| Also sounds like Canada isn't paying their doctors
| enough, which isn't to say America's healthcare is
| better, but it is something to take into account.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Canadian doctors are extremely well paid by Canadian and
| international standards, just not by the standards of
| American doctors (who have to repay massive medical
| debt). Increasing their wages is not really feasible,
| outside of a few underpaid specialties.
| ChadNauseam wrote:
| > Pretty much every other high GDP country in the world
| has single payer healthcare.
|
| This is just completely not true. Take France and Germany
| for example.
|
| > Guess how many people get told their anaesthesia won't
| be covered for their full surgery. That shouldn't even be
| a question, and yet the US system makes it one.
|
| So anesthesiologists should be able to ask for any amount
| their heart desires and the insurance is the bad guy if
| they don't want to pay it? Anesthesiologists have a
| profit motive too, you know.
| bendauphinee wrote:
| > All French citizens are required to have health
| insurance, and there are three main health insurance
| funds. The funds are non-profit and negotiate with the
| state on healthcare funding.
|
| > Does Germany have free public healthcare? Yes, all
| Germans and legal residents of Germany are entitled to
| free "medically necessary" public healthcare, which is
| funded by social security contributions. However,
| citizens must still have either state or private health
| insurance, covering at least hospital and outpatient
| medical treatment and pregnancy.
| ChadNauseam wrote:
| Neither of those are single-payer systems, which you can
| see by the fact that both of your quotations involve
| multiple payers. Google "does france have single payer
| healthcare" or "does germany have single payer
| healthcare" for more info
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > So anesthesiologists should be able to ask for any
| amount their heart desires and the insurance is the bad
| guy if they don't want to pay it?
|
| Obviously not; if they're billing 72 hours a day, that's
| fraud.
|
| If my procedure goes long because of a complication, I'd
| still prefer they not wake me up mid-procedure for a
| credit card and signature.
| ChadNauseam wrote:
| Naturally they would not wake you up mid-procedure for
| payment, nor ask you for payment later. What anthem
| wanted to do was put a cap on the number of billable
| hours per procedure, and have anesthesiologists accept
| payment based on that cap as "payment in full", meaning
| they would not expect additional payment for the extra
| time they spent after a procedure went long, either from
| the patient or the insurerer. This would have resulted in
| anesthesiologists making less money (as well as having
| less opportunity for fraud), which is why they didn't
| like it.
|
| But it was presented in popular media as if the insurance
| company was trying to shift the cost of overlong
| procedures onto the patient, rather than onto the
| anesthesiologists. Thankfully there was a public outcry
| and the anesthesiologists won, well-deservedly so
| considering they must be barely scraping by on a median
| income of $470,000/year.
| snatekay wrote:
| > What anthem wanted to do was put a cap on the number of
| billable hours per procedure, and have anesthesiologists
| accept payment based on that cap as "payment in full",
| meaning they would not expect additional payment for the
| extra time they spent after a procedure went long, either
| from the patient or the insurerer.
|
| The policy even had a path for the anesthesiologist to
| justify the overrun so that portion could be covered too.
| No doubt Anthem would scrutinize the justification
| closely and reject cases where they detect abuse, and the
| incentives are for Anthem to be too strict, but there was
| nothing wrong with the policy on its face. These sorts of
| things are absolutely necessary in order to drive
| healthcare costs, which are absolutely obscene, down.
| Ajedi32 wrote:
| When you remove profit from the equation, you also remove
| the incentive to increase supply. That's fundamentally
| what profit _is_ : a reward for fulfilling the needs of
| consumers. If you can fulfill those needs better or more
| efficiently or at a larger scale than your competitors,
| you get more profit.
| titusjohnson wrote:
| When you remove profit from the equation, you also remove
| the incentive to increase supply.
|
| Uhhh, what? What kind of wongo bongo thinking is this?
| Ajedi32 wrote:
| What other incentive is there? There might be some
| willing to go deep into debt in medical school so they
| can work for free out of the goodness of their hearts,
| but that's a vanishingly small number of people.
| Daishiman wrote:
| And yet apparently countries all over the world have to
| artificially raise the bar for med school because so many
| people want to be doctors for incentives aside from just
| the money.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| What are you talking about? Almost every country has a
| doctor shortage and Doctors are still well paid
| professionals there.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Would you go to work without being paid? I wouldn't.
|
| The same is true for those working in healthcare.
|
| United healthcare wouldn't even exist if there was a ton
| of people who wanted to found, fund, and work at
| nonprofit health insurance companies.
| barbazoo wrote:
| A first step could be to look at health care outcomes
| across the globe and see if the ones at the top have
| anything in common: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c
| ountries_by_quality_o...
| jajko wrote:
| You just described one of quite a few reasons (higher
| education falls into same category, overall security could be
| mentioned in such topic too) that I consider some parts of
| western Europe a better place to live and raise kids than
| anything US can provide. Despite having much lower numbers on
| paychecks alone.
|
| I get that system needs to push folks into working hard and
| motivate exceptional efforts (and luck), but sometimes this
| goes into properly bad directions where few gain and majority
| loses. In any functional society, all this is never isolated
| and it has ripple effects.
| dennis_jeeves2 wrote:
| >In theory everything is fine but you know there is something
| very bad about the healthcare system,
|
| No merely healthcare, but employment, housing etc. It's easy
| to single out healthcare for obvious reasons.
| benced wrote:
| You can leave! Nothing is stopping you from staying in the
| US. Particularly if you're on this website, you probably have
| talents other countries would like to acquire. The fact that
| you haven't says you don't believe what you say.
| dudeinhawaii wrote:
| The "America, love it or leave it" tactic? It's
| intellectually dishonest and shortcuts any kind of debate
| or thoughtful discussion. Or is this more of the "you
| haven't left your wife beating husband so you must like it"
| tactic? That's also philosophically bereft and avoids
| anything substantive.
|
| Suffice it to say, constructive criticism is vital for
| democratic improvement.
| benced wrote:
| If your belief is the United States is so bad that it
| justifies murder, you should leave. If you're more
| reasonable, I would not recommend leaving.
| jplusequalt wrote:
| My belief is that there are people who get what they
| deserve. The CEO was one of them.
| dvfjsdhgfv wrote:
| > If your belief is the United States is so bad that it
| justifies murder, you should leave.
|
| That's a weird conclusion. For me, it's rather "The USA
| has its flaws (for me - healthcare and higher education
| financing above all) so we as a society should focus on
| fixing these problems". Killing people or leaving the
| country are not solutions, they are are an equivalent of
| short Twitter replies on a nuanced subject.
| benced wrote:
| I agree! I'm only suggesting leaving if you think murder
| is justified.
| Clamchop wrote:
| Why should anyone care what you do or do not recommend?
| feoren wrote:
| > Don't like it? GTFO out loser! Uproot your family, move
| away from everything you know, all your friends, and go
| take a chance in a completely different country. Just
| change everything about your life and stop trying to make
| anything ever better. Otherwise STFU about it!
|
| - You
| kypro wrote:
| I thought it was a joke when I saw the posts on the Reddit
| homepage celebrating the murder and even the murderer. Partly
| because I thought Redditors were above that type of thing, but
| also because I thought it was against their TOS.
|
| It's a real reminder of how little sympathy people can have
| about people who they consider the enemy or the "other". I'm
| almost certain nearly all of the people celebrating the murder
| believe that they're good people and believe in justice too.
| Humans are so flawed. And I'm not suggesting for a moment I'm
| above it. I've often noticed how I don't care as much as I
| should when someone I dislike is harmed or suffers injustice.
| oneeyedpigeon wrote:
| I was even more surprised by the response on Bluesky because
| I naively expected it to be 'better' than that. But I saw
| vitriol and hatred directed at people for daring to suggest
| that other, unrelated CEOs shouldn't be shot. It was like a
| reflection of the worst elements of X, even though these
| people claim to be the 'good' side.
| wongarsu wrote:
| A lot of people feel that he as the CEO of the health
| insurance with the highest rate of denied claims is
| indirectly responsible for the death of a large number of
| people. Thus killing him is justified as vigilante justice.
| And vigilante justice is frequently seen in a positive light
| when the justice system is unable or unwilling to act.
| toxik wrote:
| These CEOs have found a way to game the system, but the
| system presupposes mutual respect. If one side reneges on
| this contract and says that technically they're following
| the rules, well, the other side will just disregard the
| rules. It's like the kid at the playground who won't play
| fair but insists that technically they follow the rules,
| ignoring completely the outcome -- kids just don't want to
| play with them anymore, and will probably be mean to the
| `cheater'.
| BoxFour wrote:
| That may feel acceptable, but I hope those people remember
| it when someone controversial they admire meets a similar
| fate, greeted by applause from the other side.
|
| Once we start tacitly approving of extrajudicial killings,
| it doesn't stop with just those you dislike or even just
| the outspoken figures. Consider how many completely
| innocent civilians died during the Troubles or the French
| Revolution, or how easy it would've been for someone
| completely innocent to get harmed here.
|
| It's easy to approve of this in a vacuum, it's just a path
| full of extreme cognitive dissonance.
| wongarsu wrote:
| One of the many purposes of the justice system is to
| serve "justice" so people don't feel the need to take it
| in their own hands. The fact that so many people feel
| this murder is justified shows a clear breakdown of the
| justice system. Which should give everyone pause because
| that path does lead to the terrors you describe.
|
| But the path to solving that has to involve adjustments
| to the system that address this mismatch, not just
| condemning the act or creating some huge diversion in the
| hope people will forget about it.
| wat10000 wrote:
| I would say that this is not only one of its proposes,
| but by far the most important. The system primarily
| prevents violence by convincing people they don't need to
| commit violence to achieve justice.
|
| If that starts to break down, people in power need to
| wake up and fix it. The system does not, cannot, protect
| them from the masses entirely by force. I fear that they
| have forgotten.
| BoxFour wrote:
| I'm not disagreeing.
|
| I don't think we should rejoice that justice has failed
| so miserably that people are applauding extrajudicial
| killings.
|
| It's a really, really, really bad thing.
| uoaei wrote:
| It is absolutely not the duty of citizens to bend to an
| unjust system, but rather that of the justice system to
| reflect the ethics of its citizenry. Clearly there is a
| severe disconnect and "civil society" reached a breaking
| point around this issue.
| intended wrote:
| I mean, we're already there. There wasn't a shared
| reality in the past few years, and now we even have the
| generative tools to ensure there is even less shared
| reality.
| BoxFour wrote:
| Don't be too glad to celebrate it, is my point.
| wat10000 wrote:
| What do you mean, "once we start"? It has always been.
| The only really unusual thing about this instance is that
| the target was not the sort of person who's traditionally
| been seen as deserving it.
| BoxFour wrote:
| Things have notably gotten worse over the last decade or
| so, if that hasn't been made abundantly clear.
| wat10000 wrote:
| Perhaps, but on a longer time horizon none of this is
| new.
| BoxFour wrote:
| On a longer time horizon the norm is brutal warfare that
| leaves many innocent people dead.
|
| I don't think we should be so keen to embrace that.
| wat10000 wrote:
| Even in times of peace, Americans love our righteous
| killings and murderous folk heroes.
|
| I'm not keen to embrace it. But I think the finger-
| wagging is idiotic. Chastising people will accomplish
| nothing except for making them think you're out of touch.
|
| Folks disturbed by this outpouring of support for this
| murder should instead be asking why people feel that way.
| Maybe it's because of a system that treats their lives as
| an expense to be minimized and gives them no recourse. If
| wide support for Luigi Mangione worries you, maybe look
| at fixing that.
| BoxFour wrote:
| Seems like you're awfully annoyed by this conversation so
| I'll let it go, but I hope you remember this convo the
| next time this happens to someone.
|
| Right now, Daniel Penny is being celebrated by half the
| country for killing Neely, and the other half wishes
| something like this would happen to him.
| wat10000 wrote:
| I keep getting this response and I do not understand it.
| Why would I change my opinion just because other people
| might disagree?
|
| It's especially bizarre here because I haven't even
| expressed an opinion about the killing. All I said is
| that love of killers is nothing new, and if you want it
| to stop then you need to change the circumstances that
| make people like killing, rather than just telling them
| that they're bad.
| ImJamal wrote:
| There is a belief that Daniel Penny acted in the direct
| defense of those in the area. That is quite different
| than killing a CEO who is probably going to be replaced
| by the same type of person.
| harimau777 wrote:
| That's already happening. Just yesterday someone got
| acquitted of murdering a homeless person in NYC. The only
| thing that's different here is that it was a CEO who got
| killed instead of one of the peasants.
| BoxFour wrote:
| Yes, near 50% of the country is cheering that he was
| acquitted and someone was killed. The other 50% would be
| glad if he faced extrajudicial punishment.
|
| Not a good state to be in.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| Murder wasn't even one of the charges, so even if he had
| been found guilty on all counts it still wouldn't justify
| you calling him a murderer
| fakedang wrote:
| > greeted by applause from the other side.
|
| Considering the other side is a minority of top-level
| executives and media outlets, I wouldn't bank much on
| that.
|
| People are going to celebrate killers regardless, as they
| always have, when the perpetrator shares the viewpoint of
| the majority. It happened with Jesus and Barabbas, it
| happened with Cromwell and Charles I, it happened with
| Louis XVI and the French revolutionaries.
|
| In fact, I'm not surprised that Luigi has a bigger
| fanbase than the Trump shooter. The majority then were in
| awe of Trump, if not openly cheering him. Here, they're
| cheering Luigi, with some even insinuating that it was
| his plan to get caught (something which might as well be
| true).
| BoxFour wrote:
| > Considering the other side is a minority of top-level
| executives and media outlets, I wouldn't bank much on
| that.
|
| The other side is often 50% of the country. Whatever
| controversial figures you like, near 50% of the country
| would gladly applause or at least quote Clarence Darrow
| if they were brutally murdered.
|
| Something to keep in mind.
| goatlover wrote:
| Trump just got elected and is appointing a cabinet of
| billionaires.
|
| It should be noted that the context with Jesus and
| Barabbas is probably the failed Jewish revolt against
| Rome that led to the destruction of the temple in 70CE,
| with the gospel accounts looking to separate the emerging
| gentile Christian movement from the Jewish rebels.
| mountainriver wrote:
| Thankfully don't admire anyone that kills people to boost
| profits
| BoxFour wrote:
| You might! You'd be surprised how many people have ties
| to the "defense" industry.
| narski wrote:
| It's similar to war heroes. Yes, Abraham Lincoln killed
| people. Yes, we could avoid glamorizing him and empathize
| with the poor southerners. But generally, war heroes are
| idolized. This guy is like a war hero who killed someone
| on the other side.
| liontwist wrote:
| A CEO like this is an employee. He didn't invent private
| insurance. He doesn't get the 50 billion a year. He is a
| symbolic scapegoat.
|
| Every person with a 401k probably owns UHC somewhere, and
| they expect it to increase every year. He is merely part of
| the system to help make that happen.
|
| Try going into work tomorrow and saying "boss I think our
| VP's initiatives are wrong and I'm going to take us in a
| different direction".
| lolc wrote:
| There are good reasons to oppose his murder, but they are
| not found within him.
| liontwist wrote:
| I don't have to defend anyone against murder, it's
| illegal and wrong.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > He is merely part of the system to help make that
| happen.
|
| Yeah, we saw that defense at Nuremberg. Didn't work.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_orders
| liontwist wrote:
| I'm sure you never do anything because it's enforced by
| the systems you are a part of. Always an independent
| thinker, looking out for your personal integrity.
|
| You're also comparing an insurance CEO to nazi
| organizers. Reality check.
|
| The serious point is that blaming individual moral
| character is not going to fix healthcare. We need
| systemic change.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > I'm sure you never do anything because it's enforced by
| the systems you are a part of.
|
| I mean, I can quite confidently state I've not received
| tens of millions of dollars for my role in denying
| medical care to millions of people.
|
| > You're also comparing an insurance CEO to nazi
| organizers. Reality check.
|
| I'm saying "I'm just a little peon in the system!" isn't
| a good defense. Doubly so for C-suite level folks. This
| wasn't some call center drone following a script.
|
| > The serious point is that blaming individual moral
| character is not going to fix healthcare. We need
| systemic change.
|
| Systemic change often requires individual people to be
| ashamed of the current setup.
| liontwist wrote:
| Ok just to be clear: Your position is that UHC is bad
| because of the exceptionally poor morality of the CEO?
| And that if we name, shame, and threaten we will
| hopefully get a moral one who will turn it around?
|
| > I'm just a little peon in the system!" isn't a good
| defense.
|
| I agree. It's not a good way to morally justify to
| yourself why you killed someone.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| My position is that a CEO of a large publicly traded
| company doesn't get to shimmy out of responsibility by
| going "woe is me, it's the system's fault!"
|
| I think if the system keeps refusing to change something
| breaks. We just saw that in Syria. I think people are
| unsympathetic in this case because health insurers have
| already broken the social compact they're supposed to
| operate within.
| computerthings wrote:
| This idea of there being a "game" that just magically
| _is_ , while players that cannot be blamed for playing,
| nonsense. We need to change the system people with low
| individual character created for their own benefits, yes.
| But that's still why we have those systems in the first
| place, that wasn't an accident or oversight or lack of an
| effort of common people to try and make the world better.
| They fight and struggle every day, against the efforts of
| people the likes of which Brian Thompson played willing
| executive for.
|
| > You're also comparing an insurance CEO to nazi
| organizers. Reality check.
|
| They're comparing an excuse. It would be the same correct
| comparison if it was about someone parking illegally. And
| accepting and enabling suffering and death of people for
| profit rather than out of fear of being shot isn't
| exactly _better_.
| troyvit wrote:
| This just occurred to me though. Is UHC going to have a
| hard time finding a CEO that continues this practice? Have
| they actually been given any reason to change? Any reason
| to believe they won't just double down?
|
| If this murder doesn't change anything, was it justified? I
| just don't know.
| kbelder wrote:
| Ironically, the net result may be an increase in CEO
| compensation.
| greenie_beans wrote:
| some people believe the CEO's death is justice. engels called
| what insurance companies do "social murder" where these
| institutions and the state commits violence against
| individuals or kills them through policy or profit motives.
| and it's perfectly legal. it's only when an individual uses
| self defense against this social violence that it is
| considered wrong.
| that_guy_iain wrote:
| Honest question, do you think there is a point where someone
| has earned death? For example, was the mission to kill Bin
| Laden wrong? Was the mission to kill the Iranian General in
| Iraq wrong? Is it wrong to kill someone via the death penalty
| for the rape and murder of a child? Many people fundamentally
| believe those things are good examples of killing other
| humans. And realistically, those people are responsible for
| less harm and suffering , not to mention deaths, that CEOs of
| healthcare providers being investigated by the DoJ.
|
| It's not that there. Is a lack of sympathy, it's overwhelmed
| by the feeling of justice. And not the injustice you think
| occurred.
| oneeyedpigeon wrote:
| Only about a quarter of the world's countries have the
| death penalty so even if "many people believe that's a good
| example of killing other humans", most do not. While I
| abhor the nature of privatised healthcare in the US, I
| think judging--and, certainly, killing--people based on
| potential indirect harm they've caused is a very slippery
| slope.
| that_guy_iain wrote:
| I don't know of a single country without a military nor a
| country that doesn't allow law enforcement to use lethal
| force. So your statement that most people don't think
| they are valid examples of a good killing of someone is
| disingenuous.
| oneeyedpigeon wrote:
| I was specifically referring to the death penalty.
| that_guy_iain wrote:
| But my point was about justice and if we think there is a
| point someone deserves to die. If we say there is, which
| I think it's clear, there is. The whole question about
| people being happy is about them being happy that they're
| seeing justice. But you tried to side step that.
|
| Also, on the death penalty, I don't think it's ever gone
| to a vote where the people decided. So saying most people
| are againist the death penalty sounds hollow.
| abnry wrote:
| There's martial law and there is civil law. Martial law
| applies to enemies and in wartime. In this case, killing
| enemies like Bin Laden is acceptable.
|
| However, in civil law, for the state to kill someone it has
| to be done through the courts. There is evidence given on
| each side. Killing someone without this is not justice.
|
| People talk as if it is so obvious UHC CEO was responsible
| for the deaths of many people but he never got to make his
| case. That's not justice at all.
| that_guy_iain wrote:
| I'm talking about justice and what is legal and what is
| just are two different things.
|
| Is it just a child rapist, who there is video evidence
| commuting the crime, gets to walk free because they can't
| find the victim to testify in court? And yes, that is the
| law in some countries. The uk had to wait for someone to
| come back to the uk because they could convict without
| the victims but the country he committed the crime
| couldn't.
|
| And it's only not obvious that he's responsible for a lot
| of pain and suffering when you ignore the facts. The
| accused doesn't need to give their side of the story for
| people to know what happened.
| abnry wrote:
| > The accused doesn't need to give their side of the
| story for people to know what happened.
|
| There is always a defense in court. This is not
| necessarily the defendant explicitly testifying. That's
| what I meant by the defendant making their case.
|
| Justice can fail in the courts, I agree. But you can't
| have justice without (a) an authority with the power to
| judge, usually the state, and (b) a court proceeding
| where evidence is weighed.
|
| If you say the UHC CEO killing was justice, then you
| must, to be consistent, allow for other such killings.
| Should all healthcare CEOs now be knocked off?
| 542354234235 wrote:
| There is a difference between "earning a death" as some
| sort of justice, and killing being justified to prevent
| further harm. The death penalty is more of an example of
| earning death, as it is a punishment more than it is to
| prevent the person doing harm. Whereas a police shooting is
| a "justified" killing to prevent harm to others. In the
| former the goal is killing, in the latter the goal is to
| stop a threat and the outcome is killing.
|
| The killing of Bin Laden and Soleimani were justified, in
| my opinion, as declared enemy combatants and leaders of
| hostile State and non-State military forces. They didn't
| "deserve" to die for justice. They were taken off the
| battlefield. Whether I agree with that decision or not, I
| understand the justification.
|
| Killing a rapist and murderer via the death penalty is
| wrong, in my opinion. It is killing in cold blood as a
| punishment, not to protect others or prevent harm. I do not
| think government should engage in retributive killing. But
| that is just me.
|
| As for the United CEO, I don't think he deserved to die or
| earned a death. I do think that a compelling argument can
| be made that government institutions have failed to act to
| protect human life at the hands of the American healthcare
| system, and that an individual could see his killing as a
| justified means to force change and protect American lives.
| It is the eternal question of when is someone a terrorist
| and when are they a freedom fighter?
| mft_ wrote:
| The actions of his company --which he led and dictated policy
| for-- can be considered evil by a reasonably dispassionate
| measure - they deliberately caused undue suffering or
| shortened the life of countless thousands of vulnerable
| people.
|
| I (obviously) don't support vigilante justice, and felt
| somewhat sad when Hussein and Gadaffi were hanged/lynched
| because despite their evil, I'd rather we don't treat human
| beings like that.
|
| But I don't think it's hyperbole to consider the actions of
| this CEO and his company in the same breath as such evil
| tyrants; and as such, I can understand why many might be
| happy about what took place, especially if they had personal
| animus with the company.
| abnry wrote:
| > But I don't think it's hyperbole to consider the actions
| of this CEO and his company in the same breath as such evil
| tyrants
|
| But it is. Tyrants round up women and children and execute
| them. Healthcare is more complicated because you have
| multiple causes at play: the health conditions of patients,
| the hospitals and what they bill, and the insurance
| companies.
|
| Money is a big factor here. People talk as if insurance
| companies should spend unlimited resources on every person.
| I understand the resentment over wealth inequality, but
| someone recently calculated that the top 4 billionaires
| could only support healthcare for everyone for 3 months.
| Money is not an infinite resource. Rationing is
| unavoidable.
|
| But I get that there is a problem. Automatic denials and
| denials over treatments that have clear and significant
| benefits are a problem, absolutely. And the system could
| run more efficiently. But we also can't avoid death due to
| old age or sickness. Nor painless death.
|
| But we can avoid murdering people in the streets in cold
| blood.
| jplusequalt wrote:
| When people are tired of a system and the powers that be,
| they take action into their own hands. I'd rather a few
| dead CEO's and a renewed zeal among the populace to
| address these issues, then roll over like a dog.
| Tryk wrote:
| What about deploying an AI that automatically denies 90%
| of appeals incorrectly? Is that Tyrannical or is that
| "complicated"?
|
| https://www.medicaleconomics.com/view/unitedhealthcare-
| used-...
|
| There is no reason why you need middlemen between the
| people and healthcare, beyond enriching the rent-seeking
| middlemen.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| This overall dynamic has become very concerning to me- people
| have sorted themselves into echo chambers online that
| dehumanize anyone not in their group- to the point of
| justifying murder for just for not being in their specific
| group. This has happened universally across the political and
| ideological spectrum. Parts of Reddit for example has a
| seething hatred for anyone elderly "boomers" and/or well off
| "billionaires and landlords" with lots of extreme essays on
| why people in these groups should be systematically harmed or
| even executed becoming well liked. Anyone adding nuance to
| the discussion is attacked- empathy and nuance are labeled as
| themselves evil. Everything is based on a cartoonishly
| oversimplified model of the world with pure good and evil
| actors- not understanding that unfair outcomes are most often
| simply the banal result of bad planning and locked in
| structures that appear organically and can persist even when
| everyone involved wants them to change but can't coordinate
| well. This dynamic is repeated everywhere and not unique to
| just the right or left. Nothing good will come off this.
| CrimsonCape wrote:
| This is a spot-on description. The locked-in banality seems
| to be the source of fuel for many issues people are taking
| offense with. Housing cost too much? Oh well. Food costs
| too much? Oh well. Medical costs too much? Oh well, etc.
| etc.
|
| There doesn't seem to be many release valves other than
| "accept your fate" especially when you have seemingly
| little control over your own fate.
| NoGravitas wrote:
| > I'm almost certain nearly all of the people celebrating the
| murder believe that they're good people and believe in
| justice too.
|
| It's _because_ they believe in justice that they are
| celebrating the murder.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| For some definition of justice. Maybe not the same
| definition the rest of us are using, though.
| goatlover wrote:
| A kind of justice that hasn't ben particularly just in the
| past, which is why vigilante justice isn't legal. The point
| is to not have citizens deciding to carry out their own
| idea of justice. That's for the state, which in a
| democratic society, we vote on, they pass laws which judges
| interpret and so on.
|
| Because we can't trust everyone to deal out their own idea
| of justice without it turning into endless blood feuds and
| partisan killings. Not to mention all the lynchings and
| witch hunts. This doesn't even bring up the fact that most
| individuals don't have the resources or motivation to carry
| out a proper independent investigation. So then the wrong
| person gets hung by an angry mob, or beat to death by a
| family member of the victim.
| Tryk wrote:
| Kill one man, and you are a murderer. Kill millions of
| men, and you are a successful healthcare insurance CEO.
| chasd00 wrote:
| Brian Thompson was CEO for all of 3 and a half years. He
| was also only about 50 years old, I don't think he's
| quite the bond villain you want him to be.
| guerrilla wrote:
| > melting pot
|
| Did you mean tipping point?
| munksbeer wrote:
| Yes, probably. But I don't think we're at an actual tipping
| point. I don't think we're about to see a breakdown or
| anything like that, soon, but we're certainly heading in that
| general direction.
|
| What is the euphemism I'm actually looking for? Knife edge?
| No.
| adregan wrote:
| Powder keg?
| munksbeer wrote:
| Yup, that's it, thank you.
| fastball wrote:
| I assumed it was "boiling point".
| hansifer wrote:
| Maybe powder keg
| Havoc wrote:
| Yeah was wild to see that.
|
| I take it as a reaction to the wider public feeling that the US
| medical system is broken and the appropriate channel to fix it
| (voting & politics) being broken too thanks to lobbying.
|
| Under circumstances like this people's perception shifts to a
| more relativistic perspective. A bit like perception of a
| rioter throwing a stone at riot police depends on whether the
| viewer agrees with the movements goals even if in isolation
| they wouldn't normally approve of throwing rocks at people
| faces.
| intended wrote:
| > Things really feel like a melting pot at the moment, with so
| much pent up anger amongst people who actually lead pretty
| decent lives.
|
| One of the reasons that many people voted for Trump, is
| nihilism. The real belief that Trump is the one most likely to
| burn the 'system' to the ground. That is the brightest _hope_
| some voters have.
| uoaei wrote:
| Please put more effort into understanding people's issues
| with the system as it stands today.
|
| And please understand that virtually no one wants to leave a
| burned-out wreckage on a desolate hellscape. Everyone fancies
| themselves Shiva, or a phoenix, or whatever cultural imagery
| makes sense to you.
| intended wrote:
| I know this is a sensitive topic. I am sorry it bothers
| you.
|
| The sadder truth is, that I say what I say - AFTER having
| already applied your advice. I have spoken to strangers,
| reached out to see what they think. I spend the time to
| understand the many subcultures people are not parts of.
|
| Go look at what is showing up in streamer feeds.
|
| Talk to people, and when a 20 year old tells you "yeah
| bitcoin is great, because I have no hopes. So even if it
| goes to the shitter, how much worse can I be.", you will
| see that people are truly happy to see things go to hell.
|
| I do wish I had seen other things and had different
| interactions. But there is a substantial level of nihilism.
|
| If you wish not to believe me - we're in a thread where an
| insurance CEO was assassinated and the perpetrator is being
| hailed as a hero.
| uoaei wrote:
| This conversation won't last much longer unless you
| _actually_ listen.
|
| People are hailing the shooter because of the resulting
| society they want to grow out of this, not because of
| some shallow death-drive diagnosis by an aspiring
| armchair psychologist.
| mbesto wrote:
| > how far off the deep end the internet went over the last few
| days.
|
| Side note - the "internet" is very likely a mix of bots and
| real humans nowadays. What might seem initially like a real
| person saying "hunt the snitch down" could very likely be a bot
| that is meant to sow and influence discord. That bot's
| followers could very likely be real people who then say "ya i
| agree with this account! get your pitchfork!"
| iambateman wrote:
| This is generally true but I've never seen clear evidence of
| bot activity on HN - have you? I think it's very likely that
| those reactions on Twitter are 50/50 bot, but I've seen HN
| people posting their own version of "wow, what a guy" in ways
| that were convincingly human and very surprising.
| Aerbil313 wrote:
| Huge disagree - there's no convincingly human anymore for
| internet text, especially for short internet text. Since
| the coming of LLMs, when I read HN, Reddit or even blog
| posts, I always keep it in the back of my mind that
| whatever I'm reading can very well be written by a bot.
| Fine-tune/prompt an LLM the right way and you'll get
| content indistinguishable from human text even for highly
| specific niche topics/contexts.
| itchyouch wrote:
| This is a random reply to a different comment Aerbil313
| made for their benefit as their email in hackernews seems
| expired.
|
| ----
|
| I have a family member suffering from multiple exposures
| to fluoroquinolone (FQ) antibiotics. While the research
| doesn't understand the root-cause reason for how FQs
| cause trouble, my journey with dealing with my personal
| family-history of diabetes and my family's chronic
| illness has gotten me to go down a road of understanding
| how to solve some issues.
|
| From what I understand, mitochondrial dysfunction appears
| to be at the core of many issues like I said. However, to
| expand on what I've found useful in my n=1-2 experiments,
| juxtaposed against much of the Phd/MD health podcast
| sphere information, most interventions like exercise and
| nutrition fundamentally are there to improve metabolic
| health. Many markers like VO2 Max or A1c are integral
| that gives a snapshot of one aspect of one's metabolic
| health.
|
| In my family's and my specific journey, I've put together
| a variety of molecules/supplements we've found useful in
| their journey and framed it in such a way as to be
| actionable, but also presentable enough to the public.
|
| https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Fo2F851i0OE4tIQb0
| hQ7...
|
| It's a lot of information, but hopefully it would be
| useful for you and others. Feel free to ask any questions
| on my rationale, thinking, or reasoning behind why
| certain things are useful, and how I came to certain
| conclusions.
| sitzpinkler wrote:
| > convincingly human
|
| We are long past that being a means of distinguishing a bot
| for anything other than obvious crypto scams. I have no
| doubt at all that a substantial number of HN posts,
| especially on divisive topics such as this one, are made by
| foreign agents. HN is an ideal means of targeting the types
| of people driving Western economies, and so I am certain
| that it is one of the top targets for such operations.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| Bots don't independently invent opinions separate from the
| people running them. Not even with LLMs. "Bots" are just sock
| puppets - people creating multiple identities for themselves
| so they can ballot-stuff the Court of Public Opinion.
|
| So it's not so much that there are no real people who want to
| hunt down the snitch, but that there's a very loud minority
| of performative extremists with an army of sock puppet
| accounts who want to hunt down the snitch.
| userabchn wrote:
| > there's a very loud minority of performative extremists
| with an army of sock puppet accounts who want to hunt down
| the snitch
|
| The people running the bot armies for foreign influence
| operations probably do not care about hunting down the
| snitch, they are simply following orders to spread that
| message.
| pyrale wrote:
| It seems that people are increasingly convinced that "in this
| country it is necessary, now and then, to put one health
| insurance exec to death in order to inspire the others to pay".
|
| That is a sign that people believe they can't obtain redress
| through widely available legal means.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| What you are looking at is the people checking the power of
| the institutions they tasked with providing legal recourse
| who have mostly been sitting on their hands and/or serving
| parties other than the people.
|
| If the state, courts and other systems don't get people
| justice or something you can squint at and call justice when
| they are wronged some fraction of those wronged will go
| outside the systems and seek to get even instead.
|
| Public sympathy for the (rare, perhaps crazy) people who
| shoot CEOs or armor bulldozers are what gives the parts of
| the institutions that want to do what the people want the
| political capital to something other than the status quo.
| harimau777 wrote:
| I'm not sure people are actually leading pretty decent lives.
| The people I know are working stressful dead end jobs and
| living with roommates in order to barely make ends meet. They
| don't have much prospect of improving their lot because doing
| so requires capital that they don't have (e.g. to start a
| business or go to college). Even though they have health
| insurance, they avoid going to the doctor unless absolutely
| necessary because they can't afford the co-pay. In some cases
| the states that they live in actively seek to discriminate
| against them.
| lotsoweiners wrote:
| The people I know are pretty much exactly the opposite of you
| so I think it comes down to age/experience, location, and
| other factors.
| hedora wrote:
| On the one side you have a mass murderer that's part of the
| politically untouchable class, and on the other, one of his
| permanently injured victims managed to survive and deal out
| frontier-style justice.
|
| It makes for a good story. We've all seen that movie 100 times.
|
| I wonder if the shooter will survive long enough to make it to
| jury trial. That's when the real circus will begin.
|
| (All I know about this story is that United Health has one of
| the highest incorrect claim rejection rates in the industry. I
| know nothing about the CEO, but we're way past 140 characters
| at this point, so these things don't matter to social media.)
| wat10000 wrote:
| It's funny how we treat these things. Kill a bunch of people by
| putting lead in their drinking water and it's a shrug.
| Occasionally you might lose your job over it. In extremely rare
| and egregious cases you might end up with a minor criminal
| conviction.
|
| Kill one person by putting lead in their heart at high speed
| and now it's a serious crime. If the victim is Important then
| you get a massive manhunt and national news coverage.
| hollerith wrote:
| >Kill one person by putting lead in their heart at high speed
| and now it's a serious crime.
|
| I wish this was an attempt at a joke.
| wat10000 wrote:
| Me too. I'm describing it flippantly for effect, but I'm
| deadly serious. There are ways to kill people that get the
| attention of law enforcement, and ways to kill people that
| are de facto (and often de jure) legal. And wouldn't you
| know, the latter category tends to include the methods used
| by the rich and powerful.
| hollerith wrote:
| >I'm deadly serious
|
| I figured that. It feels a little like the country is
| going crazy.
| wat10000 wrote:
| How could we not, when the rich and powerful kill with
| impunity?
| merrywhether wrote:
| Or coming to temporary clarity? Things like the "culture
| wars" are distractions pushed by the elites to keep the
| lower classes fighting amongst themselves and not their
| true enemy. But extractive robber barons are the real
| problem behind everyone's life getting worse all the
| time, and for a brief moment everyone has seen that and
| been in alignment.
| gosub100 wrote:
| If we have a functioning democracy, you know, where we
| vote for what we want, how do we end up with the
| healthcare situation in this country? (For god's sake I'm
| NOT inviting a right-vs-left debate here!) Nobody wants
| this, and yet we haven't solved it by any legislative
| actions. That tells you clearly there is an invisible 4th
| arm of government (not "shadow government", corporate
| government) going on here that we are just beginning to
| shed light on.
| wat10000 wrote:
| It's not even subtle. The deciding vote which kept
| Obamacare from having a public option was Joe Lieberman,
| commonly referred to as "the Senator from Aetna."
| feoren wrote:
| The country has been going crazy yelling about trans
| people and gay people and black people and Irish people
| and "Ingins" for hundreds of years. Suddenly we stop
| worrying about 7 trans athletes and pay actual attention
| to what's actually going on and you say we're going
| crazy? I say we, just for a few days, collectively woke
| from a delusional nightmare to see the world as it really
| is.
|
| Don't worry. We're already drifting back to sleep.
| klez wrote:
| There's a barely-known Italian song from 2006 by Italian
| rapper Caparezza that deals with this exact theme. It's
| about a guy trying to "legally" kill his wife.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxhmOfk-L5Q
|
| Lyrics here https://www.angolotesti.it/C/testi_canzoni_ca
| parezza_1135/te...
| edanm wrote:
| That's not funny; that's just not how things actually work.
| wat10000 wrote:
| It's not?
|
| Air pollution alone kills tens of thousands of Americans a
| year. More die from air pollution than die from what's
| legally defined as murder, by a substantial margin. How
| many people are in prison for it? Most of that pollution it
| outright legal. The illegal parts are rarely punished and
| never on the level meted out to "murderers." And that's
| just one example.
|
| It's totally legal to deliberately kill innocent people, as
| long as you do it in certain ways.
| edanm wrote:
| You're using the word "deliberately" wrong when talking
| about things like air pollution. Pointing a gun and
| shooting at someone is quiet a different thing than is
| causing air pollution.
|
| Are people who smoked next to other people deliberately
| killing them? After all, second hand smoke was quite
| dangerous.
| wat10000 wrote:
| Please explain the difference, in terms of how it should
| affect my opinion of the person who carries out the act.
| Pretend, for the sake of argument (and because it's true)
| that I don't see it.
|
| A factory boss decides to release some toxic pollutant.
| They know that it will result in some number of deaths
| over the next years. They choose to go through with it
| anyway, because they make more profit than if they
| disposed of the stuff properly, and that money matters
| more to them than the lives they're ending.
|
| What's the difference between that and some petty
| criminal shooting someone in the street so they can take
| the victim's wallet?
|
| And yeah, smoking counts too, why not? The saving grace
| there is that the harm from an individual smoker isn't
| very large. Even over a period of years, someone who
| habitually smokes near people who don't consent to it
| only takes a tiny fraction of a life. That's why I think
| smoking bans should be enforced with reasonable fines
| rather than life in prison.
| edanm wrote:
| > Please explain the difference, in terms of how it
| should affect my opinion of the person who carries out
| the act.
|
| Sure.
|
| > A factory boss decides to release some toxic pollutant.
| They know that it will result in some number of deaths
| over the next years. They choose to go through with it
| anyway, because they make more profit than if they
| disposed of the stuff properly, and that money matters
| more to them than the lives they're ending.
|
| This depends a lot on context you haven't provided. Most
| importantly - is this legal?
|
| If releasing this toxic pollutant is illegal, then they
| should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
| For good reason, that is usually _not_ a death sentence.
| But if you have an issue with how harsh or not the
| sentence is, that 's a question to take up with the legal
| system, not with the individual.
|
| Either way, vigilante justice is not needed.
|
| If releasing this pollutant is _legal_ , the question is
| different. Firstly, _why_ is it legal? If it shouldn 't
| be, then again - this is something to take up with the
| justice system. Sometimes it's legal for good reasons -
| it's not clear yet that it is truly toxic. That should
| definitely inform how we treat someone - releasing
| something that _might_ be a pollutant is definitely
| different.
|
| There's just a lot of nuance to this question, it's not
| an easy soundbite, because the real world is complicated.
|
| > What's the difference between that and some petty
| criminal shooting someone in the street so they can take
| the victim's wallet?
|
| Let me make a very important point here.
|
| The legality of an action matters a lot more for society
| than the morality of an action. That's kind of the whole
| reason we have a legal system, and for good reason! And a
| pretty fundamental principle of the legal system is that
| intent matters a whole lot.
|
| Here's some of the differences of the two cases:
|
| - With a criminal shooting someone in the street to take
| their wallet, I am very scared that he will continue
| doing this - he will likely shoot more people to get
| their wallets, because he ignores the laws and morality.
|
| As opposed to the factory boss, who (assuming this is
| legal), would presumably _not_ do something if it were
| illegal. So I don 't have to worry about his actions -
| he's not likely to "kill" anyone else if it's against the
| law.
|
| - A criminal shooting someone is almost certainly trying
| to kill or at least harm them. The action is very direct.
| This matters a bunch, because we can be pretty certain of
| their intent, and therefore how they will act in the
| future.
|
| As opposed to a factory boss - where the indirectness of
| the action is far more ambiguous. Did he really know that
| this would cause deaths? Are there mitigating
| circumstances (like him being pretty sure it's far enough
| that it _won 't_ cause deaths because it's small amounts,
| or far from populations)?
|
| ---
|
| The biggest problem with your examples is that there are
| really two options here. You either agree with the legal
| system - in which case, there's a perfect remedy for
| actions like releasing toxic chemicals, which is _using
| the legal system to prosecute such people_.
|
| Or you _don 't_ agree with the legal system - you think
| some things should be illegal, but they aren't.
|
| And this is what is secretly (or not so secretly)
| motivating most of the pro-vigilante comments. They think
| that what _they_ consider to be moral is good enough to
| use to enact justice - they don 't need to actually
| convince their fellow citizens, or convince their
| lawmakers, to enact their ideas into law. It's enough for
| them to fervently be sure they are right - that's
| supposedly a good enough reason to inflict their morality
| on other people using violence.
|
| And that is a disgusting, anti-democratic worldview, that
| would leave society in tatters.
|
| Society can't function if everyone can just decide that
| their morality is the ultimate justice. We _have_ to come
| together as a society and agree on rules. Because as
| everyone understands - 99% of people do _something_ that
| _someone else_ considers wrong.
|
| If our society functioned via "well I'm sure I'm right
| about what is moral, so I can execute people based on my
| morality", then pretty soon we'd have total anarchy.
|
| Do you think abortion is murder? Go ahead and kill some
| doctors. Do you think creating weapons should be illegal?
| Go ahead and kill the CEO of a weapons manufacturer. Do
| you think _protesting_ war is terrible because it puts
| "our soldiers" in danger? Go and shoot up people leading
| protests. Perhaps you think that climate change will kill
| us and anyone who works in the car industry is therefore
| tainted? Go and blow up some car factory workers.
|
| I agree with some of the position above, disagree with
| some others, as I'm sure most people do. And that's fine!
| But decent people understand that disagreeing about
| things, even things that directly pertain to life and
| death - is not a good enough reason to start killing each
| other over. We all have to live together, so we all have
| to work together to agree on what is right or wrong, and
| to appoint people to collectively enact the will of
| society - not just have individual citizens run off and
| do what they want based on their ideas.
| tristor wrote:
| > This depends a lot on context you haven't provided.
| Most importantly - is this legal?
|
| Whether it is legal or not is irrelevant. You are
| entering into a conversation about morality. The law does
| not dictate morality, as much as it can morality dictates
| the law. The entire point of the person you are replying
| to is that acts with moral equivalence are treated
| differently by the law because of the social and economic
| status of those likely to commit those acts.
|
| A very real example of this from American history is that
| crack cocaine and powder cocaine had different mandatory
| minimum sentencing guidelines for charges of simple
| possession as well as charges of possession with intent
| to distribute. Both are effectively the same drug, but
| one version of this drug is more commonly use by poor and
| non-white people, and the other version used by rich
| white people, and so we ended up with a gross disparity
| in the law over exactly morally equivalent acts.
|
| You are not actually engaging with the argument that the
| person you are replying to is making. Nobody gives a shit
| what the law says, they care about what is right and what
| is wrong. Then we mold the law to match.
| edanm wrote:
| > Whether it is legal or not is irrelevant. You are
| entering into a conversation about morality. The law does
| not dictate morality, as much as it can morality dictates
| the law.
|
| There are various ideas about morality. But I think even
| in the most common-sense interpretation of morality, most
| people agree that there are things that are legal, but
| immoral, things that are perfectly moral but illegal, and
| that respecting the law is a meta-rule that is important
| regardless of morality.
|
| Simple example: Most people agree that cheating on a
| spouse is wrong and immoral. Not illegal though. Do you
| think it makes any sense to suggest that the only options
| are either we change the law to make adultery criminal,
| or we take vigilante justice on adulterers? Or is it just
| possible that some things might be immoral (to some
| people) but should be legal?
|
| > A very real example of this from American history is
| that crack cocaine and powder cocaine had different
| mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines [...]
|
| Yes, and I think the law was wrong in this case, like
| it's been wrong many times in history (slavery was once
| legal too). The correct thing to do was to try and change
| it, which is what eventually happened.
|
| An incorrect option would've been to jailbreak prisoners
| because you disagree with the law, despite lots of people
| being imprisoned for longer than they should've been.
|
| > You are not actually engaging with the argument that
| the person you are replying to is making. Nobody gives a
| shit what the law says, they care about what is right and
| what is wrong. Then we mold the law to match.
|
| I am engaging, because I disagree with this idea. The law
| and morality are connected, but distinct things, as I've
| shown above. We _have_ to have legal systems in place to
| make broad decisions - we _can 't_ go based off of
| people's personal moral ideas. Explain to me how you
| would like things to work and still be compatible with
| that idea, given the above examples I've given.
|
| And I think the idea that "nobody gives a shit what the
| law says" is a statement that is... very, very incorrect.
| wat10000 wrote:
| My entire point here is that there are some kinds of
| unjust killings which are legal, and that the disparity
| is heavily skewed such that the kinds that tend to be
| done by rich and powerful people are the kinds that are
| legal.
|
| There are a few related but different questions for a
| given sort of killing: is it legal? Is it just? If the
| first two answers are different, what should be done
| about it?
|
| For the first two questions, the answers for regular lead
| poisoning are yes and no respectively, and for high-speed
| lead poisoning it's no and no. I think this disparity is
| a serious problem.
|
| Why do you think there is a disparity? Is it purely the
| product of democracy and the will of the people? If so,
| it seems like a hell of a coincidence that the legal
| killings are mostly the ones that rich and powerful
| people do.
|
| I agree that it's bad to take it into your own hands and
| kill people you think the law has failed to cover.
|
| But it's going to happen sometimes. In a healthy society
| it's going to be universally condemned. This one wasn't.
| What does it mean and what should we do about it?
|
| Some segment of commenters seems to think that it means
| people are sick and should be shamed into condemning this
| killing like they're supposed to.
|
| I think that's stupid. People are how they are. It's more
| interesting and useful to look at why this particular
| killing gets so much support.
|
| The failing in our society isn't that too many people
| cheer on this killing. That's a symptom. The problem is a
| system which treats people's lives cheaply, which allows
| some people to kill in the name of profit, and not only
| fails to condemn them, but rewards them handsomely.
|
| If you want people to work within the system, they need
| to believe that it's worth doing. They mostly do, but
| cracks are showing. It would be wise to fix the problem
| before those cracks produce a total failure.
| edanm wrote:
| > My entire point here is that there are some kinds of
| unjust killings which are legal, and that the disparity
| is heavily skewed such that the kinds that tend to be
| done by rich and powerful people are the kinds that are
| legal.
|
| I think you're flipping the causality. It's not like
| society looked at all ways of killing people, said "well
| these ones are done by poor people and these by rich,
| let's decide what to do about things based on that". It's
| that rich people in general got that way by working
| within the system, doing legal things, etc. (Usually, but
| not always, with a lot of starting privilege that made it
| easier for them, or course.)
|
| > Why do you think there is a disparity? Is it purely the
| product of democracy and the will of the people?
|
| Mostly. I think the disparity is because shooting someone
| is a lot less ambiguous than doing things like using
| pollutants. I think you're refusing to acknowledge the
| nuance here.
|
| But just to be clear - you think poisoning someone with
| lead is legal? Or releasing lead into places that would
| affect people is legal? Cause I'm pretty sure you're
| wrong on both counts. Lead is heavily regulated, and I'm
| fairly certain clear-cut cases of "I released a paint
| with lead in it" would be illegal.
|
| > I agree that it's bad to take it into your own hands
| and kill people you think the law has failed to cover.
|
| > But it's going to happen sometimes. In a healthy
| society it's going to be universally condemned. This one
| wasn't. What does it mean and what should we do about it?
|
| Well I think you answered your own question - it shows
| that our society is unhealthy. That's why I'm spending my
| time arguing on an internet forum on why I think we
| should all condemn this kind of thing - I'm fighting for
| the ideals of a healthy society!
|
| > Some segment of commenters seems to think that it means
| people are sick and should be shamed into condemning this
| killing like they're supposed to.
|
| > I think that's stupid. People are how they are. It's
| more interesting and useful to look at why this
| particular killing gets so much support.
|
| Not at all stupid (I say, as someone doing this). I don't
| agree with this "people are people" idea. I believe in
| ideas, in debate, in persuasion. I believe we as a
| society are pretty lost if we can't come around such
| basic ideas as "murder is wrong and we should all condemn
| murderers".
|
| And btw, I think despite the huge amount of noise we're
| all seeing about this, in absolute terms I think 95%
| people the population is firmly on the side of "murder is
| wrong", with a very large online contingent of people
| making it appear that there is some groundswell
| otherwise. I'm also trying to fight this _perceived_
| groundswell, if only by showing that the other side
| exists.
|
| > The failing in our society isn't that too many people
| cheer on this killing. That's a symptom. The problem is a
| system which treats people's lives cheaply, which allows
| some people to kill in the name of profit, and not only
| fails to condemn them, but rewards them handsomely.
|
| I think this is just an utterly wrong view of society. We
| live in a golden age compared to any other society that
| has ever existed. People generally live longer, healthier
| lives by almost any actual statistic that measures such
| things. We have access to a vast wealth of almost
| anything we want, from experiences, to material goods, to
| entertainment - things that would've looked like miracles
| to a person at almost any other time in history.
|
| And I think this idea that the system treats people's
| lives cheaply is absurd, frankly. There are specific
| problems, the system isn't perfect - but you can't
| objectively look at current (Western) society and not see
| that it's the pinnacle of human achievement - so far - by
| almost any objective measure.
|
| That this translates into a populace that is somehow very
| upset with some vague "the system" is a problem, but I
| think you're misdiagnosing it as something actually being
| wrong with "the system", as opposed to being wrong with
| people's perceptions.
|
| (Of course a lot of this hinges on what you mean by "the
| system" here - certainly every country has lots of
| specific problems that you could point out and I'd agree
| with. But I usually hear these complaints phrased very
| abstractly, without any concrete understanding of what
| specifically is wrong or what better "system" you are
| imagining. If you want to tell me what your answer is to
| either of these questions - I'd be very interested in
| hearing!)
| meiraleal wrote:
| > I believe in ideas, in debate, in persuasion
|
| do you? Are you open to be convinced of the opposite of
| your view on this issue?
|
| > I think despite the huge amount of noise we're all
| seeing about this, in absolute terms I think 95% people
| the population is firmly on the side of "murder is wrong"
|
| I think you are wrong. Society very often sides with the
| side that is perceived as the threatened person acting in
| self-defense even when they use violence.
|
| Also we cannot rule out racism. If the killer wasn't
| white (then fit for the role of hero in the US), it would
| be all different.
| feoren wrote:
| > Most importantly - is this legal?
|
| If legality is determined based on what's beneficial to
| the rich and powerful, then this is equivalent to saying
| "most importantly, does it benefit the rich and
| powerful?" which is, of course, the point of the person
| you're arguing with. So this is not the gotcha you think
| it is.
|
| > vigilante justice is not needed.
|
| This does not feel like a good faith argument. This is
| the exact same "but do they really need to _protest_
| about it? " argument made by everyone who wants to see
| the status quo preserved. You're saying that the status
| quo is intrinsically good and everything must be done
| within the legal system as it's set up. That gives _no_
| redress to the people for whom the legal system has been
| specifically designed to fuck over. Your argument
| completely falls apart if the legal system is not 100%
| foolproof, and I simply don 't believe anyone could argue
| in good faith that it is foolproof.
|
| I _do not_ want to see vigilante justice. But I also
| recognize that if the legal system is not producing
| justice, people will find ways to bring about their own
| version of justice. This is a predictable consequence of
| a system that has been specifically designed to never
| hold anyone in power accountable for anything. The way to
| stop vigilante justice is to improve the legal system so
| that people do not feel that it is necessary.
| dennis_jeeves2 wrote:
| >putting lead in their drinking water
|
| Flint, Michigan
| wat10000 wrote:
| Yep. Guess how many people went to prison for that one.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| Back in the 19th century a lot of Russian Revolutionaries came
| from families of well being, or are even aristocrats.
| game_the0ry wrote:
| > ...so much pent up anger amongst people who actually lead
| pretty decent lives.
|
| This is the part of the story that _must_ be discussed more,
| lest there will be more killings like this one.
| gosub100 wrote:
| > so much pent up anger
|
| And one reason it's pent-up, as opposed to released, is due to
| corporations taking over our society and ruining human lives.
| _All within the confines of the law and democracy_. That 's
| what this is about. There is no recourse or effective vehicle
| to be heard.
| gruez wrote:
| It's not surprising. Most people don't comment. The tiny
| minority that comment likely have extreme views. Sorting
| algorithms that drive engagement makes this worse.
|
| https://old.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/9rvroo/most...
| lukan wrote:
| Is the manifest avaiable somewhere in the open?
|
| I would like to see for myself and avoid lurking in the darker
| corners of the internet to go find it myself. A quick search
| turned out nothing, but tableoid garbage enjoying the whole thing
| of speaking about it, but not sharing the sources.
| 4ggr0 wrote:
| Allgedely!
|
| https://x.com/SyeClops/status/1866353712148685002/photo/4
| lukan wrote:
| Thanks. Looks genuine, but I don't know much about the case
| to judge. I did a OCR of the pictures:
|
| The Allopathic Complex and Its Consequences luigi mangione's
| last words lor DEC 09, 2024
|
| 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. Nelson Mandela says no form of viooence can
| be excused. Camus says it's all the same, whether you live or
| die or have a cup of coffee. MLK says violence never brings
| permanent peace. Gandhi says that non-violence is the
| mightiest power available to mankind. That's who they tell
| you are heroes. That's who our revolutionaries are. Yet is
| that not capitalistic? Non-violence keeps the system working
| at full speed ahead. What did it get us. Look in the mirror.
| They want us to be non-violent, so that they can grow fat off
| the blood they take from us. The only way out is through. Not
| all of us will make it. Each of us is our own chief
| executive. You have to decide what you will tolerate. In
| Gladiator 1 Maximus cuts into the military tattoo that
| identifies him as part of the roman legion. His friend asks
| "Is that the sign of your god?" As Maximus carves deeper into
| his own flesh, as his own blood drips down his skin, Maximus
| smiles and nods yes. The tattoo represents the emperor, who
| is god. The god emperor has made himself part of Maximus's
| own flesh. The only way to destroy the emperor is to destroy
| himself. Maximus smiles through the pain because he knows it
| is worth it. These might be my last words. I don't know when
| they will come for me. I will resist them at any cost. That's
| why I smile through the pain. They diagnosed my mother with
| severe neuropathy when she was forty-one years old. She said
| it started ten years before that with burning sensations in
| her feet and occasional sharp stabbing pains. At first the
| pain would last a few moments, then fade to tingling, then
| numbness, then fade to nothing a few days later.
|
| The first time the pain came she ignored it. Then it came a
| couple times a year and she ignored it. Then every couple
| months. Then a couple times a month. Then a couple times a
| week. At that point by the time the tingling faded to
| numbness, the pain would start, and the discomfort was
| constant. At that point even going from the couch to the
| kitchen to make her own lunch became a major endeavor She
| started with ibuprofen, until the stomach aches and acid
| reflux made her switch to acetaminophen. Then the headaches
| and barely sleeping made her switch back to ibuprofen. The
| first doctor said it was psychosomatic. Nothing was wrong.
| She needed to relax, destress, sleep more. The second doctor
| said it was a compressed nerve in her spine. She needed back
| surgery. It would cost $180,000. Recovery would be six months
| minimum before walking again. Twelve months for full
| potential recovery, and she would never lift more than ten
| pounds of weight again. The third doctor performed a Nerve
| Conduction Study, Electromyography, MRI, and blood tests.
| Each test cost $800 to $1200. She hit the $6000 deductible of
| her UnitedHealthcare plan in October. Then the doctor went on
| vacation, and my mother wasn't able to resume tests until
| January when her deductible reset. The tests showed severe
| neuropathy. The $180,000 surgery would have had no effect.
| They prescribed opioids for the pain. At first the pain
| relief was worth the price of constant mental fog and
| constipation. She didn't tell me about that until later. All
| I remember is we took a trip for the first time in years,
| when she drove me to Monterey to go to the aquarium. I saw an
| otter in real life, swimming on its back. We left at 7am and
| listened to Green Day on the four-hour car ride. Over time,
| the opioids stopped working. They made her MORE sensitive to
| pain, and she felt withdrawal symptoms after just two or
| three hours. Then gabapentin. By now the pain was so bad she
| couldn't exercise, which compounded the weight gain from the
| slowed metabolic rate and hormonal shifts. And it barely
| helped the pain, and made her so fatigued she would go an
| entire day without getting out of bed. Then Corticosteroids.
| Which didn't even work. The pain was so bad I would hear my
| mother wake up in the night screaming in pain. I would run
| into her room, asking if she's OK. Eventually I stopped
| getting up. She'd yell out anguished shrieks of wordless pain
| or the word "fuck" stretched and distended to its limits. I'd
| turn over and go back to sleep.
|
| All of this while they bled us dry with follow-up appointment
| after follow-up appointment, specialist consultations, and
| more imagine scans. Each appointment was promised to be fully
| covered, until the insurance claims were delayed and denied.
| Allopathic medicine did nothing to help my mother's
| suffering. Yet it is the foundation of our entire society. My
| mother told me that on a good day the nerve pain was like her
| legs were immersed in ice water. On a bad day it felt like
| her legs were clamped in a machine shop vice, screwed down to
| where the cranks stopped turning, then crushed further until
| her ankle bones sprintered and cracked to accommodate the
| tightening clamp. She had more bad days than good. My mother
| crawled to the bathroom on her hands and knees. I slept in
| the living room to create more distance from her cries in the
| night. I still woke up, and still went back to sleep. Back
| then I thought there was nothing I could do. The high copays
| made consistent treatment impossible. New treatments were
| denied as "not medically necessary." Old treatments didn't
| work, and still put us out for thousands of dollars.
| UnitedHealthcare limited specialist consultations to twice a
| year. Then they refused to cover advanced imaging, which the
| specialists required for an appointment. Prior authorizations
| took weeks, then months. UnitedHealthcare constantly changed
| their claim filing procedure. They said my mother's doctor
| needed to fax his notes. Then UnitedHealthcare said they did
| not save faxed patient correspondence, and required a
| hardcopy of the doctor's typed notes to be mailed. Then they
| said they never received the notes. They were unable to
| approve the claim until they had received and filed the
| notes. They promised coverage, and broke their word to my
| mother. With every delay, my anger surged. With every denial,
| I wanted to throw the doctor through the glass wall of their
| hospital waiting room. But it wasn't them. It wasn't the
| doctors, the receptionists, administrators, pharmacists,
| imaging technicians, or anyone we ever met. It was
| UnitedHealthcare. People are dying. Evil has become
| institutionalized. Corporations make billions of dollars off
| the pain, suffering, death, and anguished cries in the night
| of millions of Americans.
|
| We entered into an agreement for healthcare with a legally
| binding contract that promised care commensurate with our
| insurance payments and medical needs. Then UnitedHealthcare
| 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. Now my own chronic back pain wakes me in the
| night, screaming in pain. I sought out another type of
| healing that showed me the real antidote to what ails us. I
| bide my time, saving the last of my strength to strike my
| final blows. All extractors must be forced to swallow the
| bitter pain they deal out to millions. As our own chief
| executives, it's our obligation to make our own lives better.
| First and foremost, we must seek to improve our own
| circumstances and defend ourselves. As we do so, our actions
| have ripple effects that can improve the lives of others.
| Rules exist between two individuals, in a network that covers
| the entire earth. Some of these rules are written down. Some
| of these rules emerge from natural respect between two
| individuals. Some of these rules are defined in physical
| laws, like the properties of gravity, magnetism or the
| potential energy stored in the chemical bonds of potassium
| nitrate. No single document better encapsulates the belief
| that all people are equal in fundamental worth and moral
| status and the frameworks for fostering collective well-being
| than the US constitution. Writing a rule down makes it into a
| law. I don't give a fuck about the law. Law means nothing.
| What does matter is following the guidance of our own logic
| and what we learn from those before us to maximize our own
| well-being, which will then maximize the well-being of our
| loved ones and community. 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.
| END
| appel wrote:
| Another commenter linked to the archived version of the
| Substack post: https://archive.is/2024.12.09-230659/https:/
| /breloomlegacy.s...
| wesselbindt wrote:
| Jury nullification occurs when a jury returns a Not Guilty
| verdict even though jurors believe beyond reasonable doubt that
| the defendant has broken the law. Because the Not Guilty verdict
| cannot be overturned, and because the jurors cannot be punished
| for their verdict, the law is said to be nullified in that
| particular case.
| meowfly wrote:
| The basic premise, as I understand it, is that there is nothing
| illegal about coming to the _wrong_ conclusion as a juror. I
| have also read that it can be contempt of court to try to
| convince jurors to intentionally come to a conclusion not based
| on the law and evidence.
|
| So what would happen if a single juror just remained steadfast
| that the defendant was innocent despite overwhelming evidence
| to the contrary? Can a judge remove that juror if they believe
| they are not being forthright?
| wongarsu wrote:
| Whenever people justify why the US's jury system is better
| than the judgement by judges that's prevalent in continental
| Europe it's always about these exact scenarios. If you just
| want to find facts you don't need a jury of peers. The jury
| is at least in part there to pass a moral judgement beyond
| the letter of the law.
|
| From what I understand a juror can only be removed during the
| jury selection process or if someone outside the jury
| "tampers" with the jurors. If you get called to jury duty,
| the quickest way to get out of it is to say you know about
| jury nullification. But if you don't reveal that and get into
| the jury you are free to rule as you want and to try to
| convince the other jurors to do the same.
| clarionbell wrote:
| Idea about jury trial is to give people say over how they
| want their laws enforced and spreading accountability
| around.
|
| With jury, you can't blame a single person for the result
| you didn't like. It was your neighbors that decided. And,
| at the same time, laws get continuously tested. Every time
| a jury is called, it's like a small section of society
| (randomly chosen, and later pruned by criteria) gathering
| verifying if it still makes sense.
|
| As for the facts. While they are very important, law is
| also about morality. And while facts remain, morality
| changes all the time.
|
| And regarding Europe. Some of the sentences handed by
| judges here, are so horrendous, that I would take american
| style jury over them any day. Especially when it comes to
| violent crime.
| chaorace wrote:
| It's the legal equivalent of a firing squad. No execution
| requires a squad, but you'll certainly need one if you
| value the health and safety of your executioners.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| > But if you don't reveal that and get into the jury you
| are free to rule as you want and to try to convince the
| other jurors to do the same.
|
| This is perjury. On your jury duty questionnaire, there was
| a question (something about "faithfully upholding the law"
| or something) which is a roundabout way of asking "By the
| way, you don't plan to do a jury nullification anytime
| soon, do you?". If you said no to that, then got on a jury,
| and told everyone to do a jury nullification, you've done
| perjury, and you actually can be punished for that.
|
| The only _legal_ way to nullify a law is for each member of
| the jury to _individually_ decide they don 't like the law
| and vote to nullify. You can't convict a jury for falsely
| acquitting. But you can convict a jury for conspiring to do
| so.
| wesselbindt wrote:
| Trying to nullify with a Michael Scott-style "I DECLARE
| NULLIFICATIOOOON!" or otherwise mentioning it is probably a
| bad idea. I suppose if you'll get warned and you do it again
| you'll be held in contempt. But I'm no expert.
|
| The situation you describe is known as a hung jury, and would
| result in a mistrial. Usually this means the case is retried
| later (with a different jury).
| dfxm12 wrote:
| When the jurors can't agree, for whatever reason, you get a
| hung jury.
|
| A judge needs cause to remove a juror. This includes a juror
| refusing to deliberate. In the specific case you bring up, it
| would be hard to prove that the juror is refusing to
| deliberate (i.e. "not being forthright") compared to just
| differently interpreting the facts of the case or the law or
| disagreeing with how the law should be applied.
|
| It is the purpose of _voir dire_ to weed out jurors with a
| preexisting bias in the case. You don 't want to remove
| jurors after the case has started, as you run the risk of
| running out of alternates (there are probably state specific
| laws on how to handle this without requiring a mistrial
| though).
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hung_jury
| tzs wrote:
| > The basic premise, as I understand it, is that there is
| nothing illegal about coming to the wrong conclusion as a
| juror
|
| Note that this works regardless of which direction the wrong
| conclusion is in.
|
| People always talk about it in the case of a juror voting to
| acquit someone when the evidence is that they are guilty but
| juror choose to disregard it, but historically it often went
| the other way. There's a long history of black people in the
| US, especially in the South, being convicted by all white
| juries that almost certainly would not have convicted on the
| exact same evidence if the accused has been white.
|
| I don't know if there is a name for this, so I'll call it
| reverse-nullification, with nullification just referring to
| the case of acquittal of someone despite the evidence.
|
| Unlike a nullification case, an reverse-nullification case is
| in theory correctable. A nullification case is not
| correctable because an acquittal by a jury cannot be reversed
| by the judge or an appeals court. A judge or appeals court
| can reverse a conviction so could correct an reverse-
| nullification case.
|
| However, as a practical matter that often cannot actually be
| done because often the judge or appeals court cannot tell
| that it was an reverse-nullification case. A case often comes
| down to conflicting stories from witnesses with the jury
| having to decide which witnesses to believe. The conviction
| may have been an reverse-nullification or it might just have
| been that the jury found the prosecution witnesses more
| believable.
| rc_mob wrote:
| Pinning your hopes to this is setting yourself up for
| disappointment
| guitarlimeo wrote:
| [flagged]
| DanielHB wrote:
| You are not 100% wrong, but I think it is the media that makes
| the cops put extra resources on certain cases.
|
| Now the media did bring it to international attention partially
| because he was rich and had some power. But the main thing
| really was because he worked on healthcare which everyone is
| pissed off about in the US.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Eh. Midtown murders are pretty rare. They get solved.
|
| Would they have burned millions in overtime? No.
| Cumpiler69 wrote:
| _> if you are white_
|
| Huh, what does this have to do with it? Of course,
| discriminatory comments like these that segregate people on
| race are never flagged on HN as long as it's against "the usual
| suspects".
| naming_the_user wrote:
| I don't know why people bring this up as if it's some sort of
| revelation. That's literally what status is. People care more
| because you are actually a more meaningful individual in a real
| sense. The gunman is hardly a nobody either.
|
| There might be an issue if murders in general were going
| uninvestigated. Realistically it's more that you just don't see
| it happen.
| TheFreim wrote:
| Speaking entirely separately from the CEO assassination case,
| people often have a flawed comic book villain vision of
| wealthy people as being universally or unambiguously evil but
| that's just not the case. Wealthy people are often involved
| in their communities and actually want them to improve. I can
| think of a few people where I live who are very wealthy and
| also very generous, and as a result have touched the hearts
| of many more people in the community.
| TheFreim wrote:
| Targeted assassinations _should_ get more attention and
| resources. The ramifications of allowing an assassin to go free
| are much worse than a random killing. There is a small subset
| of the population that is both smart enough and crazy enough to
| successfully plan an assassination, that group of people needs
| to know that they won 't have a chance of escaping and that
| they'll be hunted down.
|
| Think of it this way: do you want your political enemies to
| start thinking, "Hey, I bet I could get away with assassinating
| that activist/politician"? Personally, my disdain of the
| American Healthcare complex is overruled by my opposition to
| normalizing political assassinations.
| Hilift wrote:
| NYPD has abundant resources with $11 billion budget/36,000
| sworn officers and has a high murder clearance compared to
| other large urban cities in the US. 2023 346/257 cleared (74%).
| LA was 683/395 (58%). This guy wanted to be caught and didn't
| make much of an effort.
| coryfklein wrote:
| You stand at the fork in the tracks. Pulling the lever will
| divert the train from a track with 10,000 people on it, to a
| track with 1 person on it. Do you pull the lever?
| snatekay wrote:
| Well, I _know_ the one person will die if I pull the lever. But
| I don't have any reason to think that pulling it will save the
| other ten thousand. In fact, it probably won't--it's a big
| train that will find its way to that track eventually, and the
| only way people have been saved in other countries is
| legislation to move everybody off the tracks, but that's too
| much work for me. What pulling the lever _will_ do is make me
| feel important. I can convince everybody to read my manifesto
| that's equal parts Unabomber and the Joker; if I don't pull the
| lever nobody will care what I have to say. What's a human life
| in comparison to that?
| dgfitz wrote:
| I believe the OP was referring to this:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem
| snatekay wrote:
| That much was obvious. The trolley problem is so famous
| because it really is an ambiguous moral problem. The OP
| brought it up to imply murdering Brian Thompson was
| justified, in that now some other people will live who
| would otherwise die. This idea is a fantasy, however, which
| besides having no evidence to back it, doesn't even make
| sense once examined with a modicum of criticality. Once the
| remnants of the dream of vigilantism are brushed away, this
| wannabe trolley problem becomes plain: it's nothing but an
| unjustifiable murder by a mentally disturbed egotist who
| thinks he has the right to play executioner.
|
| This is real life, not a Punisher comic. Democracy ain't
| easy, and as soon as a hurdle appears people itch to find
| an easy workaround, but there's no way around doing the
| hard work of fixing the system.
| catlikesshrimp wrote:
| There are 10,000 people waiting to take the place of the now
| unfortunate _after_ the train runs over him.
|
| So, more trains with hundreds of thousands will topple over
| until the tracks are fixed.
|
| Your healthcare system principles are the problem. Healthcare
| can't function the same way Automotive industry or Oil Wells
| work. Heck, it can't even work the same as Auto insurance. For
| moral reasons only, because profitability is great.
| moffkalast wrote:
| Technically two people on it, one of them being yourself.
| Changes the rationale quite a bit.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| This is less a trolley problem and more of a fat villain
| problem:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem#The_Fat_Villai...
| fastball wrote:
| How exactly does killing a CEO save 10k people?
|
| Hint: it doesn't. In fact, the only result I can imagine from
| this is the opposite. After all, UHC will probably need to pay
| their CEO (if anyone takes the job) _more_ for a while, to
| overcome the risk of being murdered. So if CEO pay meant fewer
| claims being paid out, after this they 'll probably pay out
| even fewer.
| Tryk wrote:
| Your argument is that the reason they were not paying out
| more claims is because they had to compensate their CEO?
| greenie_beans wrote:
| joshua citarella stays ahead of the curve:
|
| > 5D chess: UHC Brian Thompson assassination represents the
| ideological victory of Right accelerationism bc they already
| argue a built-in feature of monarchy (CEO dictatorship) is that
| when it isn't working well you can just kill the king. Many seem
| to agree?
|
| https://x.com/JoshuaCitarella/status/1864663475814805638
| Bluescreenbuddy wrote:
| Every dip shit claiming this was pro are now quiet.
| TehCorwiz wrote:
| What's important is what we learned about society's appetite for
| political violence against the upper class. What isn't important
| is the actual actor.
| alecco wrote:
| And it's not even a divisive story. Most of the left and right
| seem to agree on this one. Specially younger people.
|
| Ignore the media stories, their paychecks are written with
| corporate ad money. On the Internet people of all kinds seem to
| like the guy.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| I think you mean the appetite for political violence of people
| who are chronically online and lacking connection with reality
| DontchaKnowit wrote:
| Frankly, everyone is sick of being raped by insurance
| companies. Online or not, people I know view insurance
| companies as absolute scum. Its not much of a stretch to
| condone violence against their leadership
| TehCorwiz wrote:
| January 6th showed that at least the far-right is OK with
| political violence. Lynchings show that racists are OK with
| political violence. Anti-Semites burning synagogues shows
| that they're OK with political violence. The government has
| never had a problem with political violence against
| minorities and people pushing for a more socially supportive
| system. But somehow when average people are OK with violence
| against a greedy CEO whose policies lead to thousands of
| preventable deaths it's a step too far.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| I think he overestimated his chances and kept the stuff and also
| same with deciding to eat at Macdonalds, I'm far from NY nobody's
| gonna recognize me from those shtty pics
| LetsGetTechnicl wrote:
| Murder is only justified when it's your business model and behind
| numbers and profit margins in an Excel sheet are the real people
| you are sentencing to a lifetime of suffering and/or death.
| 3a2d29 wrote:
| Only the CEO or everyone that works there?
| lenerdenator wrote:
| How many people in the claims adjudication call center are
| making ~5 times the median American male's lifetime earnings
| each year, every year?
| allturtles wrote:
| What's the income threshold for people who are eligible for
| murder? Surely the whole board and the C-Suite. Senior VPs?
| VPs?
| lenerdenator wrote:
| Cynically, this sounds to me like something that people
| typically suggest we leave up to markets. Is that insane?
| Yes, but it's already a business model, and health
| insurance basically does that.
|
| These people make vast sums of money every year by asking
| the American people what it's worth to them to not be
| ruined by a chance illness or injury, then finding ways
| to make sure they don't have to save people from
| financial ruin or death. I don't see how that's really so
| different from a protection racket, except for the fact
| that most protection rackets were operated with more good
| faith effort towards the extorted.
| gruez wrote:
| >These people make vast sums of money every year by
| asking the American people what it's worth to them to not
| be ruined by a chance illness or injury, then finding
| ways to make sure they don't have to save people from
| financial ruin or death. I don't see how that's really so
| different from a protection racket, except for the fact
| that most protection rackets were operated with more good
| faith effort towards the extorted.
|
| This definition of a "protection racket" is a bit loose.
| By similar logic landlords are also a "protection racket"
| for having a place to hive.
| lenerdenator wrote:
| > This definition of a "protection racket" is a bit
| loose. By similar logic landlords are also a "protection
| racket" for having a place to hive.
|
| "As soon as the land of any country has all become
| private property, the landlords, like all other men, love
| to reap where they never sowed and demand a rent even for
| its natural produce." - known Marxist-Leninist Adam Smith
| gruez wrote:
| An apartment, or healthcare is hardly "natural produce".
| chasd00 wrote:
| I was thinking the same thing. Oh and why stay in the
| healthcare vertical? Surely the CEO and employees of
| Raytheon deserve to be shot in the back leaving a hotel.
| What a ridiculous set of conversations...
| benced wrote:
| Most of those people are making several multiples the
| average Indian's lifetime earnings. Should those call
| center folks pay for the Indians' healthcare?
| lenerdenator wrote:
| India already has a multi-payer universal healthcare
| system.
|
| It's also not an American's business to come in and tell
| India how to run its healthcare system.
| benced wrote:
| That's a cop-out. Just as the CEOs could transfer their
| higher wealth to average Americans, average Americans
| could transfer their higher wealth to Indians without
| changing or giving input on their healthcare system.
|
| (which is absolutely not universal in any OECD-country
| sense)
| dwallin wrote:
| Responsibility for the actions of a company should be
| somewhat proportional to the amount of profit derived from
| said activities.
| ARandomerDude wrote:
| So if you kill people but you only make $30K a year then no
| big deal. But if they 100x your salary now you're a real
| bad guy. That can't be right.
| capybaraStorm wrote:
| While I have trouble wrestling with the assertion as
| well, it does hold pretty true to the way the US justice
| system works. Sentencing is generally far harsher for
| financial crimes as $ goes up.
|
| In stuff like drug crimes, US even has the death penalty
| as sanctioned remedy for quantities and enterprises of
| sufficient organization for mega profits. The thought
| process seems to be if you provide bad health care in the
| form of selling illegal drugs, at some level the death
| penalty is on the table.
| gruez wrote:
| >While I have trouble wrestling with the assertion as
| well, it does hold pretty true to the way the US justice
| system works. Sentencing is generally far harsher for
| financial crimes as $ goes up.
|
| Right, but only for financial crimes. You're not going to
| get off murder by saying you only got $100 for the hit.
| capybaraStorm wrote:
| If you sell a few hits of fentanyl you aren't going to
| meet the statutory definition of a criminal enterprise
| and therefore will not be eligible for federal death
| penalty even though fentanyl induces death.
|
| If you sell $100M of fentanyl you can get the death
| sentence, since fentanyl is an element in inducing death
| at basically any sufficiently large quantity of a
| criminal enterprise.
|
| It is not exactly the same, but it has a lot of parallels
| to the argument I see here. If you are an insurance
| salesman selling contracts you know will not be honored
| and such denied claims will be an element of death, many
| will not see it as serious as being the criminal
| enterprise leader who orchestrated it. Even in such case
| that the policy can be attributed to a single salesman,
| the executive is likely to be held more culpable just as
| the US code holds the criminal enterprise executive to
| the death penalty whereas it may not hold the low level
| guy who sold the fentanyl.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Drug dealing isnt a financial crime
| capybaraStorm wrote:
| The government has had a very hard time classifying what
| type of crime drug dealing is. First they said it was a
| tax crime (well before that, an import or tariff crime).
| Then the 10th amendment was basically gutted, and it
| became a crime where all the facts could be identical to
| a pharmacy dispensing a script, but sans paying for a DEA
| license.
|
| It is definitely a very strange one. The classical
| liberalism argument is that the most prominent aspect
| remains essentially a financial crime of failure to pay
| the licensing tax.
| gruez wrote:
| >and it became a crime where all the facts could be
| identical to a pharmacy dispensing a script, but sans
| paying for a DEA license.
|
| That describes a bunch of crimes? If you raid a drug
| dealer's house and kill a bunch of people in the process,
| you'll go to jail. If it's the police doing it with a
| "license" (ie. a warrant), it's suddenly fine. More banal
| is you driving along, following all applicable laws and
| causing no issues, but if you're doing it without a
| license or insurance, it's suddenly illegal.
| capybaraStorm wrote:
| Yes of course. All of this seems to me totally psychotic
| and not at all a dystopia I want to live in. Which is why
| I lived in an area with almost no government, very weak
| police services, little to no code/zone enforcement, weak
| environmental controls, etc etc.
|
| I pointed it out largely because I find the drug laws to
| be particularly strange.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| for financial crimes, the loss of money IS the harm, and
| the dollar amount is the magnitude.
| capybaraStorm wrote:
| Even the smallest understanding of utility of money will
| prove your assertion wildly inaccurate.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Are you making a legal point or a moral one?
|
| Financial crimes are literally crimes that deprive people
| of their financial property. They are crimes _because_
| property is understood to have utility. This isnt rocket
| science.
| capybaraStorm wrote:
| I am the CEO of insurance company Inc (ICI).
|
| Under me is 1000 salesman. Every salesman knows and
| understands I am selling a plan that will deny or delay
| for some covered minor ailments that once in a million
| set off a chain inducing death.
|
| As CEO of ICI I collect $300M in premiums and from that
| take $3M.
|
| After selling a million policies, a patient dies as a
| side effect of intentional strategy of denying
| authorization to pay for care. That plan is traced to
| going through a single salesman, who collected $5 from
| that sale and $50k in all his sales. From that same
| sales, I, the CEO only collected $1. That is, the dollar
| profit for the death is greater for the salesman than the
| CEO.
|
| The salesman and I are both direct paths in the death, in
| fact the salesman more than me, hell the salesman even
| made more of a commission than I did. The public will
| likely hold me more in contempt.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Are you talking to me?
|
| Can you explain what point are you making and how does it
| relate to what we were discussing?
| capybaraStorm wrote:
| My point is he (CEO) is viewed by many as most culpable
| for fraudulently denied claims at UHC -- and there are
| crimes, even non-financial ones like drug dealing, that
| tightly couple level of organization and sales of a
| product to differences in penalty for even a singe death.
| That is, this line of thinking is embedded in the USC.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Okay, I don't have any objection to any of that. I
| thought we were talking about financial crimes
| capybaraStorm wrote:
| The contrarian view is that drug dealing is a financial
| crime of not paying for the credentials of a DEA license,
| or that fraudulently denying medical claims is a crime of
| criminal negligence resulting in bodily harm.
|
| As for where I started, my initial comments involved both
| financial crimes and drug dealing. Most but not all
| probably consider insurance fraud as a financial crime
| but one that some can only atone through vigilantism. The
| line to me on all accounts looks blurry.
| echoangle wrote:
| Is that a financial crime?
| dwallin wrote:
| I didn't say the consequences should be proportional, I
| said the responsibility (or blame); and profits derived
| should just be one part of the equation.
|
| Criminal consequences of a company collectively being
| responsible for the deaths of individual(s) shouldn't
| just disappear because no one individual ostensibly
| caused it. A company is a system of incentives and
| processes, and if those incentives and processes are
| leading to preventable deaths and suffering, those who
| benefit most from and are most responsible for
| perpetuating those incentives and processes should be
| held liable.
| clarionbell wrote:
| That's the scary part. It's very tempting to just sentence
| someone like this. But more you dwell on it, the worst it
| gets. There is a reason why death penalty is considered an
| extreme.
| tristor wrote:
| The entire argument for high CEO renumeration is that they
| take on total responsibility for all actions of the company.
| The buck stops with them. So, why do we think it's acceptable
| for that not to be the case when the company does something
| bad?
| thegrimmest wrote:
| Refusing to pay for medical care is hardly murder. It's a
| standard monetary dispute, and we have a due process for these.
| If you think that so many claims are being unreasonably denied,
| why not start a company offering bridge loans, and funding
| legal challenges?
|
| Maybe the courts are too inefficient to handle these disputes,
| but that's an argument for reforming the courts, not for
| shooting executives.
| LetsGetTechnicl wrote:
| > Refusing to pay for medical care is hardly murder.
|
| This is crazy. Maybe it's not "murder" in the traditional
| sense but you are making a choice on whether someone gets
| life-saving care, or lives in immense pain for the rest of
| their lives until they commit suicide. Again, this kind of
| normalized violence is justified when it's a business making
| choices to increase profits. We are so disconnected from our
| humanity that rounding errors in an Excel sheet mean actual
| lives are being ended, but that's okay.
| goatlover wrote:
| What's stopping people from switching to a better insurance
| provider?
| lenerdenator wrote:
| Most Americans get their health insurance through their
| employers. You are technically free to not sign up for
| this and purchase your own health insurance, but when you
| consider that you then give up the employer subsidy to
| your monthly premium, and that said subsidy often amounts
| to thousands of dollars each year, it does not make
| financial sense to participate in the market.
| danans wrote:
| Most health insurance (and the lowest cost insurance) in
| the US is tied to a person's employer, a system that
| shifts the balance of power substantially to large
| corporate employers over workers and small companies.
|
| Furthermore, absent major life events (job change,
| marriage, new child, etc) there is only one time of year
| when health insurance changes can be made, a time of year
| called Open Enrollment.
|
| Finally, if you are self employed and you don't live in a
| state with a well functioning Obamacare market, your
| health insurance options are often quite limited.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Well, in the US, most people get insurance through their
| employer, who pays part of the cost. Switching would mean
| having to pay _all_ the cost yourself, which would be
| economically painful.
|
| And why doesn't the employer switch? Because health care
| plans typically have doctors that they like more than
| other doctors ("in network" vs "out of network"), so most
| people gravitate toward the preferred doctors. ("Like"
| means "cover better", so the patient pays less.) If your
| company changes health care insurers, then many people
| would have economic pressure to switch away from their
| current doctors, which is a hassle.
|
| TL;DR: There's a lot of friction in various forms here.
| That's why. Yes, people _can_ switch, but it 's expensive
| and painful, so most don't, even though the option is
| technically there.
| uoaei wrote:
| Affordability, restrictive "open enrollment periods",
| simple lack of variety/choice in the plans being offered,
| etc.
|
| Surely you are not that naive, please carry yourself in
| these conversations with a modicum of self-respect.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| You can only switch providers during an open enrollment
| period, or a qualifying life event.
|
| In other words, it is frequently made impossible, by law,
| to switch providers.
| Symbiote wrote:
| Countries with universal health care still have to make
| these decisions.
|
| They budget differently, but they won't use unlimited
| resources on every situation.
| zenapollo wrote:
| Yes. Crazy as in truly psychopathic. Not the name calling
| version. Here's chatgpt on the medical/psychological
| definition of psychopathy:
|
| Key traits associated with psychopathy include: 1.
| Affective Traits: * Lack of empathy (emotional detachment
| from others' suffering) * Shallow emotions (restricted
| emotional range) * Absence of guilt or remorse *
| Callousness 2. Interpersonal Traits: * Superficial charm *
| Grandiosity (inflated sense of self-worth) *
| Manipulativeness * Deceptiveness or pathological lying
|
| People defend planetary scale psychopathy because it's
| quite literally business as usual.
| eadmund wrote:
| > you are making a choice on whether someone gets life-
| saving care, or lives in immense pain
|
| Is the care life-saving or pain-preventing?
|
| There is an additional option: the person pays for it. Or
| someone else pays for it. Since the 1980s U.S. emergency
| rooms have been required to provide life-saving care
| regardless of whether someone can pay.
|
| > normalized violence
|
| It is not violence to fail to reimburse someone.
|
| If someone cannot pay his bills, then he declares
| bankruptcy, the debts are wiped out, his creditors take a
| haircut and he moves on with his life. In many/most states
| he will get to retain his home and perhaps his vehicle.
| It's not the end of the world?
|
| Is it ideal? No, of course not. It's better than dying, and
| of course _it's not murder_.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > Is the care life-saving or pain-preventing?
|
| Those can be the same thing for some people. Chronic pain
| patients have a dramatically worse mortality rate.
|
| > If someone cannot pay his bills, then he declares
| bankruptcy, the debts are wiped out, his creditors take a
| haircut and he moves on with his life.
|
| I've done this. Due to medical expenses, in fact. It
| costs money up front, and was difficult to navigate as a
| well educated person with family support.
|
| The idea that this is an easy option for a single person
| with no supports and a disabling condition is insane.
|
| Many doctors won't see you after, either. Bankruptcy
| doesn't mean people you burned have to keep doing
| business with you.
| xutopia wrote:
| In some countries if you don't give care to someone who is in
| danger of dying you are yourself responsible for murder.
|
| This is what these health insurance companies are doing
| routinely. Murder by inaction and calling it anything else is
| playing in their hands.
|
| The fact that courts are costly and slow is exactly why these
| companies use them to "delay".
| Ajedi32 wrote:
| > In some countries if you don't give care to someone who
| is in danger of dying you are yourself responsible for
| murder.
|
| So everyone in said countries is guilty of murder because
| they're not donating 100% of their time and energy to
| helping cure cancer?
|
| That's not at all how this works. You can't just legislate
| infinite resources into existence. And infinite resources
| is exactly what it would take to give everyone a 100%
| perfect standard of care.
|
| Deciding what's covered and what isn't is literally the
| whole job of an insurance company. Otherwise we could just
| put money into a pot and let anyone take out any amount
| they feel like, whenever they feel like it, for whatever
| purpose they deem necessary at their sole discretion. (And
| if that sounds like a good idea to you, I'd urge you to
| think things through a bit more carefully before you waste
| your money by trying it.)
| gruez wrote:
| >In some countries if you don't give care to someone who is
| in danger of dying you are yourself responsible for murder.
|
| That's the case in US as well? If you show up to an ER they
| have to at least stabilize you.
| lenerdenator wrote:
| > Refusing to pay for medical care is hardly murder. It's a
| standard monetary dispute, and we have a due process for
| these.
|
| > Maybe the courts are too inefficient to handle these
| disputes, but that's an argument for reforming the courts,
| not for shooting executives.
|
| You do realize that these companies lobby to make sure that
| it stays inefficient, right?
|
| In the cases where they _don 't_ use the court system, they
| use arbitration, which is usually tilted in the favor of
| insurance companies.
|
| If you want a fair shake at getting the benefits _you paid
| for_ , you have to go through the courts. Given the nature of
| the subject of the lawsuit, there's a real chance that you'll
| be dead or bankrupt before you get your day in court. That's
| not a system that works. And when there are systems that
| don't work, there are on occasion people who will go outside
| the system to make their own. There is no scenario in which
| vigilantism is completely eliminated when you have people
| making massive sums of money off of refusing to do business
| in good faith.
|
| More people need to read the cautionary tale of Ken Rex
| McElroy and the town of Skidmore, MO.
| chasd00 wrote:
| > If you want a fair shake at getting the benefits you paid
| for, you have to go through the courts.
|
| Maybe I'm in the minority, but my health insurance makes it
| very clear what the benefits I paid for are. There's
| guidance after guidance and tool after tool to help
| minimize any surprise costs.
| lenerdenator wrote:
| Good for you, but there's an entire branch of the law
| profession dedicated to cases where that's not true and
| insurance companies have to be held to the letter of the
| contracts _that they came up with_.
| dennis_jeeves2 wrote:
| Agreed.
|
| The mess is deeper, but starting an insurance company is not
| easy either, one could blame the regulations. And then one
| cannot blame regulations either, it's the regulators/govt who
| are ultimately voted/allowed by the people. It's a case where
| every one passes the buck, and so no one single entity is
| responsible for the mess.
| uoaei wrote:
| Can't wait to use the phrase "standard monetary dispute" the
| next time a collections agent threatens a family member with
| jail. That will show them.
| mint2 wrote:
| It's not a standard monetary dispute - one party is under
| duress and holding a potential time bomb that the other party
| needs to defuse, but is arguing over.
| jkrom3 wrote:
| This statement is so far outside of the bounds of reality it's
| laughable.
|
| What about those people that are using United Health Care and
| getting the support they need? They account for nothing?
| LetsGetTechnicl wrote:
| UHC has one of the highest rates of claim denials. Sure,
| there are some people getting the support they need but there
| are a lot of people who are not. What justification is there
| for that? The only justification is "profit", and that is not
| something that should ever be involved in healthcare.
| fastball wrote:
| There is always going to be an insurance company with "the
| highest rates of claim denials". On its own that means
| nothing.
|
| Health insurance is a service provided with agreement by
| both parties. If you don't want health insurance, and
| instead would prefer to pay for everything out-of-pocket,
| that is your choice and indeed the default state of the
| world. More saliently to this situation (murder), if you
| think the CEO of UHC is paid too much and this is eating
| into claim compensation to an appreciable degree, you can
| choose not to buy insurance from them.
|
| If instead you want taxes to pay for it, that is another
| option but does not make insurance companies evil, or their
| employees deserving of death.
| eloisant wrote:
| > There is always going to be an insurance company with
| "the highest rates of claim denials". On its own that
| means nothing.
|
| Statistically they should all be in the same ballpark.
| The industry average is 16%, but UHC has 32% so double!
| No reason for that.
| fastball wrote:
| Why should the rates always be the same? Different
| insurers can make different decisions about who they
| insure and what they insure and how they insure. This
| would (entirely reasonably) result in different rates of
| claims and whether or not they are accepted/denied.
| nlh wrote:
| I think this is a bit of a naive take. First off I agree
| 100% that their employees are not deserving of death so
| let's get that out of the way here. I'm not trying to
| argue that murder here is justified.
|
| But the take that purchasing insurance is a simple two-
| party agreement of willing participants who have options
| to go elsewhere is just purely naive. This is not a
| simple financial product like buying life insurance or
| car insurance or fire insurance for your house where you
| go shopping and buy or don't buy.
|
| In the United States, there are just no other choices.
| You get health insurance as part of your employement
| (typically), which is insane on the face of it. The
| government (basically) does not provide health as a
| service, even though it would seem that health is as
| fundamental a service as it gets.
|
| Health Insurance companies are for-profit entities whose
| absolute incentives are to maximize financial return to
| their shareholders, not maximize health in their
| policyholders. And whether they say it explicitly or not,
| the way you maximize financial return as an insurance
| company is take in more money than you pay out. And in
| situations where you have some amount of leeway over
| whether to pay out or not, the way you do that is try to
| pay out as little as possible and deny claims as much as
| possible. That's just pure logic.
|
| This is not "did your house burn down" or "did you car
| crash" or "did you die" binary type of stuff with typical
| insurance. This is nuanced decision-making, all with an
| overarching goal is maximizing financial return and
| minimizing claims paid. Period.
|
| While a specific person at a health insurance company may
| not be evil, and while the business itself may not be
| evil, the net result of the entire end-to-end system can
| absolutely be quite evil.
| fastball wrote:
| Again, the default state of the world is "no insurance or
| free healthcare at all". You absolutely have a choice -
| to not buy health insurance and always pay for your own
| healthcare costs.
|
| The result of health insurance is that people who could
| otherwise not afford to pay their own healthcare costs
| frequently can (but not always, when claims are denied).
| In turn, people who are healthy (and lucky) subsidize
| those less fortunate than themselves. This is not evil,
| this is good. This is something humans have invented to
| make us stronger as a collective.
|
| You can argue that a society should do more to
| proactively provide healthcare so that you don't need a
| private health insurance system, but that doesn't then
| make the private system bad.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| Health insurance companies are also legally bound by payout
| ratios. Having a higher denial rate doesn't mean they're
| paying out less money than other companies.
| tzs wrote:
| It should be noted that not all claims denials mean people
| aren't getting the support they need.
|
| For example I had an insurance company not want to pay for
| a particular prescription drug my doctor prescribed. They
| were happy to pay for treating me, but they wanted it be
| done with some other drug.
|
| They actually had a medical reason for this. The drug I had
| been prescribed had recently been found to have a risk of
| bladder cancer. There were other drugs just as effective
| but that did not have that risk and so they had removed it
| from their formulary.
|
| In this case I wanted the first drug because I had used it
| before and knew that it worked well for me and that I
| didn't get any of the numerous annoying side effects that
| it and the alternatives could all have, and I had good
| reason to believe that I'd only need to be back on it for a
| month or two and then would be permanently done with it.
|
| I concluded that the risk of bladder cancer from a couple
| months of the drug were negligible and preferable to
| dealing with drugs I'd never had before.
|
| My doctor probably could have convinced them to go ahead
| and approve a one month subscription with the possibility
| of one refill, but I realized the drug was one of the ones
| that Walmart had on their $4 drug list and so had my doctor
| send the prescription there and I bought it for the cash
| price.
|
| BTW, that $4 cash price at Walmart was cheaper than what I
| would have paid if my doctor had convinced the insurance to
| cover it and I filled the prescription at my regular
| pharmacy.
| asdafasad wrote:
| Ahaha, yeah, right? It's just ridiculous. What a laughable
| debate, this whole insurance thing is. It's just the free
| market working to optimize outcomes.
|
| By the way, can you help me understand what a 'pre-existing
| condition' is? Literally nobody outside of America has
| experience with this term.
| amrangaye wrote:
| Only a "laughable debate" and "just the free market" if you
| haven't actually had to deal with these insurance companies
| when you have a health issue and have never paid your dues
| late. I'm guessing you're from somewhere in Europe with
| universal health care?
| asdafasad wrote:
| I'm foreign to the US and no longer work there (Thanks to
| Trump, literally and directly.) While I was there... I
| literally worked for an insurance company. I have also
| done work for a pharmaceutical company. The motivation in
| healthcare in the US is purely profit. It is not like
| that anywhere else in my experience.
| fastball wrote:
| Most health insurance in most of the world has the concept
| of "pre-existing conditions".
|
| How could it be otherwise? Insurance was invented to hedge
| risk. In the case of healthcare, if you literally already
| have a condition that has known and ongoing costs
| associated with it, it doesn't make any sense for an
| insurance company to insure you against that risk - the
| risk has already manifested.
| FromOmelas wrote:
| No, that's not right. Public health insurance in the EU
| does not use that concept. Participating insurance
| companies are not allowed to set rates that way, since it
| doesn't serve the public good.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| They arent allowed to set rates that way in the US
| either, so it is an irrelevant point.
| Philadelphia wrote:
| Only since the Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare"). Before
| that, it was common to not be able to get insurance with
| pre-existing conditions at all without being covered by
| your employer. And even sometimes your employer's plan
| had a waiting period for pre-existing conditions. I got
| stuck without insurance for a long time after college
| (being able to stay on your parents' plan after
| graduation is also an ACA provision) and still have
| nightmares about it.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Correct. ACA was passed 15 years ago and I was describing
| the healthcare system today
| Philadelphia wrote:
| You're implying the situation is as stable as it is in
| other first-world countries. It's not. It's brand new,
| and Donald Trump has sworn it's going away.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| With respect to pre-existing conditions, it is equal
| treatment. I don't know what you mean by stability. I'm
| just reiterating the current state. Policy in other
| countries is also contingent on government policy and
| subject to change. Any alternative would be new too.
| fastball wrote:
| Believe it or not, there is significantly more to the
| world than the EU.
| tzs wrote:
| Plenty of people outside the US will have experience with
| pre-existing conditions as a factor in health insurance.
|
| For example many Germans will have experience with it
| because they have a system that has both a public and a
| private system. Those with high enough income (around 70k
| Euros) can opt out of the public system and use the private
| system instead. Also there are some classes of people that
| only can get part of their coverage from the public system
| and so need to buy additional coverage through the private
| system.
|
| Insurers in that private system can take into account pre-
| existing conditions. They cannot reject an application over
| pre-existing conditions but they can charge higher premiums
| because of those conditions.
|
| Another example is Switzerland. They have a universal
| healthcare system based on mandatory insurance from private
| health insurance companies. For that mandatory insurance
| pre-existing conditions are not a factor, but there is also
| supplemental insurance available that covers things not
| included in the mandatory insurance.
|
| The supplemental providers can and do consider pre-existing
| conditions when deciding whether or not to provide
| coverage.
| brodouevencode wrote:
| How far does this carry? Is the charge of the insurance company
| to keep you alive at all costs?
| LetsGetTechnicl wrote:
| In a healthy society we wouldn't have "health insurance
| companies" which are profit driven and are motivated to cut
| costs, not provide care.
| brodouevencode wrote:
| There's no such thing as a free lunch. Someone will have to
| bear a cost somewhere along the way.
| LetsGetTechnicl wrote:
| I would prefer to live in a society that puts the well-
| being of its people over fretting whether someone is
| getting a "free lunch" or worrying "how will we make
| money off of this?" The US is so backwards, we spend so
| much money on healthcare for the worst impacts in the
| world, and we pump billions into our military blowing up
| people abroad. A healthy society would spend that money
| into taking care of its people, and that includes
| providing healthcare for everyone no matter the cost.
| LetsGetTechnicl wrote:
| I meant to say "worst outcomes" here
| nancyminusone wrote:
| Why bring the military into it at all? The US government
| already spends more ON HEALTHCARE than everyone else and
| still can't seem to figure it out.
| LetsGetTechnicl wrote:
| I bring the military budget up just as an example of how
| the priorities of our society, or our government rather,
| are completely backwards imo. One reason why we haven't
| "figured it out" is because health insurance companies
| effectively lobby the US govt to secure their monopoly.
| They know that we just got rid of the middle man that is
| insurance companies, we'd spend less money and get better
| care.
| goatlover wrote:
| Part of that military spending has been protecting Europe
| from Russia and South Korea, Taiwan and Japan from China
| and North Korea.
| techdmn wrote:
| I am happy to bear the cost of providing care. I am NOT
| happy to bear the cost of the huge profits generated by
| the U.S. healthcare system. Insurance companies are
| increasing profits by denying care.
|
| A separate issue is consolidation. In my area, what used
| to be locally owned clinics and hospitals are being
| bought up by national conglomerates. Their first move is
| often to reduce staffing and cut costs, driving up delays
| and driving down quality of care.
| SteveNuts wrote:
| For-profit health insurance is the ultimate rent-seeking
| industry. They provide a net-negative to their customers,
| scraping profit off the transaction between a patient and
| their care provider.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > There's no such thing as a free lunch.
|
| OK, but American "lunch" costs 2-3x what it does
| everywhere else, with similar/worse outcomes.
|
| (And yes, that's counting taxes.)
|
| We're ordering oatmeal and being charged wagyu filet
| prices.
|
| I, at this moment, have a syringe with a mililiter of
| fluid on my desk that's worth more than both of my cars
| combined. https://imgur.com/a/HzqgLa2
|
| It's about 1/10th that in the UK.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Really? My son hurt his knee on the job, workman's comp
| paid for him to get an MRI and a pretty detailed workup
| from the orthopedist, a brace that the orthopedist told
| him not to wear, etc. The advice in the end was "rest"
| and "return to activities gradually".
|
| My insurance pays for a colonoscopy every 5-10 years,
| telehealth therapy appointments with no copay, free
| vaccinations, really a lot of stuff.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > My insurance pays for a colonoscopy every 5-10 years,
| telehealth therapy appointments with no copay, free
| vaccinations, really a lot of stuff.
|
| No, you pay for those. Via your premiums.
|
| (Which your employer may pay a significant part of.
| That's ultimately lost salary to you; it isn't out of
| charity on their part either.)
|
| My family health insurance costs $3k/month. Going up ~10%
| next month, too.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| I'm not going to disagree that its expensive but I'm not
| going to say that it is low quantity or low quality.
|
| If the US does worse on population health statistics than
| other countries do it is not the fault of our healthcare
| system but rather the fault of social determinants of
| health such as social disconnection, inequality, etc.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > I'm not going to say that it is low quantity or low
| quality.
|
| That's OK, we have stats for that.
| https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/fund-
| reports/2...
|
| > If the US does worse on population health statistics
| than other countries do it is not the fault of our
| healthcare system but rather the fault of social
| determinants of health such as social disconnection,
| inequality, etc.
|
| Other countries have these things, too.
| lenerdenator wrote:
| No one suggested there was a free lunch.
|
| Actually, I take that back. If we think of a "free lunch"
| as something that isn't earned, the only free lunch here
| is the one that shareholders (which includes the c-suite
| given their share grants in the compensation packages)
| receive quarterly in the form of dividends and earnings-
| per-share. When you take someone's money (usually
| $200/month or more... much more actually), find every
| single excuse to not provide a service a doctor of
| medicine has declared to be necessary, and then pay
| yourself more money than most people would even know how
| to spend in a lifetime, you're pretending you're entitled
| to a free lunch.
| miah_ wrote:
| The Health Insurance for my wife, two children, and
| myself is _$1500_/mo and that's _with_ a $20,000
| deductible.
|
| When I started working ~25 years ago, my health insurance
| was typically fully covered by my employer and I had no
| deductible that I was aware of. The cost of insurance has
| only gotten worse, and finding a plan without a
| outrageous deductible adds to that.
|
| As a society, this is something we can totally solve. So
| many other countries have socialized healthcare. Its not
| an impossible goal.
| hypeatei wrote:
| > There's no such thing as a free lunch
|
| This is a take that lacks any nuance and it doesn't even
| pertain to what anyone said. Typical for conservatives.
|
| No one is saying we need to provide healthcare for
| literally $0 and pretend it has no costs. No, most
| realize our current cobbled together system with
| middlemen everywhere isn't working and it's costing
| lives. Why we can't have a single payer system that gets
| rid of the paperwork and makes it easier to bargain
| against prices is beyond me.
|
| Sure, let's keep this system where you have to worry
| about in/out network hospitals, jump through a bunch of
| hoops to get treatment, and middlemen causing prices to
| surge. Madness.
| equality_1138 wrote:
| Ever done any work for a US health insurance company? You
| won't find many conservatives. You will find many "free
| lunch" advocates who spend half their day lobbying to
| protect their job and their industry. They are playing
| politics with your healthcare costs. How is that for
| nuance?
| hypeatei wrote:
| It's great and even more reason to get rid of these
| useless corporations. The conservative thing to me was
| the basic take "ummm actually it's not free" which lacks
| any actual thought. It doesn't further the discussion and
| perpetuates the suffering all to... own the libs? I'm not
| sure.
| equality_1138 wrote:
| The "libs" who lobbied for so-called universal
| healthcare? They further empowered these corporations and
| now they want to get rid of them. The libs owned
| themselves on this topic, obviously.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| The ACA was substantially watered down to get
| (conservative!) Lieberman's deciding vote in the Senate.
| "The libs", as always, were told they'd have to wait
| later for their stuff.
| equality_1138 wrote:
| I can rephrase it then to they owned themselves in this
| case by being so damn gullible, thus further entrenched
| power given to the insurance industry.
| pmx wrote:
| I pay national insurance every month, its automatically
| taken from my salary. Most of the time it pays for other
| people's care - and that's absolutely fine with me. And
| if at some point I need care, I know it will be there for
| me and how much money I have won't come into it, the
| costs of my care won't be weighed against the value of my
| life, i'll just get the care I need. It doesn't need to
| be so expensive, the US has just built such an incredibly
| inefficient system ( or efficient if you accept it is
| designed to generate outrageous profit from the suffering
| of humans).
| forinti wrote:
| Everybody is born, everybody gets sick, everybody
| eventually dies.
|
| It is sensible to have a universal health care system:
| everyone pays for it and everybody will use it.
| uoaei wrote:
| One of the rhetorical devices I despise the most is what
| I'll call "stranger in a strange land fallacy", the idea
| that we should re-litigate the most basic questions at
| the most basic level over and over and over because
| people think they're the main character on the debate
| channel on TV.
| ConcernedCoder wrote:
| this is the correct answer, as long as health care is for-
| profit we will always be the product instead of the
| consumer
| gruez wrote:
| I think most people would say that Switzerland is a
| "healthy society", yet:
|
| >Switzerland has universal health care,[3] regulated by the
| Swiss Federal Law on Health Insurance. There are no free
| state-provided health services, but private health
| insurance is compulsory for all persons residing in
| Switzerland (within three months of taking up residence or
| being born in the country)
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Switzerland
| tzs wrote:
| They operate as non-profits when providing that
| insurance, so I'm not sure how well that works as a
| counterexample to his assertion.
|
| The do also offer supplemental insurance for things
| beyond what the compulsory insurance covers and those
| supplemental plans are for-profit.
| lenerdenator wrote:
| At the very least, it's the charge of the insurance company
| to serve the customer in a way that passes on savings to the
| customer in the form of lower premiums or increased amounts
| of care.
|
| It's insulting to a person's intelligence to tell them "we
| just don't have the money to cover the surgery recommended by
| doctors to solve your debilitating injury or illness" and
| then turn around and give your c-suite seven-figure
| compensation packages every year while also instituting a
| dividend for the free riders known as shareholders.
| lvspiff wrote:
| In an ideal world the insurance company would operate more
| like a fiduciary than a custodian. Their job should be to
| guide you towards the best possible outcome not just the
| outcome that suits their best interest. But, that would
| require everyone along the chain from physicians, pharmacies,
| nurses, back office, front office, billing and scheduling to
| all operate in that same manner -- which unfortunately
| doesn't lead to profit so we end up with the system we have.
| brodouevencode wrote:
| I agree, but demonizing the profit motive isn't the ideal
| path. The system, as far as I can tell, needs work. The
| fiduciary model works in other places, it will probably
| work in insurance and healthcare as well.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| In fact as someone who pays the premiums I might feel better
| off when somebody else gets declined because it keeps my
| premiums down.
|
| At some point declines are a protection against quackery.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| UHC has a profit margin of 6%.
|
| If the company was PERFECTLY run, you're still going to have
| tons of people getting denied claims. That's what happens
| with the law of big numbers.
|
| And guess what. You're never going to have a perfectly run
| company.
|
| If you take the CEOs salary and distribute it to healthcare
| patients, $50M worth of healthcare is not going to even
| minutely move the needle.
|
| UHC revenue is $100B PER QUARTER. The CEO's pay is not even a
| rounding error on a rounding error.
|
| Was the CEO a perfect, honorable guy? No.
|
| Is taking his salary and spending it on patients going to do
| anything? In the large picture, also, no.
| avn2109 wrote:
| FWIW, 6% is clearly "Hollywood accounting," just look at
| the stock chart. No business with six percent margins has
| stock performance like UNH.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| Have you seen Carvana's stock?
| brodouevencode wrote:
| It just means that their costs have correlated with
| revenues, which is to be expected in certain industries.
|
| The better comparison would be with other insurance
| carriers.
| gruez wrote:
| "Hollywood accounting" only works because you're
| transferring the profits of one enterprise (ie. the movie
| itself) to something else (ie. the
| production/distribution company). Unitedhealth Group is a
| publicly traded company. Where are they funneling the
| profits to?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Subsidiaries and affiliates. For example:
|
| https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-
| releases/2024/09/...
|
| > The FTC's administrative complaint alleges that CVS
| Health's Caremark, Cigna's ESI, and United Health Group's
| Optum, and their respective GPOs--Zinc Health Services,
| Ascent Health Services, and Emisar Pharma Services--have
| abused their economic power by rigging pharmaceutical
| supply chain competition in their favor, forcing patients
| to pay more for life-saving medication. According to the
| complaint, these PBMs, known as the Big Three, together
| administer about 80% of all prescriptions in the United
| States.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > If you take the CEOs salary and distribute it to
| healthcare patients, $50M worth of healthcare is not going
| to even minutely move the needle.
|
| They make $15-20B profit annually. They aren't just funding
| a single well-paid role off denials.
| Teever wrote:
| What if this entire sector just didn't exist and the money
| paid out to health insurance secretaries and janitors who
| clean their offices and the people in the accounting
| department who handle their salaries just went into paying
| for actual healthcare instead?
|
| Like isn't the entire sector just inefficient bloat? What
| value does it provide that can't be provided much more
| efficiently?
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| > What if this entire sector just didn't exist and the
| money paid out to health insurance secretaries and
| janitors who clean their offices and the people in the
| accounting department who handle their salaries just went
| into paying for actual healthcare instead?
|
| Then healthcare fraud would be 80% of GDP.
| Teever wrote:
| Is healthcare fraud 80% of the Canadian GDP?
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| No.
|
| You're still paying the same people the same wages to
| work for the government.
|
| Or is your solution that we should pay health insurance
| workers less money?
|
| You originally proposed eliminating all the jobs. Now
| you've moved all the jobs to the public sector. So unless
| you're paying them dirt, all that money is still going to
| people working to make sure healthcare fraud isn't 80% of
| GDP.
|
| In a perfect world, you have 6% more money to spend on
| healthcare instead of corporate profits.
|
| That's not going to change the picture that much.
|
| And you're unlikely to arrive in a perfect world.
|
| You'll probably get a 10% more expensive system that's 9%
| more inefficient and has 0 profits.
| Teever wrote:
| Are you sure about this?
|
| I've proposed eliminating those jobs because they're
| bullshit jobs that have a net negative contribution to
| society because the American medical system is hopelessly
| inefficient and corrupt.[0]
|
| It is a curious thing watching people defend the
| undefendable. What makes you so confident in this system
| that so many Americans loathe and feel betrayed by?
|
| [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Life_expectancy_
| vs_heal...
| bpt3 wrote:
| Because (1) most Americans are satisfied with their
| healthcare and (2) the CBO doesn't think that a public
| option would decrease costs much if at all:
| https://www.cbo.gov/publication/57125
|
| In short, you're wrong.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Canada isn't hypothetical. It is very easy to compare
| costs and outcomes.
|
| I live in BC, Canada, and we don't have an entire
| industry built around claims processing, administration,
| etc. They still pay health care workers, but they don't
| have to have phone banks filled with people answering
| questions about claim denials. I'm not even sure if a
| claim denial is a thing here, or who I would call. We
| don't have healthcare insurance CEOs making 23mm per
| year. We don't have customer service reps, we don't have
| billing specialists in every medical practice, we don't
| have medical coding experts. These things kind of exist
| in a bare minimum way, but not anywhere at the scale that
| I have seen in the US.
|
| I go to the doctor, they make a medical determination
| about what my needs are, and we proceed from there. There
| is almost no fraud because the doctor has no real
| financial incentive to overtreat me, and since it is a
| single payer system, malicious patterns get picked up
| quickly and efficiently.
|
| Keep in mind that each province administers their own
| medical system, so there is no such thing as the Canadian
| health insurance system.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| > There is almost no fraud because the doctor has no real
| financial incentive to overtreat me
|
| The vast majority of healthcare fraud does not come from
| corrupt dentists convincing you to get root canals you
| don't need.
|
| The largest source is billing for services not rendered.
|
| That is: some provider just makes up that you came to see
| them and charges the insurance company and you don't even
| know about it.
|
| This is a non-trivial problem to solve.
|
| Even in the NHS in the UK - where the entire system,
| including the providers, are public - there is STILL a
| large billing for services not rendered problem!
| Teever wrote:
| It seems relatively trivial to crack down on the bulk of
| it by providing people open and transparent access to
| their digital medical records.
|
| In a situation like that many people can proactively look
| over their records to determine if such corruption is
| happening.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| > It seems relatively trivial to crack down on the bulk
| of it by providing people open and transparent access to
| their digital medical records.
|
| Why isn't NHS doing it then?
| Teever wrote:
| I'm not a citizen of the UK so I can only speculate from
| a poorly informed position but I would imagine that it
| has to do with the starve the beast tactics that are
| being used to weaken the NHS to make it more susceptible
| to privatization.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Weird.
|
| This seems trivially solvable. In BC, Canada, I had an
| old doctor renew a prescription over the phone. This must
| have triggered a fraud alert because my address was now
| in a different health management district. They sent me
| an automatic notice asking me to confirm that I had been
| helped by that doctor at that time. I believe I can also
| log onto a provincial portal and see activity related to
| my medical care.
|
| Seems like a pretty low cost way to ensure that no fraud
| is happening. Set up triggers for confirmation like
| doctors treating people who don't live nearby, treating
| people who are concurrently seeing other doctors, or any
| number of other known fraud alerts, and follow up.
|
| Since private practice isn't really allowed here, getting
| removed from the provincial insurance program means a
| career death sentence, so I think that it just isn't that
| big of a problem anyway.
| allturtles wrote:
| > I live in BC, Canada, and we don't have an entire
| industry built around claims processing, administration,
| etc.
|
| There certainly must be people doing all of this claims
| processing, maybe not an "industry" since it's part of
| the government:
| https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/health/practitioner-
| profe...
|
| > They still pay health care workers, but they don't have
| to have phone banks filled with people answering
| questions about claim denials. I'm not even sure if a
| claim denial is a thing here, or who I would call.
|
| There's a long list of rejected claim codes for BC here:
| https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/health/practitioner-
| profe...
|
| And a support center for handling questions and disputes:
| https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/health/practitioner-
| profe... And an appeals process:
| https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/health/health-drug-
| covera...
|
| The Canadian system may be much cheaper to administer,
| but it isn't magical. There is still a need for staff to
| administer and adjudicate claims, and you still have to
| ration limited healthcare resources somehow.
| Teever wrote:
| >The Canadian system may be much cheaper to administer,
| but it isn't magical. There is still a need for staff to
| administer and adjudicate claims, and you still have to
| ration limited healthcare resources somehow.
|
| But it isn't just the Canadian system -- it's every other
| system too.[0]
|
| There is a unique form of corruption occurring in the
| American health system and it is absolutely tied to the
| insurance industry.
|
| This corruption causes the misallocation of resources in
| ways that are detrimental to the health of American
| citizens.
|
| Medical bankruptcy and the cost that it has on a person's
| health isn't really a thing in Canada. Having to choose
| between paying for medical bills or healthy food isn't
| really a thing in Canada. People putting off minor
| medical issues until they grow into major issues because
| they can't afford routine checkups or treatments isn't
| really a thing in Canada.
|
| This results in far less rationing of healthcare because
| people are able to make better choices that prevent the
| waste of medical resources.
|
| Don't get me wrong, there are issues with Canadian
| healthcare -- the biggest being corrupt politicians and
| business people trying to import American healthcare
| practices for their personal gain but the issues that the
| average Canadian face in accessing healthcare are nothing
| compared to those that the average American faces.
|
| [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Life_expectancy_
| vs_heal...
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Notice how all of the things that you found represent a
| single department in the provincial government instead of
| a significant part of national GDP spread across multiple
| billion dollar conglomerates.
|
| The first link you submitted is actually showing how the
| automated system processes the huge majority of claims
| automatically without people in the loop. So not a good
| argument that BC has phone banks of people answering
| claims questions.
|
| Yes the claim process exists, and the various appeals
| parts exist, but that part of MSP is just not the
| patient's problem. If you read through the reasons for
| denial that you linked, almost all of them are requests
| for better paperwork or missing information. The level of
| administrative overhead just doesn't exist on the scale
| that I have experienced living in the states.
|
| What I have never had happen, or heard of happening, is a
| resident getting a bill for seeking medical care (which
| would happen if a claim was rejected). Or someone not
| receiving medical care due to inability to pay. Or having
| to doctor shop for a place that accepts their insurance.
| In fact, most people I know have never even had to
| contact MSP.
| gruez wrote:
| That's like arguing "there's no anarchy in the streets,
| why don't we get rid of cops?"
| gosub100 wrote:
| What is the purpose of a medical license then, if
| insurance can step in and deny the procedure? Who is
| right? I think dissolving insurance altogether is extreme
| (I agree but don't want to waste time on pie in the sky
| ideas).
|
| Why can't we start by removing insurances ability to deny
| anything from a licensed doctor? If doctors are padding
| their wallets or stealing, bring it up with the board of
| medical examiners or court just like any other
| malfeasance in any other regulated industry. If you are
| board-certified in X it means you are entrusted to do X.
| Insurance should never be involved.
| lenerdenator wrote:
| > If you take the CEOs salary and distribute it to
| healthcare patients, $50M worth of healthcare is not going
| to even minutely move the needle.
|
| I have a hard time buying this. Really? You can't cover a
| few more cents of a few more claims if you reduce c-suite
| pay?
|
| I don't pay my premium to just see it go directly to the
| c-suite and some retirement fund's coffers. I pay it to
| cover healthcare costs and to keep from being financially
| ruined by a chance illness or injury.
|
| If the CEO is making a half-million a year and his company
| is coming to me telling me that there just isn't any money
| to cover my back injury surgery, they're negotiating in far
| better faith than if they're paying him ~5x the median
| lifetime earnings of the American male each year, every
| year.
|
| Good faith matters.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| > I have a hard time buying this. Really? You can't cover
| a few more cents of a few more claims if you reduce
| c-suite pay?
|
| A single Tylenol in a hospital costs $15.
|
| If you think a few cents is going to do anything, you are
| completely bamboozled.
|
| A few cents is nothing in healthcare.
| lenerdenator wrote:
| I work in healthcare technology.
|
| I'm well aware of what things cost.
|
| Maybe instead of paying for the c-suite's bonuses, they
| need to be paying someone to air the dirty laundry of the
| health system that's charging $15 for an acetaminophen.
| When someone's f*cking both you and your customer like
| that, you go after them. But it's not about that, is it?
| It's about transferring value to shareholders, not
| reducing the costs of care. Hell, doing actual work to
| reduce the cost of care is expensive, and we can't
| possibly expect the retirement funds and major
| shareholders of America to pay for that.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| > When someone's f*cking both you and your customer like
| that, you go after them. But it's not about that, is it?
| It's about transferring value to shareholders, not
| reducing the costs of care.
|
| It's almost as if it's not an easy problem to solve, or
| some other health insurance company would do it and put
| all the other ones out of business.
| lenerdenator wrote:
| It's not an easy problem to solve if you're not
| interested in solving the problem.
|
| And they're not. Like I said, the goal of for-profit
| health insurance companies is not to maximize economic
| benefits for customers; it's to maximize economic
| benefits for shareholders. It's a lot easier to transfer
| value to shareholders by just denying the claim submitted
| by the customer for that pill than it is to actually
| (legally) beat the entity charging for the pill into
| permanent submission. So that's what they do.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| > it's to maximize economic benefits for shareholders
|
| Except health insurance is regulated, and you can only
| maximize profits to a small degree (which is the only
| reason UHC's profit margin is 6% instead of 40%).
|
| This incentivizes health insurance companies to provide a
| good enough service that people want their insurance.
| Capturing a lot of the market is their ONLY way to make
| money.
|
| They literally don't have the option to ask, "how do we
| just take more of our customers money and stuff it in our
| pockets?"
|
| That's not really that terrible if the company is Apple
| and selling products that nobody NEEDS. It is terrible if
| you've only got a few choices and their selling something
| everyone needs - hence the regulation of profits.
|
| It's almost as if our country isn't run by complete
| idiots.
|
| Is it a perfect system? No.
|
| Is there an obvious, far superior system? Also, no.
| lenerdenator wrote:
| Here's the chart. [0]
|
| Review it, then come back to us.
|
| [0]https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy-vs-
| health...
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| It's almost as if healthcare spending isn't the only
| variable that matters - and it matters how fat and
| sedentary your population is, and how much you pay
| doctors and nurses.
|
| It's almost as if the world isn't so reductive complex
| issues can be reduced to cute little charts.
| Tryk wrote:
| >Is there an obvious, far superior system? Also, no.
|
| Yes there is.
|
| https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/Life_
| exp...
| gruez wrote:
| >>$50M worth of healthcare is not going to even minutely
| move the needle.
|
| >I have a hard time buying this. Really? You can't cover
| a few more cents of a few more claims if you reduce
| c-suite pay?
|
| Nice job moving the goalposts from "moving the needle" to
| "a few more cents of a few more claims". UnitedHealth
| Group had 371.6 billion in revenue last year. $50 M means
| they can provide 0.01% more care to their customers. I
| think it's fair to describe that as "not going to even
| minutely move the needle".
| lenerdenator wrote:
| It moves the needle for the premium-paying customer.
|
| Either the numbers matter or they don't. Pick one.
| gruez wrote:
| https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/move_the_needle#English
|
| >1. (idiomatic) To change a situation to a _noticeable_
| degree
|
| Emphasis mine.
| itchyouch wrote:
| What's the best way to solve the engineering issue of high
| load on any given system?
|
| Reduce or eliminate the load.
|
| Of course insurance will reduce their load with tactics
| such as deny, deny. But systemically, there's a better,
| good-faith way.
|
| IMHO, without getting into all the nitty gritty details,
| the good-faith way to improve a ton of healthcare is to
| extend the efforts of fortification in common foods, expand
| people's consumption of healthier foods (more plants that
| provider fiber + minerals), improve people's abilities and
| motivation around healthier lifestyle choices (exercise,
| sleep), and significantly reduce or re-engineer illness-
| causing agents (plastics, VOCs) in our daily lives.
|
| The challenge is how to implement these things in a
| balanced and sustainable manner, while keeping most
| industries relatively happy. Of course this would take a
| decade or more, but the knowledge is out there from some
| very competent healthspan PHds/MDs and a variety of
| scientists.
|
| In my personal opinion, if all we did was increase
| consumption of sulfur, protein (especially collagenic
| sources), we would improve a tremendous amount of health
| outcomes drastically. Asian countries are a great example
| where the food actually has sulfur and collagenic sources
| built into their culture. Koreans consume cabbage 3x/day
| (cruciferous veggies with sulfur) and traditionally consume
| a bone-broth (collagenic) type of soup with 1-3 meals on
| the daily. I could outline the science here, but a huge
| amount of chronic illness, such as the shooter's mother may
| have seen some relief with some of my aforementioned
| efforts.
|
| The way we can take for granted iodine deficiency because
| they added it to salt, we really need to do that for
| others. Omega 3s within milk these days is also a good path
| forward.
| capybaraStorm wrote:
| Obligatory "I do not condone murder."
|
| The principle carries in so far as you hold up your contract
| for covered claims until bankrupt.
|
| Or to use an analogy, which HN absolutely hates and will
| nitpick since an analogy is never the same thing: you do not
| get to trespass someone from your airplane while you are in
| flight. If the airplane catastrophically fails and someone is
| sucked out, then there is a pass.
|
| It does not appear these denied claims are just people
| getting sucked out of a catastrophically failed aircraft.
| forgetfreeman wrote:
| Given insurance companies are not a necessary component of a
| functioning healthcare system why do we normalize debates
| around what level of resource extraction constitutes murder
| on their part?
| jmyeet wrote:
| To your point, there is a concept called "social murder" [1]:
|
| > When one individual inflicts bodily injury upon another such
| that death results, we call the deed manslaughter; when the
| assailant knew in advance that the injury would be fatal, we
| call his deed murder. But when society places hundreds of
| proletarians in such a position that they inevitably meet a too
| early and an unnatural death, one which is quite as much a
| death by violence as that by the sword or bullet; when it
| deprives thousands of the necessaries of life, places them
| under conditions in which they cannot live - forces them,
| through the strong arm of the law, to remain in such conditions
| until that death ensues which is the inevitable consequence -
| knows that these thousands of victims must perish, and yet
| permits these conditions to remain, its deed is murder just as
| surely as the deed of the single individual; disguised,
| malicious murder, murder against which none can defend himself,
| which does not seem what it is, because no man sees the
| murderer, because the death of the victim seems a natural one,
| since the offence is more one of omission than of commission.
| But murder it remains.
|
| We can compare this to, say, all the people involved in the
| death camps in Nazi Germany. Who exactly is culpable for
| murder? Ther person dropping the Zyklon B? Or were they just
| following orders? The camp commandant who gave the orders? Or
| were they just following orders? What about the camp guards?
| What about the train operators? Those who maintained the
| trains? Those who built and maintained the camps? Those who
| loaded the trains? Those who detained Jews and other
| "undesirables"?
|
| In the case of death-by-denail of health coverage, there are
| many hands involved (hence "social murder"). Personally, I
| don't blame the people who man the phones, for example. They
| are coerced into a job. But someone is responsible and you can
| make a reasonable claim that the CEO fits that bill. Where you
| draw the line between those two is another question. There are
| no doubt people working at United whose job it is to come up
| with creative ways of denying claims. Their bonuses are
| probably tied to it. You can make a reasonable case that
| they're aware of the consequences of their action. Are they
| culpable too?
|
| Additionallly, people tend to view violence as violence or not
| depending on who does it. Like tossing tear gas cannisters at
| protestors is not violence but throwing the cannister back is
| [2].
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_murder
|
| [2]: https://fox11online.com/news/local/charges-filed-against-
| man...
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| And absolutely psychotic take and you should feel ashamed for
| espousing it.
| takinola wrote:
| A quick look at United Health's P/L shows a 6% profit margin.
| This does not quite support the popular rhetoric of a
| corporation in search of relentless margin (unless the argument
| is they are bad at it despite all efforts).
| lenerdenator wrote:
| ... or that they have used creative accounting to come to
| that number.
|
| Regardless, people who are debilitated by injury or illness
| aren't going to look at 6% and say, "well, jeeze, I guess
| these guys really are hard done by."
|
| They're going to wonder why something that costs them tens of
| thousands of dollars a year (health insurance premiums) isn't
| paying for a medically-necessary procedure, profits be
| damned.
| takinola wrote:
| All public companies, especially of this size, have their
| financial statements audited. Of course, shenanigans still
| happen but I haven't heard any credible claims regarding
| UNH just yet. More importantly, corporate hanky-panky is
| almost always designed to boost revenue and margins and not
| lower them so I am willing to bet the numbers here are
| trustworthy.
|
| > profits be damned.
|
| But, profits cannot be damned, at least not if you plan on
| being a going concern. At some point, the companies need to
| make a profit otherwise they go out of business and cannot
| provide any healthcare at all.
|
| My point is not that UNH is a sterling example of
| healthcare service but to point out that the narrative
| justifying the public outrage is not really logically
| coherent or supported by evidence. If there is no public
| healthcare service, you will need to have private insurers.
| If you have private insurers, they will need to make
| profit. The best you can do in this situation is make sure
| there is competition so the profits are not out of line
| (which seems to be the case) and there is minimal waste in
| the system (jury is out on that one).
|
| Also, public healthcare is not the panacea that it seems to
| be promoted as. Healthcare is expensive and at some point,
| limits will be placed to avoid bankrupting the system. Take
| a look at any number of the systems of any number of
| European countries and see the wait times, approvals, etc.
|
| BTW, I support the idea of a government provided healthcare
| system, but I just don't think it will solve all the
| problems the way people seem to think it will.
| LetsGetTechnicl wrote:
| I don't think a government-run health system would solve
| all problems either but it would address a lot of
| problems re: access, affordability and having a health
| baseline. Obviously doctors, nurses, supplies, etc are a
| finite resource and so they can't see everyone all at
| once so you have to prioritize based on need and
| severity. I think that's fair compared to... prioritizing
| based on who can pay.
| Wytwwww wrote:
| Why can't US pretty much just directly copy-paste the
| entirely private (more so than in the the US since there
| are no Medicare/Medicaid equivalents) Dutch or Swiss
| systems, though?
|
| If a government-run health system is such a contentious
| issue... turns out privatized healthcare can work just
| fine if there is sufficient regulation.
| Wytwwww wrote:
| > there is minimal waste in the system (jury is out on
| that one).
|
| How could that be? Unless that's sarcasm..
|
| I mean the US government alone (so excluding all private
| spending and insurance companies) spends more on
| healthcare per capita than many European countries which
| have universal healthcare.
|
| Switzerland has a pretty much entirely privatized
| healthcare system (in theory too a much higher degree
| than the US) which is (relatively) well regulated. Also
| considerably higher median salaries and GDP per capita
| (albeit disposable PPP income is quite a bit lower) yet
| they spend 35% less on healthcare than the US.
| takinola wrote:
| My understanding is a lot of difference in healthcare
| spending in Europe v USA can be explained by the cost of
| pharmaceuticals and the fact that we have fancier (read
| more expensive) stuff.
|
| The pharmaceuticals pricing is due to the factor that
| pharma companies believe they can charge higher prices in
| the US than anywhere else so the US consumer effectively
| subsidizes the rest of the world. I'm not sure how to
| solve this problem in a way that lowers prices AND
| maintains availability of the drugs. The obvious solution
| is to demand that pharma companies lower prices in the
| US, but (assuming they are unable to increase prices in
| Europe) this will just lead to some (many?) drugs not
| being profitable and reducing availability of drugs for
| all.
|
| As for the fancier stuff, we do want to have fancier
| stuff. That means you get better healthcare outcomes for
| some pretty sick people. We should not want to cut that
| out. We're in trolley experiment territory when you start
| discussing whether it is better to have a life-saving,
| but expensive, procedure available but not everyone can
| get it because of cost or to not have the procedure
| available at all for anyone.
| Tryk wrote:
| There is absolutely 100% of the same stuff used in the
| US, just fancier names.
|
| Other countries reduce cost by having the state negotiate
| instead of many small insurance companies all negotiate
| separately. This is why other countries get a better deal
| because they offer a larger base of future sales.
| Wytwwww wrote:
| Don't the Swiss also have very fancy stuff, though?
|
| But yeah, drug pricing might be a significant part. I'm
| not sure about the reduced incentives for pharmaceutical
| companies, though? From what I understand the system is
| very inefficient, there are a lot of middlemen (i.e.
| waste) involved and price discrimination going on so a
| lot of that money might not necessarily be going to the
| drug companies doing the research.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Our stuff isn't fancier than their stuff. They administer
| the same drugs, they buy MRIs from the same
| manufacturers, their scapels are just as sharp.
|
| My $25k single milliliter of fluid
| (https://imgur.com/a/HzqgLa2) costs the NHS about $4k in
| the UK.
| nielsbot wrote:
| Profits after paying executive salaries, right?
|
| In any case there should not be a profit motive in (health)
| insurance.
| welshwelsh wrote:
| Executive salaries represent less than 0.01% of UHG
| revenue.
|
| Total revenue is about $320B. Thompson's compensation was
| $1M cash + about $10m stock (the stock part doesn't impact
| the company's profit margin).
|
| In any case, executive salaries are basically a rounding
| error in the books.
| Wytwwww wrote:
| > the stock part doesn't impact the company's profit
| margin
|
| It certainly does if you use GAAP. A lot of tech
| companies cheat by providing GAAP and non-GAPP figures
| (of course there are some other cases where it makes
| sense) to hide stock based comp.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Very interesting, the insurance with the highest rejection
| rate where the medical spendings are twice the cost per
| capita compared to European average and the median age is
| younger, the insurance makes only %6?
|
| What do you do so wrong? What is your mechanism of getting
| rid of those who provide you the healthcare at low efficiency
| and hight cost? In Europe we have elections and when those
| don't yield the desired results we storm the HQ and replace
| by force.
|
| You can't be expecting that when too many people die the
| insurance company will lose customers and the shareholders
| will replace the top management, right?
| Wytwwww wrote:
| They are required to spend 80% on actual medical care, add
| various administrative costs etc. and 6% sounds reasonable.
| Problem is that this incentivizes them to waste as much
| money as possible but the whole industry has to "agree" to
| do that for it to work. So that other insurance companies
| couldn't undercut them.
| Wytwwww wrote:
| Aren't health insurance company margins capped? i.e. if they
| are required to spend 80% on medical care so effectively they
| can only make more money be bloating costs more and more.
|
| It's better to waste $4.75 by maximizing the inefficiency and
| costs of the entire system thorough extremely overpriced
| drugs due to various nonsensical middlemen based market
| structures, administrative bloat etc. and make 0.25$ than to
| reduce premiums. Of course it still costs $5 to the society.
| It might actually be better if they had higher margins...
| arkh wrote:
| I'm gonna play devil's advocate here.
|
| How much do you think people should pay for some random person
| to be afforded one more hour of life free of pain? $1000?
| $1000000? $100000000? More?
| llamaimperative wrote:
| We don't need to know this exact number to know that American
| patients are getting uniquely fucked by their healthcare
| system compared to every other developed nation. Once we're
| on-par with what other countries achieve, then we can have
| the philosophical debate.
| jplusequalt wrote:
| This is a purposefully disingenuous hypothetical. There are
| people who have real shots at a better life, or continuing
| their life for that matter, who get denied the insurance they
| pay for! It isn't only people who are already on death's
| door.
| nightowl_games wrote:
| Blows my mind that no ones suggesting mental illness in their
| analysis. Especially given that he's cut off contact from his
| family...
| ok123456 wrote:
| He seems pretty rational.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| If you start from premises that are disconnected from
| reality, you can use perfect rationality to reach insane
| conclusions.
| ok123456 wrote:
| Are you armchair diagnosing him? He seems pretty sane.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| No, I'm using his actions to diagnose his conclusions.
| The conclusions ("killing this guy on a public street is
| the right way to deal with this situation") are insane,
| whether or not _he_ is.
| zzbzq wrote:
| The phrase 'mental illness' has expanded as a category a
| thousand-fold this millennium. I see no evidence he has any
| mental illness, other than a particular kind that is fully
| voluntarily and reversible.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Boy, they are gonna have a hard time, picking a jury for this
| kid.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| No, most normal people are not psychos who can rationalize
| murder
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| You mean like the health insurers that deliberately denied
| coverage for AIDS patients and cancer patients, knowing that
| would hasten/cause their deaths?
|
| Those types of people?
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| To answer that question, first I would need to understand
| how a normal person would behave in the same circumstance.
|
| The sum of requests for insurance money is far greater than
| the total amount an insurance company brings in. Denials
| will need to happen, and I do not have the ability to judge
| whether a denial was appropriate or inappropriate in a
| vacuum.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I happened to be in a population of folks, in the 1980s
| and 1990s, who had a high incidence of AIDS. They
| currently still have a high incidence of cancer, so I
| guess you could say that I have a "front-row seat" to the
| horror.
|
| There were actually some leaked memos, that made it clear
| that the goal of many denials -especially irt AIDS,
| because nobody likes gays and addicts- was to hasten or
| cause the death of the patient (thus, decreasing the
| cost). If a hospital can't guarantee payment, they won't
| do the surgery/treatment, so the insurer definitely knows
| that their action will likely kill the patient. In fact,
| that's the goal.
|
| I would consider that first-degree, premeditated, murder.
|
| I understand that they are now turning the denials over
| to AI, so that actual humans don't have to live with the
| knowledge that they deliberately killed someone else.
|
| But it isn't cool to just kill folks you don't like. The
| kid needs to be tried for first-degree murder. I _do not_
| condone his action, and I 'm glad they got him. I just
| wish they were as circumspect, when it came to the murder
| of non-CEOs.
|
| I was just commenting that it will be _very_ difficult to
| find an impartial jury. There 's definitely a downside to
| pissing off every single person in the US.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I should also mention that folks will be _desperate_ to
| make him take a plea deal, because a public trial will
| definitely have scores of health insurance horror
| stories.
| runjake wrote:
| The manifesto posted on X and other social media is a fake. The
| actual manifesto he had on his person has not yet been made
| public aside from a few lines.
| capybaraStorm wrote:
| It will not be published unless it makes it into evidence at
| the trial. The prosecutor may try to block it as prejudicing
| the jury.
|
| This guy is going to end up in his hero Uncle Ted's old
| supermax cell where barely anything can go in or out.
|
| Having the narrative set by a CEO murderer with double digit %
| cheering support in the entire US is not something the
| authorities will permit.
| marcellus23 wrote:
| Supposedly this is the real one: https://t.co/fbjBtDDIkS
| enahs-sf wrote:
| Horrible as it was what he did, I can't help but wonder what he
| could have done differently so that he wouldn't get caught. Seems
| like a few small slip ups did him in, but if they never saw his
| face, he had a new disguise, immediately left the country, could
| he have evaded law enforcement?
| sershe wrote:
| My pet theory is this is the form of "elite overproduction" where
| affluent kids lacking meaning in their life are drawn to stupid
| ideas combined with exaggerated sense of self-importance.
| Explains all kinds of morons from mild like Dean Preston (prep
| school? check, "change the world"? check) to crazy like this guy
| (prep school? check, "change the world"? check), and across the
| political spectrum from random Ivy-educated non-profit workers to
| Trump (prep school? check, "change the world"? check; although he
| was satisfied with being a rich asshole for most of his life and
| developed this syndrome later).
|
| I'd like to call it "prep school scumbag syndrome". Trump is
| actually a good illustration of a related fact that hereditary
| rich who are content with being hedonistic assholes are much less
| harmful than the same in search of impact and meaning.
|
| To fix it, we need new rule - if, adjusted for median same-ages
| pairings, you have/make less money than expected compared to your
| parents, you don't get to participate in politics in any way!
| Just kidding (sorta).
|
| Notably, the slain CEO appears to have been from a working class
| family and a university of nowhere, and worked his way up. This
| is the kind of person I, personally, admire.
| exabrial wrote:
| Absolutely senseless murder by a deranged human. I feel
| incredibly bad for the family and friends of the CEO, especially
| with all of the BS from Reddit/TikTok.
| mateus1 wrote:
| Are you sensitized by the death of thousands of people due to
| automated coverage deny systems he put in place?
| exabrial wrote:
| Replies like this prove that humans are incredibly morally
| malleable and that is disheartening. Murder is wrong, 100% of
| the time.
| mateus1 wrote:
| Of course it is. It's just isn't news when it's done for
| profit at a massive scale by a megacorp millionaire CEO
| lifestyleguru wrote:
| Jeez young people have it tough in America, unless they are
| Trump's or Musk's children or grandchildren.
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