It appears that in every thread about this event there is someone calling everyone else in the thread sick and twisted for not proclaiming that all lives are sacred and being for the death of one individual.

It really is a real life trolley problem because those individuals are not seeing the deaths caused by the insurance industry and not realizing that sitting back and doing nothing (i.e. not pulling the lever on the train track switch) doesn’t save lives…people are going to continue to die if nothing is done.

Taking a moral high ground and stating that all lives matter is still going to costs lives and instead of it being a few CEOs it will be thousands.

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164 points
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I’d encourage everyone to be careful with this type of thinking, because I’m seeing it a lot. Characterizing situations as having only two unpleasant options (“two tracks” in this case) is a classic strategy to rationalize violence. Gangs use it, terrorist groups use it, and even governments trying to justify wars use it (e.g. remember Bush’s “You’re either with us or against us”).

It’s a textbook false dichotomy, and it’s meant to make the least unpleasant option presented seem more palatable. This situation is not as simple as “either you’re in favor of insurance companies profiting off of denied healthcare of millions or you’re ok with murdering a CEO”

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113 points

I want to live in a world where profoundly evil people receive karma instead of golden parachutes. The third option here is that CEOs be paid less and be held accountable by their employees similarly to a democracy. But that means changing the system - which won’t happen until the CEOs are convinced the system doesn’t work. Right now, we regular folks are the only ones for whom the system doesn’t work. This uncertain future for CEOs is load sharing.

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46 points

Precisely. The last few months have been nothing but trolley problem after trolley problem because rich people are never held accountable.

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23 points

profoundly evil people receive karma instead of golden parachutes.

Give them actual golden parachutes and they get both.

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3 points

Don’t want to be too much of a downer, but if enough rich folk decide the system does not work for them. These rich folks will fight to change the system to function more like China and Russia. Where the peons have limited political expression and swift removal of ‘subversive’ speech.

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11 points

Look at the events of the past few years, and especially the past few months in the US, and tell me that they’re not already trying to do so.

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1 point

They tried to silence people with social media. I’m banned on every major platform for being anti capitalist anti imperialist anti fascist and pro murdering health insurance CEOs (ok, that’s a new one years after being banned, but my sentiment has always been there).

They can’t stop the fediverse. They can’t silence us like they used to.

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29 points

Well I’m open to other ideas but I haven’t seen any viable ones yet.

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46 points

tldr: one idea would be challenging their ability to hide behind licensed MDs who are paid to shoulder liability

This is actually my field, and I’ve spent countless hours of my life arguing with these insurance companies on behalf of patients they’ve denied, (losing more often than I’ve won, but you have to try). They suck.

When they’re being exceptionally unreasonable, the bridge-burning hail mary I would throw would be threatening the license of the provider that denied the appealed claim. It has worked a surprising number of times.

Most people don’t realize that it’s not just paper-pushers at insurance companies who are denying claims. Those folks can routinely deny things that policy excludes, but if it’s a judgement call or a challenge that their policy isn’t meeting medical necessity, they hide behind doctors on their payroll who are putting their license on the line when they have to say that the insurance company is justified. Those individuals can be reported to their licensing board or even sued. Short of voting in universal healthcare one day, I think this is the most direct route to challenge this nonsense.

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19 points

I appreciate your measured takes and inside point of view, more of both are always welcome (not that you need my invitation lol, you’re basically famous around here).

The problem I see, though, is all the most morally defensible and procedural fixes require the healthy functioning of institutions that have been weakened, dismantled and / or perverted and turned against us. And a frightening number of us see that now and feel that normal channels for change are closed. I’m not at quite that point myself, but I know how bad it is for so many and I don’t blame anyone who reads our current situation that way.

Our institutions no longer fix our problems, and that’s growing worse, not better - the deck is getting stacked more and more heavily against us as time goes on.

I’m not advocating mass violence. What I am saying is that executives who create conditions like these, for people suffering under an increasingly-dysfunctional and hopeless system like this, should absolutely expect their lives to be in danger on the daily - out of just pure pragmatism. I’m not putting a value judgment on that, I’m saying it is flat out inevitable.

CEOs frequently measure any and all human events as costs to be managed. Especially these insurance executive pieces of shit. I don’t see why a certain number of fairly predictable CEO murders resulting from their hideous behavior should be any different.

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1 point

How do lay people being denied coverage find out who their “doctor” is to go after their license?

Sounds like a lot of paperwork and waiting around and sick people don’t have a lot of time for that. A bullet is faster.

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7 points

Derail the train

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4 points

I believe that is in process.

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14 points

You’re absolutely right and I’d argue it boils down to the fundamental error in OP’s shower thought:

Killing the CEO doesn’t save the lives on the other track. It just adds another dead body to the pile.

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12 points

Killing the CEO doesn’t save the lives on the other track

Why wouldn’t it, though? Every CEO makes a profit/loss calculation in their head. Now they’ve got one more potential entry in their loss column. We’re not talking about saving lives already taken by UHC, but future lives that other CEOs might cost.

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9 points

We all know that the death of a CEO is a blip in the actual day to day operations in the company. The teams and departments will continue operating as before, and the broad strategic decisions made by the executives aren’t going to factor in a remote likelihood of violence on a particular executive.

After all, if they’re already doing cost/benefit analysis with human lives, what’s another life of a colleague, versus an insurance beneficiary?

They’ll just beef up personal security, put the cost of that security into their operating expenses, and then try to recover their costs through the business (including through stinginess on coverage decisions or policies).

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8 points

Whilst I can’t disagree with what you say, and I’m glad you’ve pointed it out, I’d include one caveat. “If” capitalism is heading towards an even more extreme iteration of itself then, perhaps, the (currently false) dichotomy you mention may come to exist. I kinda hope we don’t end up in such a binary struggle but… humans. Shrugs broadly.

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7 points

Only the Sith deal in absolutes.

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3 points

Always two, there are.

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6 points

No I think most of us recognize there are a lot of other tracks out there. It’s just we’ve tried most of the other tracks (protests, voting, thoughts and prayers, etc) and most of them haven’t made anything better. So… there are only a couple of tracks not tried yet. But already this one sure has made way more waves than 99% of protests ever have.

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3 points
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If a significant portion the US population went on general strike, things would change quickly.

The other option, which is slower, is to build up alternative systems in a network of mutual aid, like cooperatively owned insurance, businesses, housing, energy systems, etc. Essentially slowly replace the state with hundreds of interconnected coops.

also @Kbobabob@lemmy.world

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4 points

If a significant portion the US population went on general strike, things would change quickly.

This requires people willing and able to do so. Considering most Americans live paycheck to paycheck I don’t see this as real and viable currently.

The other option, which is slower, is to build up alternative systems in a network of mutual aid, like cooperatively owned insurance, businesses, housing, energy systems, etc. Essentially slowly replace the state with hundreds of interconnected coops.

This issue i see with this approach is that some people will always try to be the opposite and we end up in a stalemate. Also, people can be ignorant and not even understand that there is something that needs to be done. There’s so much misinformation in the world today.

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1 point

I agree with you but we’re too divided to go on a general strike. Stochastic terrorism against the rich? Now we’re talking.

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6 points
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Well, in the total picture the best option of all would be Justice System which is Just and hence stop people causing massive numbers of deaths for profit, which is not what we have (especially in the US) and is even getting worse.

Ultimately all Just venues (I was going to say “non-violent”, but “lawful” violence is still “violence”, so even in a Just system, Force would still be used on the ones profiting from mass deaths) seem to have been closed in the last couple of decades.

The more options get closed, the more people will only see as options to either meekly accept the death of a loved one (or oneself) due to the actions of the people leading Health Insurance companies or vigilante vengeance, since the State has over the years removed itself from enacting Justice against the wealthiest in society, which would’ve been the best option of all (not least because it prevents the deaths of both the victims of guys like this CEO and of guys like the CEO)

Indeed, dichotomies presented in arguments are more often than not false, but sometimes they’re true.

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3 points
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There’s a lot of other tracks out there that haven’t been taken, such as our government regulating health insurance in the form of single payer so this doesn’t happen, or our government using its justice system to go after it’s worse actors, but no, shareholder value comes first (even when shareholder value requires murder).

So this is the track we’re on and I fully fucking support it and hope he’s just the first of many to meet this well deserved fate.

Fuck around find out. We’re the most armed population on the planet and you think they’re gonna continue to get away with this shit? The public is united across the political spectrum in their support for this guy getting shot. I hope his ilk never sleeps another peaceful night again. I’m just surprised it took this long. I hope there are copycats.

These people killed my father. I am living for this right now. If I had less to lose and more skills to do it I’d be copycatting it myself and taking one for the team. These people need to die. They’re overdue to meet their makers and account for the mass deaths they’ve caused and profited from!!! via capitalism.

FBI: I’ve got an alibi, I was at work.

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1 point

Problem is that all the other tracks can’t be switched to.

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1 point
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I’m not necessarily disagreeing that it’s a false dichotomy, but do you have viable alternatives?

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2 points

I don’t presume to have the answers, but there are plenty of alternatives if we’re comparing them to murder in the street.

I replied to another comment about one specific way to introduce licensure risk to insurance company doctors as a way to get them to change their policies. It happens all the time, and the more people that know about it, the better. (They rely on people being unfamiliar with how they operate)

Long term, I think our best bet is to keep pushing for universal healthcare that will effectively make health insurance obsolete. It’s a winning message (something like 60% of America already supports it), and we’ve come close at least twice in recent history.

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3 points

I replied to another comment about one specific way to introduce licensure risk to insurance company doctors as a way to get them to change their policies

That’s a bandaid solution at best.

Long term, I think our best bet is to keep pushing for universal healthcare that will effectively make health insurance obsolete. It’s a winning message (something like 60% of America already supports it), and we’ve come close at least twice in recent history.

This country couldn’t even turn down the guy paraphrasing Hitler, whose promised to finish gutting the ACA. The chances of us seeing universal healthcare through “the right way” isn’t good.

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Showerthoughts

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