With all the suicides caused by extreme wealth inequality it's a good thing that suicidal people don't kill a CEO before killing themselves. That would be tragic.
The fact that the man got away (and had a silencer) goes to show that it's more rich targeting the rich. Likely not a peasant. The billion-dollar question is: Why?
Suppressors, like anything else gun related, aren't that hard to come by. You can even make your own pretty easily. They won't hold up over 1000 rounds at the range but they would be more than sufficient for something like this.
You're right that we don't know why this happened. I'm just saying I don't find the possibility that a suppressor was involved to be particularly indicative of anything other than the fact that the shooter wanted to be harder to catch, which yeah, you would expect to be the case.
Yep. A few hundred bucks for an inexpensive one, and a pretty good one costs in the neighborhood of a mid tier PC gaming rig. Theoretically you have to pay a tax and do some paperwork to get one, but you've already mentioned how easy they are to make.
I was reading about how it cost this family $100k to keep their child alive and they were paying out of pocket with gofundme because the insurance rejected them.
And I did think to myself... What can you do with that 100k to get revenge?
It's simple, just get the company to create a list of all the people in the last 3 years who died after being denied healthcare. And then stare in horror at the list and decide that maybe the world is a slightly better place this afternoon and we should tear down the whole company and all their ilk.
Turnip banned guns at his rallies and his boot lickers didn't care much at all.
If this starts becoming a thing where rich fucks face mob or lone gunman attacks, you can guarantee they will make laws banning guns in "freedom zones".
That's what makes it so wonderful. A madman has taken the keys, and his platform is built by crazies who idolize guns more than their own children. You could no sooner remove gun culture from America than you could alcohol or cheeseburgers.
Millions of Americans are like you, sitting on the couch hoping the conditions will be perfect tomorrow so they can finally do something.
It's been eight years since Trump was elected, and longer since Citizen's United. You're not going to do shit. Stop cosplaying a vigilante for internet points.
I'm surprised Trump's repeat assassination attempts didn't trigger something. Although it would be funny if the Republicans were the party to introduce gun control laws, perhaps the irony is just too much for them.
A sling with just a little bit of training can put out a lot more damage than a slingshot and it's literally just a rope and a rock. It's harder to aim but that's what the backyard training is for.
Humans have been killing each other for [reasons] since before we even evolved into humans, if somebody is determined to do it, you're not realistically going to stop them by depriving them of weapons. Our bare hands are deadly weapons. It'll get done somehow.
Brian Thompson's case shows systemic vs direct violence: one hidden as "civilized," the other viewed as evil.
Technology and bureaucracy weaponized for murder and suffering on a massive scale, yet his killer is condemned for directly responding with the same violence Thompson’s actions produced. I only feel sorry for the people who are suffering or have passed away due to the healthcare industry.
I've heard the term "social murder" recently I'm relation to this. He might not have personally used a weapon against them but anyone who had died as a result of denying coverage for a life-threatening condition has been murdered socially.
Which means he should've had more empathy for the families he's denied medical care for, right?
I saw someone post a pic of his family trying to get people to empathize with him, and to be honest it just makes me think even less of him.
I don't really know how someone can love their kids, but deny healthcare to other children. He'd be less of a monster if he was just completely devoid of humanity all the time instead of when he's just clocked in for work.
Also there's a "love" that's prevalent among the affluent that isn't love at all.
Where children are seen more as and expected to fill the role as familial assets of the patriarch, more an extension of the parent's legacy. No appreciation for the kids themselves as individuals, but attempted clones of the parents, and met with disdain when they fail to fill that mold as a failed investment.
The Trumps and Murdochs come to mind, and among extreme wealth, thats the rule not the exception.
It's not contempt at the outset or disinterest, they see their children as assets, no different than stock or capital, to play to increase the reach of THEIR leverage, even after they're dead.
As a parent, I have a great deal of contempt for parents that expect their kids to further their own interests or expect/demand they become little clones of them.
This is the thing, exactly! It's called The Banality of Evil. When Adolf Eichmann was being tried in Nuremberg for war crimes he committed in Auschwitz, it was widely remarked on about his lack of 'evilness'. The dude seemed like a mild mannered accountant, and by all means was, but he helped enact one of the most heinous and calculated acts of genocide in all of history.
Monsters are easy to point at and shudder, monstrous humanity is far harder to accept let alone vilify. This piece of shit CEO is firmly in the Eichmann camp of evil and we should fucking celebrate he's dead.
No, this belongs more to a collapse or civil war thread than it does here.
This is not an endorsement, this is observation of basic, predictable human behavior. The working class is squeezed financially to the nth degree. There IS a breaking point. That sense of impending “something” many people have been feeling since well before the election has not gone away, and the squeeze is a source.
And here it is. What is probably the first shot fired on someone in charge of that ongoing financial hardship, that squeeze.
The scariest thing here is that there’s social contagion to these behaviors, especially those squeezed hard enough they feel they’ve little to nothing left to lose.
Considering the Archduke was the heir of the austro-hungarian throne and the HRE having been defunct for over 100 years, this is basically on the level of someone assassinating the VP
Lol I wasn't trying to elevate him but say that he was no more than an oligarch (CEO) today. Didn't realize he was the heir to the successor state, just being silly.. Guess I was wrong!
We’ve been seeing ‘first dominoes’ fall for over a decade now. I’m at the point where I don’t think it’s going to be as big and flashy as people hope. If electing a genocidal rapist as president TWICE didn’t stir the world into action, I don’t think the pitiful death of some no-name ceo is going to do it. Things like this will keep happening, but in the grand scheme, nothing is going to change.
Especially because we don't even know what the motive was. For all we know, it could have been a competitor that wants his job, or a board member who was displeased by his decisions. The people running these companies have shown a million times over that life means nothing to them.
I wouldn't call the shooter a hero (not that they don't deserve a positive title), they are a victim unfortunately and I wouldn't want people to start calling me a hero if I had to go through that (killing can't be easy mentally or emotionally).
I'm just waiting for the whatever (individual/group/notsurewhatthefuckwouldwork) that fixes the problem on a more permanent basis (they're just gonna pay the next CEO more now). If this actually becomes a trend I could see it being effective (fear is a powerful motivator), but even with things like school shootings it doesn't actually change anything. The richer CEO's and others of that class will just laugh at the poorer CEO's who actually have to go out in public like that.
Does anyone know how many people his company screwed over by denying insurance claims or how many suffered and died due to not paying enough or not reading the fine print, i won't celebrate his death but i can't say i'm sad that he's gone or anyone like him for that matter.
The writing has been on the wall since the ACA got rewritten by these same companies. Instead of reforming the system to making it more fair these corporations were prioritized over us and our health.
There is no path to justice, all the evil shit they do has been deemed lawful, so it's not like a lawsuit will do anything and it's certainly not going to change anything for anyone else.
And now with the incoming administration teasing to remove even the smallest of teeth from the aca, it really does feel hopeless. The government is protecting profit over people and I'm surprised it took so long for somebody to finally snap. In an ideal society we would have reforms before stuff like this started happening
It's one of those situations where big money will use illegal or unfair means to sway or change law, then tell the people to "play by the rules" or "do it the right way" after having changed it to be heavily in their favor. Most people will try to do it the "right" way too as it's the only realistic option. Until it is so unreasonable that other methods end up being more palatable.
Right, like this person could have been a great dude on a personal level but his position at United health care is pretty evil and implicates him in that evil.
Would certainly be exciting if the USA kicked off a movement here.
Well, I don't think you can separate his "personal" and "business" lives. I don't think you can be a great dude and go to work instituting policies that kill people for money.
Maybe he was funny and kind to people he knew, but he wasn't a different person from the person he was professionally.
What I saw online (take with grain of salt) is UHC has 29,000,000 customers, and a 32% denial rate (the highest in the industry), so that gives us a possible 9,280,000 people denied if there were 1 claim per person a year.
That is obviously super rough guess, cause not every customer makes a claim a year, some may make none and some multiple for the same thing that could repeatedly get denied.
I would believe that in those spheres of power they would have booked a hitman with better hardware and training.
His pistol could not properly cycle and he took quite long between shots.
Also he had the possibility to move up to the guy and shoot him in the back of the head to save some time but preferred to shot multiple into his back from further away.
For me it seems more likely it was an act of Vigilantism.
It happened in France for example.
Now it would not be public killings by guillotine of course but multiple independent attacks by ied/gun/fpv against guys like that ceo are surely thinkable.
Worst case there is they have to pay for it and more money goes to working people. If they're in a serious threat of danger, I'm sure security costs increase too.
I guess the logical progression is to go after the most accessible level...meaning eventually the office workers would probably be a target, which isn't great.
That, or people go after, like, their extended families instead...which isn't exactly great either...
Maybe flooding a country with firearms and putting them into its constitution isn't such a good idea
TBH I always wondered why people were shooting up malls and schools instead of the people who actually cause the societal conditions they're upset with
Edit: to be clear I'm not promoting this, it just never made sense to me
It's called stochastic terrorism or stochastic violence. Essentially people are made increasingly angry and violence prone. Either the object of their anger is inaccessible or too diffuse to actually target.
As a result, random acts of semi-targetted violence become increasingly common. If your objective is to create an atmosphere where people have a higher baseline level of fear, which can drive irrational reactionary behavior, it does wonders. It's also great at increasing violent acts against people you dislike without explicitly calling for it.
CEO's? Likely at home, shareholder meetings, board meetings, on their boat, private jets (which can be tracked), at their office, speaking at corporate events (annual sales kickoffs, etc.). It would take some work, but not that hard.
We are all trying to be respectful. A person has died, and that is a horrible thing. But this guy runs a company that has cause so much suffering to so many people. He may not be directly responsible for pain, suffering, and likely death, but if he had run his company more fairly, none of that would have happened.
When people made jokes about trump nearly getting killed, people kicked off and said it was abhorant to wish death upon him (despite him being a foul human being)
But I really want to just say this guy deserves it and tell people to fuck off trying to make me be respectful of this terrible person.
Somebody validate my anger.
Somebody just tell me i can hate this individual and not be bothered that he died.
Fuck that dude. You can be happy when bad people die. It's normal to laugh and even cheer when someone that has caused the death of many people gets what is due to them. You just feel odd about it because we aren't used to seeing rich and power people face consequences.
I wish more of these public and mass shooter actually use their energy and focus on a positive act for change. Our collective empathy has been stolen in this current system. We aren't supposed to bat an eye when kids get shot in school, but NOW it's a problem and we shouldn't joke. Fuck off with that noise.
I work at a children's hospital, a couple times a week United Healthcare denies treatment that could allow some of my pediatric patients with severe mobility issues to do things like run, or play outside with their friends. All because having a somewhat normal life isn't medically necessary, or isn't a covered benefit, or were not a preferred provider....and the nearest in network provider is 6 hours away.
Every time I have to explain to a parent that Medicaid would have paid for this, but mom and dad worked a little too hard and so they don't qualify for state care.... I die a little on the inside.
So I for one don't really care about being respectful, and can reassure you that you shouldn't feel the need to either. People who show no humanity towards disabled children are not human in my book.
Today has been cathartic and I'm going to have a little pep in my step on my walk home.
He already changed things. Anthem BCBS decided to drop limiting anesthesia during surgeries. They were planning on implementing it next year, but now decided to drop it for some reason.
Not even the same company and he made some changes.
It is because they are insulated from the damage these people leave in the wake of "doing their jobs". If I or you sent their family into financial ruin by extorting their health/existence they'd be whistling a different tune.
Most of us couldn’t care less about this guy! I for one thinks he deserved it and let this be a warning to other corps doing the same shit! The people have to take the power back and I support these actions!
Reddit Admins are watching their site burn because basically everybody is supporting and condoning the killer, and they don't like that. Its quite funny.
I refuse to celebrate the man's death. That just doesn't sit right with me.
However, I'll climb on my soap box long enough to point out that first, an insurance business model is fundamentally incompatible with healthcare. It does not work on basically any level and the need for profit will always be in conflict with the need to provide high quality healthcare.
Second, this conflict between the need for profitability and providing healthcare means that most of the health insurance industry is built on a foundation of ethical compromises. For profit health insurance companies like UnitedHealth are just straight up immoral. Any business that has to give loyalty to shareholders at the expense of anyone's life and health is immoral. Not to mention the incredible amount of work health insurance companies have done to effectively rig much of the American medical system for their own benefit.There are lots of corporations that do lots of bad things but I would classify for profit health insurance as a special kind of evil.
As much as they like to pretend they're the good guys, the good guy doesn't make it their sole mission to extract as much money as possible from their customers before they die while doing the bare minimum to keep them from dying.
Long way of saying, my condolences to the guys family. Having your husband/father/etc. assassinated in the street has to be awful. At the same time, screw UnitedHealth. They're a bunch of worthless blood sucking vampires.
My feelings are exactly what they would be if the head of a vicious mafia was just assassinated. Probably because the head of a vicious mafia was just assassinated.
How evil does a person have to be before it is acceptable to celebrate his death? This man devoted his life to profiting from human suffering. The fact that the law was on his side does not excuse his actions; it simply means that he worked within an evil system.
Feels a lot easier to me since in my mind the analogy becomes "do you kill the dude that's pulling the lever to a track with many thousands on it instead of the track with some money on it so you can see if the next person will change the lever back"
Those are different questions. Ideal outcome vs what's most likely to happen. Honestly I have no idea, he literally could have been trying to change the system the whole time he worked there and I would have no idea.
What is good is all the amplified discussion about insurance companies and how they kill people. That wouldnt have happened without a catalyst.
Feelings on the topic should allow for nuance and shades of grey, not everything is black and white. Im in OPs camp... Dont celebrate the death of any human, and the amount of damage to peoples lives the company this guy helmed does is unfathomable. You are allowed to hold both opinions.
I don't celebrate that this needs to be done, but I do celebrate it being done. When they destroy any sense that the justice system will see justice done to them, it requires people to seek justice in to her means. It's their fault. They can choose to repair the system and remove their advantages whenever they want. Until them, I welcome justice.
My condolences to the victims of the victim. Sorry but I couldn't disagree with you more. The rich represent despotism with no recourse for all the injustices they inflict upon the rest of us, and it shows why the cycles of Anacyclosis are real and persistent throughout human history. Business leaders have no virtues, only greed and profit motive. Given the context of history and what happens to despots as they get worse, they'll be lucky if there aren't mobs beheading them and leaving their heads on spikes adorning the walls of Wall St for all to see.
That's where this goes next if the greed and suffering continues.
While I agree that is a likely outcome, he has the advantage of being white. Historically, as long as the gunman got away from the scene ✅, isn't actively brandishing a weapon ❓, and is white ✅, the cops racist thugs with badges just arrest them, and possibly buy them McDonald's on the way to the precinct.
As someone who visually presents as much whiter than this guy, I don't like that is where we are at. I just recognize that my "natural camouflage" has allowed me to verbally berate cops racist thugs with badges all over this country without me even being arrested. This is just the reality of how the thugs with badges operate.
It'll be like that town that got together to kill that one asshole and no one would say shit about it. That dude got murdered by a whole town, this dude got murdered by a country.
Everyone's assuming that this was a patient who was denied coverage or family member of a patient who was denied coverage, the thing is this sort of person will have made enemies in the corporate world as well.
I just wanted to say it gave me a chuckle how it sounded like you meant he wrote on the bullets at Starbucks. Like it was just a thought that occurred to him and he needed a place to sit down and write on them with a sharpie he borrowed from the baristas.
I'm fairly sure Tito Puente did it. Has Tito been dead for 24 years? Yes. However, would death stop a man from killing people with the power of music? No.
all employees have been warned to keep quiet about their employment there, as they are concerned there could be more targeted attacks on anyone working there. they have all the names and addresses now, so it wouldn't be out of the question.
I'm not sure what the point of keeping quiet is, if they already have all the information they need to target people. but i was told this by an employee of the company
Well surely the response from the rich that control the police, work, deliveries, and hospitals is going to be flowers and free health care for all not a violent draconian response that will further make people sick and die under a regime hellbent on revenge.
Wow, I really hope this isn't the moment it starts and a bunch of copy cats spring up targeting all the parasites. That would be terrible.
With all the suicides caused by extreme wealth inequality it's a good thing that suicidal people don't kill a CEO before killing themselves. That would be tragic.
In the dark moments I'm sometimes comforted by the thoughts of who I could take with me to hell.
I suspect that some people might think of it as a lost opportunity.
Infinite target selection...
Shooter got away. Who knows, maybe they're not after just one
Couldn’t ask for a better friend than this guy
Unsung hero
Your comment to gods ears
They got away so far. There may be a time limit on that.
But with that said, there is still a chance that even if caught the jury does a little jury nullification.
Bombs being thrown into boardrooms is certainly something nobody wants.
Well no, it's a nice table.
The preffered nomenclature is:
surprise C suite appreciation pizza party
Out, am I?
Bad example. That is a CEO killing his board of directors.
The fact that the man got away (and had a silencer) goes to show that it's more rich targeting the rich. Likely not a peasant. The billion-dollar question is: Why?
Suppressors, like anything else gun related, aren't that hard to come by. You can even make your own pretty easily. They won't hold up over 1000 rounds at the range but they would be more than sufficient for something like this.
You're right that we don't know why this happened. I'm just saying I don't find the possibility that a suppressor was involved to be particularly indicative of anything other than the fact that the shooter wanted to be harder to catch, which yeah, you would expect to be the case.
Yep. A few hundred bucks for an inexpensive one, and a pretty good one costs in the neighborhood of a mid tier PC gaming rig. Theoretically you have to pay a tax and do some paperwork to get one, but you've already mentioned how easy they are to make.
Maybe a bunch of folks decided they'd rather hire a hitman than pay their deductibles.
I was reading about how it cost this family $100k to keep their child alive and they were paying out of pocket with gofundme because the insurance rejected them.
And I did think to myself... What can you do with that 100k to get revenge?
The robot dogs are just pompous posturing by rich idiots, they don't do anything that a cheapo CCTV camera couldn't do.
As long as we don't make the killer out to be a hero.
Of which they can be.
Commenters didn't read the sarcasm in my post.
It's simple, just get the company to create a list of all the people in the last 3 years who died after being denied healthcare. And then stare in horror at the list and decide that maybe the world is a slightly better place this afternoon and we should tear down the whole company and all their ilk.
I rarely enjoy Youtube comments. today they're quite good though
It would be the funniest thing if a bunch of terminal patients submitted confessions just to tie up resources. A real “I’m Spartacus” situation.
It was me. I shot Brian Thompson, CEO of United Healthcare.
I'm not even terminally ill.
It'll be neither. Now that the upper class is affected, they'll be lobbying hard for strict gun control. But hey, archery still exists...
This is America. No they won't.
Turnip banned guns at his rallies and his boot lickers didn't care much at all.
If this starts becoming a thing where rich fucks face mob or lone gunman attacks, you can guarantee they will make laws banning guns in "freedom zones".
Almost all blue states have strict gun control laws thanks to racist white Republicans, see Black Panther Party in California.
That's what makes it so wonderful. A madman has taken the keys, and his platform is built by crazies who idolize guns more than their own children. You could no sooner remove gun culture from America than you could alcohol or cheeseburgers.
Man, that time American politics tried to remove alcohol from its culture was fuckin’ wild
This is America theyll lobby it for everyone but themselves
They already have it in States like Washington.
CEO's will buy upper body armor and write it off as a business expense.
Pretty sure grapeshot cares not for their armor.
The killstick that got shinzo woulda worked with or without armor.
Normalize Splatoon guns
Explained in this YouTube shorts: https://youtube.com/shorts/MLPCPGfLIDM
Please lobby for gun control.
I know a few guys who are into red hatwear.... With a lot of guns who might not enjoy that very much.
No, I want the pot stirred enough for us to take our country back.
Millions of Americans are like you, sitting on the couch hoping the conditions will be perfect tomorrow so they can finally do something.
It's been eight years since Trump was elected, and longer since Citizen's United. You're not going to do shit. Stop cosplaying a vigilante for internet points.
I'm surprised Trump's repeat assassination attempts didn't trigger something. Although it would be funny if the Republicans were the party to introduce gun control laws, perhaps the irony is just too much for them.
And if that gets too much heat, a slingshot takes much less space and can also be deadly with the right projectile
A sling with just a little bit of training can put out a lot more damage than a slingshot and it's literally just a rope and a rock. It's harder to aim but that's what the backyard training is for.
Humans have been killing each other for [reasons] since before we even evolved into humans, if somebody is determined to do it, you're not realistically going to stop them by depriving them of weapons. Our bare hands are deadly weapons. It'll get done somehow.
Yeah the story of David and Goliath becomes a lot less impressive when you realize David showed up with a Bronze age Glock.
And it's way easier to get a compound bow than a gun, and not that much harder to learn.
A good deal harder to conceal though
Is that a compound bow in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?
Harder to hide a compound bow on a subway though.
It's not as hard if Comicon is in town.
If they ban Comicon the intersectionality will be crazy
Steampunk Legend of Zelda would be a great cover.
Crafting functional firearms is way easier than people think.
Especially if you only need the gun to work once.
Lmao true
I would love nothing more than to redirect school shooters to stop shooting at their peers/innocent folks in schools.
The guillotine "jokes" aren't really jokes.
The joke is using a guillotine and not something more modern, and American. Like a gun.
Yeah because guillotines are dangerous! They're very sharp and because of that, we can't have them in our household near our kids.
More modern and American than eating a big mac in a ford f150?
Brian Thompson's case shows systemic vs direct violence: one hidden as "civilized," the other viewed as evil.
Technology and bureaucracy weaponized for murder and suffering on a massive scale, yet his killer is condemned for directly responding with the same violence Thompson’s actions produced. I only feel sorry for the people who are suffering or have passed away due to the healthcare industry.
I've heard the term "social murder" recently I'm relation to this. He might not have personally used a weapon against them but anyone who had died as a result of denying coverage for a life-threatening condition has been murdered socially.
but did you hear he's a husband and father?
Edit: was*
Edit: In case it wasn't clear, this is a joke. Obviously.
Which means he should've had more empathy for the families he's denied medical care for, right?
I saw someone post a pic of his family trying to get people to empathize with him, and to be honest it just makes me think even less of him.
I don't really know how someone can love their kids, but deny healthcare to other children. He'd be less of a monster if he was just completely devoid of humanity all the time instead of when he's just clocked in for work.
Did he? Just because he had a family doesn't mean he gave a shit about them...
I mean, fair enough. Kinda hard for me to remember people can actively feel contempt or just complete disinterest for any kid, let alone their own.
Also there's a "love" that's prevalent among the affluent that isn't love at all.
Where children are seen more as and expected to fill the role as familial assets of the patriarch, more an extension of the parent's legacy. No appreciation for the kids themselves as individuals, but attempted clones of the parents, and met with disdain when they fail to fill that mold as a failed investment.
The Trumps and Murdochs come to mind, and among extreme wealth, thats the rule not the exception.
It's not contempt at the outset or disinterest, they see their children as assets, no different than stock or capital, to play to increase the reach of THEIR leverage, even after they're dead.
As a parent, I have a great deal of contempt for parents that expect their kids to further their own interests or expect/demand they become little clones of them.
Kids don't owe you shit, you owe them.
This is the thing, exactly! It's called The Banality of Evil. When Adolf Eichmann was being tried in Nuremberg for war crimes he committed in Auschwitz, it was widely remarked on about his lack of 'evilness'. The dude seemed like a mild mannered accountant, and by all means was, but he helped enact one of the most heinous and calculated acts of genocide in all of history.
Monsters are easy to point at and shudder, monstrous humanity is far harder to accept let alone vilify. This piece of shit CEO is firmly in the Eichmann camp of evil and we should fucking celebrate he's dead.
Did his wife and children know what he did for a living?
If anyone doesn't know what the point of my question is, I can only direct them to go watch The Zone of Interest (2023).
I'm a husband and father. I wouldn't disappoint them by killing thousands of people and getting shot for it. It's a reason to not do evil things.
The wife chose marrying a psychopath. She's no better. The kids will be somewhat better off being raised by only one piece of shit instead of two.
Man slaps dead parasite sucking the blood of humanity
It certainly should be.
Should be breaking a rule, or should be normalized?
Yes
Breaking the rules should be normalized
Look at me, I never post before leaving. I'm the real revolutionary, anti status quo
You never post before leaving where ?
There is a community called 196 with only one rule: post before you leave. Might be more niche than I thought
people gotta give CEOs more free health insurance
Careful what you wish for.
Murder is not the solution.
For every problem there is some amount of murder such that the problem stops existing.
What is the solution?
My condolences to his family, even though no insurance company ever gave my family condolences when they let my mom die
Oh no! That's terrible! I hope musk isn't the next one. lol.
Stop letting that man live rent free in your head.
He's also living rent free on our planet.
We can fix that. Of course I mean by imposing rent (taxes) and in no other way.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odF-g0KxSQ4
No, this belongs more to a collapse or civil war thread than it does here.
This is not an endorsement, this is observation of basic, predictable human behavior. The working class is squeezed financially to the nth degree. There IS a breaking point. That sense of impending “something” many people have been feeling since well before the election has not gone away, and the squeeze is a source.
And here it is. What is probably the first shot fired on someone in charge of that ongoing financial hardship, that squeeze.
The scariest thing here is that there’s social contagion to these behaviors, especially those squeezed hard enough they feel they’ve little to nothing left to lose.
This is a domino.
Yo historian, it's a dickhead CEO not Arch Duke Franz Ferdinand
I laughed way too hard at this comment.
Yeah it's amazing. I disagree with the substance but love the structure
Yo historian, it's a dickhead Archduke not The Holy Roman Emperor
Considering the Archduke was the heir of the austro-hungarian throne and the HRE having been defunct for over 100 years, this is basically on the level of someone assassinating the VP
Lol I wasn't trying to elevate him but say that he was no more than an oligarch (CEO) today. Didn't realize he was the heir to the successor state, just being silly.. Guess I was wrong!
People should quit while ahead and stop looking up to wealth and titles if they don't want to run into a Gavrilo Princip
We’ve been seeing ‘first dominoes’ fall for over a decade now. I’m at the point where I don’t think it’s going to be as big and flashy as people hope. If electing a genocidal rapist as president TWICE didn’t stir the world into action, I don’t think the pitiful death of some no-name ceo is going to do it. Things like this will keep happening, but in the grand scheme, nothing is going to change.
Especially because we don't even know what the motive was. For all we know, it could have been a competitor that wants his job, or a board member who was displeased by his decisions. The people running these companies have shown a million times over that life means nothing to them.
Has anyone checked in with Boeing to see what they were doing this morning?
I wouldn't call the shooter a hero (not that they don't deserve a positive title), they are a victim unfortunately and I wouldn't want people to start calling me a hero if I had to go through that (killing can't be easy mentally or emotionally).
I'm just waiting for the whatever (individual/group/notsurewhatthefuckwouldwork) that fixes the problem on a more permanent basis (they're just gonna pay the next CEO more now). If this actually becomes a trend I could see it being effective (fear is a powerful motivator), but even with things like school shootings it doesn't actually change anything. The richer CEO's and others of that class will just laugh at the poorer CEO's who actually have to go out in public like that.
Nobody who acts like a hero does it without having incurred massive personal suffering to drive them
...............good
Yea the tariffs will probably be seen as some sort of breaking point together with this some years from now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TO5y2rTbdA
womp womp
Does anyone know how many people his company screwed over by denying insurance claims or how many suffered and died due to not paying enough or not reading the fine print, i won't celebrate his death but i can't say i'm sad that he's gone or anyone like him for that matter.
It's okay, I'll celebrate his death for you
I am sure the shareholders he enriched celebrated every earnings call. His leadership led to untold number of deaths for profits.
Mesmerizing!
🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀
The writing has been on the wall since the ACA got rewritten by these same companies. Instead of reforming the system to making it more fair these corporations were prioritized over us and our health.
There is no path to justice, all the evil shit they do has been deemed lawful, so it's not like a lawsuit will do anything and it's certainly not going to change anything for anyone else.
And now with the incoming administration teasing to remove even the smallest of teeth from the aca, it really does feel hopeless. The government is protecting profit over people and I'm surprised it took so long for somebody to finally snap. In an ideal society we would have reforms before stuff like this started happening
It's one of those situations where big money will use illegal or unfair means to sway or change law, then tell the people to "play by the rules" or "do it the right way" after having changed it to be heavily in their favor. Most people will try to do it the "right" way too as it's the only realistic option. Until it is so unreasonable that other methods end up being more palatable.
It's almost like unlimited corporate power and greed leads to more instability, who woulda thought.
But corporations are people! Think about McDonald's rights!!
Right, like this person could have been a great dude on a personal level but his position at United health care is pretty evil and implicates him in that evil.
Would certainly be exciting if the USA kicked off a movement here.
Well, I don't think you can separate his "personal" and "business" lives. I don't think you can be a great dude and go to work instituting policies that kill people for money.
Maybe he was funny and kind to people he knew, but he wasn't a different person from the person he was professionally.
I wish you could have done it like 2 months ago though.
I hope the accelerationists were right and I was wrong, because we're accelerating.
What I saw online (take with grain of salt) is UHC has 29,000,000 customers, and a 32% denial rate (the highest in the industry), so that gives us a possible 9,280,000 people denied if there were 1 claim per person a year.
That is obviously super rough guess, cause not every customer makes a claim a year, some may make none and some multiple for the same thing that could repeatedly get denied.
It's a Hydra. Cut off one head, there's 5 waiting to take this guy's place.
Eh, hydras aren't made up of individuals who have a desire to be alive.
Not that I'm advocating for it, but I imagine if you kept killing folks then you'd eventually get to someone who liked "breathing" more than "money."
Yea but this is a one off thing, nobody is going to keep shooting people like him because otherwise it would have already happened many times.
This murder was probably another asshole, he knew, putting a hit on him
I suspect it'll be something he was doing in his personal life that got him killed.
And make it funny okay?
A huh OK boss!....runs away, gets on a city bike and disappears into the sunset.
Needed a single clown horn honk after the guy got popped.
BANG!. honk-ie. *strolls off into sunset.
I would believe that in those spheres of power they would have booked a hitman with better hardware and training. His pistol could not properly cycle and he took quite long between shots. Also he had the possibility to move up to the guy and shoot him in the back of the head to save some time but preferred to shot multiple into his back from further away. For me it seems more likely it was an act of Vigilantism.
It happened in France for example. Now it would not be public killings by guillotine of course but multiple independent attacks by ied/gun/fpv against guys like that ceo are surely thinkable.
You cut off a few more heads, and they'll start to be a little more cautious with their shitty actions.
Meaning they will use healthcare dollars to hire more security.
Of course they'll also have to increase their margins to account for that.
Of course
Wishful thinking. They will double down on their shitty actions while surrounded by more security than a monarch.
There is a limit to how much that kind of security can help.
Worst case there is they have to pay for it and more money goes to working people. If they're in a serious threat of danger, I'm sure security costs increase too.
I guess the logical progression is to go after the most accessible level...meaning eventually the office workers would probably be a target, which isn't great.
That, or people go after, like, their extended families instead...which isn't exactly great either...
Maybe flooding a country with firearms and putting them into its constitution isn't such a good idea
Well that just sounds like a direct wealth distribution method.
"Cut off one head, two more shall take it's place."
Perhaps the 9mm pistol is the guillotine of the next American revolution.
TBH I always wondered why people were shooting up malls and schools instead of the people who actually cause the societal conditions they're upset with
Edit: to be clear I'm not promoting this, it just never made sense to me
Billionnaires control the medias and social medias. They are purposely creating divides between the population to avoid being the target.
It's called stochastic terrorism or stochastic violence. Essentially people are made increasingly angry and violence prone. Either the object of their anger is inaccessible or too diffuse to actually target.
As a result, random acts of semi-targetted violence become increasingly common. If your objective is to create an atmosphere where people have a higher baseline level of fear, which can drive irrational reactionary behavior, it does wonders. It's also great at increasing violent acts against people you dislike without explicitly calling for it.
Thank you! TIL
The people who deserve it are harder to find and rarely in the same place at once.
CEO's? Likely at home, shareholder meetings, board meetings, on their boat, private jets (which can be tracked), at their office, speaking at corporate events (annual sales kickoffs, etc.). It would take some work, but not that hard.
Maybe now they'll finally support remote work!
Because that gets more attention and takes less effort.
Neat
fleeing on a rented e-bike
"Thheeere goooes my hero, Watch him as he goes"
It's such a weird place to be.
We are all trying to be respectful. A person has died, and that is a horrible thing. But this guy runs a company that has cause so much suffering to so many people. He may not be directly responsible for pain, suffering, and likely death, but if he had run his company more fairly, none of that would have happened.
When people made jokes about trump nearly getting killed, people kicked off and said it was abhorant to wish death upon him (despite him being a foul human being)
But I really want to just say this guy deserves it and tell people to fuck off trying to make me be respectful of this terrible person.
Somebody validate my anger.
Somebody just tell me i can hate this individual and not be bothered that he died.
Fuck that dude. You can be happy when bad people die. It's normal to laugh and even cheer when someone that has caused the death of many people gets what is due to them. You just feel odd about it because we aren't used to seeing rich and power people face consequences.
I wish more of these public and mass shooter actually use their energy and focus on a positive act for change. Our collective empathy has been stolen in this current system. We aren't supposed to bat an eye when kids get shot in school, but NOW it's a problem and we shouldn't joke. Fuck off with that noise.
I work at a children's hospital, a couple times a week United Healthcare denies treatment that could allow some of my pediatric patients with severe mobility issues to do things like run, or play outside with their friends. All because having a somewhat normal life isn't medically necessary, or isn't a covered benefit, or were not a preferred provider....and the nearest in network provider is 6 hours away.
Every time I have to explain to a parent that Medicaid would have paid for this, but mom and dad worked a little too hard and so they don't qualify for state care.... I die a little on the inside.
So I for one don't really care about being respectful, and can reassure you that you shouldn't feel the need to either. People who show no humanity towards disabled children are not human in my book.
Today has been cathartic and I'm going to have a little pep in my step on my walk home.
Its because Republicans made healthcare suck on purpose
They're in cahoots. Corporations wrote and paid for the laws those "representatives" passed.
I have as much sympathy for him as his company has shown me
think of it this way: The dude caused a TON of death. The assassin saved people's lives.
More like avenged. The next CEO probably won't change things.
He already changed things. Anthem BCBS decided to drop limiting anesthesia during surgeries. They were planning on implementing it next year, but now decided to drop it for some reason.
Not even the same company and he made some changes.
Will the next CEO be bullet proof?
America has more bullets than psychopaths.
well there can't be more CEO in line than the amount of deaths the company caused
Speak for yourself, I and many others are doing our best to make it clear we offer 0 respect at all
It is because they are insulated from the damage these people leave in the wake of "doing their jobs". If I or you sent their family into financial ruin by extorting their health/existence they'd be whistling a different tune.
my only concern is that this will embolden trumpers attacking libs.
Most of us couldn’t care less about this guy! I for one thinks he deserved it and let this be a warning to other corps doing the same shit! The people have to take the power back and I support these actions!
I swear I read "finally shoot" and was like based CNN!
Reddit Admins are watching their site burn because basically everybody is supporting and condoning the killer, and they don't like that. Its quite funny.
Mods going nuts banning people and coming back tomorrow to a completely empty subreddit.
Corpos gonna corp
We're just training their AI model
I refuse to celebrate the man's death. That just doesn't sit right with me.
However, I'll climb on my soap box long enough to point out that first, an insurance business model is fundamentally incompatible with healthcare. It does not work on basically any level and the need for profit will always be in conflict with the need to provide high quality healthcare.
Second, this conflict between the need for profitability and providing healthcare means that most of the health insurance industry is built on a foundation of ethical compromises. For profit health insurance companies like UnitedHealth are just straight up immoral. Any business that has to give loyalty to shareholders at the expense of anyone's life and health is immoral. Not to mention the incredible amount of work health insurance companies have done to effectively rig much of the American medical system for their own benefit.There are lots of corporations that do lots of bad things but I would classify for profit health insurance as a special kind of evil.
As much as they like to pretend they're the good guys, the good guy doesn't make it their sole mission to extract as much money as possible from their customers before they die while doing the bare minimum to keep them from dying.
Long way of saying, my condolences to the guys family. Having your husband/father/etc. assassinated in the street has to be awful. At the same time, screw UnitedHealth. They're a bunch of worthless blood sucking vampires.
My feelings are exactly what they would be if the head of a vicious mafia was just assassinated. Probably because the head of a vicious mafia was just assassinated.
I'll celebrate for the both of us.
How evil does a person have to be before it is acceptable to celebrate his death? This man devoted his life to profiting from human suffering. The fact that the law was on his side does not excuse his actions; it simply means that he worked within an evil system.
Hitler level is sure cause for celebration.
How about all the wealthy people who invested in his regime. Can we hate them too?
I think the ideal outcome is the person changes and stops hurting people. Though in america its pretty unlikely to happen due to greed and ego.
And if that outcome isnt guaranteed, or even likely, is violence that may save many justified?
It's a real-life trolley problem...
Feels a lot easier to me since in my mind the analogy becomes "do you kill the dude that's pulling the lever to a track with many thousands on it instead of the track with some money on it so you can see if the next person will change the lever back"
Those are different questions. Ideal outcome vs what's most likely to happen. Honestly I have no idea, he literally could have been trying to change the system the whole time he worked there and I would have no idea.
What is good is all the amplified discussion about insurance companies and how they kill people. That wouldnt have happened without a catalyst.
Feelings on the topic should allow for nuance and shades of grey, not everything is black and white. Im in OPs camp... Dont celebrate the death of any human, and the amount of damage to peoples lives the company this guy helmed does is unfathomable. You are allowed to hold both opinions.
If the death of a human saves the lives of a bunch of humans, isn't it then a celebration of life?
No, and this saves no lives, utilitarianism is bad philosophy, grow up.
I don't celebrate that this needs to be done, but I do celebrate it being done. When they destroy any sense that the justice system will see justice done to them, it requires people to seek justice in to her means. It's their fault. They can choose to repair the system and remove their advantages whenever they want. Until them, I welcome justice.
My condolences to the victims of the victim. Sorry but I couldn't disagree with you more. The rich represent despotism with no recourse for all the injustices they inflict upon the rest of us, and it shows why the cycles of Anacyclosis are real and persistent throughout human history. Business leaders have no virtues, only greed and profit motive. Given the context of history and what happens to despots as they get worse, they'll be lucky if there aren't mobs beheading them and leaving their heads on spikes adorning the walls of Wall St for all to see.
That's where this goes next if the greed and suffering continues.
I'd put money on it not being a "member" of the Healthcare company.
If they find the guy, I hope the jury nullifies.
He's not going to be arrested by the cops. He's going to be killed by the cops.
While I agree that is a likely outcome, he has the advantage of being white. Historically, as long as the gunman got away from the scene ✅, isn't actively brandishing a weapon ❓, and is white ✅, the
copsracist thugs with badges just arrest them, and possibly buy them McDonald's on the way to the precinct.As someone who visually presents as much whiter than this guy, I don't like that is where we are at. I just recognize that my "natural camouflage" has allowed me to verbally berate
copsracist thugs with badges all over this country without me even being arrested. This is just the reality of how the thugs with badges operate.It'll be like that town that got together to kill that one asshole and no one would say shit about it. That dude got murdered by a whole town, this dude got murdered by a country.
Are you talking about the movie Roadhouse?
Yuk! It was more fun when I thought they were talking about Roadhouse.
His company is offering a reward of one free appeal of a claim denial for information leading to his arrest!
$10k is nothing compared to medical bills.
That's a shootable face if ai ever saw one
Oh so chatGPT did it? Actually that makes sense they were announcing some new features
First thing they're gonna do is trace cellphones connected to nearby towers and cross-reference any new signal.
Hellova task in Manhattan to begin with. And people doing this job are likely not going to be clvery motivated.
Hope he was smart enough to not bring smartphone.
Everyone's assuming that this was a patient who was denied coverage or family member of a patient who was denied coverage, the thing is this sort of person will have made enemies in the corporate world as well.
For all we know this was a professional hit.
Unlikely. Dude literally went to a Starbucks before the shooting and wrote a message in the bullets. That doesn't scream "professional" too me
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14160575/UnitedHealthcare-CEO-Brian-Thompsons-widow-breaks-silence-reveal-received-threats-shot-dead.html
I just wanted to say it gave me a chuckle how it sounded like you meant he wrote on the bullets at Starbucks. Like it was just a thought that occurred to him and he needed a place to sit down and write on them with a sharpie he borrowed from the baristas.
He could have for all we know! He seems like the kind of guy who would put some real thought into writing his Christmas cards :>
The guy was manually recocking a silenced pistol. Unlikely he did brought a phone.
Its my understanding that subsonic ammo sometimes won't have enough gas to move the slide fully and must be done manually like this
That’s how my silenced .22 behaves with subsonic. LRs refeed fine.
My money is on Millhouse
I'm fairly sure Tito Puente did it. Has Tito been dead for 24 years? Yes. However, would death stop a man from killing people with the power of music? No.
Tito Puente did it.
Oye como va
I am Spartacus!
I shot the sheriff.
all employees have been warned to keep quiet about their employment there, as they are concerned there could be more targeted attacks on anyone working there. they have all the names and addresses now, so it wouldn't be out of the question.
I'm not sure what the point of keeping quiet is, if they already have all the information they need to target people. but i was told this by an employee of the company
LinkedIn....
Deserved.
🍽🍽🍽🍽🍽🍽🍽
DRAIN THE SWAMP! DRAIN THE SWAMP!!!!!
This sounds like the plot of Cory Doctorow’s story “Radicalized”
Maybe we could have patched him back together, but all the nearby hospitals were out of network.
Well surely the response from the rich that control the police, work, deliveries, and hospitals is going to be flowers and free health care for all not a violent draconian response that will further make people sick and die under a regime hellbent on revenge.
Clearly this will work as intended.
It will eventually.
I'M SPARTACUS!
I read that in carol channing's voice...
I AM SPARTACUS