5 ms·

Eat the Rich: Brian Thompson

10 points by itfossil 2y ago

itfossil 2y ago
[flagged]
vouaobrasil 2y ago
Violence is only acceptable when it is used by those with more power against those with less. What a lot of people are missing about this killing is that it signifies the potential of the American public to finally go against the corporate controlling forces of the Western World. But taking even one more step back, it may be the start of a realization that technology is not a completely beneficial force, as it is the only thing that allows the destruction of communities, which forces people to in turn rely on health insurance companies. (The Amish, with a very strong community, don't rely on insurance. They have their own collective sort of insurance: they just pay each other's medical bills.) Here's my advice to you: this is part of a much larger scheme than just health insurance. What we need after this event is not a mere release of emotions, but a sober philosophical analysis of this event and its placement in the greater scheme of things. If we focus too much on the emotional, we will in a sense be playing into the system, because it will make the killing about revenge. Instead, attempt to understand why this happened and the greater systemic illness in modern capitalism and spread that message.
- itfossil 2y ago
  Totally agree. I touch on this later on in the actual blog post: "Capitalism is inherently immoral. It pits us against each other. It posits that the accumulation of money and resources should be our ultimate end-goal. So it’s no wonder that over the hundreds of years we’ve had to figure out how to exist within its confines, some of us have become exceedingly good at it. So good in fact, that others are forced to do without basic necessities and aren’t even afforded to the dignity to die comfortably."
  - vouaobrasil 2y ago
    I read that part, but I don't fully agree. Of course, I do agree that capitalism is causing immoral effects now, but the root cause is not capitalism at all. Capitalism on a small scale doesn't inherently get out of hand if modern technology does not exist, especially with regard to mass transportation and mass communication at high-speeds. The root problem is actually technology, and the accumulation of wealth by the rich is only the best mechanism technology has right now to grow. In the future, I expect with more centralized AI and even more efficient communication, capitalism might not even be necessary, but we will be enslaved regardless in a very similar inhuman fashion. And that is just because technology may find even more efficient means to build itself than just capitalism. In a way, capitalism is a red herring, and our immense dissatisfaction of it may even indicate that we are not far off from moving to more socialist tendencies (c.f. the EU and UBI, etc.), but at the same time, we will be all the more ensared by technology due to it discovering even more efficient ways to grow. For more information, I suggest "The Metaphysics of Technology" by David Skrbina, but other philosophers such as Heidegger have also explained this nicely.
    - itfossil 2y ago
      Interesting point. However the fact remains that even long before the rise of the technologies you cite, people with resources were hoarding wealth and lording it over those who lacked it. The core issue here, in my opinion, is actually human greed and the fact that in some people it simply cannot be sated, regardless of how much they manage to acquire. Capitalism attempts to harness that core flaw within our human nature rather than trying to suppress or curtail it. The followers of Capitalism effectively believe that empowering and legitimizing this greed will produce a form of collective well-being. Evidence of this can be seen in the a large variety of nonsensical theories that they have pushed over the years such as the infamous "trickle-down economics" theory. At some point, humanity has to grow beyond treating life like a game where we are all trying to put points on the board. In our current iteration of civilization, Capitalism provides the basis of the rules we play by and money is the metric by which we keep score. Kicking Capitalism to the curb would only be the first step to evolving beyond infantile obsession. If we don't manage to do this, we will all pay a collective price. The time to pay the piper will likely come sooner rather than later at the rate things seem to be going. P.S. I really appreciate this discussion, thank you for taking the time to engage!
silexia 2y ago
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/UNH/financials/ https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/UNH/financials/ Total revenue (all money brought in) – $389b All money paid out in claims – $303b Money left over for running the business $85b Cost of running the business – $69b Profit – $14b So it basically appears that for every $1 us customers pay to United Healthcare, $0.75 goes to medical providers, $.21 to running the business, and $.04 to profit. Those numbers don’t seem like gouging to me, what do you think?
- itfossil 2y ago
  > All money paid out in claims – $303b Complete and utter bullshit. That's the amount they listed as the cost of revenue yeah, but I'm willing to bet that a large chunk of that isn't being spent on claim payouts. Given the complete and utter lack of transparency into that number, neither you nor I can rightly claim that's what its spent on. In any event, I don't care how profitable they are. I'm not looking to play that game. Their business model requires them to MURDER their customers in order to maintain their profit margin. This is what they are doing, day in and day out. The fact they are making any profit at all, acting solely as the gatekeeper between people and the medical care they need, should be an indictment which strips them of the moral high ground... yet in this diseased and ass-backwards economic system (which has turned more into a religion than anything else) people like you actually have the nerve to claim it as a defense.
  - silexia 2y ago
    You are angry at the wrong party. Health insurance companies exist just to hide the underlying costs of the real problem: hospitals that charge $3,000 per night for a bed, doctors that make $300,000 a year on average, pharmaceutical and medical device companies that make double the average companies profits... all because they have completely captured government regulators and restricted supply of their competitors.
    - itfossil 2y ago
      There are a lot of rich corporations in different parts of the healthcare industry headed by rich executives who are making bank while poor people die of preventable causes. Spin it however you’d like - no matter which one of the executives of any of these companies got assassinated I suspect that you’d be here simping for them regardless.

10 points by itfossil 2y ago

[flagged]

Violence is only acceptable when it is used by those with more power against those with less. What a lot of people are missing about this killing is that it signifies the potential of the American public to finally go against the corporate controlling forces of the Western World. But taking even one more step back, it may be the start of a realization that technology is not a completely beneficial force, as it is the only thing that allows the destruction of communities, which forces people to in turn rely on health insurance companies. (The Amish, with a very strong community, don't rely on insurance. They have their own collective sort of insurance: they just pay each other's medical bills.) Here's my advice to you: this is part of a much larger scheme than just health insurance. What we need after this event is not a mere release of emotions, but a sober philosophical analysis of this event and its placement in the greater scheme of things. If we focus too much on the emotional, we will in a sense be playing into the system, because it will make the killing about revenge. Instead, attempt to understand why this happened and the greater systemic illness in modern capitalism and spread that message.

itfossil 2y ago
Totally agree. I touch on this later on in the actual blog post: "Capitalism is inherently immoral. It pits us against each other. It posits that the accumulation of money and resources should be our ultimate end-goal. So it’s no wonder that over the hundreds of years we’ve had to figure out how to exist within its confines, some of us have become exceedingly good at it. So good in fact, that others are forced to do without basic necessities and aren’t even afforded to the dignity to die comfortably."
- vouaobrasil 2y ago
  I read that part, but I don't fully agree. Of course, I do agree that capitalism is causing immoral effects now, but the root cause is not capitalism at all. Capitalism on a small scale doesn't inherently get out of hand if modern technology does not exist, especially with regard to mass transportation and mass communication at high-speeds. The root problem is actually technology, and the accumulation of wealth by the rich is only the best mechanism technology has right now to grow. In the future, I expect with more centralized AI and even more efficient communication, capitalism might not even be necessary, but we will be enslaved regardless in a very similar inhuman fashion. And that is just because technology may find even more efficient means to build itself than just capitalism. In a way, capitalism is a red herring, and our immense dissatisfaction of it may even indicate that we are not far off from moving to more socialist tendencies (c.f. the EU and UBI, etc.), but at the same time, we will be all the more ensared by technology due to it discovering even more efficient ways to grow. For more information, I suggest "The Metaphysics of Technology" by David Skrbina, but other philosophers such as Heidegger have also explained this nicely.
  - itfossil 2y ago
    Interesting point. However the fact remains that even long before the rise of the technologies you cite, people with resources were hoarding wealth and lording it over those who lacked it. The core issue here, in my opinion, is actually human greed and the fact that in some people it simply cannot be sated, regardless of how much they manage to acquire. Capitalism attempts to harness that core flaw within our human nature rather than trying to suppress or curtail it. The followers of Capitalism effectively believe that empowering and legitimizing this greed will produce a form of collective well-being. Evidence of this can be seen in the a large variety of nonsensical theories that they have pushed over the years such as the infamous "trickle-down economics" theory. At some point, humanity has to grow beyond treating life like a game where we are all trying to put points on the board. In our current iteration of civilization, Capitalism provides the basis of the rules we play by and money is the metric by which we keep score. Kicking Capitalism to the curb would only be the first step to evolving beyond infantile obsession. If we don't manage to do this, we will all pay a collective price. The time to pay the piper will likely come sooner rather than later at the rate things seem to be going. P.S. I really appreciate this discussion, thank you for taking the time to engage!

silexia 2y ago

https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/UNH/financials/ https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/UNH/financials/ Total revenue (all money brought in) – $389b All money paid out in claims – $303b Money left over for running the business $85b Cost of running the business – $69b Profit – $14b So it basically appears that for every $1 us customers pay to United Healthcare, $0.75 goes to medical providers, $.21 to running the business, and $.04 to profit. Those numbers don’t seem like gouging to me, what do you think?

itfossil 2y ago
> All money paid out in claims – $303b Complete and utter bullshit. That's the amount they listed as the cost of revenue yeah, but I'm willing to bet that a large chunk of that isn't being spent on claim payouts. Given the complete and utter lack of transparency into that number, neither you nor I can rightly claim that's what its spent on. In any event, I don't care how profitable they are. I'm not looking to play that game. Their business model requires them to MURDER their customers in order to maintain their profit margin. This is what they are doing, day in and day out. The fact they are making any profit at all, acting solely as the gatekeeper between people and the medical care they need, should be an indictment which strips them of the moral high ground... yet in this diseased and ass-backwards economic system (which has turned more into a religion than anything else) people like you actually have the nerve to claim it as a defense.
- silexia 2y ago
  You are angry at the wrong party. Health insurance companies exist just to hide the underlying costs of the real problem: hospitals that charge $3,000 per night for a bed, doctors that make $300,000 a year on average, pharmaceutical and medical device companies that make double the average companies profits... all because they have completely captured government regulators and restricted supply of their competitors.
  - itfossil 2y ago
    There are a lot of rich corporations in different parts of the healthcare industry headed by rich executives who are making bank while poor people die of preventable causes. Spin it however you’d like - no matter which one of the executives of any of these companies got assassinated I suspect that you’d be here simping for them regardless.