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I'm pretty sure giving everyone the belief that they can murder with impunity as long as the victim is undesirable enough would be the absolute worst thing that

I'm pretty sure giving everyone the belief that they can murder with impunity as long as the victim is undesirable enough would be the absolute worst thing that could happen right now.

krapp 1y ago
That belief is already commonplace, and has been vigorously tested among the sex worker, queer, Black and Native communities and proven correct. I don't see why we should be any more concerned about adding "rich white men" to the pile than we are about any of the other disposable demographics in our society.
Der_Einzige 1y ago
The purge movies are the relevant ones for this idea…
slg 1y ago
One of the dystopian traits I was hinting at in my original comment is the acceptance of mass murder as long as it occurs in the boardroom and nets an extra few cents for the shareholders. I won't defend or justify what "Mario's brother" supposedly did, but he has inflicted much less pain and death on the world than the man he is accused of shooting and I don't really think there is any room to debate that.
- zmgsabst 1y ago
  This is precisely why as a law-and-order type, I don’t care about this particular incident. A rookie gangster shot a high-tier gangster — why is that a me problem? Gang-on-gang violence is a daily occurrence.
  - wqaatwt 1y ago
    Hypothetically if laws lose their legitimacy because nobody is willing to enforce them (at least some people have that perception) and the political system is designed in such a way as to make any meaningful change near impossible what is there left to do?
    - somenameforme 1y ago
      And more generally the fundamental reason we agree to operate under laws is because these laws are expected to improve society as a whole. But if those laws instead start enabling and protecting bad behavior then they're doing the exact opposite. It's fairly obvious that much of what the more sociopathic corporations do today will be illegal in the future, but changes in social opinions tend to predate changes in the law by quite some time. For the obvious extreme there - slavery was completely legal. Society began to believe that such a thing was no longer fit for society, and consequently acting against it, long before it was outlawed.
      - s1artibartfast 1y ago
        The way to change this is to build consensus and update the law, not go out and shoot whoever you disagree with.
        somenameforme 1y ago
        There are pretty much 0 people who think healthcare insurance providers should be intentionally engaging in delay, deny, defend as a means of maximizing profit. Passing a law against stands essentially 0 chance of happening. If it was passed, it would intentionally have loopholes aplenty buried in a hundred page document that essentially 0 people, including those who wrote it, could understand. Modern democracy mostly just doesn't seem to work how it ought.
        s1artibartfast 1y ago
        Then we need to fix it. Going out and shooting whoever you dont like moves us further from this goal, not closer. People broadly agree that they dont like the status quo. They dont agree on what would be better. You cant have change without direction and detail.
        somenameforme 1y ago
        This isn't the issue. You could get easily get the overwhelming majority of society to agree 'let's criminalize unjustified denials with criminal penalties for the executives of healthcare companies who violate such' and it's simply not going to happen. A handful of corporations' "lobbying" easily trumps the opinion of society. And getting people elected is no different. Fewer and fewer people identify as either republican or democrat (with independents being the largest 'party' by far), yet lo and behold like 99.9% of politicians at all levels, high and low, are republican or democrat, with basically no independent representation because the system makes it unreasonably difficult to select an alternative. This is further confounded by an utterly worthless media system that further works to entrench the political establishment, and much more.
const_cast 1y ago
We can already murder with impunity. Just get a few people together, form a company, and you can do whatever. Even crimes against humanity won’t get you in prison, probably. At worst you’ll lose some cash and be demoted to “normal person”. How many people has UHC killed? I don’t know, it’s really hard to measure. Besides the people killed because they didn’t receive funding for care, there’s also the plethora of practices insurers enforce. Some, maybe most, of those practices are non-optimal, so some subset of people are dying that shouldn’t. Oh well.
wqaatwt 1y ago
The fact that such behavior might become acceptable (at least amongst a significant section of society) indicates a systemic failure in the socio-economic system. IMHO its more a of symptom. Like labor and anarchist related political violence back in the first Gilded Age back in the late 1800s. Massively increasing inequality and giving too much political power to corporate robber barons has its costs. If nobody is willing to keep them in check the appearance of some sort of “vigilantism” seems hard to avoid. Not implying that its a good thing or that political violence really ever led to positive change historically..

I'm pretty sure giving everyone the belief that they can murder with impunity as long as the victim is undesirable enough would be the absolute worst thing that could happen right now.

krapp 1y ago

That belief is already commonplace, and has been vigorously tested among the sex worker, queer, Black and Native communities and proven correct. I don't see why we should be any more concerned about adding "rich white men" to the pile than we are about any of the other disposable demographics in our society.

Der_Einzige 1y ago

The purge movies are the relevant ones for this idea…

slg 1y ago

One of the dystopian traits I was hinting at in my original comment is the acceptance of mass murder as long as it occurs in the boardroom and nets an extra few cents for the shareholders. I won't defend or justify what "Mario's brother" supposedly did, but he has inflicted much less pain and death on the world than the man he is accused of shooting and I don't really think there is any room to debate that.

zmgsabst 1y ago
This is precisely why as a law-and-order type, I don’t care about this particular incident. A rookie gangster shot a high-tier gangster — why is that a me problem? Gang-on-gang violence is a daily occurrence.
- wqaatwt 1y ago
  Hypothetically if laws lose their legitimacy because nobody is willing to enforce them (at least some people have that perception) and the political system is designed in such a way as to make any meaningful change near impossible what is there left to do?
  - somenameforme 1y ago
    And more generally the fundamental reason we agree to operate under laws is because these laws are expected to improve society as a whole. But if those laws instead start enabling and protecting bad behavior then they're doing the exact opposite. It's fairly obvious that much of what the more sociopathic corporations do today will be illegal in the future, but changes in social opinions tend to predate changes in the law by quite some time. For the obvious extreme there - slavery was completely legal. Society began to believe that such a thing was no longer fit for society, and consequently acting against it, long before it was outlawed.
    - s1artibartfast 1y ago
      The way to change this is to build consensus and update the law, not go out and shoot whoever you disagree with.
      - somenameforme 1y ago
        There are pretty much 0 people who think healthcare insurance providers should be intentionally engaging in delay, deny, defend as a means of maximizing profit. Passing a law against stands essentially 0 chance of happening. If it was passed, it would intentionally have loopholes aplenty buried in a hundred page document that essentially 0 people, including those who wrote it, could understand. Modern democracy mostly just doesn't seem to work how it ought.
        s1artibartfast 1y ago
        Then we need to fix it. Going out and shooting whoever you dont like moves us further from this goal, not closer. People broadly agree that they dont like the status quo. They dont agree on what would be better. You cant have change without direction and detail.
        somenameforme 1y ago
        This isn't the issue. You could get easily get the overwhelming majority of society to agree 'let's criminalize unjustified denials with criminal penalties for the executives of healthcare companies who violate such' and it's simply not going to happen. A handful of corporations' "lobbying" easily trumps the opinion of society. And getting people elected is no different. Fewer and fewer people identify as either republican or democrat (with independents being the largest 'party' by far), yet lo and behold like 99.9% of politicians at all levels, high and low, are republican or democrat, with basically no independent representation because the system makes it unreasonably difficult to select an alternative. This is further confounded by an utterly worthless media system that further works to entrench the political establishment, and much more.

const_cast 1y ago

We can already murder with impunity. Just get a few people together, form a company, and you can do whatever. Even crimes against humanity won’t get you in prison, probably. At worst you’ll lose some cash and be demoted to “normal person”. How many people has UHC killed? I don’t know, it’s really hard to measure. Besides the people killed because they didn’t receive funding for care, there’s also the plethora of practices insurers enforce. Some, maybe most, of those practices are non-optimal, so some subset of people are dying that shouldn’t. Oh well.

wqaatwt 1y ago

The fact that such behavior might become acceptable (at least amongst a significant section of society) indicates a systemic failure in the socio-economic system. IMHO its more a of symptom. Like labor and anarchist related political violence back in the first Gilded Age back in the late 1800s. Massively increasing inequality and giving too much political power to corporate robber barons has its costs. If nobody is willing to keep them in check the appearance of some sort of “vigilantism” seems hard to avoid. Not implying that its a good thing or that political violence really ever led to positive change historically..