• Grimy@lemmy.world
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    18 days ago

    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.

    • Tinidril@midwest.social
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      18 days ago

      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.

    • ProtecyaTec@lemmy.world
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      18 days ago

      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?

      • krashmo@lemmy.world
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        18 days ago

        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.

        • TexasDrunk@lemmy.world
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          18 days ago

          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.

        • ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net
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          18 days ago

          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?

      • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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        18 days ago

        The robot dogs are just pompous posturing by rich idiots, they don’t do anything that a cheapo CCTV camera couldn’t do.

  • nolefan33@sh.itjust.works
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    18 days ago

    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.

  • zqwzzle@lemmy.ca
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    18 days ago

    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.

    • chad@sh.itjust.works
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      18 days ago

      It was me. I shot Brian Thompson, CEO of United Healthcare.

      I’m not even terminally ill.

    • pivot_root@lemmy.world
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      18 days ago

      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…

    • ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net
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      18 days ago

      I would love nothing more than to redirect school shooters to stop shooting at their peers/innocent folks in schools.

  • Suavevillain@lemmy.world
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    17 days ago

    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.

    • ProgrammingSocks@pawb.social
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      17 days ago

      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.

    • Strawberry@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      16 days ago

      but did you hear he’s a husband and father?

      Edit: was*

      Edit: In case it wasn’t clear, this is a joke. Obviously.

      • TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee
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        17 days ago

        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.

        • Malfeasant@lemm.ee
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          17 days ago

          I don’t really know how someone can love their kids, but

          Did he? Just because he had a family doesn’t mean he gave a shit about them…

          • TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee
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            17 days ago

            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.

            • Allonzee@lemmy.world
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              17 days ago

              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.

        • GelatinGeorge@lemmy.world
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          17 days ago

          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.

      • explodicle@sh.itjust.works
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        16 days ago

        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.

      • CeruleanRuin@lemmings.world
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        17 days ago

        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).

      • spirinolas@lemmy.world
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        16 days ago

        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.

  • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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    17 days ago

    My condolences to his family, even though no insurance company ever gave my family condolences when they let my mom die

  • zephorah@lemm.ee
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    18 days ago

    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.

        • Akagigahara@lemmy.world
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          18 days ago

          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

          • blazeknave@lemmy.world
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            18 days ago

            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!

      • Alex@lemmy.world
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        18 days ago

        People should quit while ahead and stop looking up to wealth and titles if they don’t want to run into a Gavrilo Princip

    • Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world
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      18 days ago

      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.

      Here’s hoping. We’re WAY overdue for guillotine day.

    • Thistlewick@lemmynsfw.com
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      18 days ago

      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.

      • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.world
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        18 days ago

        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.

    • Krono@lemmy.today
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      18 days ago

      As a person past that breaking point, I gotta say that I do endorse this. Whatever his motives may be, the shooter is a hero. America is desperate for justice, we need so much more of this.

      • Cataphract@lemmy.ml
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        18 days ago

        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.

        • kmaismith@lemm.ee
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          17 days ago

          Nobody who acts like a hero does it without having incurred massive personal suffering to drive them

    • Alex@lemmy.world
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      18 days ago

      Yea the tariffs will probably be seen as some sort of breaking point together with this some years from now.

  • Eternal192@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    18 days ago

    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.

    • DiagnosedADHD@lemmy.world
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      17 days ago

      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

      • Buglefingers@lemmy.world
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        17 days ago

        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.

        • DiagnosedADHD@lemmy.world
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          17 days ago

          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!!

    • Zetta@mander.xyz
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      17 days ago

      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.

      • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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        17 days ago

        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.

    • Iconoclast@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      17 days ago

      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.

    • Buglefingers@lemmy.world
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      17 days ago

      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

      • DrDickHandler@lemmy.world
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        17 days ago

        Billionnaires control the medias and social medias. They are purposely creating divides between the population to avoid being the target.

      • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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        17 days ago

        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.

      • Malfeasant@lemm.ee
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        17 days ago

        The people who deserve it are harder to find and rarely in the same place at once.

        • realitista@lemm.ee
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          17 days ago

          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.

    • DontMakeMoreBabies@lemm.ee
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      18 days ago

      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.”

      • actually@lemmy.world
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        18 days ago

        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

        • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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          18 days ago

          I suspect it’ll be something he was doing in his personal life that got him killed.

        • Nihilistra@lemmy.world
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          18 days ago

          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.

      • Atrichum@lemmy.world
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        18 days ago

        Wishful thinking. They will double down on their shitty actions while surrounded by more security than a monarch.

        • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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          17 days ago

          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.

        • boywar3@lemmy.world
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          17 days ago

          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