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167 points ceejayoz | 5 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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CoastalCoder ◴[] No.43665090[source]
Responding to a now-deleted comment that seemed to suggest a violent response:

What would be the point, honestly?

Calling for his assassination would, rightly in my opinion, be prosecutable.

I'm too demoralized at the moment to hope for what I'd consider an appropriate response by state or federal governments / courts.

The third most likely solution, revolution / civil war, would probably cause far more suffering than any fixes it might enable.

I'm curious if America will soon reach a tipping point where a sizeable portion of its population actually makes an effort to emigrate, rather than just talking about it.

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like_any_other ◴[] No.43665113[source]
> What would be the point, honestly?

Changing insurer's incentive landscape.

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haswell ◴[] No.43665199[source]
I’ve seen people use this argument, but I think it fails to consider the complexity of the situation.

The moment a company capitulates as the result of murder, they’ve now incentivized more murder.

Such attacks on the people running these companies can only impede change I think by forcing companies to become more entrenched in their existing practices.

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like_any_other ◴[] No.43665512[source]
They're already incentivized to effectively murder by denying care.
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haswell ◴[] No.43665683[source]
Without defending or justifying the practices of health insurance companies (I’m going through a hellish denial/appeal process at the moment), there’s a major difference between advocating for and resorting to violence as a way of attempting to bring about change and the very real consequences of a broken system.

The world is filled with complexity and systems that are broken. They require thoughtful solutions, not chaos. Setting aside the moral and ethical dilemmas that arise, advocating for the murder of company leaders is essentially a roll of the chaos dice attached to a wish that somehow the resulting situation will sort itself out.

If you remove all moral/ethical considerations (not the least of which is that blame is shared by many people), it’s far from obvious that the result would resemble the thing people want. Pragmatically, it’s a poorly considered idea that introduces potential for equivalent or greater harms.

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1. genocidicbunny ◴[] No.43665997[source]
> advocating for the murder of company leaders is essentially a roll of the chaos dice attached to a wish that somehow the resulting situation will sort itself out.

I think this misses the 'fuck it, I'm going out like a grenade' aspect. Someone facing death or long-term painful chronic illness due to lack of access to medical care, and who has the perception that this is in part or wholly due to health insurance problems, might not care that they're as you said, rolling the chaos dice. They won't be around for long to deal with those consequences. They might want to roll those dice as a desperate attempt to exert some control, to make some kind of statement, to a world they feel has trodden on them.

There's a kind of logic to it, one borne from pain and desperation. But there's a reason the cliche about a cornered rat exists.

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2. haswell ◴[] No.43666960[source]
> I think this misses the 'fuck it, I'm going out like a grenade' aspect.

I think this is very separate from the disturbingly popular trend to advocate for violence as a solution.

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3. genocidicbunny ◴[] No.43668474[source]
I think in the case of something like healthcare, which can be literally life and death, these are not entirely separate. Many cheered LM's actions because they or someone they knew had been hurt by the healthcare insurance industry in the US, which again goes back to those feelings of pain, desperation and lack of control that they feel.

I do agree that the trend for the more average person to be okay with or even advocate for violence as a solution is disturbing. But a massive part of why it's disturbing is that it's a symptom. There are always fringe groups who resort to it as their primary approach, but when your regular person starts looking at violence as the way to solve things, there's some kind of broader sickness happening - a large scale societal malaise.

My great grandmother used to compare war, revolution, mass civil unrest and other such breakouts of violence as a fever for the body that is humanity; She'd lived through far too many of these fevers. They're rarely idiopathic, and while they might help fight off the current sickness, they also often killed. And even if you survive a fever, it's never a particularly pleasant experience.

4. salawat ◴[] No.43672614[source]
Explain to me how care denial is non-violent.
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5. haswell ◴[] No.43673665{3}[source]
Words have meaning. Care denial is a serious problem that causes much harm and requires a solution, but to call it violent is to make the word meaningless.