[mrintegrity]

This reminds me of Ken McElroy [1], murdered in broad daylight with ~40 people present yet no witnesses.

Did this CEO deserve to be shot in the back? No, and vigilantism shouldn't be celebrated. Instead we should invest time in understanding why our laws and society structure allows (even promotes) the kind of corporate exploitation of the public that is enough to drive someone to murder.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_McElroy

[Eddy_Viscosity2]

> Instead we should invest time in understanding why our laws and society structure allows (even promotes) the kind of corporate exploitation of the public that is enough to drive someone to murder.

We already know the answer to why. Its because corporate exploitation of the public is profitable. The US could at any time switch to a universal health care system like just about every other industrialized nation and the entire claim-denying middle-man financial parasite insurance model would evaporate.

[keo3c]

I am beginning to doubt we are going to make much of dent. Some one recently told me ecologists and biologists don't frame it as exploitation when they talk about predator-prey or parasite-host relationships. I really didn't know how to respond to that.

I think we are able to kind of reduce the exploitation A BIT, via social norms and culture. And that too only in regions where resources are abundant and the environment isn't too chaotic.

[okasaki]

I don't really agree. It's fine to celebrate it and to think that he deserved it.

[noisy_boy]

> Instead we should invest time in understanding why our laws and society structure allows (even promotes) the kind of corporate exploitation of the public that is enough to drive someone to murder.

What are you talking about? Isn't blatant corporate greed simply the product of the societal and financial culture that the country is practically built upon?

If you insist on playing naive, let me spell it out for you.

1. A corporation's main aim is shareholder value increase, at any cost that is a) legally permissible b) doesn't kill the company. For what its worth, #1.a is also negotiable now, see 2.2 below.

2. In order to ensure this:

2.1 They pay political campaigns to get the politicians in power so that those politicians can shape the laws in their favor.

2.2 They employ ex-government officials to incentivize them to be not too harsh with the corporations during their tenure at the government - you don't bite the hand that will feed you once you retire from your current government job.

2.3 They pay lobbying groups to influence the laws the politicians will make (most are already bought (see #2.1) but it is so much cheaper to lobby compared to the outsized payout that spending a bit more for maximum support is a no-brainer).

3. In order to maximize shareholder value, they need to maximize their profits. If denying claims helps them do it, they will do so. Who will stop them? Politicians? See #2 above.

4. How do politicians ensure they can enable #1?

5.1 By making it legal for corporations to pump cash via PACs and super PACs so that #2.1 can continue.

5.2 By pushing extremism (left or right) and polarize people into groups. It is easy for sharks to feed if the herring move as a group. How can they do it easily? Technology companies with the power of internet enable it greatly (they are also companies after all, see #1).

6. The cycle continues and worsens and people keep getting squeezed until someone says fuck it and does something like the event this thread is about.

PS: people get all worked up about Roe vs. Wade. The real cancer was Citizens United (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC).

[greenie_beans]

re: citizen's united. something i've been thinking about lately, with the latest rise of gen x tech power: elon musk et al (andreesen, thiel, david sacks, etc) got extremely lucky with timing. the 90s internet boom and all of the tech that came after allowed them to become very rich, thanks also to the zero interest rate policy of the 2010s. combined with the timing of citizen's united, you now have elon musk who reportedly donated $250 million to the trump campaign and is now reaping those rewards.

[noisy_boy]

That is basically point #7: Why even have the politicians as middle-men? Use wealth-porn via short-attention-span media to build followers out of money-worshippers and use that clout + money to directly be part of the executive. Why even bother with lobbying groups when you can write the law yourself by being in the same room where it will be passed?

[Muromec]

> Why even bother with lobbying groups when you can write the law yourself by being in the same room where it will be passed?

Unless the law grants you a monopoly, relative competitive advantage is why.

[Balgair]

So, my sibling took a Constitutional Law class once. And they were telling me that the lecturer was saying that there is one major factor underappreciated in current law: Dueling

The US system is one that is set up under a very different cultural system than what we currently have (in many ways). But one important release valve that the first generation had was duels. If you were being a shithead over and over, you'd be killed. Maybe not by the first duel, or even the fifth duel. But your luck would run out eventually.

Now, these days, we know that duels are just crazy, and the social effects of them are dumb. But we've also gotten rid of the shaming and shunning effects that came after them. Something else (white/blacklists, anti-NETTR, an anti-trolling league, etc) should come out to replace and gain these functions again. Our system really only works if done in good faith and requires an extra-judicial method of enforcement.

[underseacables]

Good example, I was struggling to come up with other public indifference to killings. Maybe some mobsters?

What makes the UH CEO so different is that he was, presumably, innocent. A bad person for humanity and the public, Absolutely, but legally innocent.

[op00to]

King George III was "legally innocent".

[pixxel]

Good trolling mrintegrity.

[vouaobrasil]

What if our system is so corrupt that legal investigation and lobbying becomes restricted to a domain in which it can no longer benefit the people?

We have hundreds of analyses already and millions of hours poured into understanding this situation -- the corporate power structure and the unrestricted capitalistic growth of technology. Should people analyze until they are blue in the face?

At some point in many societies, a point of revolution happens because there is no other reliable option, and when such a thing happens, it overrides the morals of the majority simply because those morals only exist to keep a society functioning. But what to do when it no longer can function?

The American goverment frequently decides who lives and who dies and who to kill at war. When that sort of violence flows downwards to those who threaten the existing power structure, it is called policy. When the people take arms against corruption, it is called immoral violence and you bought right into it.