[wnoise]

"Criminally insane" and "psychosis of maniac" are incredible hyperbole.

The only reasonable word there is "criminally". Of course assassinations are criminal.

One doesn't have to be insane, psychotic, or a maniac to kill someone, or to let someone die. All it takes is valuing other things above the life taken. This is not that uncommon.

Now, you can think Mangione is wrong about the effects, that he did not have a rational plan that would get him his desired end goal. I think that's obviously true even. But that's just how most humans act most of the time, and is not insanity.

[gruez]

and is not insanity.

So how would you define "insanity" then? You can nitpick about how those phrases don't match what the DSM-5 says or whatever, but the reality is that Mangione's actions are far beyond what the vast majority of people would do, even under the same circumstances.

[wnoise]

Oh, yes, highly unusual.

So are startup founders. Many of these fail, precisely because they too did not have rational plans that would get them to their end goals.

[gruez]

You didn't answer my question. What is "insanity" then? What do you call people like the Unabomber or Osama bin Laden? Are they just a different variant of "startup founders"?

[wnoise]

I haven't set a definition and really don't intend to, only saying the line must be quite far from where you are drawing it.

Tying it to willingness to kill for some goal cannot be it -- not every soldier, cop, and security guard is insane. There has to be some degree of break from reality, not disagreement with societal opinions of morality. (And of course all societies do endorse violence -- from the proper authorities, and against the right targets).

Osama bin Laden was a religiously-driven warlord. But not only was he not insane, he was quite effective for quite some time, and had significant support from the societies he was part.

The Unabomber absolutely could plausibly be argued to be insane -- his attorneys certainly pushed for it (though he rejected that attempt). And the psychological experiments he participated in could certainly have contributed to such a break. Throw in the standard trope of living as a hermit in the woods with limited social contact (which can both be a result of insanity and decrease mental stability), and there's enough there not to reject the label. But his bombing campaign just makes him a criminal, a problem for society, not insane.

[gruez]

>Tying it to willingness to kill for some goal cannot be it -- not every soldier, cop, and security guard is insane.

How about violating bright red line laws/norms of the society you're in?

> There has to be some degree of break from reality, not disagreement with societal opinions of morality.

Okay but surely you agree that "I want abortion but my state bans it" is not the same kind of "disagreement with societal opinions of morality" as executing a CEO because you vaguely have grievances with the healthcare system?

[wnoise]

> How about violating bright red line laws/norms of the society you're in?

Isn't the word for that "criminal"? You can add intensifiers like "serious", "hardened", "deadly", etc to emphasize how bright the line violation is.

> Okay but surely you agree that "I want abortion but my state bans it" is not the same kind of "disagreement with societal opinions of morality" as executing a CEO because you vaguely have grievances with the healthcare system?

There certainly is a greater consensus for it; 50-50 is quite different than what I would guess is about 85%. And I'm for that consensus. This kind of violence becoming common would be disastrous. But that consensus certainly seems to be a lot less solid than it was a year ago, especially when you look at the youth. (I think there are several things contributing to that, but that consensus breaking down does not mean that 41% of 18-29 year olds are insane. That's just not what insane means.)

https://www.axios.com/2024/12/17/united-healthcare-ceo-killi...

[mrangle]

These terms aren't hyperbole at all. Mangione is a psychopath.

Being wrong about the effects of (and rationale for) a crime is a symptom of criminal insanity.

For example, you think that the crime that you facilitate is "justice" for perceived wrongs but in reality it is only the execution of an innocent man with a family. Such a delusion is the definition of criminal psychosis.

>All it takes is valuing other things above the life taken.

Very seriously, see a skilled therapist. Tell them what you wrote. Hope that they are able to begin to help you.

[AlexeyBelov]

Who made this diagnosis? You, just now?

[wnoise]

Arguing that Mangione is _criminally insane_ is arguing that he shouldn't be legally punished, that a mental disease prevented him from having the necessary mens rea to actually have his act be criminal. Are you sure that's what you want to argue? (Confinement while he remains criminally insane is certainly justified, of course.)

> For example, you think that the crime that you facilitate is "justice" for perceived wrongs but in reality it is only the execution of an innocent man with a family. Such a delusion is the definition of criminal psychosis.

"justice" and "innocent" are not facts about the world but societal judgements. Having different opinions about these is moral disagreement, not insanity, nor delusion. Expecting society to agree with you and maintaining that expectation even against evidence afterward would be delusion. Sometimes societies don't have fixed judgements. Is an abortion a medical treatment or an execution of an innocent child? Although I agree with one stance, and disagree with the other, neither is a delusion. It's a moral disagreement that remains one whether I live under laws that treat it one way, or the other.

> Very seriously, see a skilled therapist. Tell them what you wrote. Hope that they are able to begin to help you.

Don't be a dick.

Accurately describing other's morals is no reason to see a therapist. It says nothing about my morals or my sanity that I recognize a large fraction of fairly normal people do value lots of things above others' lives. Conformity and fitting in often enough, as witnessed by Hannah Aredt's phrase "the banality of evil". To the best of my knowledge I haven't contributed to excess deaths beyond the externalities of living in a first-world country, participating in its market economy, and the actions its government takes funded by the taxes I pay. I do actually value lives, so I am unlikely to attempt to take them except under extreme circumstances (and I most likely would not have the instincts to do so effectively; never been tested, and hope to never be).

Societies in general certainly don't treat lives as infinitely valuable, nor even equally valuable. They regularly make economic tradeoffs (and incoherent ones at that) that it's okay to take actions that increase the death toll as long as enough money is made from it. Society is happy to use and endorse violence -- so long as it's done by the right people to the wrong people.