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newsclues

People on the internet seem to have a problem differentiating between companies and human beings.

If you find pleasure in the death of a human, you need to reflect on what inside you is broken.

It’s possible to have no love for insurance companies and still regret a tragic loss of life.

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CEOs are paid big bucks because the buck stops with them.

The actions of this CEO in particular caused suffering to an untold number of families, just reading through comments on Reddit about people who had UnitedHealthcare denying life saving procedures is heart breaking, one of the most striking anecdotes to me was a widower telling how his wife died from treatable cancer after UH postponed twice her surgery date, 3 months each time.

I can differentiate between people and companies but immoral actions of a company are perpetrated by its executives, and the CEO is the lead executive, so this person's job in particular was exactly to be the responsible for the company's actions.

Pretty easy to understand the lack of sympathy viewed from the broader picture. I don't condone the murder but completely understand why people do not care he died.

>People on the internet seem to have a problem differentiating between companies and human beings.

Naive. Companies are made of humans, and often bring out the worst in them. Fiduciary duty doesn't excuse shitty behaviour.

I’m amused by people defending the celebration of a murder.

Also saddened, but I guess lots of people online are horrible people who think they are good.

> you need to reflect on what inside you is broken

Well people's opinions might be different if this CEO had reflected on what inside him was broken. So a kind of symmetry.

You are making the argument that if you don’t like a company you can kill humans.

So if I don’t like Facebook am I justified in murdering a coder? Or is it only Zuckerberg that is fair game?

What company do you personally work for? What if I have beef with them? I’m I justified in killing you because your employer hurt me?

Textbook strawman.

Yes, 2nd amendment gives me the right to own a gun and the right to own a gun gives me the right to murder anyone I want for whatever reason I want :)

The company this guy controlled made money specifically by murdering people, by denying them needed medical care. It wasn't just any company, and it wasn't just any employee. And honestly, I'd be fine with it if some Rohingya guy smoked Zuckerberg.

The difference is: companies are fictive. They don't actually exist. Under the hood, it's just people making decisions. One of those people making decisions – one allowed to dictate to or overrule other decision-makers – has been killed.

Yes, death is bad. However, much as I would it be otherwise, I have a finite capacity to care about death: I would rather spend that on innocent victims, rather than perpetrators of large-scale systematic violence. That which is broken inside me reflects the world.

Companies don't make decisions, people do. He was the top decision maker at his company.

On a philosophical level, of course. The real world has otherwise this habit of kicking philosophy in the gonads. When a guy orders people to death - and make no mistake, this is what UH CEO did - his own tragism gets somewhat rightfully overshadowed. Like in the tramway dilemma, you simply cannot equate the sympathy or the pain of thousands families with the pain of one, unless moral high ground is all you have. And no I don't split the world in companies vs people - insurance companies are people who consciously decide to let me die because shareholder value, so they must suffer those consequences. Big power should come more often with big responsibility.

I think most people aren't finding pleasure in his death, but perhaps a sense of justice.

The man probably has a higher body count than Bin Laden. I think schadenfreude from most is to be expected.

Most people have zero care for this person as he and similar people have zero care for most people. There is a price to be accepted by people, no one can expect to do malicious things, harm people and then still be accepted because they are human

Who runs those companies? Who makes the decisions in those companies?

I think it's humans, no?

Corporations of various kinds knowingly cause the death of many people each year, but they have PR departments that put out vague statements of regret whenever there is an overly obvious causal nexus.

Corporations are run by humans, and not all of them are nice people. Some are amoral or outright sociopathic. My understanding is that the victim in this case didn't die instantly, so presumably he had a couple of minutes to realize that he was critically wounded and absolutely helpless. I feel OK about that.

"if you find pleasure in the death of a human, you need to reflect on-" - HN Already flagged comment.

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