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Comment by JumpCrisscross | Hacker News Reader

> Have you spoken to regular people not terminally online? They have no sympathy for the CEO

Everyone I have spoken to has no sympathy for him as a CEO but sympathy for him as a human. He is wrong and the healthcare system is broken. But this was also murder. If your sense of empathy is so fucked that you’re pro murder, you need to speak to a professional.

(If you’re struggling with this and don’t want to let hate turn you into a monster, consider the difference between believing someone deserved what was coming to them and supporting that which delivered it.)

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> But this was also murder. If your sense of empathy is so fucked that you’re pro murder, you need to speak to a professional.

A quote comes to mind - “I do not wish death upon another human, but I have read some obituaries with great delight”. This is one of those instances.

I have more sympathy for his family than him - he did not have to choose this line of work. Do people have sympathy for Bin Laden or other terrorists? If they don’t, do they need to see a therapist?

Anecdotally, the only people that I’ve spoken to who has sympathy are other extremely well off individuals who have questionable ethics. I also think it’s interesting that because the victim is an elite, there’s a sense of justice from other elites that is not there when a common man is shot and killed.

The whole thing is a double standard on multiple levels.

> whole thing is a double standard on multiple levels

Not really. The double standard is in excusing murder as a political tactic because you don’t like the victim.

In this case, the Twitterati will hold their court. And then a real court with real people on the jury will convict. There may also be an inquiry into UnitedHealth, but it will be able to be bludgeoned into partisan death by the law and order bloc.

> only people that I’ve spoken to who has sympathy are other extremely well off individuals

The ones I’ve seen who sympathise with the killer are largely college educated, urban, active on social media and make more than the median wage. If you’re only seeing one side of this, you’re in a bubble, because the truth is it’s not top of mind for most of America.

Agree to disagree I guess. The double standard in my eyes is that because an elite was murdered there’s an outcry for justice from the wealthy. When the police shoots someone or when there is a school shooting it’s just “thoughts and prayers” or “they were probably a criminal anyway”.

I do see both sides but the opposite of what you mention though - the ones that sympathize with the CEO are wealthy people who believe almost any method to make money is legitimate, or support the existing healthcare system because it hasn’t screwed them yet. If you think the healthcare system is messed up then you tend to support the killer.

School shooters are universally condemned, as are egregiously brutal police.

People of all classes sympathize with the victims. Nobody cheers on the school shooters.

They are definitely condemned but no real action is taken to solve the issue, that’s my point. So if they do something when a CEO dies then that’s the double standard.

Who's doing something about the CEO and what are they doing?

What would taking meaningful action to solve the issue mean to you in each case?

He was killing people though, and if his death stops that, it's a net positive. His life is not worth more than the thousands he has ended for personal profit.

> if his death stops that, it's a net positive

One, it doesn’t. Two, this applies in loads of cases depending on your individual morality. (Intentionally-spicy takes: abortion providers. Medical researchers who experiment on animals. Farmers. Meat eaters. Anyone American because of our foreign military interventions.)

When the state's monopoly on violence doesn't protect people, people will find a way to protect themselves.

This goes both ways. See: south africa where every rich dude has a private security detail.

This sounds like the same way because if rich people need protection, they must be under threat of people who feel exploited by them. Just like the OP.

How can you be so sure it hasn't saved someone? You can make the case that doctors make less mistakes when they don't rush through surgery.

https://apnews.com/article/anthem-blue-cross-anesthesia-insu...

> can make the case that doctors make less mistakes when they don't rush through surgery

Healthcare PR is in overdrive right now because people want this story. In truth, the anaesthesia debate started a few days before the shooting.

To paraphrase the Joker: when tens of thousands of people die because their health insurance denies needed care, nobody panics. But kill one little insurance CEO and everyone loses their mind.

I’m personally much more interested in why people are so uncaring about a bad system that kills a ton of innocent people, than in why people don’t care about the murder of someone who got wealthy making it happens.

> kill one little insurance CEO and everyone loses their mind

A narrow slice of social media is losing its mind. It’s New York. It’s unusual. But there are a lot of gun deaths in America every month.

The NYPD seems to be losing its mind over this too.

You’re right, it’s not unusual. So not unusual that this wasn’t even the only murder in Manhattan that day. There was at least one other. Only one is getting a massive manhunt and media coverage for some reason.

> Only one is getting a massive manhunt and media coverage for some reason

Yes. It’s a lower Manhattan daytime shooting of a non-New Yorker. It’s where rich New Yorkers are. It’s where most New Yorkers are. It’s where most of New York City’s economy—including vastly most of its tourism—is. (And it will keep the media’s attention because the killer is photogenic.)

I understand the reasons why this murder gets so much time, attention, and effort, while the other Manhattan murder that day (that I know of) gets so little.

My point is that there is a big fuss being made, it’s not just a narrow slice of social media. The suspect’s apprehension is the top story on every American news outlet I checked just now. And my secondary point is that the disparity is deeply fucked up.

> you need to speak to a professional

I love this dismissive attitude that anyone who fails to empathize with someone who makes tens of millions a year AND denies health insurance claims is somehow mentally ill. Get real.

> anyone who fails to empathize with someone who makes tens of millions a year

I’m not saying feel sorry for him. I’m not even saying don’t indulge in schadenfreude. Where you should know it crosses the line is in celebrating the killing and the killer. Because I promise you that someone with equal or more conviction in their righteousness would similarly take pleasure in the murder if someone you find, if not virtuous, not deserving to be murdered.

This sounds an awful lot like “don’t have opinions, because other people will have different opinions.”

Ok, someone will take pleasure in the murder of someone I think doesn’t deserve it. So what? Obviously I don’t like that, but people think all kinds of stuff I don’t like. Why should this particular opinion change mine?

Virtually everyone would take pleasure in someone’s murder. Osama bin Laden, say. Hitler, if we were in a different time and he hadn’t done the job himself. There are some people so principled they really wouldn’t feel that way for anyone, but for most of us it’s just a question of who falls into that category. Is has been a little surprising to find out that so many Americans consider this guy to be worthy, but just a little.

> sounds an awful lot like “don’t have opinions, because other people will have different opinions.”

Not at all. Our healthcare system is corrupt. That doesn’t excuse murder. Bin Laden was offed by a state. Depending on your morals, that is or isn’t different. But those who equate a serial killer with a soldier are in the stark, stark minority.

> little surprising to find out that so many Americans consider this guy to be worthy

Worthy of wealth != worthy of life. If you think you can judge life or death for other humans, sure, fine. We are very, very different people.

Sorry, who’s the serial killer and who’s the soldier in this equation?

I don't plan on going out and killing anyone, but I don’t see what’s wrong with thinking it’s good if it happens to certain very bad people. I suspect you have some people you’d think that of too. Maybe not, but most people do.

Since I’m not acting on it, my judgment counts for essentially nothing. I don’t understand this strong reaction to it.

I don't know a single real person who felt bad for him.

Right. I also know several people who know no pro-abortion people, zero gay people, and nobody who is pro-Israel and not a flaming racist. We’re each in our bubbles.

> you need to speak to a professional

My insurance doesn't cover it.

Msm won't say the quiet part out loud if it involves corporate power, because msm is a corporate power themselves.

Everyone who has stepped in a hospital as provider or patient knows an insurance executives job is to quietly kill hundreds to thousands of people a year and profit from it.

Of course there's oil companies, cigarettes, alcohol, guns, weapons, and a lot of other industries that do this.

Because the real quiet part of capitalism is that its valuation of human life is very very very small unless they have money. Have many criticisms of economics, but this is the biggest one. Capital owned/controlled by a human is all that is valued, otherwise you are zero or negative.

> Msm won't say the quiet part out loud if it involves corporate power

You have the incentives backwards. Nobody is thinking of the collective. The story that sells today is David v Goliath. If you want a speaking gig on cable television, you need to help turn this murder into a symbol. (And no judgement. Media is media.)

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