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Comment by BoxFour | Hacker News Reader

That may feel acceptable, but I hope those people remember it when someone controversial they admire meets a similar fate, greeted by applause from the other side.

Once we start tacitly approving of extrajudicial killings, it doesn’t stop with just those you dislike or even just the outspoken figures. Consider how many completely innocent civilians died during the Troubles or the French Revolution, or how easy it would’ve been for someone completely innocent to get harmed here.

It’s easy to approve of this in a vacuum, it’s just a path full of extreme cognitive dissonance.

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One of the many purposes of the justice system is to serve "justice" so people don't feel the need to take it in their own hands. The fact that so many people feel this murder is justified shows a clear breakdown of the justice system. Which should give everyone pause because that path does lead to the terrors you describe.

But the path to solving that has to involve adjustments to the system that address this mismatch, not just condemning the act or creating some huge diversion in the hope people will forget about it.

I would say that this is not only one of its proposes, but by far the most important. The system primarily prevents violence by convincing people they don’t need to commit violence to achieve justice.

If that starts to break down, people in power need to wake up and fix it. The system does not, cannot, protect them from the masses entirely by force. I fear that they have forgotten.

I’m not disagreeing.

I don’t think we should rejoice that justice has failed so miserably that people are applauding extrajudicial killings.

It’s a really, really, really bad thing.

It is absolutely not the duty of citizens to bend to an unjust system, but rather that of the justice system to reflect the ethics of its citizenry. Clearly there is a severe disconnect and "civil society" reached a breaking point around this issue.

What do you mean, “once we start”? It has always been. The only really unusual thing about this instance is that the target was not the sort of person who’s traditionally been seen as deserving it.

Things have notably gotten worse over the last decade or so, if that hasn’t been made abundantly clear.

Perhaps, but on a longer time horizon none of this is new.

On a longer time horizon the norm is brutal warfare that leaves many innocent people dead.

I don’t think we should be so keen to embrace that.

Even in times of peace, Americans love our righteous killings and murderous folk heroes.

I’m not keen to embrace it. But I think the finger-wagging is idiotic. Chastising people will accomplish nothing except for making them think you’re out of touch.

Folks disturbed by this outpouring of support for this murder should instead be asking why people feel that way. Maybe it’s because of a system that treats their lives as an expense to be minimized and gives them no recourse. If wide support for Luigi Mangione worries you, maybe look at fixing that.

Seems like you’re awfully annoyed by this conversation so I’ll let it go, but I hope you remember this convo the next time this happens to someone.

Right now, Daniel Penny is being celebrated by half the country for killing Neely, and the other half wishes something like this would happen to him.

I keep getting this response and I do not understand it. Why would I change my opinion just because other people might disagree?

It’s especially bizarre here because I haven’t even expressed an opinion about the killing. All I said is that love of killers is nothing new, and if you want it to stop then you need to change the circumstances that make people like killing, rather than just telling them that they’re bad.

There is a belief that Daniel Penny acted in the direct defense of those in the area. That is quite different than killing a CEO who is probably going to be replaced by the same type of person.

> greeted by applause from the other side.

Considering the other side is a minority of top-level executives and media outlets, I wouldn't bank much on that.

People are going to celebrate killers regardless, as they always have, when the perpetrator shares the viewpoint of the majority. It happened with Jesus and Barabbas, it happened with Cromwell and Charles I, it happened with Louis XVI and the French revolutionaries.

In fact, I'm not surprised that Luigi has a bigger fanbase than the Trump shooter. The majority then were in awe of Trump, if not openly cheering him. Here, they're cheering Luigi, with some even insinuating that it was his plan to get caught (something which might as well be true).

> Considering the other side is a minority of top-level executives and media outlets, I wouldn't bank much on that.

The other side is often 50% of the country. Whatever controversial figures you like, near 50% of the country would gladly applause or at least quote Clarence Darrow if they were brutally murdered.

Something to keep in mind.

Trump just got elected and is appointing a cabinet of billionaires.

It should be noted that the context with Jesus and Barabbas is probably the failed Jewish revolt against Rome that led to the destruction of the temple in 70CE, with the gospel accounts looking to separate the emerging gentile Christian movement from the Jewish rebels.

It's similar to war heroes. Yes, Abraham Lincoln killed people. Yes, we could avoid glamorizing him and empathize with the poor southerners. But generally, war heroes are idolized. This guy is like a war hero who killed someone on the other side.

That's already happening. Just yesterday someone got acquitted of murdering a homeless person in NYC. The only thing that's different here is that it was a CEO who got killed instead of one of the peasants.

Yes, near 50% of the country is cheering that he was acquitted and someone was killed. The other 50% would be glad if he faced extrajudicial punishment.

Not a good state to be in.

Murder wasn't even one of the charges, so even if he had been found guilty on all counts it still wouldn't justify you calling him a murderer

I don't think that the law necessarily defines whether or not someone is a murderer.

Stated another way, the law's job is to act in accordance with right and wrong, not to define it.

I mean, we’re already there. There wasn’t a shared reality in the past few years, and now we even have the generative tools to ensure there is even less shared reality.

Don’t be too glad to celebrate it, is my point.

Thankfully don’t admire anyone that kills people to boost profits

You might! You’d be surprised how many people have ties to the “defense” industry.

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