Summary
Brian Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealthcare, was fatally shot in a premeditated attack outside the New York Hilton Midtown before speaking at an investor conference.
The gunman, still at large, fired multiple times, leaving shell casings marked with the words “deny,” “defend,” and “depose.”
Authorities suggest Thompson was targeted but remain unclear on the motive. His wife confirmed prior threats against him.
Analysts speculate a possible vendetta tied to his company. The case raises questions about executive security, as Thompson lacked personal protection despite known risks.
As of about a month ago there had been ~320 murders in NYC this year.
Yet this single one has captured the media’s attention nationwide and cops seem to be heavily focused on this one.
Because modern society at pretty much every institutional level sees the wealthy and powerful as not just more important than us, but they dont even see us. Hell, compare this to school shootings that only make local news now.
Historically, societies like this end in an incredibly brutal fashion. And until the wealthy and powerful really can build terminator style robot armies…
The masses are always going to win.
It’s kind of the natural consequences of hyper concentration of a finite and essential resource. People rarely sit around and starve voluntarily, and once the majority are starving, people start acting like a mob.
We see it day to day over minor stuff where people just refuse to follow societial norms. Everyday we’re shown that rules don’t really matter, and none of the people who matter are held accountable. If someone isn’t physically stopped from doing something, they take that as permission. Hell, that was the defense of most 1/6ers.
The social contract was invalidated a long time ago, people are just now realizing it. And that’s the only thing that really seperates us from animals.
Crashing out is gonna be the norm pretty fucking soon, I don’t think we have 4 years or that trump will be able to hold society together.
There’s a very high chance we’re gonna live in some interesting times.
I think the biggest thing to emphasize - and you mentioned it but I think it bears repeating over and over - is that when the system fails to enforce justice, people will seek justice themselves. This is the social contract you mentioned. I think we should expect more of this until the system is reformed and people like this do face justice within it.
“When peaceful disobedience doesn’t work the people don’t stop being disobedient, they stop being peaceful.”
Not really.
Look up the origin of the FBI. Hoover was a low level clerk when he was handed the reins. He didn’t have much of a budget but he did have the willingness to sit and do a lot of research.
When the time came to go after Emma Goldman the government had reams and reams of paper ‘proving’ how dangerous she was.
From now on, the CEOs will travel with security squads, and President Trump will authorize them to shoot to kill anyone who comes in fifty feet of the VIP.
This is more likely to be a one-off, like Gamestop.
It will take just a bit more pressure for people to also walk in squads. There’s plenty of guns to go around.
Let me guess. You’ve never actually been in a gunfight, or been in the ER after a gun fight.
Correct. That doesn’t stop me from being able to use my imagination to see what the material conditions some people face could make them do. I do it by putting myself in these shoes. Consider people who’ve lost loved ones because of one of these fellas. Some might feel they’ve nothing left to lose, entertain suicide, decide to take a bastard or two instead. As conditions get worse, the number of such people will grow. I don’t think people who care about ending up in the ER would be part of this.
I wish I could live in a world where there’s no such thing as ricochets and friendly fire deaths.
Try expanding your imagination to include things like that. Life isn’t a movie or a video game where every bullet only hits the intended victim.
Also, WW1 started because one brave shooter decided to stand up and be counted.
Unintended consequences are a bitch.
All of this makes sense but none of it will change the mind of the person who shot the guy recently or the next one, or the number of such people the system creates. I’m merely pointing out that the system creates these people and they will kill others. The person who killed the CEO recently was already beyond the reasoning you’re suggesting. There’s no point considering these rational reasons when we have proof some folks don’t stop because of them. Instead I think it’s useful to look at what conditions got a person to disregard them. If we want to make a prediction we could observe how those conditions are likely to develop. I think that part is obvious. So I conclude the system will create more such people. If they get numerous enough, I speculate they might start organizing into groups too.
Read some history. The Minute Men thought they could stop the British. It didn’t work. The Redcoats were stopped by a British style army and the entire French navy.
Also, you can’t talk about squads and lone gunmen at the same time
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It’s like you are having a different conversation from the other person.
Them, repeatedly: These conditions will create people desperate enough to take measures into their own hands, like we’ve just seen.
You: Well it won’t work. And I’m going to provide a logical example of where similar things have failed.
Them: I’m saying these are the conditions that create the sorts of acts we’ve just seen. People are or are becoming desperate enough that the possible futility of their actions won’t be a factor.
You: Well those acts will fail. Ever hear about…
People who are desperate enough to take these actions aren’t weighing their decisions against historical record, or against any concern for any rational assessment of success. The point is that we’ve reached the point where people are desperate enough to take these actions, and the level of desperation being felt at large is unlikely to decrease during the next four years at least.
A bit of a tangent, but Gavrilo Princip wasn’t really the cause of WW1 (and WW2 which was on some level is an extension of WW1).
His actions were the spark and he has gone down in history for his assassination, but in an abstract, analytical sense his actions had nothing at all to do with the beginning of WW1.
I don’t agree.
Individuals and their actions matter.
Look at what this thread is about. We wouldn’t be talking if the shooter hadn’t acted.
The state of healthcare in the US is exactly the same as it was yesterday. But the discussion has changed dramatically
The tensions between the USSR and the West were as bad as the ones pre-WW1. Individual actions kept things from going into all out war.
I am just saying Serbian independence movement in context of Austro-Hungary was only a small part of the buildup to WW1.
German unification and expansionism (but failure to establish colonies), weakness of the Ottoman Empire (this was going on for centuries), internal issues in Tsarist russia, changes in warship building dynamics in the early 20th century, general rise of socialism, rise of national self-determination, increase in literacy rates among the plebs, urbanization. etc.
Oh course Gavrilo Princip’s actions mattered. His name is still somewhat well known over a hundred years later. But there were many other very important moments w.r.t. start of WW1.
How is their medical experience relevant?
https://www.amny.com/new-york/manhattan/nyc-neighborhoods/harlem/two-teens-charged-gang-shooting-7-year-old/
Will you ever see Tesla Optimus aka Tesla Bot the same way again?
That’s obviously the end goal Musk is going for.
But I’m by no means the first person who realized the only thing the masses have going for us is sheer overwhelming numbers, and the day the wealthy have robot soldiers we’re fucked because by then they won’t need our labor either.
We go from being individually expendable to the entirety of us being expendable.
It’s gonna happen eventually, so we can’t just keep alternating between neoliberals and fascists, regardless of which one is in charge when it happens, we’re all still fucked when the wealthy and powerful don’t need us.
Poor people just need to cobble together EMP weapons if there are robot oppressors. Robots couldn’t be wirelessly controlled or have any wireless antennas without being EMP vulnerable.
That was a well written post, but DAMN am I sick of living in interesting times!
I want boring times please for awhile. BORING times.
I hope this is a start and that it will continue. They have left no other alternative
That said, very few of those murders were
notpoint blank assassinations in public during the day. That’s sort of a bigger deal.Edit: Me not inglesh gud.
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Oops. I’m an idiot and I need more sleep.
Dude. This event is like a page out of Batman. If you don’t think this is news, I can’t imagine what you think is.