* You might have mixed feelings about one particular target, but what about emboldening all the people who would choose other targets? Think of all the mentally unstable people, with access to firearms, who believe the most ridiculous propaganda that's being shoveled to them, about being under existential threat from domestic enemies. Won't any surge of political murders presumably be by the sickest, stupidest, and shittiest people?
* What about ostensible threats against CEOs and other powerful people being used as a pretext to give them special protection by the state, and corresponding encroachment on the liberties of others? Could this elevate a fascist overclass even more?
I'm not sure this is vigilante justice, I mean what crime did the CEO commit?
It's probably closer to what he's charged with, murder "intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, influence the policies of a unit of government..."
Which I guess is a form of terrorism - Mangione killing a CEO to protest the health system is along the same lines as the IRA killing British military to protest the occupation of parts of Ireland and bad treatment of the catholics.
I'm not sure how it ends. With the IRA they had talks and agreed to be a bit nicer the the catholics. Probably Mangione will be jailed but the popular support for him suggests something should be changed with the health system.
The healthcare situation is so difficult for so many people that most would probably agree with everything you're saying but still create an exception for health insurance executives. Your might see more sympathy for vaping companies than health insurance.
Maybe we can't create an exception in isolation. Sure, you can jury-nullify conviction of a particular one. But if that inspires a dozen unstable other people, to think they'll be heroes for killing some prominent liberal/ethnic/gay/trans/etc. person, then, even if you later convict those murderers, it won't bring back the victims.
What we should instead be doing is figuring out how to regulate and prosecute some of the many awful abuses and injustices in society. We have the government framework for it. It's just not been working as well as it could.
> we should instead be doing is figuring out how to regulate and prosecute some of the many awful abuses and injustices in society
There's nothing to figure out. We know what the abuses are and we know how they can be fixed. Its just that the abusers are in control of the system and will prevent any attempt lesson that power. If you know of way that can be overcome, let us know.
Historically the answer has been violence. Just ask czar Nicholas, or Louis XVI. The sad thing is that we as Americans have forgotten what freedom actually is, and what it actually means. It's been conflated with doing whatever you want. People have been tricked into handing over power to "fix" things when in reality we've had the power to do so all along. It's getting to the point now where we've let two monolithic parties completely corner all political power, and it will be very hard to wrench it away again. Once the Democratic levers are fatally weakened there is no other route bit violence left. Americans have just sleep-walked their culture to this point.
In our own little corner of HN, maybe we can stop celebrating and enabling greed and sociopathy.
For example, imagine if OpenAI had hired a bunch of principled people who were aligned with their ostensible charter. Instead, when it came down to actions rather than words, it looked like almost every employee would rather have a monetary bonus.
> In our own little corner of HN, maybe we can stop celebrating and enabling greed and sociopathy.
It's oxymoronic though, as much as I agree with you this corner of the internet is first and foremost brought by an accelerator which celebrates greed and sociopathy above all.
> Think of all the mentally unstable people, with access to firearms, who believe the most ridiculous propaganda that's being shoveled to them
That is a misnomer. Most people with guns are not unstable, but has been influenced by a barrage of propaganda like "it is OK to take the law into your own hands", "Only real men own guns" and even trump as president got into the act in 2020 when he lost the election. 99.999% mentally unstable people harm themselves instead of others. Just look at US entertainment, most of it is about a single person, usually with a gun, getting his way using violence instead of methods that are legal.
Maybe with this sad occurrence, CEOs will force their bought and paid for congress critters to do something about gun violence in the US. You know, like real gun control.
> threats against CEOs and other powerful people being used as a pretext to give them special protection by the state
Isn't this already the case? Crimes affecting high profile people get prioritized.
In some places police doesn't even come out for property crimes anymore, but that's only for the plebs. You are likely to get a much better response if you're rich and/or well-connected.
Furthermore, due to the complexity of the law, access to justice requires significant lawyer efforts, which you can afford if you're rich. If you're not, you get to try your luck with the overworked public defender.
> Think of all the mentally unstable people, with access to firearms, who believe the most ridiculous propaganda that's being shoveled to them, about being under existential threat from domestic enemies.
Anyone who assassinates is considered "mentally unstable."
Any Adolf Eichmann walking around today is considered an innocent who is just doing business.
I don't even think that CEO was the problem. It's the lack of government regulation and public option in America. The problem is the politicians.
I saw someone mention that online and the response was "now you get it". People are advocating targeting politicians too. That is no different from Jan 6th people etc. I see people who are supposed to be smart making such insane "structured" claims. The level of cognitive dissonance in support of that guy is absolutely insane.
Across all religions and philosophies, one simple message is delivered: do not do to others what you do not want others to do to you. In simpler words: don't be an asshole.
Thompson violated this simple rule.
This killing showed that as Chomsky stated, given enough time the police becomes private security for the ultra wealthy. The difference in response when a member of the oligarchy is a victim versus when he is a perpetrator is staggering.
I am glad that finally Americans are seeing with their eyes that unbridled capitalism is shit for everybody except for the super rich, and wish for more and more revolts.
There are many more-prolific killers who had manifestos and weren't charged with terrorism. That charge is being selectively applied here for pretty obvious reasons.
But the intent of 5e murder wasn’t to strike terror. Well, it did strike terror into CEOs of health insurance companies. It doesn’t feel like that alone would meet the bar.
They can probably easily find a jury of ordinary people who have never been denied insurance or don't have anyone in their friend or immediate family group who were denied insurance.
There are 305 million Americans with health insurance. Most of them only have ever used their health insurance for things like annual checkups, routine illnesses like colds and flus, routine vaccinations and lab tests, cuts, sprains, burns, allergies, prescriptions, routine prenatal care, routine pediatric care, maybe something more serious like pneumonia or an STD or a broken bone, and similar.
Even the most penny pinching insurance companies usually pay for those things without any hassle. As a result polling shows that most Americans are actually reasonably satisfied with their own health insurance in that regard. Lots of dissatisfaction with the high premiums and deductibles though.
It's only a small percent who encounter something that the insurance company balks at.
No they don’t, there is no limit to how many jurors you can strike for cause. It would take them a long ass time to select them but it’s not unusual in cases like this for the process to take as much as a year.
But at the end of the day the prosecution will have a jury that holds little sympathy. Anyone who did has already posted on social media about this which will be used to strike them.
And that is assuming the prosecution won’t find additional grounds for striking them such as anyone who had their claim denied recently.
Jury selection always favors the prosecution and for high profile cases it favors them more since the public is naturally tainted.
The jury will end up being made up of 55-65 white male executives from up-state New York simply because they will end up being the only ones who have not tainted themselves with shitty takes on Twitter.
The murder 2 charge is a slam dunk, so are the weapon charges.
This will not be a case of jury nullification since it requires a unanimous consensus.
Any ideological holdouts would likely won’t pass selection and for sure won’t hold up to sequestering since there is no way a judge would call for a mistrial after an already lengthy selection process until weeks and maybe even months pass in deliberations.
Anyone who thinks this guy would get off needs to get out of their bubble.
In previous threads here a lot of commentators offered rather poor opinions of UnitedHealthcare insurance. In particular they have a reputation of denying claims at a rate of twice the industry average.
I've noticed that all the comments I've seen from people unhappy with UHC and all the stories I've read are about the kind of plans that most people here from the US would have. E.g., a plan that they got through their employer, or that they bought on the ACA marketplace, or that they bought directly from the insurer.
Question: does UHC's terribleness also apply to their Medigap plans?
My understanding is that if Medicare approves a medical service then your Medigap plan cannot deny payment for their share of the costs. Pretty much all the complaints about UHC are about them trying to deny payment by claiming the service was unnecessary or that a cheaper alternative service needs to be used. So if you are getting a Medigap plan to help with Medicare deductibles and coinsurance and/or to get an annual cap on out of pocket total Medicare costs and don't care about any extras the plan offers then there isn't a reason to not consider UHC.
I know that some Medigap plans provide extra coverage beyond what is required by regulation for Medigap plans. For example some add coverage to things Medicare does not cover, such as foreign travel medical insurance. I would guess that on those extra things they can try to deny claims, so if you care about those extra than UHC's reputation should give you pause.
From several doctors and elderly people I talk to, UHC absolutely will deny payment for Medigap. They take advantage of gaps in state systems delays in reporting or will outright fake not receiving evidence of Medicare approval.
i know we do non tech news as well but this doesn’t seem notable or interesting enough to qualify. maybe an article about the history of jury nullification would be better
Well we do have one of the highest-karma posters on the site continuing to insist on every single thread that Luigi doesn't have widespread support and anyone who thinks he does is in an echo chamber...
As an anecdote, every single person I've talked to in-person wholeheartedly supports Luigi and believes executing the parasites until they stop using us as machinery is a good thing.
I think it's important to not call out individual users, as that doesn't really facilitate the "curious" discussion that we as a community aspire to achieve every day.
the interesting part is the ramifications of propaganda on the justice system. This is a very concrete example of how you can interfere with the rule of law if you can sway public opinion enough on an issue (this is true regardless of whether you believe the zeitgeist on luigi is organic or not). It's a dynamic more of us should be aware of. The public generally has more agency than we realize.
Public opinion IS an intentional and legitimate part of the rule of law in the US. That is why the jury is composed of peers, and has the ultimate veto power.
That's not interfering with the rule of law, it's conducting it.
Interfering would be the insurance companies using money to buy public opinion.
> Interfering would be the insurance companies using money to buy public opinion.
Which is very likely happening. I read that there are two manifestos going around, one real and one fake. The real one is much easier to get behind and sympathize with than the fake one. Yet somehow the fake one is being published in most places and publications refuse to answer the question as to why they're refusing to publish the real one.
From a tech perspective I think it's interesting how social media is going to affect this case. The jury problem is absolutely a function of bottom-up memefication versus old tech centralized broadcasting with a bunch of other factors sprinkled in.
I do believe it was a self-defense killing, with self referring in a selfless sense to the entire nation.
If Daniel Penny could walk free for defending a Subway car, then why does Luigi deserve any less for stopping the person that was wrecking the health of millions to line his own pockets.
United healthcare is used by many tens of millions. Anyone who has had it for a few years has a very high probability of having a pre-authorization or a claim unfairly rejected, certainly including me. Even if the personal probability of a denial is 5%, that's still millions. United is not equipped to play doctor.
It's not just about one CEO.
Thoughts on why not to condone vigilante justice:
* You might have mixed feelings about one particular target, but what about emboldening all the people who would choose other targets? Think of all the mentally unstable people, with access to firearms, who believe the most ridiculous propaganda that's being shoveled to them, about being under existential threat from domestic enemies. Won't any surge of political murders presumably be by the sickest, stupidest, and shittiest people?
* What about ostensible threats against CEOs and other powerful people being used as a pretext to give them special protection by the state, and corresponding encroachment on the liberties of others? Could this elevate a fascist overclass even more?
I'm not sure this is vigilante justice, I mean what crime did the CEO commit?
It's probably closer to what he's charged with, murder "intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, influence the policies of a unit of government..."
Which I guess is a form of terrorism - Mangione killing a CEO to protest the health system is along the same lines as the IRA killing British military to protest the occupation of parts of Ireland and bad treatment of the catholics.
I'm not sure how it ends. With the IRA they had talks and agreed to be a bit nicer the the catholics. Probably Mangione will be jailed but the popular support for him suggests something should be changed with the health system.
The healthcare situation is so difficult for so many people that most would probably agree with everything you're saying but still create an exception for health insurance executives. Your might see more sympathy for vaping companies than health insurance.
Maybe we can't create an exception in isolation. Sure, you can jury-nullify conviction of a particular one. But if that inspires a dozen unstable other people, to think they'll be heroes for killing some prominent liberal/ethnic/gay/trans/etc. person, then, even if you later convict those murderers, it won't bring back the victims.
What we should instead be doing is figuring out how to regulate and prosecute some of the many awful abuses and injustices in society. We have the government framework for it. It's just not been working as well as it could.
> we should instead be doing is figuring out how to regulate and prosecute some of the many awful abuses and injustices in society
There's nothing to figure out. We know what the abuses are and we know how they can be fixed. Its just that the abusers are in control of the system and will prevent any attempt lesson that power. If you know of way that can be overcome, let us know.
Historically the answer has been violence. Just ask czar Nicholas, or Louis XVI. The sad thing is that we as Americans have forgotten what freedom actually is, and what it actually means. It's been conflated with doing whatever you want. People have been tricked into handing over power to "fix" things when in reality we've had the power to do so all along. It's getting to the point now where we've let two monolithic parties completely corner all political power, and it will be very hard to wrench it away again. Once the Democratic levers are fatally weakened there is no other route bit violence left. Americans have just sleep-walked their culture to this point.
In our own little corner of HN, maybe we can stop celebrating and enabling greed and sociopathy.
For example, imagine if OpenAI had hired a bunch of principled people who were aligned with their ostensible charter. Instead, when it came down to actions rather than words, it looked like almost every employee would rather have a monetary bonus.
> In our own little corner of HN, maybe we can stop celebrating and enabling greed and sociopathy.
It's oxymoronic though, as much as I agree with you this corner of the internet is first and foremost brought by an accelerator which celebrates greed and sociopathy above all.
> Think of all the mentally unstable people, with access to firearms, who believe the most ridiculous propaganda that's being shoveled to them
That is a misnomer. Most people with guns are not unstable, but has been influenced by a barrage of propaganda like "it is OK to take the law into your own hands", "Only real men own guns" and even trump as president got into the act in 2020 when he lost the election. 99.999% mentally unstable people harm themselves instead of others. Just look at US entertainment, most of it is about a single person, usually with a gun, getting his way using violence instead of methods that are legal.
Maybe with this sad occurrence, CEOs will force their bought and paid for congress critters to do something about gun violence in the US. You know, like real gun control.
> threats against CEOs and other powerful people being used as a pretext to give them special protection by the state
Isn't this already the case? Crimes affecting high profile people get prioritized.
In some places police doesn't even come out for property crimes anymore, but that's only for the plebs. You are likely to get a much better response if you're rich and/or well-connected.
Furthermore, due to the complexity of the law, access to justice requires significant lawyer efforts, which you can afford if you're rich. If you're not, you get to try your luck with the overworked public defender.
They are not "high profile people". They are the ruling class.
And I am glad people are waking up to the reality they live in.
> Think of all the mentally unstable people, with access to firearms, who believe the most ridiculous propaganda that's being shoveled to them, about being under existential threat from domestic enemies.
Anyone who assassinates is considered "mentally unstable."
Any Adolf Eichmann walking around today is considered an innocent who is just doing business.
I don't even think that CEO was the problem. It's the lack of government regulation and public option in America. The problem is the politicians.
I saw someone mention that online and the response was "now you get it". People are advocating targeting politicians too. That is no different from Jan 6th people etc. I see people who are supposed to be smart making such insane "structured" claims. The level of cognitive dissonance in support of that guy is absolutely insane.
Reality is simple.
Across all religions and philosophies, one simple message is delivered: do not do to others what you do not want others to do to you. In simpler words: don't be an asshole.
Thompson violated this simple rule.
This killing showed that as Chomsky stated, given enough time the police becomes private security for the ultra wealthy. The difference in response when a member of the oligarchy is a victim versus when he is a perpetrator is staggering.
I am glad that finally Americans are seeing with their eyes that unbridled capitalism is shit for everybody except for the super rich, and wish for more and more revolts.
Let's call it a second French revolution.
It won't happen, but jury nullification seems appropriate for a case where barely relevant charges are being added to send a message.
"Terrorism"...
For a very small subset of the population.
I mean it kind of is. with a manifesto and everything. the idea was to send fear through the action
There are many more-prolific killers who had manifestos and weren't charged with terrorism. That charge is being selectively applied here for pretty obvious reasons.
But the intent of 5e murder wasn’t to strike terror. Well, it did strike terror into CEOs of health insurance companies. It doesn’t feel like that alone would meet the bar.
I guess US and western foreign policy is terrorism then.
We just put “counter” in front of “terrorism”
I'm sure they can find a jury of 12 CEOs/(m/b)illionaires who are far removed from such downstair people things as being denied insurance.
They can probably easily find a jury of ordinary people who have never been denied insurance or don't have anyone in their friend or immediate family group who were denied insurance.
There are 305 million Americans with health insurance. Most of them only have ever used their health insurance for things like annual checkups, routine illnesses like colds and flus, routine vaccinations and lab tests, cuts, sprains, burns, allergies, prescriptions, routine prenatal care, routine pediatric care, maybe something more serious like pneumonia or an STD or a broken bone, and similar.
Even the most penny pinching insurance companies usually pay for those things without any hassle. As a result polling shows that most Americans are actually reasonably satisfied with their own health insurance in that regard. Lots of dissatisfaction with the high premiums and deductibles though.
It's only a small percent who encounter something that the insurance company balks at.
No they don’t, there is no limit to how many jurors you can strike for cause. It would take them a long ass time to select them but it’s not unusual in cases like this for the process to take as much as a year.
But at the end of the day the prosecution will have a jury that holds little sympathy. Anyone who did has already posted on social media about this which will be used to strike them.
And that is assuming the prosecution won’t find additional grounds for striking them such as anyone who had their claim denied recently.
Jury selection always favors the prosecution and for high profile cases it favors them more since the public is naturally tainted.
The jury will end up being made up of 55-65 white male executives from up-state New York simply because they will end up being the only ones who have not tainted themselves with shitty takes on Twitter.
The murder 2 charge is a slam dunk, so are the weapon charges.
This will not be a case of jury nullification since it requires a unanimous consensus.
Any ideological holdouts would likely won’t pass selection and for sure won’t hold up to sequestering since there is no way a judge would call for a mistrial after an already lengthy selection process until weeks and maybe even months pass in deliberations.
Anyone who thinks this guy would get off needs to get out of their bubble.
OT: A question about UHC.
In previous threads here a lot of commentators offered rather poor opinions of UnitedHealthcare insurance. In particular they have a reputation of denying claims at a rate of twice the industry average.
I've noticed that all the comments I've seen from people unhappy with UHC and all the stories I've read are about the kind of plans that most people here from the US would have. E.g., a plan that they got through their employer, or that they bought on the ACA marketplace, or that they bought directly from the insurer.
Question: does UHC's terribleness also apply to their Medigap plans?
My understanding is that if Medicare approves a medical service then your Medigap plan cannot deny payment for their share of the costs. Pretty much all the complaints about UHC are about them trying to deny payment by claiming the service was unnecessary or that a cheaper alternative service needs to be used. So if you are getting a Medigap plan to help with Medicare deductibles and coinsurance and/or to get an annual cap on out of pocket total Medicare costs and don't care about any extras the plan offers then there isn't a reason to not consider UHC.
I know that some Medigap plans provide extra coverage beyond what is required by regulation for Medigap plans. For example some add coverage to things Medicare does not cover, such as foreign travel medical insurance. I would guess that on those extra things they can try to deny claims, so if you care about those extra than UHC's reputation should give you pause.
From several doctors and elderly people I talk to, UHC absolutely will deny payment for Medigap. They take advantage of gaps in state systems delays in reporting or will outright fake not receiving evidence of Medicare approval.
That's not a problem; it's a feature.
Now that’s democracy
Could you also call it mob rule?
12 randomly selected unarmed people sitting in room is hardly a mob.
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i know we do non tech news as well but this doesn’t seem notable or interesting enough to qualify. maybe an article about the history of jury nullification would be better
Well we do have one of the highest-karma posters on the site continuing to insist on every single thread that Luigi doesn't have widespread support and anyone who thinks he does is in an echo chamber...
As an anecdote, every single person I've talked to in-person wholeheartedly supports Luigi and believes executing the parasites until they stop using us as machinery is a good thing.
I think it's important to not call out individual users, as that doesn't really facilitate the "curious" discussion that we as a community aspire to achieve every day.
Is this sarcasm? Continually repeating the same specious argument because you’re a partisan ideologue isn’t fostering intellectual curiosity.
the interesting part is the ramifications of propaganda on the justice system. This is a very concrete example of how you can interfere with the rule of law if you can sway public opinion enough on an issue (this is true regardless of whether you believe the zeitgeist on luigi is organic or not). It's a dynamic more of us should be aware of. The public generally has more agency than we realize.
Public opinion IS an intentional and legitimate part of the rule of law in the US. That is why the jury is composed of peers, and has the ultimate veto power.
That's not interfering with the rule of law, it's conducting it.
Interfering would be the insurance companies using money to buy public opinion.
> Interfering would be the insurance companies using money to buy public opinion.
Which is very likely happening. I read that there are two manifestos going around, one real and one fake. The real one is much easier to get behind and sympathize with than the fake one. Yet somehow the fake one is being published in most places and publications refuse to answer the question as to why they're refusing to publish the real one.
> … insurance companies using money to buy public opinion
Or using money to buy politicians to bring federal terrorism charges.
Though it’s probably covered by the payments they’ve made already
Exactly. In elections, politics and policy are too complicated for the average voter. Being likable goes an incredibly long way.
From a tech perspective I think it's interesting how social media is going to affect this case. The jury problem is absolutely a function of bottom-up memefication versus old tech centralized broadcasting with a bunch of other factors sprinkled in.
I kind of half expect him to be acquitted under the "needed killin'" doctrine.
I do believe it was a self-defense killing, with self referring in a selfless sense to the entire nation.
If Daniel Penny could walk free for defending a Subway car, then why does Luigi deserve any less for stopping the person that was wrecking the health of millions to line his own pockets.
Daniel penny murdered a poor, black person.
Luigi mangione killed a rich, white one.
Maybe my perception of America is wrong, but I bet it's not.
> the person that was wrecking the health of millions
How did you arrive at millions?
United healthcare is used by many tens of millions. Anyone who has had it for a few years has a very high probability of having a pre-authorization or a claim unfairly rejected, certainly including me. Even if the personal probability of a denial is 5%, that's still millions. United is not equipped to play doctor.