About Reality and Fiction
December 17, 2024 5:38 PM Subscribe
When I first heard about the killing of United Health Care CEO Brian Thompson, I immediately thought about a story in Cory Doctorow's collection Radicalized. Doctorow posted his reflections on the similarities and writing process a few days ago. You can also read the short story for free.
I had read this story as well and it was the first thing I thought of, too, when I heard about the shooting. When I finished the story I thought "Well that was far-fetched. It'll never happen." Goes to show how wrong I was on that.
posted by zardoz at 7:28 PM on December 17, 2024
posted by zardoz at 7:28 PM on December 17, 2024
That was excellent. Thanks for the link.
I don't want people to kill insurance executives, and I don't want insurance executives to kill people. But I am unsurprised that this happened. Indeed, I'm surprised that it took so long.
This is exactly my thought. And Doctorow's wonder at
But why do American men who murder their wives and the people who cut them off in traffic and random classrooms full of children leave the health insurance industry alone?
goes through my mind all the time. As a Canadian, who's never seen a gun in the flesh outside of on the hip of a cop, I think it every time there's a school shooting — but not just health insurance workers. I mean, if you think you have to murder someone (which you don't), at least point the gun at someone the world would be better off without.
Mass shootings are incomprehensible, but the chosen targets are even more so, even knowing that we shouldn't expect an irrational mind to make rational decisions.
Say what you want about Thompson's murder. Crazy, brazen, wrong, uncalled for... the one thing it was was understandable. It was utterly comprehensible.
posted by dobbs at 7:31 PM on December 17, 2024 [24 favorites]
I don't want people to kill insurance executives, and I don't want insurance executives to kill people. But I am unsurprised that this happened. Indeed, I'm surprised that it took so long.
This is exactly my thought. And Doctorow's wonder at
But why do American men who murder their wives and the people who cut them off in traffic and random classrooms full of children leave the health insurance industry alone?
goes through my mind all the time. As a Canadian, who's never seen a gun in the flesh outside of on the hip of a cop, I think it every time there's a school shooting — but not just health insurance workers. I mean, if you think you have to murder someone (which you don't), at least point the gun at someone the world would be better off without.
Mass shootings are incomprehensible, but the chosen targets are even more so, even knowing that we shouldn't expect an irrational mind to make rational decisions.
Say what you want about Thompson's murder. Crazy, brazen, wrong, uncalled for... the one thing it was was understandable. It was utterly comprehensible.
posted by dobbs at 7:31 PM on December 17, 2024 [24 favorites]
More clairvoyance:
posted by rubatan at 7:57 PM on December 17, 2024 [5 favorites]
” The person who terrorizes the people who terrorize you is your hero…”They’re scared enough they’re breaking out the big g***s.
posted by rubatan at 7:57 PM on December 17, 2024 [5 favorites]
For me, it reminded me of Iain Bank's Complicity, in which various rich, untouchable assholes get attacked/murdered in ironic ways.
posted by MartinWisse at 2:27 AM on December 18, 2024 [3 favorites]
posted by MartinWisse at 2:27 AM on December 18, 2024 [3 favorites]
Mass shootings are incomprehensible, but the chosen targets are even more so, even knowing that we shouldn't expect an irrational mind to make rational decisions.
The big difference between killing someone powerful and spousal murder or shooting yo a school or similar is also implicit in the fact that there’s a different term - assassination - that often gets pulled out. One assassinates someone who has power over oneself. One murders someone who one is equal to or has power over. Spousal abuse and mass shootings at schools, in particular, tend to be exercising reinforcing power and dominance, rather than challenging or upending the same.
posted by eviemath at 3:37 AM on December 18, 2024 [12 favorites]
The big difference between killing someone powerful and spousal murder or shooting yo a school or similar is also implicit in the fact that there’s a different term - assassination - that often gets pulled out. One assassinates someone who has power over oneself. One murders someone who one is equal to or has power over. Spousal abuse and mass shootings at schools, in particular, tend to be exercising reinforcing power and dominance, rather than challenging or upending the same.
posted by eviemath at 3:37 AM on December 18, 2024 [12 favorites]
Spousal abuse and mass shootings at schools, in particular, tend to be exercising reinforcing power and dominance, rather than challenging or upending the same.
Yes, but there are also many shooters who want to be infamous. The Christchurch guy, the Buffalo shooter, the Santa Monica incel... I don't remember any of their names. But I'm not soon going to forget the name Luigi Mangione.
I'm curious whether potential shooters wanting their names to be remembered are looking at this murder differently than all the other shootings in the country. And whether it will affect their decision.
posted by dobbs at 6:09 AM on December 18, 2024 [1 favorite]
Yes, but there are also many shooters who want to be infamous. The Christchurch guy, the Buffalo shooter, the Santa Monica incel... I don't remember any of their names. But I'm not soon going to forget the name Luigi Mangione.
I'm curious whether potential shooters wanting their names to be remembered are looking at this murder differently than all the other shootings in the country. And whether it will affect their decision.
posted by dobbs at 6:09 AM on December 18, 2024 [1 favorite]
zardoz, that's funny, because my first thought on Radicalized was "Well, this won't be Sci-Fi for much longer..."
posted by Rudy_Wiser at 6:09 AM on December 18, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by Rudy_Wiser at 6:09 AM on December 18, 2024 [1 favorite]
Since he's being charged with terrorism, maybe it's worthwhile to look at some research from the field of critical terrorism studies (Wikipedia). From Terrorism: A Critical Introduction, emphasis mine:
Critical scholars therefore argue that as a form of political violence, terrorism should be de-exceptionalized and treated in the same way as other forms of political violence; it should not be singled out as a separate, special category of ‘evil’ violence. In part, this is because non-state terrorism actually causes far less suffering than other kinds of political violence such as war, occupation, genocide and repression. More importantly, the field of conflict resolution has long studied ways of ending political violence and can tell us a great deal about how to deal with the roots of political violence and terrorism. Taking emancipation seriously, critical scholars argue that much greater effort needs to be put into dealing holistically and peacefully with terrorism, instead of automatically responding in kind with even greater state counterviolence. They suggest that just as negotiation, mediation, conciliation, reform, reconciliation and other forms of conflict resolution have been effective in ending civil wars, insurgencies, coups, state repression and the like, there are good reasons for believing that such approaches can also be successful in helping to end campaigns of terrorism (Jones and Libicki 2008). At the very least, terrorism scholars ought to begin engaging seriously with the very large literature on conflict resolution for its application to terrorism (Toros 2008).posted by ftrtts at 7:44 AM on December 18, 2024 [3 favorites]
I can’t stop thinking about the question posed by the host of DW News to the reporter: “In a country…synonymous with gun violence… this case is attracting a lot of attention. Why do you think that is, Laura?”
posted by Headfullofair at 7:46 AM on December 18, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by Headfullofair at 7:46 AM on December 18, 2024 [1 favorite]
"Why don't these people murder health insurance executives?" --> FTA.
It's mostly because American society is becoming more and more economically segregated and therefore the Americans who are most angry at any kind of executive are extremely disconnected physically by distance from them. So the killer has to be both irrationally angry and coherent enough to be able to execute a multi-step plan to get to the particular executive they are angry at. That's a pretty big ask, which also makes this case interesting.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:54 AM on December 18, 2024 [7 favorites]
It's mostly because American society is becoming more and more economically segregated and therefore the Americans who are most angry at any kind of executive are extremely disconnected physically by distance from them. So the killer has to be both irrationally angry and coherent enough to be able to execute a multi-step plan to get to the particular executive they are angry at. That's a pretty big ask, which also makes this case interesting.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:54 AM on December 18, 2024 [7 favorites]
The first part of Radicalized that struck me as unrealistic is how sympathetically the assassins were described - I think real successful assassins would frequently have been more privileged and less hard luck story, because people whose lives are mainly hard luck stories tend to have too much learned helplessness to effectively act on their anger and pain. It's notable, historically, that the instigators of revolutions are usually educated, charismatic to some extent, and have enough of a privileged background that they can travel and be widely exposed to ideas. Also, they have learned to turn off empathy.
Of course Mangione was the type of person to break and do the thing in real life. He had to take Ubers and print a gun, and look like a typical jock into target shooting to buy the ammunition. He had to train enough that when the gun jammed he could confidently and instantly clear it and go back to firing. He had to have a budget and good orthodontry... Or the minute he started planning he would have realised that he'd be sinking several thousand dollars that he needed to make rent into the project, and remembering all the times when he had called an Uber and got stood up because they didn't like his address. The real life guy who did the CEOssination had managed to get through an Ivy League school - and while that definitely doesn't equate to him being brilliant, it does mean that he could handle all the logistics of pre-reqs and bureaucracy, projecting confidence, getting to the front of the line, finding out what he needed to know to do the thing, and doing it. Mangione spent many of his formative years learning to turn off empathy and function despite it, when his mother kept him awake at night, screaming in pain. Very little sleep because of Mom wailing and cursing in agony, and then off to glitter and over achieve at his prep school. Mangione knew what type of hotel a CEO stayed at, before he started his research.
Two other things in Doctorow's story struck me as unrealistic - and they were both part of the happy ending. In real life if Americare were passed while the protagonist were in prison it would be a watered down version of Obamacare, at best. And his relationship to the near-perfect wife and daughter would also have been broken, because Lacey's life would have been destroyed by the fact that he got caught up in this. She would have lost her home and her job and suffered enough traumatic stress that the loyalty and love thing would have been impossible to sustain.
posted by Jane the Brown at 7:55 AM on December 18, 2024 [6 favorites]
Of course Mangione was the type of person to break and do the thing in real life. He had to take Ubers and print a gun, and look like a typical jock into target shooting to buy the ammunition. He had to train enough that when the gun jammed he could confidently and instantly clear it and go back to firing. He had to have a budget and good orthodontry... Or the minute he started planning he would have realised that he'd be sinking several thousand dollars that he needed to make rent into the project, and remembering all the times when he had called an Uber and got stood up because they didn't like his address. The real life guy who did the CEOssination had managed to get through an Ivy League school - and while that definitely doesn't equate to him being brilliant, it does mean that he could handle all the logistics of pre-reqs and bureaucracy, projecting confidence, getting to the front of the line, finding out what he needed to know to do the thing, and doing it. Mangione spent many of his formative years learning to turn off empathy and function despite it, when his mother kept him awake at night, screaming in pain. Very little sleep because of Mom wailing and cursing in agony, and then off to glitter and over achieve at his prep school. Mangione knew what type of hotel a CEO stayed at, before he started his research.
Two other things in Doctorow's story struck me as unrealistic - and they were both part of the happy ending. In real life if Americare were passed while the protagonist were in prison it would be a watered down version of Obamacare, at best. And his relationship to the near-perfect wife and daughter would also have been broken, because Lacey's life would have been destroyed by the fact that he got caught up in this. She would have lost her home and her job and suffered enough traumatic stress that the loyalty and love thing would have been impossible to sustain.
posted by Jane the Brown at 7:55 AM on December 18, 2024 [6 favorites]
It's mostly because American society is becoming more and more economically segregated and therefore the Americans who are most angry at any kind of executive are extremely disconnected physically by distance from them. So the killer has to be both irrationally angry and coherent enough to be able to execute a multi-step plan to get to the particular executive they are angry at. That's a pretty big ask, which also makes this case interesting.
I think it is also that they are not really angry at just the executives. They are angry at corporations and executives are the generals of that particular army. You kill an executive and they will just be replaced by another.
We've built a distributed unkillable AI a long time ago and it has almost fully parasitized us. Incorporation is killing us and the planet by removing almost all liability from individuals actions when done for a corporation. All you have to do is look at what can go to jail. People can have their lives suspended, destroyed or terminated. Corporations at the very worst pay a nominal fine for actions far far more devastating. The punishments are so unnoticed that corporate criminality has only increased and the penalties are shrinking and even then they are viewed as just a minor cost of doing business. At the same time corporations are lobbying to undo even the meager legislation restraining their actions.
I feel like such a conspiracy theorist wackadoodle for pointing it out because we are so immersed in it is impossible to really see. It's so psychically damaging to contemplate we just don't without people like the Wachowskis or James Cameron wrapping it up in special effects so well it buries the allegory.
posted by srboisvert at 9:40 AM on December 18, 2024 [6 favorites]
I think it is also that they are not really angry at just the executives. They are angry at corporations and executives are the generals of that particular army. You kill an executive and they will just be replaced by another.
We've built a distributed unkillable AI a long time ago and it has almost fully parasitized us. Incorporation is killing us and the planet by removing almost all liability from individuals actions when done for a corporation. All you have to do is look at what can go to jail. People can have their lives suspended, destroyed or terminated. Corporations at the very worst pay a nominal fine for actions far far more devastating. The punishments are so unnoticed that corporate criminality has only increased and the penalties are shrinking and even then they are viewed as just a minor cost of doing business. At the same time corporations are lobbying to undo even the meager legislation restraining their actions.
I feel like such a conspiracy theorist wackadoodle for pointing it out because we are so immersed in it is impossible to really see. It's so psychically damaging to contemplate we just don't without people like the Wachowskis or James Cameron wrapping it up in special effects so well it buries the allegory.
posted by srboisvert at 9:40 AM on December 18, 2024 [6 favorites]
> I feel like such a conspiracy theorist wackadoodle for pointing it out
You are not the first to see that. Scroll down to the heading "Old, slow AI"
Oh and that was a MeFite who wrote that.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 11:52 AM on December 18, 2024 [2 favorites]
You are not the first to see that. Scroll down to the heading "Old, slow AI"
Oh and that was a MeFite who wrote that.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 11:52 AM on December 18, 2024 [2 favorites]
Kudos to Radicalized for also highlighting... (expand for spoilers)
posted by The genius who rejected Anno's budget proposal. at 4:24 PM on December 18, 2024
...no-knock raids, racially-disparate police violence, coercive interrogation while incapacitated, cash bail, plea bargaining, the punitive dimension of lack of personal safety in prison, etc...
posted by The genius who rejected Anno's budget proposal. at 4:24 PM on December 18, 2024
But why do American men who murder their wives and the people who cut them off in traffic and random classrooms full of children leave the health insurance industry alone?The one thing that stands out to me about modern American violence is how consistently it’s been about punching down. The wealth and power flows disproportionately upwards, leaving a lot of people feeling (usually correctly) like they’re worse off than they deserve to be, and it makes them angry. On the other hand, American cultural assumptions forbid channeling that anger towards the people at the top. The problem is not that the rich and influential are robbing me blind. It’s that I think I deserve to be one of the ones doing the robbing. The problem isn’t that the people who consider themselves above me have everything. It’s that the people I consider beneath me have anything.
There is an imaginary line in the American psyche. The people above that line deserve everything, and the people below that line deserve nothing. Much of the fear and hatred we see play out every day emerges from people who are terrified they fall below the line and desperate to prove that they do not belong there. If you shoot at the bosses, you’re admitting which side you’re really on. If we were able to look at it objectively, we’d see we are practically all so far below the line daylight from the surface can never reach us, yet we still act like drowning men desperately piling on top of one another as if salvation were only inches out of reach.
Thus we mourn but otherwise tolerate the “senseless tragedies” because those are the pressure release events that prevent the whole system from exploding. The horror of the superficial irrationality shocks us away from confronting the fact that although the specific act was senseless, the mounting anger is not. Somebody punching down is “mentally ill,” which is thought-terminating. Somebody punching up is a “terrorist,” which is equally thought-terminating. The fact that this constitutes a no-win situation intentionally constructed to keep us in our place no matter how untenable that position becomes is exactly the thought we are meant to be terminating. We only wish attacking innocents were unthinkable. In America attacking the capital class tends to be literally unthinkable, in the Orwell sense. We can see the machinery at work right now, moving heaven and earth to turn us away from that thought.
posted by gelfin at 3:54 AM on December 19, 2024 [5 favorites]
I suppose VA privatization would be the perfect next step in the Luigi Mangione saga. lol
As Trump names Rep. Doug Collins R-GA as VA pick, firing and privatization come back into the spotlight
Project 2025 Will Spell the End of Veterans’ VA Health Care
posted by jeffburdges at 5:17 AM on December 22, 2024
As Trump names Rep. Doug Collins R-GA as VA pick, firing and privatization come back into the spotlight
Project 2025 Will Spell the End of Veterans’ VA Health Care
posted by jeffburdges at 5:17 AM on December 22, 2024
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posted by dsword at 6:52 PM on December 17, 2024 [3 favorites]