Ask Lemmy

I have no idea how to answer your question, I just want to point out something you hinted at, intentionally or not: The UHC CEO and other ghouls like him have killed more Americans than Bin Laden could ever dream of. Hell, I think even Adolf would be impressed.

It is impossible to accurately quantify how many deaths and human years lost can be directly attributed to Brian Thompson. UnitedHealthcare themselves may have some data but there are also indirect deaths and shortened life spans as a result of denied or delayed treatment.

Yes, of course we can estimate it. We can just guess, that’s estimation. From there, it would have to come along with clues, or metrics, though. At that point, that’s when the real problem emerges: each company has a completely different impact on the planet, economy, culture, etc.

So, in other words, you can’t proceed with a single model, and therefore the models are difficult to compare with one another in terms of their accuracy.

It’s almost better to, instead of trying to measure each company (depressing, time consuming, complex) just come up with a threshold of what constitutes too much death. Then it becomes clearer that the problem is that we’re looking for a certain tally to determine if a line has been crossed or not, when we already know the answer:

One preventable death is enough to warrant a major response.

No amount of bureaucracy or legislative tissues can change the fact that it’s morally wrong to broker death for profit. Scale of profit doesn’t matter, plausible deniability doesn’t matter. It’s the end of someone’s life for money. Either it is okay, or not.

We often get caught up in the numbers because they introduce a debatable, grey terrain where the gravity of what we’re really discussing isn’t as hard to face. But it’s the trolley problem, and ultimately most of the actions we do in the interests of debating it just serve the purpose of letting us talk and ignore the lever. Meanwhile the trolley barrels on.

First order, 2nd order or third order becomes an issue as you point out, gun deaths assigned to Winchester or to the shooter or to the Governments who allows legislation for it to happen ? ? Another example, cigeratte smoke, contact from particulates on residuals left on inanimte objects (3rd order) kills thousands of people, whose "fault"? Should you approach anyone seen smoking and rightly accuse them of manslaughter for third order impacts ? Or just shoot them becase it's a "greater good" ?

I read an article once on how much Artic ice the average American melted annually though car emissions, how many do they kill through car manslaughter vs car pollution, is that then treated like gun deaths? Assigned to Ford or Toyota, or to the individual ? What about voters who choose not to elect politicians who then support car use reduction via public and alterate transport even if they dont drive themselves ?

No train driver delivering inmates to Auswitch killed anyone but we hold them somewhat responsible, not the company making the trains not those building the trains.

What about those working in ammunition factories suppying Israel ? Vicarious liability is a thing. Just rhe CEO ?

Is the wife who shoots her abusive husband responsible? What about the "terrorist" from Afghanistan who had their family whiped out by a US combatant and bombs a Mall in the US ? Revenge, or justice, or ? Should the US Army be held responsbile for it ? The Government? the voters ?

I don't think it's a slippery slope, I think it's impossible to calculate and i don't think theres any solution. I do think a bunch of people will hold wildly differing opinions eg i think the Unabomber was right and justified and Manson was wrong ... for another example. Was a terrorist like Washington right ? Only becase he won.

I'm not sure how you would do it, but I'm pretty sure that whatever number you come up with can safely be tripled.

Big companies become like alien organisms that are embodied in big buildings and employ human beings as blood cells. They are predators that consume human life energies.

Are you planning something special? :D

No, indirectly everyone's responsible. CEOs are just doing their job and they answer to the board, the investors, and the law.