After the slaying of one of America’s highest-flying health-insurance CEOs, the tenor of many reactions from the Online Left was: “Murder is never justified, BUT…”
i just don't see any moral conundrum here, extra judicial killings in a democracy is wrong, full stop. i get that josh isn't supporting the argument that this was a good murder but given the surprisingly large support for it in the culture right now, i'd expect at least a full throated explanation as to why this is never ok in a liberal society. and probably shouldn't use inaccurate information from halfwits like prof zenkus when giving the opening spiel showing why so many are murder fans now. this wasn't an uncomfortable conversation, just an unreasoned one.
The “pushing a button in Washington DC to destroy a chemical factory across the world” scenario to highlight intent and powerlessness.
A chemical factory making chemical weapons is not a morally neutral entity. A random city bus doing city bus things is a morally neutral entity.
The people who set up a chemical weapons plant within close proximity to a city or civilian population made a choice. Why do we strip the agency away from these actions.
If a government decided it would never destroy such plants because civilian life being lost is too high a cost, then truly bad actors (which do exist- it’s not all misunderstood people’s fighting for freedom) would be able to continually use such tactics to gain an advantage, which ultimately places their own people at risk because a threshold will be reached at some point.
The people building the chemical weapons plant are responsible for the loss of life, all across the world it is understood that such sites are viable targets, they make a calculated decision to build there.
A city bus is not a military target.
If someone wants to retaliate and go blow up a tank or an army base, or some bad government people as a form of protest or resistance- that’s fair game. Blowing up a bus of people for no military advantage, for nothing more than to cause suffering- these are worlds apart and it is not justifiable.
One thing Julia Galef once said that stuck with me is that if we want to be open to changing our mind on a topic the way to do that is NOT to start listening to someone with diametrically opposite views. It's to listen to someone you trust, who largely speaks your language and who you agree with, but pay attention to that one topic where they diverge.
I listened to this with my daughter in college, who is on reddit too much and surrounded by people who just cheer this thing on. I've tried before to break through her defenses on this and it was too emotional and we had to back off. But she really enjoyed this conversation and I think it got through to her that it's complex and maybe not smart.
I do wish you would have made a few points. These points I made to her are maybe what actually persuaded her.
1. This is similar to someone on the other side of the aisle killing one of the few doctors providing abortions in a red state. Do we want one person to decide what's moral and enforce it at gunpoint?
2. We _do_ still have peaceful, Democratic means to change this. Violence isn't justified as long as we can vote. They (and I) don't like that the people haven't voted for this, but if we, as a nation and Democratic party, voted for Bernie and D Senators and Representatives in huge numbers we'd have Medicare for All.
There’s a lot to say about healthcare. A few key points:
*Medicare advantage means placing a layer of private health insurance between Medicare (government-provided universal insurance for older people) and the patient. The reason people sign up for it is that it promises them perks like cheap medications and vitamins, but the private insurer has the ability to decline coverage for the wildly expensive long-term care (nursing homes, etc.) that people need as they get older, as well as other high-cost needs. It’s financially rational, but the whole scheme is elder abuse almost inherently. It’s a disaster that Medicare advantage plans in their current form are legal.
*One of the things I was told in Australia is that fully trained physicians were being taken off the government payroll and replaced by more and more junior trainees because actuarial analyses had determined that paying out malpractice lawsuits for the kids’ mistakes was cheaper than paying the real doctors to supervise them. Australia has, by many measures, one of the world’s best systems, but it is hardly free of these sorts of choices and conflicts.
*Prior authorization is infuriating, and prior auth reform is an agenda at the state level in several states that I’ve been in. To be fair, a lot of the things that get prior auths are things that other countries wouldn’t even have available. Reform usually centers around the idea that in settings where people do the same procedure over and over again, they shouldn’t have to do this BS paperwork, so they get an exception. Weird and unusual claims still get prior auths.
*The implicit assumption seems to be that claims shouldn’t be denied or subject to things like prior authorization, but unlimited health insurance is not realistic. There’s a case to be made (and I’m sure United’s top brass would make it) that there’s so much fraud and waste in American healthcare that more claims should be denied, not less. The whole discussion around how we’re spending 18% of our GDP and not getting good outcomes does not suggest that no one’s claim should ever be denied.
Listening now, so not finished but why are we talking about individual acts of violence and not addressing the violent elephant in the room of mass murder inflicted in war? That omission renders this discussion irrelevant. Rolling my eyes about these philosophers in their ivory towers.
Thanks Josh! A truly amazing episode. Tim Dean has so many nuanced insights on this troubling issue. Superman is a deontologist and Batman is a consequentialist is going to be my party conversation starter for the next year.
I think Josh and his guest both need to rewatch "Falling Down." He is not just on the way to his daughter's birthday, his ex-wife has an order of protection against him and he is possibly on the way to kill them or kidnap his daughter. Along the way he enacts some violence against some annoying people, which the audience is encouraged to cheer on so we become complicit in his actions. The only hero in the movie is the cop who should be retiring who is trying to stop him.
i just don't see any moral conundrum here, extra judicial killings in a democracy is wrong, full stop. i get that josh isn't supporting the argument that this was a good murder but given the surprisingly large support for it in the culture right now, i'd expect at least a full throated explanation as to why this is never ok in a liberal society. and probably shouldn't use inaccurate information from halfwits like prof zenkus when giving the opening spiel showing why so many are murder fans now. this wasn't an uncomfortable conversation, just an unreasoned one.
The boundary between barbarism and civilisation is thinner than a hair.
I like you Josh but this is repulsive. Bare minimum definition of liberalism is “extra judicial killing is wrong “
The “pushing a button in Washington DC to destroy a chemical factory across the world” scenario to highlight intent and powerlessness.
A chemical factory making chemical weapons is not a morally neutral entity. A random city bus doing city bus things is a morally neutral entity.
The people who set up a chemical weapons plant within close proximity to a city or civilian population made a choice. Why do we strip the agency away from these actions.
If a government decided it would never destroy such plants because civilian life being lost is too high a cost, then truly bad actors (which do exist- it’s not all misunderstood people’s fighting for freedom) would be able to continually use such tactics to gain an advantage, which ultimately places their own people at risk because a threshold will be reached at some point.
The people building the chemical weapons plant are responsible for the loss of life, all across the world it is understood that such sites are viable targets, they make a calculated decision to build there.
A city bus is not a military target.
If someone wants to retaliate and go blow up a tank or an army base, or some bad government people as a form of protest or resistance- that’s fair game. Blowing up a bus of people for no military advantage, for nothing more than to cause suffering- these are worlds apart and it is not justifiable.
One thing Julia Galef once said that stuck with me is that if we want to be open to changing our mind on a topic the way to do that is NOT to start listening to someone with diametrically opposite views. It's to listen to someone you trust, who largely speaks your language and who you agree with, but pay attention to that one topic where they diverge.
I listened to this with my daughter in college, who is on reddit too much and surrounded by people who just cheer this thing on. I've tried before to break through her defenses on this and it was too emotional and we had to back off. But she really enjoyed this conversation and I think it got through to her that it's complex and maybe not smart.
I do wish you would have made a few points. These points I made to her are maybe what actually persuaded her.
1. This is similar to someone on the other side of the aisle killing one of the few doctors providing abortions in a red state. Do we want one person to decide what's moral and enforce it at gunpoint?
2. We _do_ still have peaceful, Democratic means to change this. Violence isn't justified as long as we can vote. They (and I) don't like that the people haven't voted for this, but if we, as a nation and Democratic party, voted for Bernie and D Senators and Representatives in huge numbers we'd have Medicare for All.
To put this into (clearer) dollars and cents:
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/insurance-companies-arent-the-main
There’s a lot to say about healthcare. A few key points:
*Medicare advantage means placing a layer of private health insurance between Medicare (government-provided universal insurance for older people) and the patient. The reason people sign up for it is that it promises them perks like cheap medications and vitamins, but the private insurer has the ability to decline coverage for the wildly expensive long-term care (nursing homes, etc.) that people need as they get older, as well as other high-cost needs. It’s financially rational, but the whole scheme is elder abuse almost inherently. It’s a disaster that Medicare advantage plans in their current form are legal.
*One of the things I was told in Australia is that fully trained physicians were being taken off the government payroll and replaced by more and more junior trainees because actuarial analyses had determined that paying out malpractice lawsuits for the kids’ mistakes was cheaper than paying the real doctors to supervise them. Australia has, by many measures, one of the world’s best systems, but it is hardly free of these sorts of choices and conflicts.
*Prior authorization is infuriating, and prior auth reform is an agenda at the state level in several states that I’ve been in. To be fair, a lot of the things that get prior auths are things that other countries wouldn’t even have available. Reform usually centers around the idea that in settings where people do the same procedure over and over again, they shouldn’t have to do this BS paperwork, so they get an exception. Weird and unusual claims still get prior auths.
*The implicit assumption seems to be that claims shouldn’t be denied or subject to things like prior authorization, but unlimited health insurance is not realistic. There’s a case to be made (and I’m sure United’s top brass would make it) that there’s so much fraud and waste in American healthcare that more claims should be denied, not less. The whole discussion around how we’re spending 18% of our GDP and not getting good outcomes does not suggest that no one’s claim should ever be denied.
This one might be *too* uncomfortable for me
Listening now, so not finished but why are we talking about individual acts of violence and not addressing the violent elephant in the room of mass murder inflicted in war? That omission renders this discussion irrelevant. Rolling my eyes about these philosophers in their ivory towers.
Thanks Josh! A truly amazing episode. Tim Dean has so many nuanced insights on this troubling issue. Superman is a deontologist and Batman is a consequentialist is going to be my party conversation starter for the next year.
I think Josh and his guest both need to rewatch "Falling Down." He is not just on the way to his daughter's birthday, his ex-wife has an order of protection against him and he is possibly on the way to kill them or kidnap his daughter. Along the way he enacts some violence against some annoying people, which the audience is encouraged to cheer on so we become complicit in his actions. The only hero in the movie is the cop who should be retiring who is trying to stop him.
Another fascinating uncomfortable conversation. Thank you