Coombs Yep be interesting to see what the "pro-democracy revolution" looks like this time. They've been pretty terrible everywhere else.
(Rest of the) World News
This all happened a lot quicker than anyone thought, when Aleppo fell recently some thought they’d put up a fight but with Russia + Iran not backing Assad all folded quickly.
Plenty of info out there about Jolani who leads the rebel group. It’s true there is plenty to celebrate about Assad being removed from power. But as highlighted in many other nations the transition from a dictator does not guarantee a better path forward for a country and its people.
Jolani is well known by western media and appears open to Western scrutiny. He and his rebels may be seen “favorably” as they’re Sunni. I’m curios to see how they pull favors from Turkey (in exchange for a return of Syrian refugees) and how they balance internal vs external (Palestine/Israel) interests.
The less local and international panic you have and the more Jolani seems like a responsible actor instead of a toxic jihadi extremist, the easier his job will become. Is it totally sincere? Surely not," he said.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/interview/abu-mohammad-al-jolani/
The speed of HTS taking Damascus has caught me way off guard, and reminded me I know bugger all about Syria. After the way Assad and the Syrian Army stood down the FSA and ISIS through to 2015/16, albeit with brutal Russian strikes in Aleppo, I'm surprised how quickly this has all happened.
I'm encouraged that Jolani has directed no damage to public institutions. It'd be a bloody shame if Syria got carved up. Back in 2015 or so I read Patrick Cockburn's book on the rise of ISIS and at the time, what was evident was that the "reconstruction" of Iraq and the civil war in Syria had led to a lot of very, very poor Sunni farmers. Keeping economic activity going is vital.
Speaking of which, I read yesterday that 85% of livestock in the Gaza strip is dead.
Coombs Michael Weiss is a massive arsehole so I'm not sure how that frame works for him
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JazzG I mean, al-Shar'a has already been up to purges and imprisonment of hundreds of people in his own groups. Doubt he'll have any qualms imprisoning children, especially if they are not religiously compatible. He's already said minorities will be fine...as long as they adjust their practices to align with his brand of Islam. I'm not sure there are any lesser evils, here.
Oh I don’t disagree with you, there is no ideal option here but I wont be mourning Assad’s collapse after what he’s done there.
Those prisons being emptied will have some nasty people but also good people who were imprisoned for political reasons.
Burnwinter — it wasn’t just HTS though. As they began to grow in stature a number of other groups committed to attacks and demonstration of power.
Kurdish groups and other Syrian rebels have been involved, and smaller local militias/groups.
Lots of players involved.
MistaT Yes, it's similar to during the civil war of 2011–2016 or so, when the "Free Syrian Army" had dozens of different groups and tendencies before IS appeared but we were initially told they were all democratic revolutionaries, at least until that became untenable.
Apparently al-Golani (or al-Sharaa now) is having to shut down other rebels as much as slam the door shut behind Assad.
Re-posting to a more appropriate thread:
Couldn't help but have an ironic chuckle that the accused guy's manifesto apparently rails against the evils of corporate America....yet he was seen just prior to the shooting at a Starbucks and then later arrested eating at McDonalds.
This one has definitely divided opinions on both sides of the political spectrum. Even people on the right while they don't condone the murder aren't exactly mourning his death either. A deeply flawed system in America that something like this would need to happen to bring it into the media spotlight.
I cautiously approve of the logic of the murder committed by this kid. He seems pretty confused overall, but it'd be hard to argue the defence of the man he shot, and I'm impressed by his follow through.
It might well be a better world if a few more CEOs of predatory insurers got assassinated: it sounds as if UnitedHealthcare has a lot of blood on its hands. Anyone who mourns Brian Thompson could pause to think about the people whose lives his company's procedures shortened.
This clip is hilarious. They have no sense of irony whatsoever.
Murder is a bad solution for any problem, in all cases without exception.
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Coombs I look forward to the day we can accord similar gravity to deaths inflicted by policy and procedure.
I just had a look at the stats in order to write this post, obviously take these back of the envelope estimates with a grain of salt, but I doubt they are too dramatic.
UnitedHealthcare serves around 50 million customers, and since this murder occurred it has become notorious for having a claim denial rate double the industry average. The company is currently in the news for delaying or denying claims to stroke and fall victims, and for being sued for using AI known to be faulty to classify claims.
Let's hypothesise that every year, 10,000 customers of UnitedHealthcare are denied a claim that would otherwise pay for some standard medical treatment that would prolong their life by at least 1 year.
I'd say it's a fairly conservative figure, not unreasonable:
- the death rate is about 0.75% which would mean around 375,000 UnitedHealthcare customers dying per annum—giving a conservative baseline estimated number of moribund UnitedHealthcare customers at any time
- hypotheses:
- around one in three of these moribund customers makes a health insurance claim (125,000 claims)
- around one in three of those claims is denied, in line with the reported claim denial rate of 32% (~40,000 claims)
- around one in four of those denied claims would involve a potentially life-extending treatment … (~10,000 claims denied that would've extended life)
Off the top, that would be a minimum 10,000 years of human life foreshortened by UnitedHealthcare claim denial each year. Quite possibly more of course. I put it to you that I'm being quite modest here, and a fairer estimate would actually be higher.
If instead UnitedHealthcare performed at industry average levels on claim denial, and only denied 15% instead of 30% of its claims, its customer base would receive a hypothetical minimum 5,000 years of life extension.
Every year, mind you. So that's a conservative estimate of 5,000 extra years of life every year that could be lived if UnitedHealthcare was only as shit as the average health insurance provider, instead of a lot shitter. That's a hell of a lot more years than Brian Thompson had left in him.
Murder's no good, but a vast corporation that does nothing to moderate its profiteering at the expense of life and happiness is no good either.
I accept you can follow this kind of "systemic" argument into the weeds of cause and effect quite quickly, and run aground on questions of whether the kind of methodology I'm using to score the impacts of UnitedHealthcare's business practices is fair. In fact, that's just the kind of analysis insurers pay actuaries to do. However, on the face of it, CEO assassin Luigi Mangione seems to have picked out a target who really deserved it. I think it's very, very likely Brian Thompson personally signed off on decisions which led to a gratuitous, stochastic kind of human carnage.
In the absence of a workable political system and mass political power capable of bringing companies like UnitedHealthcare to heel, I'd say let the murders continue until CEO behaviour improves.
To put it another way, my old man has had six months of chemotherapy and also spent two months in a rehab hospital after a stroke-induced fall in the past couple of years, as well as receiving countless other forms of ancillary treatment both at home and in clinical facilities.
He looks like he'll live another few years, now that he's clear of cancer and his cognition and bodily health have become more stable. If he were a UnitedHealthcare customer in the US health system, I reckon he'd either be dead or a pauper.