Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt
from the what-say-you dept
This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is n00bdragon with a comment about the behavior of Grok and LLMs in general:
LLMs are just bias engines. That’s literally what they do. That’s how they work. They find patterns (biases) and replicate them. Not all biases are bad. Sometimes you want a machine that can find biases so that you can question them. Sometimes you want a machine that can replicate biases, because assuming the way things have been done is the way they should be done again is a handy rational starting point.
Hopefully it becomes pretty clear to the next generation that social structures and facts are no place for these things. These are areas that require judgement, which is the exact opposite of a bias, and something that LLMs simply aren’t designed to provide.
In second place, it’s AmySox with a comment about UnitedHealth trying to silence critics in the wake of their CEO’s murder:
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” – John F. Kennedy
United Healthcare has made peaceful revolution against its policies impossible. They have no one but themselves to blame for what follows. Maybe not to the extent of killing, but I would have expected other forms of violence against their policies.
Of course, as I’ve said many times, the purpose of the American healthcare system is no longer to treat sick people, if it ever was; the purpose of the American healthcare system is to funnel money from sick people into the pockets of billionaires. And any attempt to change this meets with failure, since the people who could change it are in the pockets of those billionaires.
Peaceful revolution is impossible. No one should be surprised about what follows.
For editor’s choice on the insightful side, we start with an anonymous comment from that same point. this time in response to a comment separating the violence of the murder from the company’s practices:
The problem is that this framing can be perceived to depict that it’s only wrong to violently murder people, but it’s just a neutral act of business to functionally kill millions of people by setting up a systemic denial of life-saving service that they’re actively paying the company to provide.
Why is the violent murder of one person morally more offensive than slowly murdering millions more?
Next, it’s That One Guy with a thought about the Grok MechaHitler fiasco:
‘How dare you bring attention to reality, this is a post-reality country!’
Worth remembering that the person that’s excusing Grok going super-nazi because that’s how a majority of it’s users act like apparently is the same person that sued a company for pointing out that ads were being shown next to pro-nazi content and claiming the report wasn’t factual or realistic.
Over on the funny side, our first place winner is Thad with a comment about Kash Patel and Tulsi Gabbard wasting resources to root out government employees who aren’t MAGA enough:
You know, call me crazy, but I’m starting to think these people aren’t actually interested in improving government efficiency.
In second place, it’s MrWilson with a reply to a BDSM joke about connected devices that you don’t really own:
To be fair, you kind of have to be a masochist to buy into these product rentals.
For editor’s choice on the funny side, though things haven’t picked up too much in terms of funny comments, there are a couple more that earned badges to highlight. First, it’s Doctor Biobrain with a comment about doubting Trump’s claims about people who thank him:
Hey, now! Don’t you be doubting Trump’s Sir Stories. Just last week I had five big strong men with tears streaming from their eyes come up to me on their knees and said “Please, sir. Tell everyone that we really do exist and to stop mocking us for our tears. That’s a medical condition and makes us feel like dogs to hear their disgraceful cackling.” Believe me, it’s true.
Finally, it’s Ben with a comment about UnitedHealth’s law firm and its demand letters:
Time to check the mailbox
Is that a letter incoming from Clare Locke I see.
Paging Ms Streisand. Could Ms Streisand come to the front page, please?
That’s all for this week, folks!
Comments on “Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt”
OMG how low the standards of humour must have reached for that nugget of wit (sic!) to get noticed!
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Based on this comment, maybe you should refrain from the slinging of projectiles within your home’s transparent, fragile walls.
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ohhhhhhhhh. I apologize. I misunderstood.
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u mad bro?
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Oh, you meant yours, not mine. Carry on.
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Carrying on, sir!
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Mine however was a literal act of comedic genius and definitely not low effort or obvious…
When is killing justified?
Amazing to see that folks at Techdirt are putting more blame here on an insurance company with a 6% profit margin than hospitals that charge $600 for an ER visit that only required a band-aid.
Seriously, I’d love to know the moral calculus used here to justify assassination as a political/economic tool here.
Been an occasional reader of Techdirt starting with the SOPA/PIPA era and I still find some good insights here about how the right-wingers don’t understand Section 230 and how content moderation at TwiX played out. But it’s kind of odd to see justifications for assassination that misunderstand where the real source of medical costs come from.
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I’ll answer since I’m the one who made the statement you’re quoting.
There’s plenty of blame to go around and it’s not mutually exclusive. Blame the insurance companies and the hospitals. In some instances, they’re owned by the same people. Also, insurance negotiations with hospitals can affect hospital rates, so it can also be two sides of the same coin in that respect as well.
But ultimately, the hospitals weren’t mentioned because a hospital CEO wasn’t shot in the streets and a hospital CEO’s death wasn’t being focused on over millions of other people.
Insurance companies and hospitals also aren’t the only companies gouging poor people and contributing to unnecessary deaths. We can throw in food manufacturers, arms manufacturers, tobacco and alcohol companies, etc. et al.
This isn’t really relevant since I think we should have universal health care. But in a sense, yes, raising prices functionally contributes to deaths (i.e. kills people) because it locks them out of otherwise affordable, accessible health care while wealthier people get elective services they don’t need. This is true in many aspects of society, not just health care.
Do you think the CEO has no influence over business practices and policies? Do you think the people reviewing and rejecting the claims are acting autonomously without oversight from executives?
But also, you’d need to ask the person who killed him. The issue isn’t that CEOs should or shouldn’t be killed, just that it’s myopic to pretend the death of one wealthy CEO is morally more concerning than the deaths of millions at the hands of a systemic denial of health care, which is a human right.
If it’s more than one, it’s too many. You don’t need to count more than that. It’s cause enough to reform the system and get universal healthcare, but capitalism is all about monetizing every possible human need – food, water, shelter, clothing, health care, mental health care, etc.
Again, it’s not about justifying a murder. It’s about not pretending that particular murder outweighs the immorality of systemic abuse and neglect that is functionally equivalent to mass murder.
Thompson didn’t have to run a health insurance company. He chose that and contributed to how it systemically denied coverage to people needing medical care and he was generously rewarded for that by the company/board. He could have taken up sewing plushy alpacas and selling them on Etsy if he had moral qualms with his job.
Re: Re: Again, when is killing justified?
And when is assassination justified?
That’s a disputed goal (what counts as having “health care”? If it’s free but rationed to the point of delaying life-saving treatments, is that still “health care”?), not a concrete policy plan for how such services would be produced.
Which is what would happen if you tried to reduce the number of claims denials, given that we’re talking about a firm with a 6% profit margin and the money for additional treatments would have to come from somewhere.
Can you name specific policy choices he implemented that justify killing him?
Calling any good or service a “human right” isn’t the same thing as having a plan for producing it in the first place. You previously acknowledged that higher premium costs (which naturally result from reducing claims denials) would also lead to deaths from people not being able to afford insurance in the first place. “Claims denials” alone don’t tell us whether an insurance company is good or bad, let alone whether killing it’s CEO is justified.
And how do you know when it’s more than one compared to another possible alternative approach UHC could have taken?
That’s a goal, not a plan
Compared to what? You’re still going to pay a cost for those goods whether it’s the government or the market providing those. I’m all for whatever produces the best quality at the lowest price possible in any given context – all trade-offs considered.
You haven’t actually proven that that’s what UHC does, let alone that Thompson did anything that promoted such an outcome.
Yet again, you haven’t proven that he made avoidable decisions that killed anyone. You already acknowledged that higher insurance premiums from fewer denials would also lead to deaths from people not affording insurance to begin with.
$0.2 per UHC customer to be a bit more exact (ten million in annual compensation / 50+ million customers).
The number of lives saved by that change in job title is zero.
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When is functionally killing millions of people by rationing care based on a profit-driven model justified?
You’re ignoring what I said and pretended I said something different. I’ll quote myself for you to reiterate the point:
“Again, it’s not about justifying a murder. It’s about not pretending that particular murder outweighs the immorality of systemic abuse and neglect that is functionally equivalent to mass murder.”
Universal health care has worked better and less expensively than the current US system in countries where conservatives hadn’t yet fucked with the system. We pay more for worse care here. We already have delayed life-saving treatments, delayed such that they’re not even available to poor people. What’s a three month wait compared to never? We have people with “good” coverage whose doctors’ decisions get overridden by business majors. I’d rather a system that says, “you have to wait for a life-saving procedure because we’re busy saving other people’s lives also” than the current system of “you don’t get that life-saving procedure because you’re not worth covering for that procedure and also we have elective procedures for wealthier people on the schedule.”
You seem confused. I’m not an elected official. I don’t need to have a slideshow ready for you to justify a preference for a better system. People far more experienced than me have models for how such a system could be implemented. You can look them up.
What if profit weren’t a factor at all? What if basic human needs weren’t able to be commodified and profited from?
That’s a loaded question. Whether anything justifies killing him is subjective. But as for specific policy choices that are objectively bad, you can just look at the general statistics. Under his leadership, the company posted billions more in profits while denials for claims increased, including being twice the rate of the industry average for claims denials. Those profits where money went weren’t the “cost” of care.
Calling a human right a good or service diminishes its inherent nature. Pretending randos on the internet have to have complex plans to resolve complex issues in order to have a perspective on the issues is absurd. I’ll never be in charge of implementing such a system, so whether I personally have a good plan for implementing it is completely irrelevant. And not having “a plan” isn’t necessary for seeing that the current system is sociopathic and leads to unnecessary deaths in favor of profit for already wealthy people.
Yes, we should just get rid of premiums and implement universal health care. You’re ignoring the rest of what I said.
Twice as high as the industry average though…That might be a good indicator that a company is bad.
Comparing our health care system to other countries that have universal health care works. We statistically pay more for worse care. We have shorter lifespans. It’s not hard to find one person who died because of denied coverage.
You don’t need a plan if you’ll never get a seat at the table where decisions are made. That’s not a valid criticism of the goal.
Except health care “costs” are significantly increased by the for-profit system. You think an aspirin in the emergency room actually costs $600?
You seem intent on denying any possible alternatives if some rando doesn’t give you a PhD thesis paper on the benefits of change.
I don’t have to. Others have already covered it. Have you not read any of the articles published on the matter?
It’s impossible for him not to have done so. The only way he could have not made such decisions is if he didn’t make any decisions at all and had no influence over the company. Are you purporting that he wasn’t actually the CEO or that his CEO title was nominal only and he never made a decision?
Yes, because health care for profit is an inherently corrupt system that puts profit over the lives of human beings. That’s a feature, not a bug of capitalism. You keep thinking that my agreement with that statement is some kind of gotcha in favor of the current system. I’m saying any for-profit system, with higher or lower denials or higher or lower insurance premiums, is still unethical by nature.
That wasn’t his only reward. He sold millions in stock before the DOJ investigation was announced. $10 million is enough money to retire on after a single year of employment. That he was employed for more than 1 year indicates that he was looking for profit, not fair compensation.
First, you don’t know that at all. By your own standards, I’m inclined to ask you for a detailed study on how a different person would have made exactly the same decisions.
But you’re especially wrong about that claim anyway. Nobody is going around murdering Etsy shop owners for their unethical medical insurance decisions as far as I know. He could have saved his own life with such a job change apparently.
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Here ya go, murder excuser.
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Didn’t say the trust fund kid was a hero.