• forrcaho@lemmy.world
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    25 days ago

    I can’t get inside the head of any of the crazies who go on a rampage and shoot up a school or a house of worship, but it gives me comfort to think that such people now know that if they shoot a CEO instead of a classroom full of children they will be regarded as having made a positive contribution to society. I really hope school shootings will go down after this, and I think they may well.

  • werefreeatlast@lemmy.world
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    25 days ago

    Its the same reality as before except they realize how close they are to the edge separating the game where they abuse us from the part where they don’t get to play the game.

    All of us play the game daily…go to work, do some good stuff, come home, eat, sleep. The good stuff. Why do we get so little and they get so much?

    • OttoHasslein@lemm.ee
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      25 days ago

      There’s a storm coming, Mr. Wayne. You and your friends better batten down the hatches, because when it hits, you’re all gonna wonder how you ever thought you could live so large and leave so little for the rest of us.

      Selina Kyle

  • redisdead@lemmy.world
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    25 days ago

    “When I was growing up, CEOs didn’t make millions more than everyone else in the company. I think we have to reflect on why there’s so much anger and do something about it.”, said someone who will do absolutely nothing about it.

  • iAvicenna@lemmy.world
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    25 days ago

    “I have to wonder if the demonization of corporate America and the wealthy over the last four years planted a mind virus in the assassin’s mind.”

    Plot twist: the virus was actually the billionaires

  • Chee_Koala@lemmy.world
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    25 days ago

    "…

    We are quoting anonymously those who did respond, to allow them the freedom to give us their most candid answers. These have been edited for length and clarity. Some have previously been reported by Fortune.

    **Personal responses to the killing **

    — “The disconnect between public perception and personal humanity has been striking, with some commentary bordering on dehumanizing. This highlights the critical need to humanize leadership and address the pressures faced in high-visibility roles.”

    — “My challenge is keeping employees engaged. How do you maintain a sense of purpose if you think your customers hate you?”

    — “I have to wonder if the demonization of corporate America and the wealthy over the last four years planted a mind virus in the assassin’s mind.”

    — “If you walk by the place where it happened, it’s business as usual, which gives me some perspective. This was a random killing by a mentally ill person. Let’s not turn a tragic incident into a trend. Most people don’t hate CEOs. They don’t care about CEOs. They have bigger issues to care about.”

    …"

    Wow. ‘demonization’, ‘need to humanize leadership’… Are these human people that were interviewed? Did these human persons speak anyone outside their immediate circle in the last three decades? I can hardly believe that, this is so out of touch that these folk may have never been touched by anything in their lives. I wasn’t prepared for this speedrun worldrecord to definitively prove total lack of empathy and understanding.

    • raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world
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      25 days ago

      Most people don’t hate CEOs. They don’t care about CEOs. They have bigger issues to care about [that the CEOs created for them to distract them].

      In this current discussion, people are trying to open each others eyes about that silent part.

      Also: Most people don’t hate CEOs. But we do think CEOs have no right to be making more than a thousand times what an honest working person should make, actually sacrificing lives for their profit. And when that kind of stealing and mass murder is sanctioned by the law, then what are the options?

  • varyingExpertise@feddit.org
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    25 days ago

    Most people don’t hate CEOs. They don’t care about CEOs. They have bigger issues to care about.

    “…and that’s a good thing, so we’ll see to it that it remains that way. Divide and conquer.”

    • BigDanishGuy@sh.itjust.works
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      25 days ago

      That’s almost the exact qoute in my clipboard, and pretty much my response.

      Let’s not turn a tragic incident into a trend. Most people don’t hate CEOs. They don’t care about CEOs. They have bigger issues to care about.

      They will have bigger issues to care about. the quiet part said out loud.

      How can you be so oblivious? When you’re the biggest issue people have, then you get to act all indignant when people deals with their issues.

      • winterayars@sh.itjust.works
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        25 days ago

        They aren’t oblivious, they’re just relying on the operation of our society and their personal and organizational power to protect them. They don’t give a fuck, and they don’t want to give a fuck.

  • octopus_ink@lemmy.ml
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    26 days ago

    People are in disbelief that they would be making this kid into a hero,” he told Fortune.

    Attending a conference for CEOs in New York this week, just blocks away from the site of the shooting, George found that many were shaken and deeply concerned by the reaction to Thompson’s killing. “They’re having plenty of meetings right now to discuss beefing up security,” he said of the business leaders, even as some question how much security coverage is enough. People are asking themselves, “‘What does that say about our society? Where’s our society going?’” George said.

    So they’ve learned absolutely nothing.

    Plenty of meetings to beef up security. How about plenty of meetings to understand how your greed has caused this? They sound one logical leap (that they are unwilling to make) away from understanding exactly what the problem is.

    They managed to find one and only one CEO quote that reflected anything resembling self-awareness.

    “When I was growing up, CEOs didn’t make millions more than everyone else in the company. I think we have to reflect on why there’s so much anger and do something about it.”

    • ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net
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      26 days ago

      All I can think of is a TED talk I saw where the speaker had given some presentation to a bunch of billionaires and had some q&a, and one of them who had built a bunker for themselves asked him how they could prevent their security team from turning on them in the bunker.

      The TED talk guy responded “Be kind to them?”

      And the Billionaire said “But where does that end?”

      I’ll try to find it so I can link it.

      EDIT: Found it!

  • Riskable@programming.dev
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    26 days ago

    The disconnect between public perception and personal humanity has been striking, with some commentary bordering on dehumanizing.

    Yeah it’s a lot easier to humanize someone who makes six figures than someone who makes seven. Why don’t you start there?

    Or maybe just make it so the CEO doesn’t make 700x more than the lowest paid worker. You don’t even have to reduce the CEO pay to do it! Just lift up those other people.

    • SlopppyEngineer@lemmy.world
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      26 days ago

      That’s actually been studied. Turns out that about 40 is the tipping point for most people, as in CEO earnings 40 times more than the lowest paid workers. Up to that point people think they boss earns it, above that resentment starts to grow.

      They’re at 700. Yeah, that’s dangerous. People are very sensitive about relative earning for work. Fairness is just hard wired into all animals and it’s dangerous to ignore this, although humans react a bit later and that gives a false sense if security for those at the top.

      • ObjectivityIncarnate@lemmy.world
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        25 days ago

        But it’s inevitable as a successful business grows, and the population grows. A CEO of a company of 100 people does not have the same level of responsibility as the CEO of one employing hundreds of thousands (Google says UHC employs 440,000, for example).

        Working conditions were inarguably much worse a century ago, but the gap wasn’t anywhere close to 700x back then, was it? The gap was smaller not because the CEOs were more generous, it was just because the largest businesses were much smaller.

        • SlopppyEngineer@lemmy.world
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          25 days ago

          So you’re saying large corporations need to be broken up into smaller businesses I avoid concentrating too much wealth in upper management.

          • ObjectivityIncarnate@lemmy.world
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            25 days ago

            No, arbitrarily punishing a business for being too successful is both nonsensical, and has a chilling effect on new entrepreneurship. Also, it makes literally zero difference to someone earning $10/hour if one CEO is earning over $4000/hour, or if ten CEOs are each earning $400/hour.

            Ultimately, the ratio itself doesn’t matter at all. The actual number is what actually matters. Who do you think is more likely to be more resentful, someone making $10/hour under a CEO making 50x that, or someone making $100/hour under a CEO making 50x that? Obviously the first person…if they can’t make ends meet, it’s not going to make any difference to them if the CEO gets a pay cut, the fuck do they care?

            • SlopppyEngineer@lemmy.world
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              24 days ago

              Businesses that were too successful are also called monopolies, and have a chilling effect on entrepreneurship all in their own.

              Median wage in USA is about $20/h, so the actual numbers say there are a lot of people being closer to having trouble making ends meet. Even then, the ratio matters a lot. It’s the difference between “we’re all in this together” and “some of you won’t make it but it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make”. In the latter situation there is a lot more resentment and sympathy for violence.

  • Gammelfisch@lemmy.world
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    25 days ago

    US income distribution is on the same level as fucking Russia. Bring back the tax brackets from the 1950’s and 60’s.

  • Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works
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    26 days ago

    Most people don’t hate CEOs.

    Uhhh, that actually might not be true.

    If you were to do a poll in the US I think you can crack 51%, especially if you phrase it by mentioning that they have a fiduciary responsibility to maximize profit regardless of morality.

    Edit: just had a thought. Given how much more money they make than the average worker, and that the average worker puts their health at risk by sitting at a desk so much, this might actually make sense in terms of risk/reward structure.

    If the ultra wealthy make more than 1000 than me, shouldn’t they take 1000 times more risk of dying (I’m not supporting violence).

    • john89@lemmy.ca
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      26 days ago

      I don’t hate somebody just because they’re a CEO.

      I hate all rich people though that aren’t using their wealth to improve the lives of others as much as possible.

      • slumlordthanatos@lemmy.world
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        26 days ago

        I mean, the likes of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos could end world hunger with a snap of their bony fingers, and they’re not doing it, despite the fact that they would still be wealthy beyond comprehension if they did.

        We’re asking them to do the bare minimum and utilize their wealth in a responsible manner, and they’re not even doing that much.

        • ObjectivityIncarnate@lemmy.world
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          25 days ago

          I mean, the likes of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos could end world hunger with a snap of their bony fingers

          Bullshit.

          World hunger, which has in fact decreased drastically over the past century, is not a problem that money can solve, because cost is not the reason it persists where it does.

          One major issue: food donations to poor areas tend to be hoarded and distributed unequally by the most powerful people in those poor areas.

          So we’re one sentence in, and already we need to fundamentally understand local political dynamics and either use force to ensure equal distribution, or to change local leadership structures. This is already out of control.

          You can’t just throw money at the problem and expect it to just be solved. There are real underlying societal and infrastructure issues in a lot of impoverished countries that need to be solved in order for hunger to be solved. You could ship a billion tons of food to a single starving region and there would still be millions of starving people.

          Additionally, simply handing out food would kill the domestic food industry (because who would buy food when billionaires are giving it away for free) and would make the country even more problematic.

          You should know what you’re taking about when you make ridiculous claims like this.

          • smiletolerantly@awful.systems
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            25 days ago

            You can’t just throw money at the problem and expect it to just be solved. There are real underlying societal and infrastructure issues in a lot of impoverished countries that need to be solved in order for hunger to be solved. You could ship a billion tons of food to a single starving region and there would still be millions of starving people.

            That’s a strawman. No-one said “they should just, like, buy enough food to feed the hungry”.

            When people say it would cost x to solve world hunger, they are talking about those “underlying societal and infrastructure issues”.

            So, yes. Everything can be solved with money. You can hire people to “fundamentally understand local political dynamics”, invest in research, pay to fund the programs that will enable impoverished regions to develop the means to build the infrastructure to feed themselves.

            Additionally, simply handing out food would kill the domestic food industry (because who would buy food when billionaires are giving it away for free) and would make the country even more problematic.

            Just because this is the idea you have in mind for how to solve hunger, and it is, as you rightly stated, a fucking stupid idea, doesn’t make it the only idea.

            • ObjectivityIncarnate@lemmy.world
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              25 days ago

              When people say it would cost x to solve world hunger, they are talking about those “underlying societal and infrastructure issues”.

              And those issues cannot be fixed simply by throwing money at them, making “the likes of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos could end world hunger with a snap of their bony fingers” a deeply ignorant statement.

              So, yes. Everything can be solved with money. You can hire people to “fundamentally understand local political dynamics”, invest in research, pay to fund the programs that will enable impoverished regions to develop the means to build the infrastructure to feed themselves.

              And then the warlords steal the food and redistribute it as they see fit.

              You’re deeply naive about the reality of the circumstances in places where hunger is still a major problem.

              The bottom line is, you can’t truly solve world hunger until you solve world peace, and you can’t solve world peace with money.

              There are still places in the world where slavery is legal, for fuck’s sake. Do you really, truly think things like this could still be true in 2024 if money and what/who you can buy/hire were actually the solution?

              • smiletolerantly@awful.systems
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                24 days ago

                And then the warlords steal the food and redistribute it as they see fit.

                No, you are willfully misunderstanding my point.

                There are still places in the world where slavery is legal, for fuck’s sake. Do you really, truly think things like this could still be true in 2024 if money and what/who you can buy/hire were actually the solution?

                Absolutely.

                Throwing money at solving the surface layer issues / symptoms is moot, but yes, for every new layer of problem you uncover you can ask “so what are the causes for that” until you reach something that can be fixed wit money.

                Og, and I do not believe that this has anything to do with world peace. The nations on earth without hunger problems aren’t peaceful utopias either, after all. But on the other hand, hunger does seem to cause a lot of instability…

  • naught101@lemmy.world
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    25 days ago

    Bill George, a former Medtronic CEO and executive fellow at Harvard Business School. “People are in disbelief that they would be making this kid into a hero,” he told Fortune.

    Which “people”? Who are “they” in this context?

    Actually most of those quotes read as completely disconnected from normal people’s reality…

    • DrFistington@lemmy.world
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      25 days ago

      Assholes who do the least amount of work and take 95% of the profit can’t figure out why the people who actually make the company money see them as parasites.

      Maybe have your Private jet fly you up a few thousand feet higher for a better view and you might be able to figure it out. Fucking assholes.

      It won’t be enough to eliminate the CEO’s. You’ve got to get the whole c suite and their kids. That should give them the perspective they need.

  • theangryseal@lemmy.world
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    26 days ago

    Just wanted to comment on these two.

    “I have to wonder if the demonization of corporate America and the wealthy over the last four years planted a mind virus in the assassin’s mind.”

    Fuck you! You have the mind virus. A virus which leads you to believe that the rest of us should suffer because you’re better. Eat shit anonymous CEO.

    “If you walk by the place where it happened, it’s business as usual, which gives me some perspective. This was a random killing by a mentally ill person. Let’s not turn a tragic incident into a trend. Most people don’t hate CEOs. They don’t care about CEOs. They have bigger issues to care about.”

    Then light some candles and put out some flowers you fucking cowardly parasite. Hold a vigil, gather your CEO buddies and sing Kumbaya. Be sure and post the date online so all of the healthcare CEOs know when to be there.

      • ObjectivityIncarnate@lemmy.world
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        25 days ago

        Social media is used by a tiny minority of the population.

        Thinking you can extrapolate what you see on social media into “the public” at large is the chief reason people on Reddit and Lemmy were so baffled when Harris got her ass kicked in the election.

        Be more mindful of what’s true of “the public”, and what’s true only in the echo chamber.

        • naught101@lemmy.world
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          25 days ago

          95%+ of posts and comments have been in support of a murderer, barely any opposition, even on more conservative social media like Facebook… Sure, the general public is different, but even if it’s 60%, that’s still a lot…

          • ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml
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            25 days ago

            Even if it’s 40%, that’s still a lot lol

            That’s literally like take 10 people off the street, and 4 people agree. It could be 60%, it could be 80%, etc.

  • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod@lemmy.world
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    25 days ago

    This was at the end of the article Forbes presented me with:

    Do you have what it takes to make it to the C-suite? Learn how Fortune 500 CEOs overcame surprising obstacles on the road to the corner office…

    I don’t want to make it to the C-suite. That sounds awful. I want to help specific people solve problems they have helping other people.

    Do other people think like this? Like they want a corner office and a big car? Am I that fucking abnormal that this sounds like a death sentence to me?

    • Demdaru@lemmy.world
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      25 days ago

      Lemmy tends to have skewed perception of such things. Truth is, most people want money. As much as possible in as short time as possible. There’s a multitude of reasons, from wanting a luxurious life, to simply wanting to not have to worry about the money or to retire early, but pretty much everyone wants money. Look at how many folk join the lottery.

      Hell, most of Lemmy wants student debt to be forgotten. That’s gaining money, just in reverse order. Same with distributed wealth etc.

      World spins around money, no matter how you look at it.

      But sure as hell I wouldn’t like to be in a place I hate to earn it. :/

      • Hanrahan@slrpnk.net
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        25 days ago

        Truth is, most people want money. As much as possible in a

        It’s not unreasonable to aspire to not having money worries, the stess of it is literally a medical issue eg not having to worry about meeting mortgae or rent payments, a mechanical breakdown on a car, or paying for a dental emergency, a broken limb, or buying a new pair of shoes, replacing your laptop etc.

        Much past that is based on envy and that’s where it becomes toxic with wealth inequality. It’s human nature to feel envy, you can fight it but its inate in all humans, the ONLY solution is to recognise that and to remove it by removal of inequality. The inevitable end result of not doing that is the guillotine, social instability, or in this case a bullet.

        However… :) theres a whole other issue of the people in the first paragraph, who see themselves as the “everyday volk”, being incredibly unequal to the other 90% of the world. So there’s an irony there that they need to use force to preserve thier own status quo, much like the C-suite rely on force to protect their status quo (police, army etc) . You see this play out in anti immigrant and refugee hostility, build a wall etc