Like anyone who’s read Cory Doctorow’s Radicalized (now free to read here, and you should go read it), I’ve thought a lot recently about its central conceit of an online message board where people stiffed by insurance radicalize each other into gruesome acts of violence. The story is hard to read: It’s vicious in its implied critique of U.S. healthcare companies, but the people being radicalized are also ugly in their response to those companies’ callousness.

I’m very glad that Doctorow took the time to write about the connections many people have been making after the recent UnitedHealthcare murder. I appreciate his thoughts, I largely agree with them, and I had never made the connection between the story and incel culture, which is fascinating. I never think violence is the answer, but we all ought to be radicalized in more productive ways by how badly this system is failing us all.

• Radicalized
• Cory Doctorow
• UnitedHealthcare murder
• health care