Getting Away With It

For the sake of team unity and communication, Nanxi made a radical suggestion: “I said: Hey, let’s get an apartment!” In the Enplug world, no one gets salaries: all money is poured back into the company, and in turn, the company provides. Chores are split among the housemates, and grocery shopping is a team-building activity.

And yet, according to Gallup, the abolition of the estate tax is widely viewed as a higher priority than the survival of more than 10 million people for whom jobs do not exist.

This notion of priority cannot be the result of self-interest. Nor is it the product of altruism. No moral framework I am familiar with will produce such a response. It does not arise from any coherent idea of justice, or fair play, or equal treatment or prudence.

So where does such a response come from?

Ursula and Sabina Eriksson are a pair of Swedish twins who came to national attention in the United Kingdom in 2008 after an apparent episode of folie à deux, which resulted in unique footage of insanity on the M6 motorway, and the killing of Glenn Hollinshead. No drugs or alcohol were involved in any of the incidents. Their actions have never been explained, other than by a rare induced delusional disorder which caused the pair to be temporarily insane.
The twins met up in Ireland, before travelling to England. After their odd behaviour caused them to be left at an M6 service station, they ran on to the motorway numerous times, and were struck by oncoming vehicles, causing Ursula to be incapacitated. Sabina refused medical aid and attacked a police officer, at which point she was arrested. After being released by police in Stoke-on-Trent, Sabina then was taken in by a local resident, whom she later killed in an unprovoked attack. After jumping off a bridge into a busy road she was arrested, and later pleaded guilty to manslaughter with diminished responsibility. She was sentenced to five years imprisonment. The trial had virtually no legal precedence.