OP is confusing "prosecution" with "persecution", thus making this whole thread impenetrable

They mean "persecution"

With the small caveat that you are not a judge, either appointed or elected.

Brought to justice? Is this the kind of "justice" you advocate for every transgression or are you making an exception for this one? Who decides what the penalties are? You? What if some other evil CEO committed some other nebulous "crime" but only a bit less serious, what would he deserve? Just a beating in the street? An hour in your personal torture dungeon?

In a civilized society we have institutions that dispense justice. They operate on the principle that a law must be broken first. If you don't like the law, then you first need to get the law changed. You don't get to decide unilaterally who gets punished how much and for what.

Lives are more important than shareholder value and no feduciary lawsuit would ever rule otherwise.

Indeed. That's why murder is illegal, not to mention a moral abomination. I didn't read the rest of your comment.

He was maximizing value for the shareholders of his company. That's what happens in capitalism.

If you're going to analyze the moral balance sheet of every private company then you're going to need to be more consistent. Any major oil company will surely account for far more damage to people (not to mention other creatures) than this health insurer. Do all their CEOs deserve extrajudicial capital punishment too?

What about you personally? What are the wider effects of your personal choices of diet, for example, or mobility? Not great, I'd guess. Perhaps you don't merit a bullet, but maybe some prison time is warranted?

Yes. He was a cog, I am one and so are you.

It really is a conundrum. Group festivities seem almost designed to make the people on the margins of society feel worse about themselves. And yet try to imagine a society without such events. It would be even worse (and of course no such society has never existed). This whole problem is exacerbated so much by the fractured nature of modern urban life. In the past it was not even possible to be alone at Christmas, because nobody much was ever alone.

Anyway, as something of a marginal type myself, I agree with suggestions others have made. If you try hard enough, you really can see through the myth of social "success" and "failure". At that point, festive dates will begin to seem like what they are: just dates. As for "getting company", this one's pretty easy. Join some social group with regular events, and make it a fixture in your diary. You'll meet new people and eventually things will move on from there. But be patient! All human relations are about the hours invested. So if you haven't taken this first step already, there's no time to lose. Make it your new year's resolution.

I second every word of this. Great advice, beautifully articulated.

Completely unreadable without the paragraph breaks! But probably a great argument.