I think there’s something a bit off about your discussion of the right’s leap-to-conclusions about the guy who murdered Charlie Kirk. I do basically agree with you—they were absolutely not entitled to talk as if they knew he was some sort of radical leftist before any evidence was in—but I don’t think I buy that the relevant base rate is the fraction of all domestic terrorists or all extremist murderers, because your typical right-wing domestic terrorist isn’t trying to murder a right-wing propagandist like Kirk, he’s trying to blow up a mosque or an abortion clinic or murder a Democratic congressperson.
The appropriate prior for “guy who shot Charlie Kirk is a radical leftist” certainly wasn’t anything like the 99% that might have justified the immediate see-how-the-left-persecutes-us rhetoric from people on the right. But it also wasn’t the 5% or whatever you would guess just from the fraction of domestic terrorism that’s perpetrated by leftists.
(My understanding of the current state of the evidence is that the killer wasn’t in any useful sense a radical leftist, but that his motives for murdering Kirk were more left than right. On the other hand, I suspect that his more-right-than-left background helps to explain why the course of action he chose was shooting Kirk rather than anything else.)
I’m pretty sure that even when you look at base rates you find that most violence done to people on the right is done by other people on the right. Obviously it would not be as Extreme as right-wing violence on left-wing targets but the right is so much more inclined to use violence that your base assumptions should always be that he was probably someone on the right and then move from there.
I think that hurts a lot of our feelings but if we’re trying to be good rationalist that should be the way we think
I think it’s probably true that most political violence done to rightists is done by other rightists (but I haven’t attempted to check; surely there must be some statistics out there) and that it was dead wrong for a bunch of right-leaning commentators to assume that Kirk’s killer was an extreme leftist. (I think it would have been dead wrong for them to do so even if, say, 70% of political violence done to rightists were done by leftists.) I was just pointing out that it isn’t enough just to point to statistics saying that a large majority of political-violence-as-a-whole is done by rightists.
(Gruesome example: in the ongoing Gaza horror, the IDF has killed a lot more people than Hamas, but if you find a violently-dead Israeli soldier there then “Hamas did it” is a better hypothesis than “the IDF did it”.)
I think there’s something a bit off about your discussion of the right’s leap-to-conclusions about the guy who murdered Charlie Kirk. I do basically agree with you—they were absolutely not entitled to talk as if they knew he was some sort of radical leftist before any evidence was in—but I don’t think I buy that the relevant base rate is the fraction of all domestic terrorists or all extremist murderers, because your typical right-wing domestic terrorist isn’t trying to murder a right-wing propagandist like Kirk, he’s trying to blow up a mosque or an abortion clinic or murder a Democratic congressperson.
The appropriate prior for “guy who shot Charlie Kirk is a radical leftist” certainly wasn’t anything like the 99% that might have justified the immediate see-how-the-left-persecutes-us rhetoric from people on the right. But it also wasn’t the 5% or whatever you would guess just from the fraction of domestic terrorism that’s perpetrated by leftists.
(My understanding of the current state of the evidence is that the killer wasn’t in any useful sense a radical leftist, but that his motives for murdering Kirk were more left than right. On the other hand, I suspect that his more-right-than-left background helps to explain why the course of action he chose was shooting Kirk rather than anything else.)
I’m pretty sure that even when you look at base rates you find that most violence done to people on the right is done by other people on the right. Obviously it would not be as Extreme as right-wing violence on left-wing targets but the right is so much more inclined to use violence that your base assumptions should always be that he was probably someone on the right and then move from there.
I think that hurts a lot of our feelings but if we’re trying to be good rationalist that should be the way we think
I think it’s probably true that most political violence done to rightists is done by other rightists (but I haven’t attempted to check; surely there must be some statistics out there) and that it was dead wrong for a bunch of right-leaning commentators to assume that Kirk’s killer was an extreme leftist. (I think it would have been dead wrong for them to do so even if, say, 70% of political violence done to rightists were done by leftists.) I was just pointing out that it isn’t enough just to point to statistics saying that a large majority of political-violence-as-a-whole is done by rightists.
(Gruesome example: in the ongoing Gaza horror, the IDF has killed a lot more people than Hamas, but if you find a violently-dead Israeli soldier there then “Hamas did it” is a better hypothesis than “the IDF did it”.)
Are we talking about political violence or interpersonal one? Can you lay out usual ideological infights? Big government/Jews/Trump?