You write: >Utah officials arrest Tyler James Robinson, 22, after a manhunt. Motive still being investigated, but the instant certainty about “the left” doesn’t get walked back—it just fades to silence.
But the certainty about the left being culpable has not faded to silence; see, for example, Stephen Miller’s speech at Charlie Kirk’s funeral yesterday. In my part of X, the certainty about the ideology of the assassin has been consistent.
Given the evidence so far revealed—the text messages sent to the roommate:
>”I had enough of his hatred,” Tyler Robinson wrote back. “Some hate can’t be negotiated out.”
the Anti-Facist inscription on the unfired bullet casing -
>Another casing was inscribed with lyrics from the song Bella Ciao, which honours World War Two-era partisans of the Italian resistance who fought Nazi Germany.
and the impression his mother had of his motive -
>According to an indictment, Robinson’s mother told police that over the last year or so, Robinson had become more political and left-wing, “more pro-gay and trans-rights oriented”. And in family conversations before the shooting, Robinson allegedly accused Kirk of spreading hate.
the weight of evidence leans strongly toward Robinson having strongly-felt Left politics.
And yet you write: >The Kirk case was a perfect demonstration… when the facts arrive and don’t fit the narrative—just silence. No retractions, no apologies, no “we updated our beliefs based on new information.” Just on to the next outrage.
I find this line… hard to wrap my head around. What facts arrived that did not fit the “Left assassin” hypothesis, and why do you think they outweigh the data points listed above?
Well speaking straight from base rates I would say that you should assume if there’s political violence that it is probably someone right leaning. Based on just the numbers it is still more likely for it to be right wing on right-wing violence then left-wing on right-wing violence. So that’s where we should all start.
And I want to say that the thing that bothers me is that maybe he really will be proven to be a leftist but if that is the case he is definitely a one-off fringe weirdo but that’s not what the public said and when the evidence started to come out that he wasn’t part of some leftist trans Terror cell the silence still happened.
The other thing I would point out is literally everything he engraved on the bullets is the kind of brainot black pill memes that are very prevalent in the nick Fuentes right-wing groypers fear and Nick Fuentes himself has a trans partner so it is very possible to be right-wing and trans supporting apparently. The helldivers quote, and the bellachow thing are both huge memes in that particular right-wing Circle.
Also to just be very blunt I am not a person who trusts cash Patel in the current FBI and everything about that text message and the way it’s being handled is just so slimy and weird that I give it a 15% chance that there is something strongly being hidden here. Also I work with a lot of gen Z kids cuz I was in a school and I don’t know a single one who ever wrote like that even the honor roll students with perfect grades. This part I am willing to say I could change my mind about because there are weird people who just write strangely and if we find out that all of his text messages and Discord have a very similar style of writing I will downgrade my belief about some sort of conspiracy or cover up
Yeah… so one of my problems with the post is that it presents itself as an exhortation to apply ironclad rationalist thought:
>when the tribal flags come out, you suit up. Operational definitions. Base rates. 48-hour restraint on attribution. Public updates when you’re wrong. The whole apparatus of rationalist epistemics applied to the domain where motivated reasoning runs hottest.
but when I present the data I did in my original comment, you show yourself to be overfocused on what’s possible, at the expense of what is likely.
I think the essence of rationalist practice is to be good at reasoning under uncertainty, and part of that is integrating multiple pieces of evidence. One can attack any single datum: certainly there is a possibility “Bella Ciao” was written in with a niche meme in mind, rather than an Anti-Facist idea. But “Catch, Facist!” was also written. Certainly anyone can date a trans person; but it’s more likely for a left-aligned person to than a right-aligned one, due to the right’s clear distaste for the trans movement, and the left’s clear support. These items, in conjunction with what Robinson’s mother said about his shift to the left, together, are really quite suggestive.
Against these data, there is the hypothesis that actually Robinson is on the far Right. This hypothesis requires the FBI to have fabricated or edited the messages, and further, for them to make it so the roommate does not ever say “hey, that’s not what he sent me”. It also requires Robinson’s mother to be badly wrong, lying, or for the quote from her to be misattributed or made up. I don’t think these things are likely.
This overfocus of yours on what is possible, instead of what’s likely, is partisan-driven, not “the whole apparatus of rationalist epistemics” you frame the post as.
I’m sorry that I didn’t make it more clear but the reason I didn’t update is because the information you presented me was stuff I already knew and had factored into my original calculations. That’s why I already had a response ready.
You write:
>Utah officials arrest Tyler James Robinson, 22, after a manhunt. Motive still being investigated, but the instant certainty about “the left” doesn’t get walked back—it just fades to silence.
But the certainty about the left being culpable has not faded to silence; see, for example, Stephen Miller’s speech at Charlie Kirk’s funeral yesterday. In my part of X, the certainty about the ideology of the assassin has been consistent.
Given the evidence so far revealed—the text messages sent to the roommate:
>”I had enough of his hatred,” Tyler Robinson wrote back. “Some hate can’t be negotiated out.”
the Anti-Facist inscription on the unfired bullet casing -
>Another casing was inscribed with lyrics from the song Bella Ciao, which honours World War Two-era partisans of the Italian resistance who fought Nazi Germany.
and the impression his mother had of his motive -
>According to an indictment, Robinson’s mother told police that over the last year or so, Robinson had become more political and left-wing, “more pro-gay and trans-rights oriented”. And in family conversations before the shooting, Robinson allegedly accused Kirk of spreading hate.
the weight of evidence leans strongly toward Robinson having strongly-felt Left politics.
And yet you write:
>The Kirk case was a perfect demonstration… when the facts arrive and don’t fit the narrative—just silence. No retractions, no apologies, no “we updated our beliefs based on new information.” Just on to the next outrage.
I find this line… hard to wrap my head around. What facts arrived that did not fit the “Left assassin” hypothesis, and why do you think they outweigh the data points listed above?
[Quotes are from The BBC, “The motive behind Charlie Kirk’s killing: What we know and don’t know”, published September 19, https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c7v1rle0598o]
Well speaking straight from base rates I would say that you should assume if there’s political violence that it is probably someone right leaning. Based on just the numbers it is still more likely for it to be right wing on right-wing violence then left-wing on right-wing violence. So that’s where we should all start.
And I want to say that the thing that bothers me is that maybe he really will be proven to be a leftist but if that is the case he is definitely a one-off fringe weirdo but that’s not what the public said and when the evidence started to come out that he wasn’t part of some leftist trans Terror cell the silence still happened.
The other thing I would point out is literally everything he engraved on the bullets is the kind of brainot black pill memes that are very prevalent in the nick Fuentes right-wing groypers fear and Nick Fuentes himself has a trans partner so it is very possible to be right-wing and trans supporting apparently. The helldivers quote, and the bellachow thing are both huge memes in that particular right-wing Circle.
Also to just be very blunt I am not a person who trusts cash Patel in the current FBI and everything about that text message and the way it’s being handled is just so slimy and weird that I give it a 15% chance that there is something strongly being hidden here. Also I work with a lot of gen Z kids cuz I was in a school and I don’t know a single one who ever wrote like that even the honor roll students with perfect grades. This part I am willing to say I could change my mind about because there are weird people who just write strangely and if we find out that all of his text messages and Discord have a very similar style of writing I will downgrade my belief about some sort of conspiracy or cover up
Yeah… so one of my problems with the post is that it presents itself as an exhortation to apply ironclad rationalist thought:
>when the tribal flags come out, you suit up. Operational definitions. Base rates. 48-hour restraint on attribution. Public updates when you’re wrong. The whole apparatus of rationalist epistemics applied to the domain where motivated reasoning runs hottest.
but when I present the data I did in my original comment, you show yourself to be overfocused on what’s possible, at the expense of what is likely.
I think the essence of rationalist practice is to be good at reasoning under uncertainty, and part of that is integrating multiple pieces of evidence. One can attack any single datum: certainly there is a possibility “Bella Ciao” was written in with a niche meme in mind, rather than an Anti-Facist idea. But “Catch, Facist!” was also written.
Certainly anyone can date a trans person; but it’s more likely for a left-aligned person to than a right-aligned one, due to the right’s clear distaste for the trans movement, and the left’s clear support.
These items, in conjunction with what Robinson’s mother said about his shift to the left, together, are really quite suggestive.
Against these data, there is the hypothesis that actually Robinson is on the far Right. This hypothesis requires the FBI to have fabricated or edited the messages, and further, for them to make it so the roommate does not ever say “hey, that’s not what he sent me”. It also requires Robinson’s mother to be badly wrong, lying, or for the quote from her to be misattributed or made up. I don’t think these things are likely.
This overfocus of yours on what is possible, instead of what’s likely, is partisan-driven, not “the whole apparatus of rationalist epistemics” you frame the post as.
I’m sorry that I didn’t make it more clear but the reason I didn’t update is because the information you presented me was stuff I already knew and had factored into my original calculations. That’s why I already had a response ready.