Another possibility is that he had a nervous breakdown or substance abuse episode, leading to both the paranoid emails and the irrational vehicle operations.
Obviously I'm not saying that's the case, but the extremely irrational driving goes fits a theory of paranoid delusions (brought on by any number of mechanisms), just as the hacked car system goes with about to uncover something big.
Yeah, we really don't know. But I'm extremely uncomfortable by the fact that foul play is a real possibility. We already know that the federal government is operating largely in secret and without regard to the law (their insistence that are indeed following their own secret set of laws doesn't provide me much solace). We already know that various press organizations have been wiretapped. I feel like I've woken up into a country I no longer recognize. How long will it be before people no longer feel safe expressing opinions online?
Foul play is almost always a possibility if you over analyze things and don't have a lot evidence. If someone randomly kills them self by jumping off a bridge and no one sees it happen, there is no suicide note, or any other signs, then there could have been foul play because there is no evidence to prove or disprove it. For all anyone knows the person was pushed off the bridge by a passer by.
The whole NSA story is disturbing but I don't get how it is connected to a journalist dying in a car crash like 30k or so people do every year do in the USA. The NSA violating peoples internet/phone privacy is a far cry from killing journalists.
It is baffling that a story where there is so little evidence of foul play has popped up on HN multiple times and has received such wild speculation. I get that there are a lot of people who are very upset at the US government right now (I'm one of them) and that there is very title trust towards the US government (for good reason), but it is crazy that such wild speculation is going on in a community that is supposedly made up of highly educated, intelligent, logical, tech people.
1. Why is it practically impossible to crash this car? Its well engineered, yeah so what? Accidents still happen no matter how good the safety tech is.
2. Why is it impossible for a car to catch fire after it has been in a high speed crash? It is filled with a highly combustible liquid for Christ sake.
3. Why would his car get hacked into and forced to crash? There has to be about a million easier ways to make a death look like an accident. It also doesn't seem like something that could be done at the spur of the moment. If "they" had time to plan all of this out, why wouldn't they kill him some easier, safer, more efficient way?
4. Why are people saying he may have been drugged with something that causes a psychotic episode etc. I mean really WTF, this is straight up crazy conspiracy nonsense. Of all the crazy conclusions to jump to, why is that more likely than him being drunk, having a psychotic breakdown, insomnia, or using drugs voluntarily (I believe he was even a drug addict in the past, lots of addicts fall of the wagon).
5. Why do people automatically assume that he was actually being investigated by some government organization? Don't all we have is his word?
And suddenly the conspiracy theorists are wondering if Taylorious works for the NSA ;)
Your points are well organized and I tend to agree (especially that there would be an easier way to get rid of him), but I don't think you'll stop those that see a conspiracy around every corner.
I tend to see our government (today) as a very mismanaged large corporation. There are people over-reaching and those above them are trying to hide the damage and spin the conversation.
I am afraid Taylorious misses the point. I am afraid sage_joch misses the point in an even worse way. You may be surprised to hear this: it does not matter politically one tiny iota whether the FBI killed Michael Hastings. He's just one journalist, there are many like him.
What matters is what happens after Mr. Hastings' death. If the FBI is to be trusted, they will deny involvement on the low and the high: a trustworthy organization does not want to create even the slightest perception that they would kill a journalist. A trustworthy organization does not wish to instill fear in Hastings' colleagues. If, however, the FBI is not to be trusted, they will spread rumors that they are responsible: even if they did not kill him, it benefits them that journalists would be nervous to investigate them. This was the tactic of the KGB in the Soviet Union: they would stoke rumors of their ferocity by claiming responsibility for the otherwise-natural deaths of political contrarians.
What is truly to be feared is not that the FBI killed Michael Hastings, but that the FBI would like people to believe they killed Michael Hastings. Therefore, a rational yet paranoid individual might suspect sage_joch of being an NSA provocateur, but not Taylorious. That is the sort of corruption that will send a country into the dark ages for a century.
Well, this comment made me think. It's not every day you get called a potential NSA provocateur. But I'm not sure what you're suggesting with respect to my future comments. When I comment on political topics, I have a couple motivations: to shine light on a potentially bleak-looking situation, and to bounce ideas off a community of incredibly smart people. Are you saying I should avoid any kind of speculation? That might be reasonable, but sticking to hard facts doesn't make the situation look much better. If you count Julian Assange as a journalist, high-ranking members of the government have not been shy about making death threats against him. And the recent story about Barrett Brown should give anyone pause. I'm not asking rhetorically; I'd seriously like to know what you're suggesting.
Since you're not answering I'm going to take a guess: you're suggesting that since the actual reality of this whole situation is murky, I should tone down my speculation. And the more I think about it, the more I think you are right (if that's what you're saying).
> I tend to see our government (today) as a very mismanaged large corporation.
I don't know, I think the US government seems pretty ruthlessly efficient at toppling Middle Eastern governments, transferring wealth from taxpayers to big banks and large corporations, increasingly centralizing power into the federal government and large corporations, and breaking down families and increasing reliance on the state. And spying on it's own citizens.
I suppose, if you automatically dismissed any such thoughts to the contrary as "ridiculous conspiracy theories", it could look like it is all a problem of mismanagement. Maybe.
To be more accurate, the general brought down himself: McCrystal had developed an extremely inflated sense of self and irreplaceability, and was openly dismissive of civilian oversight (which is kind of worrisome coming from a man who directs weapons). The reporter simply reported how McCrystal was openly acting around him, leading to the administration taking action.
I only say this because people often talk about that as if the reporter had done deep black ops to gain covert information, thus making enemies throughout the establishment, when in reality he simply reported quotes directly fed to him, and in some ways acting on behalf of the establishment.
Your conspiracy-theory-mocking is misplaced here since we have actually found a lot of scary conspiracies related to the US government lately.
I also laugh at people who believe in flying saucers and so on. But I'd probably stop if an actual flying saucer landed on the highway and started blowing things up.
Perhaps they didn't want the death to look like an accident but still have plausible deniability. By making it obvious they are warning other journalists.
If we are going to speculate, perhaps Hastings is not dead, maybe he faked his own death to be with Elvis or the martians, and escape the government (I just watched a movie with Orson Wells - the third man - about this) Maybe the government faked his death like they did Osama Bin Laden for whatever reason? (So they can torture and restrain him and no one will know or care)
If you do a search for Economic Hitman Perkins, he was former NSA type who went around the global trying to get political leaders to do oil contracts and such that benefitted the west, if they didn't play ball, CIA Jackals were sent in to assassinate the people, Perkins said the only reason he decided to expose this later on was because he didn't want his daughter growing up in that kind of society where people are murdered for thier beliefs and trying to help thier citizens. Maybe like the comments below, Perkins is just a plant trying to "enhance" the fear of the CIA/NSA to get more people to respect them and they never killed anyone or very few of the deaths that are attributed to them. In the end, what does any of it all really matter? We all have a limited time to exist, and my friend Weev says to have fun, get lots of LULZ, face the madness of this world with Absurdity. Frank Sinatra said to leave them laughing when you go, take us out Frankie...
It is a huge leap from the revelations of late and a world where the government goes around killing journalists. When your parents confided to you that Santa Claus wasn't real, you didn't suddenly become adopted too. Chill out and reacquaint with reality.
You completely misread the point. We don't know the truth, if it was foul play or not. Probably not. BUT, it doesn't matter about the size of the jump, yet the fact that it's even a POSSIBILITY THAT WE HAVE TO CONSIDER ... is scary.
Plus, it's not as large of a leap as you think, it goes hand in hand. Everyone is familiar with journalists disappearing in countries like Turkey.
No, you don't get to do that. You can't say "I'm speculating that this person might have been murdered. Wow, look at what the world is coming to, that people are even considering the possibility that this person was murdered. (Besides, sometimes people do get murdered...)" This is begging the question in its most basic form.
Well, not quite begging the question, in that it's not something you're assuming to be true but rather something you're causing to be trivially true, but it's still an odd and presumably invalid construction to be sure.
If you are using your suspicion as an argument to prove that Hastings was murdered. If you are saying that you are sad or afraid that you are suspicious when once you wouldn't have been, that's just a simple statement of fact.
I don't think you can ever legitimately accuse someone of a logical fallacy who isn't making an argument.
Yeah, but the thing is, governments -- and individuals within governments -- don't have to be super secret ninjas. They can be heavy handed and get away with it because they've got power and you don't.
The US sent helicopters full of Navy Seals into a foreign country, supposedly an ally, without their permission to kill someone, and then went on TV the next day to brag about it. George W Bush threw hundreds of people into a not-very-secret off-shore prison and then tortured them for a few years and no one did a damn thing about it. When Bradley Manning leaked diplomatic cables, we threw him in a prison and tortured him for a year or three, depending on how you count.
Governments don't have to come in the night and fake your accidental death. They can come for you in broad daylight and beat you to death in the street and no one will stop them.
Are you saying governments don't do anything secret, because they don't have to ? Well, you are surely misguided. Tons of governmental operations are clearly not happening in the open. And it wouldn't be the first time they make an assassination pass for an accident (or suicide, or whatever other "natural" event). Even "democracies" do that all the time.
Because law enforcement abusing power and doing crazy shit flat out never happens.
I agree that foul play doesn't seem like the most likely cause, and I don't expect it is systemic if so, but seeing "he was on to a pocket of more explicit corruption and they offed him" as outside the realm of possibility seems odd.
Reality? To which reality are you referring? How are you so certain what the reality here is or is not? How is your version of reality any more or less likely to be the truth?
So, no one has proven what happened. That cuts both ways. And that's the point: there are unanswered questions. No one is stating for a fact that foul play was involved. People are merely asking questions. And, given the plausibility of foul play and the incredibly mind-blowing implications if there was foul play, it is much more rational to ask questions than to summarily dismiss out of hand that it is worth asking questions, or to ridicule those who do.
Your post doesn't come off as clever. It just seems thoughtless and unserious.
"Neither has been proved, therefore either is equally likely" is false, and if you believed that to be the case you would be horribly calibrated in your judgements, and parent would be right to criticize it. Plausibility is of course a much lower standard, but there is still some correct level of belief; I disagree with the parent in asserting that it is clearly below "plausible" but it's a legitimate discussion.
>Neither has been proved, therefore either is equally likely" is false
I didn't say that. Go back and read my post.
In fact, it's the opposite. We have many trying to claim the illegitimacy of asking questions, because there is no direct evidence. The parent went so far as to ridicule those asking questions.
So, it is they who are making claims about which is more likely, given a lack of evidence in either direction. That is exactly what my post was about.
I know you didn't say that. Read my post more carefully.
Though actually, you're close to saying it here:
"[I]t is they who are making claims about which is more likely, given a lack of evidence in either direction."
If you lack evidence in either direction, your estimate of likelihood should be at your priors. If your mental model assigns the same prior probability to assassination as to car accidents, it's likely broken.
I re-read your post. You are correct. It is possible to read it in a manner wherein you are not making the claim about my post. Seems a little odd as a response. Perhaps your intent would be clearer if your replies didn't hypothesize quite so much about what the parent might be thinking. I noticed a lot of "ifs" in your most recent post as well, as in "if you believe this or that". Comes off rather straw-mannish. Why not just stick to what the person actually said?
But granted, I stand corrected.
I'm aware of the general mode of privileging the hypothesis, though I've never heard that term. I'm not sure that there's anything new or groundbreaking in that post, however. For instance, criminal law is set up to avoid railroading suspects and it's a pretty easily identifiable fallacy, in general.
In any event, your conclusion that I come close to claiming them equally likely rests on its own fallacy. That is, this statement is so general as to be misleading:
"If your mental model assigns the same prior probability to assassination as to car accidents, it's likely broken"
First, I didn't assign a probability. I said we should be asking questions.
But what makes your argument fallacious is that details matter. It is not just any car accident. It is a fiery, one car, high speed accident, under unexplained circumstances. And, he is not just a random person, but a prominent reporter who brought down a powerful person and was working on a "big" story involving, presumably, other powerful people. Ignoring this information, and simply relying on the percentage of the general population who are in car accidents vs assassinated (i.e. relying on the priors) is misguided to say the least.
And while there is a lack of concrete evidence in either direction at this point, the circumstances and information we do have point to the fact that we should be asking questions, not drawing conclusions on any side. Again, that is what my posts are about. Questions.
OTOH, I'm not sure what you are actually trying to say, short of providing an off-topic and somewhat faulty explanation of how we should estimate likliehoods.
I think you are assuming I hold positions that I do not. I agree with you that foul play is sufficiently likely to warrant some consideration. I said as much in my own reply to skwirl's comment.
"First, I didn't assign a probability. I said we should be asking questions."
"We should be asking questions about X" is a claim that probabilities are sufficiently high that it's not a complete waste of time to be asking questions about X. You also said it was plausible, which is assigning some bounds on probability. Neither of those were what I was objecting to, however.
I was objecting to what I saw as your rejection of the sort of argument skwirl was making ("This is sufficiently unlikely that it doesn't make sense to be talking about it") in the face of lack of evidence, rather than simple rejection of the particular claim skwirl made (which I reject as well).
>I think you are assuming I hold positions that I do not.
Very possible. I think those "ifs" got me again.
>You also said it was plausible, which is assigning some bounds on probability.
A fair enough interpretation, but I was thinking of it in the more subjective sense vs. mathematical.
>I was objecting to what I saw as your rejection of the sort of argument skwirl was making
OK! Understood. LOL! I wasn't objecting to or even addressing whether the sort of argument skwirl was making could ever be valid in any scenario. My point was with regard to this particular discussion. That is, in this context it is not valid to dismiss the need for questions out-of-hand. I tried to be specific and narrow in my explanation.
I think the confusion came in because you broadened what was a very concrete discussion, then began introducing hypotheticals: "well, if you believe this or that, then the other".
I didn't make that turn. Wasn't sure what your position was or what you were attributing to me.
All of this to say, that we appear to be in agreement on the substance. That is, the circumstances merit questions.
Reality -- is that the place where our President has an American citizen, without trial or court order, killed by a drone? Yeah, it is. So while not proven, certainly not beyond the pale from what we do know is true.
When you tell your kid Santa Claus isnt real, they already know. But when you admit it its often the first time they realize that their parents lie. If Santa Claus is fake, the Easter Bunny is probably fake too. Then one day they are sitting in church and a picture of Jesus Christ falls out of someone's bag and onto the floor. Your kid sits there, starring at upside down Jesus, and cant help but notice how much he looks like his school bus driver. After that, all the lies of the adult world unravel.
It is a huge leap from the revelations of late and a world where the government goes around killing journalists.
Well, there was Putin being all concerned about Snowden hurting his American friends, so there's that :P
Seriously though, the US government killed plenty more people for minding them a lot less. So where exactly does this huge leap come into play? That it would be hard to do? Why, just look at what random comment is floating atop this discussion, completely unfounded speculation about drug abuse or nervous breakdowns, with zero argument for them given, except that it's technically possible, however unlikely.
Are you denying that it's "technically possible" that the US government "goes around killing journalists" (which is NOT what the comment you replied to said by the way, that's all yours), however unlikely? If not, why not react with the same rigour to the original comment?
This is all kinda disgusting. Yes, we don't know either way, and maybe it's pointless to speculate. But if it's okay to speculate some utter bullshit like the top comment, then it's allowed to point something out in response without that being utterly twisted into something childish, and then being patronizing about your own fucking strawman.
Foul play is always a possibility, but it takes evidence to make it real. All we have now is a car crash, a reporter working on a story, and an email. There are lots of car crashes, and lots of reporters working on big stories--many on the same stories Hastings was pursuing.
We can't rule out foul play but I'm not ready, personally, to rule it in either. There's just not enough there.
"Of course they were; that's how the NSA found out."
Right. Yet to our knowledge the NSA does not have delete privileges to the data centers, meaning that copies of his notes most likely still survive on either local or cloud based storage.
Wow, avoided the airport because of this kind of insanity? We brought it to your house! I remember just a few short months ago, making fun of the British for arresting someone for tweeting...
Did you guys see the 16 page PDF detailing remote auto take-over? Some are speculating that his car was remotely controlled via this method or tampered with such that his breaks failed.
If you haven't seen that PDF, ill to find the link.
Assassination by remote controlling the target's car is a Wile E. Coyote level plan. It's hard to imagine any remotely competent government group or organized crime group choosing it. Given the nature of his work, there are much easier methods that would be less work to carry out, have much lower risk of failure, and have much lower risk of leaving behind evidence that might raise suspicion or lead back to those responsible.
Check this out and look at the source as well as take some time to critically think about the technical resources a group like the NSA has vs. the researchers of this paper...
You think that "It's hard to imagine any remotely competent government group or organized crime group" choosing it" is an informed position?
I would HOPE you are aware of Stucnet, as well as Duqu...
This was supposedly the work of the USG/Mossad in Iran. If you think that they would use lowly tactics like a magnetic car bomb -- but would be "too competent" to employ remote hijacking of a late model car, then I simply cannot agree with you on this matter.
He's not saying it's impossible to crash a car using a telematics exploit. He's saying that's a uniquely stupid way to have someone killed. 40-60mph collisions between trees and modern cars aren't uniformly fatal; instead of killing Hastings, the attack was equally likely to have left a witness talking about how all the sudden his car started driving itself.
This guy's car crashed into a tree. He was doing national security reporting. That's all the factual information you have right now. But peoples' cars crash into trees all the time. Contrary to message board opinion, many of those cars do indeed catch fire. Weigh against that the silliness of this particular means of assassinating someone. Occam's Razor kicks in.
I agree with your statement. What i took issue with was his saying that the government is "incompetent" if they tried something like this.
With Stuxnet, Duqu and Mossad car bombings of scientists in Iran, my point was that I would not put the ability past them to be able to hijack a car in a method similar to the one described in the PDF.
Personally, I have no clue/opinion on if they actually killed Hastings.
I say "some are speculating" because there are a bunch on Reddit, I.e. some people, who I do not know personally, and have handles as opposed to real-names, so I cannot say "Bill, John and Mary speculate"
So, as I am not using the weasel word in the way you describe (as if I were to say "a source close to the crash victim") -- the terminology is still valid in common dialogue.
Maybe in 10 years some whistleblower will come out and admit, but probably not. The way Snowden is being treated you'd have to be crazy to do it now...
> I feel like I've woken up into a country I no longer recognize.
I've seriously thought about moving to New Zealand. Beautiful country, no software patents, universal healthcare, good schools. I think maybe the era of the US being the best place to be (or at least many people thinking that) is over.
I don't see why your baseless conjecture about nervous breakdowns and substance abuse should be any more credible than the cause implied by this post. I have seen a lot of people coming up with such alternative explanations, which actually go a long way to avoid a more plausible (if less comfortable) conclusion.
Also, I have seen multiple references to some paranoia that Mr. Hastings supposedly had. When I read his email, I see anything but paranoia. He seems very matter-of-fact and even jokes about the investigation. Also, here is a man who had already broken a massive story about a powerful figure and who was in the business of going after such massive stories. Sudden bouts of paranoia wouldn't seem consistent or productive in his line of work.
I take exception to that word because it's dismissive. It seeks to paint him as somehow irrational or the cause of his own demise, while simultaneously waiving the notion that there could be outside involvement. It asserts that of course every element of the government is always good in every situation, such that any concerns to the contrary must be paranoia. It is a very insidious use of language.
It's quite remarkable how thoroughly you have tried to refute my simple statement of a possible alternate scenario, while simultaneously propping up the alternative (and just as baseless) theory, loading your post with a delightful collection of emotive words.
We're all mostly adults here. We can rationally discuss that there are many possible scenarios. This is not and will hopefully never be a site where people who try to create a reality in their own perception dominate.
You're talking in circles, and in your first paragraph literally just repeated back to me what I'd written about your post. In any case, we have already had many people attack theories of government involvement based on a lack of evidence. Yet, many posit theories with less evidence (such as yours). So, I merely asked why such theories should be any more credible. That is why it doesn't work for you to merely repeat my words back to me.
In your second paragraph you opine about us all being adults, capable of rational discussion, yet you made no substantive contribution to that discussion. You just kind of made the observation that this is a great place to do it. If one were so inclined. I guess. Then, you go on to lament about some imaginary future date wherein people use the site to create their own realities or something.
What is all this meta-talk? If you want the site to be about discussion of various ideas, then discuss yours! Make your counter-point and defend your position vs. whining about someone disagreeing with you. Do you really not see the irony in passing on opportunities to make your point, and instead using them to express your worry that someday you won't be able to make your point?
Good grief. As it is, your entire post was a NOOP.
To be more to the point, your post is noisy nonsense that attacks the mere existence of alternative theories, and those who might posit them. I was trying to politely say that your breed of Reddit-style "shoot-the-messenger" post is not usually well received here, thankfully.
Again, you make no sense. No one attacked the "mere existence" of alternative theories. I challenged you to explain why yours is any more credible than others, something which you apparently cannot do, hence your little tirade about what HN is all about.
And, I plainly I didn't "shoot the mesenger". I specifically questioned your message. In fact, you acknowledged this in your previous reply when you "found it remarkable how thouroughly I have tried to refute your simple statement of an alternative scenario". See that? You acknowledged that I was attacking the statement (i.e. message).
And again with the meta-talk. You have still said nothing in defense of your actual post (calling mine "noisy nonsense" doesn't qualify). Instead, you appear to just be saying things that you hope will get you upvotes.
Contrary to what you have declared HN to be in your quest for karma as its self-appointed keeper, I believe what makes it special is the many bright people here who speak a common language, and who sometimes disagree (even vehemently). But, they are able to construct logic-based, thoughtful arguments, which challenge their adversaries and make them think. I have learned much in this way, as I am sure have others.
Thanks for the advice. Will try to be more concise.
Meantime, work on defending your position and constructing logical responses. I should warn you however, that constructing arguments may require that your word volume increases.
Or, an even less interesting possibility: Hastings might in fact have been under some kind of investigation; he might have not slept well the prior night; and he might have fallen asleep at the wheel. This is consistent with the facts of the case: the crash happened in the middle of the night, just after Hastings sped through a red light.
I'm not trying to suggest foul play by refuting this, but nobody falls asleep at the wheel when driving that fast, no matter how poorly you slept previously. The adrenaline won't let you.
This first question that comes to mind is what was he doing driving at 4:30 in the morning.
His friends describe him as a "grandma diver" so why was he driving so fast and blowing red lights on a residential street? Did he ever display this type of behaviour before?
Another question is.. how does a well made car burst into flames so quickly.
Another question is.. how does a well made car burst into flames so quickly.
There was a lot of discussion about various aspects of how cars behave when they crash, in a previous thread. But, speaking as a former firefighter, the tl/dr; is "cars do sometimes catch fire and burn when they crash". Hollywood style explosions don't normally happen, and car fires resulting from wrecks don't always happen, or even happen terribly often at all in my experience, but they are far from unheard of.
Both the test driver and the passenger walked away unharmed. Do note that this was on the track, where the cars are supposedly driven at much higher speeds than on regular roads.
People are making a typical statistical error here. It is unlikely for a car to catch fire in an accident, certainly. But it's wrong to take that and conclude that this fire was therefore likely due to foul play. Foul play is still a much less likely explanation for the facts as currently known.
That's only the case if in your world theory (and based on the input you have) you trust the government to not do such stuff.
If an investigative journalist "mysteriously vanished" in a Latin American dictatorship, for example, one would not even raise an eyebrow if told it was government work. Even if lots of people also vanished without foul play there.
Figure out a prior probability of foul play, figure out the probability of a car bursting into flames on impact, plug the result into Bayes' theorem, and you get the relative likelihoods.
No, scarcity isn't proof against, but it is evidence. A lot of people are talking nonstop about the rarity of cars bursting into flames as evidence against that interpretation, while ignoring the even greater rarity of journalists being murdered by the US government.
> Another question is.. how does a well made car burst into flames so quickly.
A fuel line is torn in the crash... a few milliliters of gasoline seep onto the ground, while the heat from the catalytic converter ignites some grass that has gotten a little long. The small amount of gasoline and brush cause a fire that is able to quickly spread through the damaged structure of the car, igniting the carpet, fabric, and seat cushions.
Within a minute the fire is well on its way. Within 3 minutes, the car is fully involved.
Obviously I don't know what happened in this case, but I've seen the exact scenario described happen more than once (the gas leak was only confirmed in one case, in two other cases, it was just the brush and debris under the car).
In his first book, he said he crashed a Buick while drunk at the age of 19.
He also had mentioned in a few columns about being a former addict. He said he'd been sober since (10+ years?), but until there are conclusive results on the toxicology report, it's all really speculative.
In either case, yes, he has displayed this type of behaviour before.
Or we're all exposed to mind-altering substances that make us paranoid, making us think he was exposed to drugs, thinking he was chased. It's the contrails, I tell you!
may be wise to immediately request legal counsel before any conversations or interviews about our news-gathering practices or related journalism issues.
"Obviously I'm not saying that's the case,"
Even saying it's likely takes sheer powers of rationalization I can't even fathom. And bringing up just that is what it is. This is like saying "no offense, but" and then saying something offensive.
His email hinted at uncovering a grand plot. Lots of people who have mental issues think they've uncovered grand plots.
Even saying it's likely
I didn't say it was likely, I said it was possible (given that the outright acceptance of incredibly conspiracy theories are by far the most commonly discussed possibility). The difference is profound.
But really I think there are some people who seriously flunked basic probabilities. When considering the possibility that he a) was assassinated by rogue government agents who apparently both hacked his car and improvised explosives, or b) who had personal issues that led to irrational behavior, you are seriously saying that the former is more probable? Give me a break -- that is a seriously broken mental model.
Further the legend of this reporter has exploded into something completely detached from reality. His legacy is that he wrote an article for Rolling Stone magazine where a shooting-from-the-hip general who was a loudmouthed braggart (almost certainly because he was talking to a Rolling Stone reporter and wanted to be cool) got taken down for it. If you read the narrative on here, this reporter went deep in the NSA and hacked the special mainframe.
Why don't you enlighten us all as to the workings of "basic probabilities", since you have clearly applied them in arriving at your conclusions.
Perhaps you can start by identifying all of the variables that you considered in assessing the probability of each scenario, then move on to providing us with the statistical probability that you calculated for each of those variables.
His email hinted at uncovering a grand plot. Lots of people who have mental issues think they've uncovered grand plots.
In other words, claiming to have uncovered a plot is a sign for a mental health issue? Just like being angry is a sign of rabies, huh? Before you dive into probabilities, check out some logic, I hear it helps. And maybe history, since you seem to think a "plot" is something like an elf or pink elephants.
are seriously saying that the former is more probable
Nope, that's the beauty of it, I'm not even speculating either way. I am dealing with your comment only. When I read that email, I don't see any signs of madness. To the contrary, that bit about legal advice seems a bit too coolheaded for even drug use.
Which you said takes "sheer powers of rationalization I can't even fathom". Which really is an extraordinary and ridiculous statement (which I'm learning is the modus operandi among the theorists -- feigned outrage that any other scenario outside of the most conspiratorial could even be contemplated): Such fits of irrational behavior happen to countless people yearly, often under the influence of alcohol, drugs, or simply intense stress. Sometimes it's even a tactic for the suicidal.
The simple possibility that he was on a bender or had an episode simply defies reason in your imagination, which leaves the gamut of the possible rather narrowed, despite your absurd protests to the contrary.
> Another possibility is that he had a nervous breakdown or substance abuse episode, leading to both the paranoid emails and the irrational vehicle operations.
Ah, but that spin is highly unlikely to generate buzz among moronic internet detectives, and therefore no responsible journalist will deal with such a trite story.
>Ah, but that spin is highly unlikely to generate buzz among moronic internet detectives, and therefore no responsible journalist will deal with such a trite story.
>Another possibility is that he had a nervous breakdown or substance abuse episode, leading to both the paranoid emails and the irrational vehicle operations.
He was a seasoned journalist. Working on a very dangerous case (as he has done in the past, annoying many).
He might have feared and feel intimidated -- and that might have led to erratic driving and crash.
But he sure knew when and if the FBI talked to his friends and colleagues. And it's not like it's the first time a journalist is crashed (either literally or figuratively) for his work. Gary Webb comes to mind. Ruben Salazar too. And those were more innocent times.
Significantly more likely? I'd like to see _any_ evidence you have that this was anything other than a tragic accident before I'd be willing to consider it even 'a little bit likely'. You have a very long way to go before you can claim 'significantly more likely'.
Not to mention the US is also not metaphorically Nazi Germany. There's bad shit going on, but to equivocate the current state of the US to the Third Reich demonstrates either a supremely poor understanding of history, or hyperbolic melodrama, or both.
Actually, comparisons to Soviet or Nazi Germany work against their purpose. If the United States turns into a totalitarian state, it will look nothing like the instances of totalitarian regimes we have learned from textbooks. It will take a much more familiar and understandable form, not very different from how things look today.
In most totalitarian states, life goes on like it usually does. It's just the power distribution that changes. This should scare people a lot more than it does.
Do you happen to know the history or rather just watched Schindler's list and that's all?
Third Reich did not start the day they invade Poland and kick off the World War 2. IT didn't start with profiling Jews and putting people in camps. It started much earlier than that with elements of dictatorships here and there. US is not far from it; it just that times have changed. What before could be called "work camps" because of lack of means of information transportation so most people didn't know (there was no Youtube or Twitter ok?), needs to be called FEMA camps or other 1981-ish words of care and wisdom now. But the system is ready. Billions of bullets bought by DHS, tanks located across major cities, militaries of different countries training together and putting unified system in place, its all ready to go. What we are "missing" is that spark of fire to crank the engine. Like firing up the Reichtag. Some say, "hopefully" that Zimmerman's trial of founding him not guilty could cause a civil unrest and off we go from there. But in a case of emergency, like in Boston Bombing, Boston did look like Nazi Germany: armed forces of an official government "lawfully" but forcibly pulled innocent unarmed citizens out of their safe houses in the name of searching for one fugitive. Guns were pointed at them, regardless if they were guilty or not (they were not). Plus you have more and more check points on the streets, TSA start training with dogs on the airports (Germans loved them didnt they?), you have all communication scooped all the time, plus major monetary abuse in gov entities like IRS (noone held accountable), major huge abuse in security (Bengatzi) and noone held accountable, yep, we are getting close to a tipping point and things speed up rapidly!
I believe the poster was making a sarcastic point about the kinds of stories that are currently popular on HN. He does have a point hidden beneath the snark. I believe that you could post a story about Majestic 12 and have it make the front page right now.
Obviously I'm not saying that's the case, but the extremely irrational driving goes fits a theory of paranoid delusions (brought on by any number of mechanisms), just as the hacked car system goes with about to uncover something big.