Conspiracy-minded? :smack: Occam’s Razor suggests — certainly doesn’t prove, possibly doesn’t even make it 50+% (did you ever tell us which way you would bet if forced to?) — that the cold-blooded killing of a witness is related to the high-profile case that led to conviction a few days before the murder.
And, let me see if I get your implication straight: Another witness was threatened, but was NOT murdered, and her threat was 9 months before Brown’s murder. That’s meaningful? Is it your contention that there was at most a single pro-Guyger asshole, and since the two anti-witness incidents are so different, the Guyger-ฺBrown connection becomes less likely?
Wow. Probability theory isn’t your strong suit, its it?
I don’t see that at all. And Occam’s Razor doesn’t suggest anything, though it is frequently misused by those who would like to suggest something without sufficient evidence to infer a connection where it is not yet warranted to do so.
Whoa there, partner, what’d I actually say? I mean, gosh, maybe she is in on the conspiracy? Like, maybe the Dallas police *paid her off to withhold certain testimony? Maybe they made the same offer to Joshua Brown and he bravely refused, so they murdered him for it? Doesn’t THAT fit nice and tidy with your conspiratorial mindset?
For the record, I make no such contention. And clearly rational inquiry and skepticism are not YOUR strong suits.
*ETA: And of course, as my made up from whole cloth but perfectly in line with yours conspiracy theory would go, the gofundme was merely a convenient way to conceal the source of funds to her. So that she could receive a big payoff without having to answer where. Or rather, with the source appearing innocuous. See, that fits perfectly!
Wow! You’ve just earned a top slot on the Idiot’s list.
First: I never suggested there was evidence that the Brown murder was related to the Guyger verdict. It is merely a probabilistic GUESS. Nobody thinks a GUESS has any relevance in jury deliberations. Are you really so stupid you don’t understand this? Do you know what a GUESS is?
And why do you refuse to give your guess? If you were FORCED to bet, what do you think the chance is of a connection? (Given the peculiarly cold-blooded nature of the Brown murder, I’m going with 65%.)
Second: What was all your gibberish about this other threatened witness? Were you being sarcastic and pretending to imagine some “conspiracy theory”? If not, and in the unlikely event you even care whether you’re understand or not, please re-read your strange comments about that other witness. THEY MAKE NO SENSE.
I’m not sure I understand this obsession with the number of shots violent shitheads get hit with. For example, here Antoquan gets shot 45 times while on his way to college.
Other then the cost to the taxpayers of the bullets expended, what’s the big deal?
Look: If you’re a thinker you understand the concept of a thought experiment.
By chance you find yourself sitting next to a billionaire at a coffee shop. Just for fun he offers you $100,000 on a condition. You have to bet whether the Brown killing was related to the Guyger verdict. If you guess right, the billionaire gives you $200,000 in a few weeks when the connection is shown or refuted. If you guess wrong, you get Zero.
The billionaire is ready to commit millions for his own detectives to resolve the question, and will settle the wager when the matter is resolved with 98%(*) certainty to his satisfaction. (He gives himself a 3-month deadline, failing which you just keep the $100,000.)
Thought experiment. Are you a thinker?
(* - Yes, 98% certainty, not “100% certainty.” If you object to that it will just demonstrate, again, that you don’t understand probabilities, and don’t understand thinking.)
If anyone I meet in a coffee shop claims to be a billionaire and wants to make a bet with me on the outcome of a criminal investigation, Occam’s Razor dictates that he’s probably a crazy person, so I can ignore him and carry on with my day.
The story on MSN doesn’t mention ‘execution style’. It is actually a bit light on details of the shooting itself and more…well, bad journalism. You have a link to a different report?
I understand that people often misuse probability to refer to gut feelings with a smattering of self-selected, self-recalled, and potentially non-representative prior events, as if they can somehow throw down a number and a percentage sign and rate their gut feeling a “65% probability” as surely as one might say a coin toss with a fair coin with heads on one side and tails on the other has a 50% probability of coming up heads.
Except you can’t do that. Real life is not a thought experiment, and people are lousy at assessing probability on the fly, even in just rough approximations.
So you cannot speak to probability. Or at least I try not to claim a degree of confidence in something as if it were a probability because I know that people like you and me have historically done poorly in accurately assessing risk and probability. For that reason, I refuse to take your bet. Not because I don’t understand probability, but because neither you nor I have a basis on which to assign a probability.
The example I used in the MPSIMS thread where we’re discussing Joshua Brown’s death is rolling a die. Your “bet” that you’re so upset I have refused to even engage in is akin to a bet where I’m offered a 20 to 1 payout if a fair die rolls a 5. You seem to assume that if I am a “thinker” or I “understand probability” I should take the bet and a refusal to do so makes me a fool. But the thing is, no one ever said it was a 6-sides die. We don’t know what the probability of the hoped for event, rolling a 5, is. Even if it really is a fair die and I know that with the metaphysical certainty often demanded of a thought experiment. It could be 99-sided, one through ninety-nine, in which case that’s a shit payout. It could be 4-sided, number one through four, in which case I’m throwing my money away as a fool.
If you don’t know how many sides are on the die, you can’t just go with your gut and assign a probability of 1 in 6. A proper skeptic does not take that bet until they have all the relevant information, or at least until they have all the information they’re going to get and they have no choice but to make that bet, although even then they might rightfully refuse to take it because all the information made available still isn’t enough to justify it.
There’s no need to discuss probability theory here (though you might be surprised to know that 3 of my 30+ U.S. patents concern algorithms for probability estimation).
It is enough to contemplate the Thought Experiment I presented.
After the guy proves to you that he really is Bill Gates, what do you do? Are you going to refuse the chance at $200,000 altogether because you don’t want to guess?
Did someone offer you $200,000 yesterday to throw your weight behind the murder being connected to the Guyger verdict with a 65% probability?
Just because you’ve staked your reputation on a bad bet you didn’t have to make doesn’t mean I have to. I know you want me to answer, but I’d much rather keep hounding you on that probability you threw down as the investigation progresses and you perhaps have a chance to walk it back as an unwarranted degree of confidence.
It’s a total guess. If it turns out wrong … well, I already guessed a 35% chance that the guess is wrong. Is 35% humiliatingly unlikely??
What are we arguing about? You jumped on a poster suggesting the possibility of a connection, a connection I consider slightly odds-on favorite. Life is full of guesses. I guess Liz Warren is the D’s best chance for the coming election. Should I refrain from voting in the primary because I’m uncertain?
Which is more likely? That he was killed as reaction to his testifying, or that he was killed by someone who had tried to kill him before? Or killed for the same reason that someone else tried to kill him a year before?
I really can’t see him being killed for testifying. For one thing, the testimony wasn’t particularly damning. From what I have read, he testified to a series of events that very closely resemble Guyger’s own account.
Yeah, because three guys drove five hours from Louisiana to Texas to buy marijuana. And the Guyger defense never thought that it was important to mention the guy’s alleged past drug dealings.
It’s a total guess. If it turns out wrong … well, I already guessed a 35% chance that the guess is wrong. Is 35% humiliatingly unlikely?? 