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PaperclipPerfector  2yr ago (text post)   27779 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 26, 2024

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Putin's thoughts are sufficiently inscrutible

You could say that about practically every leader, especially autocratic ones. Any speculation is necessarily low-confidence because of this, although examining motives and wargaming out possibilities still serves some purpose. E.g. we can probably be quite certain that Prigozhin was assassinated due to being a perceived threat, either directly or merely by what he represented. Offing him was the clear logical choice.

Putin may have used Navalny's death to send a signal to oppositionists ahead of the presidential elections - "Don't cause trouble, this is my show."

This isn't a bad idea either given that one opposition guy was gaining a bit of traction, although, yeah, still low-confidence.

You could say that about practically every leader, especially autocratic ones.

Indeed. I think it's a pretty unreliable way to make inferences about what happens in politics. Not coincidentally, it's often how conspiracy theorists reason.

This isn't a bad idea either given that one opposition guy was gaining a bit of traction, although, yeah, still low-confidence.

Yes, my point is that doubting that Putin had Navalny killed because it's hard to think up a motive is weak evidence, especially because it's easy to be biased - someone looking to condemn Putin can overrate the plausibility of such motives, someone looking to exculpate Putin can spend minimal time actually trying to think up possible motives. When someone says, "I can't see how..." I usually initially doubt that they looked very hard.

Yes, my point is that doubting that Putin had Navalny killed because it's hard to think up a motive is weak evidence, especially because it's easy to be biased - someone looking to condemn Putin can overrate the plausibility of such motives, someone looking to exculpate Putin can spend minimal time actually trying to think up possible motives. When someone says, "I can't see how..." I usually initially doubt that they looked very hard.

I think we're mostly in agreement here, and you're probably mostly just prodding me over the fact that I should have had a "low-confidence speculation" qualifier in my initial post above. I don't think speculating on a leader's actions is always low-confidence though. I have medium-high confidence that Putin had Prigozhin killed for a number of reasons.

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