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I ran a little experiment this week. Deep within a thread from last week @motteposting and I were discussing the Hunter Biden laptop story. The quick context necessary here is that some emails discussing a deal with the Chinese company CEFC mentioned "the big guy" getting a 10% cut of the deal. I already think it's obvious that Hunter Biden was getting sweetheart board of directors positions and other highly lucrative financial opportunities almost entirely because of who his father is. But the theory here is that it wasn't just Hunter cashing in on his name, but that Joe Biden was explicitly contemplated as receiving kickbacks from these kinds of deals.
[For the record I agree that exploiting one's own political positions for monetary gain is not good. Even if nothing untoward actually happens, it's still a really bad look for the son of a president to be involved in deals and investments, especially with foreign governments where the influence-peddling concern would be at its apex.]
The evidence that motteposting presented that Joe Biden is indeed the "big guy" is that one of the people involved in negotiating the CEFC deal, Tony Bobulinski, personally confirmed that fact. I hadn't heard of Bobulinski before and didn't know why I should believe what he said. You can click through the thread for the details but I highlighted a few reasons why I would be skeptical of Bobulinski, but none of it was really a smoking gun. If you were to ask me to describe my actual belief it would be "Bobulinski's claim is certainly plausible but this other stuff kind of contradicts him so overall I'm skeptical but leaning towards not believing him." Motteposting was definitely not as skeptical as I was, and I found it curious that he (sorry if I misgendered you) appeared primed to believe Bobulinski in ways that seemed highly credulous.
This reminded me of another instance where someone's credibility was being evaluated as a result of a bombastic claim they made. Think back to six months ago, when Cassidy Hutchinson was in the news. For those who don't remember, Cassidy is the White House aide who gave the bombshell testimony about Trump lunging at the wheel of his Secret Service vehicle and at an agent when he was told he wasn't going to the capitol on January 6th. Everyone here knows I really don't like Trump so theoretically I would be primed to believe something that paints him in an embarrassing light. But similar to Bobulinski, I never heard of Cassidy before and don't know who she is but my opinion of her claims regarding the steering wheel incident hasn't changed: it cuts against her that she's relying on hearsay within hearsay ("someone told me someone else said this happened") but she at least names every level of the hearsay. Immediately after her testimony came out, multiple news outfits cited an anonymous source close to the Secret Service that two agents were prepared to testify that the lunging incident never happened. As far as I can tell these agents never came forward publicly but maybe that's still in the works. Similar to Bobulinski above, if you were to ask me to describe my belief it would be "Cassidy's claim is tenuously supported but is neither implausible nor substantially contradicted, so I would lean towards believing her but wouldn't bet the farm."
So back to the thread about Bobulinski, instead of writing my own position about him transparently, I wrote this instead:
If any of this comes across as weirdly stilted, I was intentionally trying to mirror what motteposting writing about Cassidy Hutchinson:
My suspicion was that motteposting was primed to believe Bobulinski and not believe Cassidy solely because he liked one conclusion but not the other. Obviously the two scenarios are not precisely comparable 1:1 but I think they have enough clear parallels for this to be an instructive exercise. If I'm being fully honest, the scenario I would find the most emotionally satisfying and personally motivated towards pulling off would be where motteposting blunders haplessly into my trap and exposes himself as a complete hypocritical partisan about the standards of credibility he applies. I must admit that I did not get that, and I'll specifically give credit for things he did that were commendable.
The first thing motteposting hones in on is that Cassidy has a motive to lie. The evidence he cites is entirely just this:
So an anonymous source told CNN that Cassidy was supposed to have a job at a Mar-a-Lago but didn't, and now she's still unemployed. Based on this alone motteposting comfortably claims that Cassidy's testimony is "her revenge tour". I can see how being passed up for a job might make someone bitter, but it seems highly implausible that's enough to motivate someone into a public scorched earth campaign of defamation (and this didn't come out until later but the Daily Caller obtained text messages where Cassidy expresses annoyance at being subpoenaed to testify).
In contrast, Bobulinski claims Hunter Biden "defrauded" him of $5 million, which seems a much sharper indication of personal animus. To motteposting's credit he at least gives a concession of this point with "Maybe so. That's something to take into account." and "I agree that his motive for revenge means what he says should be taken with a grain of salt." But why is this not enough to conclude "This is Bobulinski's revenge tour" in the same way he concluded about Cassidy?
The second thing mentioned is that Cassidy's audience (J6 committee) is motivated to accept her lies because their TV ratings suck. That's a plausible explanation but it seems to apply at least as much to cable news pundits who rely on a content pipeline constantly running for their living. But unlike with Cassidy, motteposting does not appear to think audience credulity is a salient point in Bobulinsky's case.
I think motteposting made some good points about the structure of the CEFC deal. The fact that Hunter Biden was getting double the shares (20%) compared to his partners is compelling evidence he was going to hold it for someone else. If that's the surreptitious structure, then it makes sense for Joe Biden's name not to be on the agreement itself. There's good reasons to not believe Gilliar's denial that Joe Biden was involved, since there are text messages where he tells Bobulinski not to talk about Joe Biden's involvement except in face-to-face. Bobulinski also appears to be cooperating with the FBI and I agree that raises his credibility. Overall, motteposting did a good job convincing me that Bobulinski is telling the truth and that Joe Biden was at least contemplated to receive a cut of a deal that fell through. I updated my belief to "I have questions about some details but Bobulinski is probably telling the truth."
It still seems that motteposting was unusually primed to denounce Cassidy as a vindictive liar on a revenge tour. I think it's helpful to investigate to what extent our biases motivate us towards credulity and away from skepticism when presented with conclusions we already favor. If you ever suspect me of doing that, you should call me out.
Just so I know I have this straight.
5 months ago @motteposting wrote a post about Cassidy Hutchinson's claim that Trump tried to hijack the presidential limousine and drive it to the Capitol. The post is explicitly using Occam's razor to provide an alternative hypothesis to @Rov_Scam's theory that it was a devious trap, and suggests instead that Hutchinson was simply making it up out of TDS (for the record, I don't consider @Rov_Scam's hypothesis implausible at all.)
Then 3 days ago @motteposting wrote a post about the Biden laptop scandal in reply to you providing evidence in support of his conclusion that Biden was complicit in Hunter's influence peddling. After @motteposting doesn't buy the idea that the lack of records of a secret deal with a Chinese company proves he wasn't involved, you then wrote a post 'mirroring' the post he wrote 5 months ago about a totally different thing 'as a
socialexperiment'.And now you have published your findings, in the form of a top level post primarily continuing the argument you were having last week that you have apparently changed your belief about.
This post smacks of desperation. Yes, as has been pointed out, you gave the right signs and followed the rituals of the motte, but even so it still reads like you are calling out @motteposting and you decorated it with the trappings of this place's values.
While there are a lot of things that make me think it reads that way (like how it doesn't read like any other 'I've updated my mistaken beliefs' post I've ever read, and the way nobody used it to talk about biases and instead everybody used it to talk more about the Biden laptop scandal) the primary one is simple - you didn't need @motteposting.
Examining biases and how they influence credulity would be a great topic for discussion, and if you wanted to talk about bias and credulity, it would have been simple. All you would have to do is - instead of using @motteposting's post - use your own posts. It's not easy to spot our own biases, but it isn't impossible either. You just needed to apply the same scrutiny you applied to @motteposting's logic to your own thoughts.
Why do you think Hutchinson's claim is plausible when it is based on hearsay about hearsay? What exactly about these two events do you think is similar aside from the use of unsubstantiated evidence? Why would you present the lack of written proof of the back room deal as evidence it didn't happen when you know they tried to make sure there was no written proof of their back room deals? Most importantly - if you really agree that nepotism is bad, and a really bad look for a president, then why do you find the Biden laptop scandal uncompelling? And have you really updated your belief if you think Bobulinski was telling the truth but otherwise maintain the exact same position you did before?
Any of these would have been suitable on-ramps to a discussion about bias and credulity, and you wouldn't have to write a top level post putting another user on the spot the way you did. Which, to be clear, I don't have a problem with in general - I admire good trolling for what it is and does, and in fact two years ago I would have wasted some money buying you reddit gold for this post, because as a troll it is a work of art. But I have come to understand what zorba and the team are going for (I think) and I appreciate the motte for what it is. And I think top level call outs, or things that look so much like top level call outs as to be no different, will destroy the motte, because nobody else is going to do it with this much finesse. So here I am, calling you out.
If I had to summarize my post it would be "I started to suspect that motteposting was potentially arguing in bad faith or being inconsistent, so I laid a trap to see how he'd react to his own argument. Despite what I emotionally desired, motteposting demonstrated commendable consistency, although there were a few questions at the fringe. In the course of the discussion, he also changed my mind about something. The end."
I don't know what this means, what exactly do you find suspicious?
I think I understand the general pushback against focusing too much on a single user's actions but I believe it was appropriate here because it's difficult to discuss these topics in the abstract. And I'm not at all opposed to examining my own biases, but I have to admit that I have blindspots like everyone else. I like to think that I'm sufficiently scrutinizing but that's going to reek of "we've investigated ourselves and concluded we did nothing wrong."
I'll answer your questions in turn:
There's two parts here, Hutchinson's claim of what she heard, and whether what she heard actually happened. On what she heard, Hutchinson to me came across as credible because she doesn't appear to have either a motive or a history of lying. She described the events with sufficient detail, and named every person that was privy to the conversation. She provided this testimony under oath and was annoyed at being subpoenaed. As falsification, if Hutchinson wanted to lie and make up something damning about Trump to get back at him or whatever, the far easier thing for her to have done would be to talk about a scenario that did not involve her listening in on a conversation with 3 other people (who are available to refute what she said). If I was playing the role of Lying Hutchinson, I would've conjured up something salacious that only Trump would be in the position of denying (e.g. sexual harassment).
Regarding the claims about the steering wheel lunging incident, it seems plausible to me. Trump does not strike me as someone with good temperament control, especially in private away from the cameras. There was testimony from other people that corroborated how thrilled he was about what his supporters were doing on J6, and how much he wanted to be in the thick of it. The other testimony also established how surprised his security detail was when he declared during his speech that he was going to walk down to the capitol, because they had not prepared anything like that. Two secret service agents claimed to contradict Hutchinson's ultimate lunging claim and apparently said they were willing to testify back in June, but they haven't materialized. All that leads me to think it makes sense that Trump really wanted to go to the capitol, that his security detail said no, and that he's impulsive enough to act out the way he did.
At the time I wrote it, the parallels were kind of basic and mostly along the lines of "This person we know little about made a claim with no real corroborating evidence, should we believe them?" I realized after that there was a lot more corroborating evidence from Bobulinski I didn't know about (motteposting's first reply to me didn't mention any of it).
The lack of written proof wouldn't necessarily settle the issue on its own, but my operating assumption is that a deal like this would leave a paper trail of some kind, and all we had were very vague terse lines about "H holding 10 for the big guy." I did not know about their insistence not to discuss the deal in writing until I saw the Gilliar text messages after, and also Hunter saying somewhere that Joe Biden prefers talking on the phone. That is a compelling explanation for why the paper trail I was looking for and expecting would not exist.
Because they've had access to so much of Hunter's files for so long, my assumption is that the CEFC deal is is the most damning thing they could nail on Joe Biden (since that's the real goal). But the CEFC deal was only talked about and never happened. I also find 2rafa's idea that Hunter was largely talking a big game about his dad's involvement to generate clout to make a lot of sense given the lack of solid detail of Joe Biden's involvement. Even with their insistence not to discuss the deal in writing, I know from experience that people fuck up and break security protocol, and I still would expect some sort of corroborating evidence that Hunter was funneling money to his dad (e.g. "can't smoke crack 2nite, gotta wire $ to dad" or something). What we're left with is that "Joe Biden was at least contemplated to receive a cut of a deal that fell through" which seems like a dud.
The other dimension is considering the baseline. I was happy that Biden won the election, but only because it meant Trump lost. Biden is kind of boring which I do find refreshing, but as a libertarian I'm struggling to think of any of his policies that I actually support, and I'll never forgive him for his role in vastly expanding the carceral state. As a person, although he seems to have calmed down in recent years, his habit of sniffing girls/women's hair was really bizarre, and I'm still inclined to believe Tara Reade's accusation that he tried to force himself on her.
Which is why it almost feels unfair, akin to beating a dead horse, to even mention the Trump family nepotism, because it's so wildly and flagrantly out of proportion. Trump hires his own family as White House advisors, doesn't release his finances, doesn't put anything in a blind trust, openly invites foreign dignitaries to stay in his hotels, neither he nor his family stop from using his name to secure deals across the world, and etc etc. The comparison here is comically unfair. I expect a certain level of corruption from politicians (and I find things like Clinton's ridiculous $500k speaking engagement fees and government officials retiring into cushy "consulting" gigs to all be deplorable) but I'm never going to see "zero" so I'll settle for "way less than the other guy".
I didn't know about Bobulinski until motteposting mentioned him. When I initially looked at his claims I saw some things that didn't add up and concluded that he might be twisting the truth for his own clout. Later examining other evidence I wasn't aware of changed my mind and I revised my conclusion to Bobulinski most likely telling the truth. I'm not sure what you mean by "exact same position". If you're talking about Joe Biden's involvement, see the previous answer.
I genuinely really appreciate you taking me to task on the above topic. Answering your questions prompted me to seriously reflect on my position, and I really wish more people did that to me.
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I think this theory makes sense. There are a wide avenue of opportunities available to Joe Biden to really rake in the cash if he wanted to that don't involve trusting his drug addicted son to pally around with shady characters. The lack of motive seems strong to me. I'm guessing the fact that he hasn't been as mercenary as the Obamas and Clintons might have something to do with waiting until after he's done being president to cash in.
I concede that Joe Biden was at least contemplated as being part of the CEFC deal that fell through, that much seems clear to me. Whether that was just bloviating big talk from Hunter, I don't know but it seems plausible as you explain. I'm not aware of any other evidence that Joe Biden actually profited from anything that Hunter cooked up, but I suppose that's possible if the regular practice is under the table kickbacks as is alleged in the CEFC deal. The amount of Hunter's private information that they've had access to makes me think the "big guy" email is the worst thing they could find (though to be fair there's repeated allusions about making sure not to discuss details in writing), and overall I don't really find the story all that compelling, especially when compared to what the baseline nepotistic corruption might be (say, for example, the kids of another president).
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I don't think Joe was actively taking bribes. I wonder - since Hunter is such a mess, as everyone agrees, and that Joe has indulged/supported him for years, was this Hunter's way of maybe trying to pay back Dad for all the money he's sponged off him? Being Hunter, he can't be legit even if he tries, but he sets aside a percentage of his slush money to repay Joe (and try to show Dad that he's finally stopped being a fuckup)?
Of course, being Hunter, he manages to make it sound like Joe is taking a cut of the bribe money.
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I agree, the attempts to tie Joe Biden to individual payments from corrupt actors probably ignore the structure of how these things work, they work off a model of Joe Biden that isn't sophisticated enough. Joe doesn't function by stealing money and spending it, Joe functions by existing at the center of a network of favors and family. Joe never pays for anything, someone else is always picking up the tab. Even in Delaware ((Unsourced personal rumors incoming)) he was notorious for failing to pay his contractors and telling them "If you ever need anything call me, my office can help you out of a jam." With the implication that if you ever try to sue me, it probably won't go well for you. If Joe and Jill fell on hard times, they wouldn't sweat it, Hunter or somebody else entirely would help them out, they have no need to accumulate personal wealth. Especially at 80, when most men are working for their kids/legacies anyway.
The only honest reason to look for some direct transfer to Biden is to hope he screwed up at least once and you can nail him to the wall, but that is unlikely to be the case.
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I don't think that this is a sufficiently persuasive argument, although I do appreciate regular bias-checks, as well as your honesty regarding your ultimate conclusions. Here is why I am unpersuaded that these cases were not relevantly similar: With Trump, we had already seen the same song-and-dance a hundred times - someone works for him or his family, has a falling-out, then leaves his administration/entourage to go tell the press salacious things that make him sound like an insane person or a psychopath, much of which subsequently either fails to be verified or is outright refuted. See e.g. Michael Cohen, the Mooch, John Bolton, Jim Mattis, John Kelly, etc. There is not just one article devoted exclusively to listing such people, there are many. No such context exists around Joe Biden, or at least no such context existed when the laptop and Bobulinski made their initial appearances. When even mere hints that Cassidy Hutchinson fell into this same pattern appeared, of course my expectation was that she fit the by-then well-established mold. And because we'd already had 4+ years of ridiculous lies about Trump's supposed personal derangement, my default credence in any story of that general type had already been greatly lowered. So very little further was required to merit (at least prima facie) dismissal at that point. I don't find that unreasonable at all, even if it may superficially appear to be so when you evaluate things in complete abstraction from their contexts.
By contrast, "Trump opponent peddles influence to foreign potentates via family venture(s)" had already turned out to be true at least once on the Presidential stage, and politicians being prosaically corrupt in that fashion is entirely plausible anyway. I don't think being inclined to believe the former over the latter, even given the same caliber of direct evidence against each, is remotely worthy of criticism. For it simply rests on eminently reasonable priors, plus plenty of previous evidence in the former case.
Well it's not cable news pundits who were testifying about the contents of the emails, nor did I invoke them to shore up Bobulinski's credibility. To be fair, it wasn't the J6 committee who were testifying about Trump trying to choke out a Secret Service agent either. But (IIRC) the whole reason I brought up the J6 committee's ratings was to explain why they'd push her even if she wasn't that credible, to counter the notion that the J6 committee wouldn't run her unless they rigorously verified her story or somesuch. However, I made no claim that Bobulinski was believable because the cable news guys having him on would vet him or something, so I don't really see the parallel there.
I appreciate that you took the time to respond and for outlining your heuristics transparently, but I'm having trouble understanding how your heuristics for prima facie assessments map exactly. I agree with you that politicians being prosaically corrupt is entirely plausible, but I find it odd that you specifically cleave along the "Trump opponent peddles influence" axis. What is the basis for carving out a territory shaped like that? Unless you can explain how members of a group share a trait relevant to the prediction, it seems like a suspiciously arbitrary designator.
For example, if I made the claim that "Trump peddles influence to foreign potentates via family venture(s)" would you find the claim on its face plausible because you use your "politicians are corrupt" heuristic or implausible because it doesn't match your "Trump opponent peddles influence" heuristic?
I was being a little glib, but my point was just that Hillary Clinton sold influence via her family too and she happened to be Trump’s only prior Presidential opponent (the frequentist probability is 100%! /s). I think “Trump opponent peddles influence” falls under “politician peddles influence,” so I wouldn’t be surprised if Trump were involved in various and sundry corruption too.
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Political influencers have influence because of a web of connections based around other people with the same or similar political views. That's why having one increases your prior for having more. "Trump" and "Trump opponents" have different political views, and won't be connected.
Do you believe the proclivity for peddling influence is different enough between those two groups that it warrants separate heuristic categories?
They probably are equally likely to use what influence they have, but aren't equally likely to have the same amount of influence in the first place. I don't know if that counts as having the same proclivity.
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He didn't conclude that, read his post again. He explicitly calls this a "hypothesis".
To your broader point though, of course our biases will inform how much credibility we give someone. To some extent I think this is actually mathematically correct. If someone tells me they went outside and saw a bird I'll believe them without question, if they tell me they went outside and saw an alien I'll start looking for reasons why they might be lying or mistaken. This is in line with bayesian reasoning because my prior probability for someone seeing a bird is much higher than my prior for them lying about seeing a bird whereas the opposite of true for aliens.
The place where it gets tricky is when we start adjusting our credence not based upon how likely the claim is but instead based upon how much we want it to be true. There are things I don't want to be true that are unfortunately still quite likely and things I want to be true that are very unlikely. It's tempting but mathematically invalid to interpret evidence in line with my desires rather than my unbiased assessments.
To the extent that post was a pure hypothesis, this is a fair point. But I also assume that if he's posting a hypothesis it's because he finds it at least somewhat persuasive which is why I framed my mirror attempt as "one possible explanation" and asked if he found any of what I wrote convincing. The idea was to see how motteposting reacts to motteposting's hypothesis.
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I don't care about the Hutchinson story or about Trump "lunging" at the wheel. This is not a principled stance - it may well be important - but it doesn't grab my attention and so I leave the discussion to those who do care about it.
However, please note that the concern that Joe Biden is "the big guy" in Hunter's emails does not just come from Bobulinski. The person who originally referenced "the big guy" in writing was James Gilliar, a Brit working with Hunter Biden on a Chinese energy firm deal. When the Hunter Laptop story broke, Gilliar texted with an unnamed person, who was concerned that the Bidens (mentioning both Joe and Hunter) would throw them under the bus. In discussing Joe Biden's incentives whether or not he won the then-ongoing election campaign, Gilliar again referred to Biden as "the Big Guy"..
Please also note that we don't just have Bobulinski's word. He has also provided text messages with Gilliar wherein Gilliar specifically instructs Bobulinski to take special care to hide Joe Biden's involvement in Hunter's business deals. (see the above-linked article).
Yes, I mentioned Gilliar's text messages already above. It's one of the reasons why I updated my position to believe Bobulinski is most likely telling the truth.
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A key difference between these situations is that there's no corroborating evidence for Cassidy's claim. It's not the case that the Presidential limo was seen suddenly swerving on camera, and Cassidy's claim is an explanation for what happened.
In the case of the Bidens, we have the email where Hunter is to hold 10% for "the big guy" and Bobulinski is explaining who the big guy is. We also, as far as I know, have no alternative theory on who "the big guy" is. Who else is in Hunter's orbit is a good candidate for "the big guy?"
Another key difference is simply "likelihood."
How likely is it that someone in the backseat of a large car might lunge for the steering wheel? It seems unlikely to me that someone in the backseat of a Volkswagen Rabbit would be able to make any serious play for a steering wheel, let along someone in a more spacious luxury SUV or limo or whatever. Even before you get into the political alliances, this sounds like a made-up story.
Again, removing political alliances, how likely is that a powerful politician is profiting in some way off of the connections he makes for his family members? Moderate to very likely?
Whether there is evidence of either, of course, weakens or strengthens the case. But purely in a "Could I see this happening?" model, one seems physically difficult, at best, while the other seems like the way things usually work.
If I remember correctly, it was said Trump lunged for the wheel of The Beast, but he was on video being driven in an SUV that day, which would be a huge counterfactual.
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To be fair Cassidy's claim was that someone (Tony Ornato) told her someone told him he saw someone do something. The only thing that is reliant on her credibility is the "someone told her" part of the chain. Ornato seems to have met with J6 committee and may be testifying soon, so he would be someone that can refute Cassidy's claims.
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This reads like “boo my interlocutor.”
"I'll specifically give credit for things he did that were commendable." ... "To motteposting's credit" ... "I think motteposting made some good points" ... "Overall, motteposting did a good job convincing me that Bobulinski is telling the truth" ... "I updated my belief to"
Nobody in this community should be unfamiliar with the idea of meeting the criteria of the rules while violating them in spirit. Zeke did not say "this is just boo my interlocutor".
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