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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32261 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 2, 2023

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  • There was a person mentioned in Hunter Biden communications under the alias "the Big Guy" to which, as the communications allude, went part of the profits. It is widely assumed that it is Joe Biden, and he was a knowing partner in Hunter's dealings, but so far there's no direct proof of that AFAIK.

  • Ray Epps is a person who took active participation in the events of January 6, by his own admission "I orchestrated it", and was seen inciting certain violent actions, but who for reasons unknown is treated in a radically different way from all other protestors by Democrats, and not only his prosecution was dropped without any plausible explanation, but he was invited to testify in front of Jan 6 commission, and during that testimony the interrogators basically fed him (pun!) the answers. It is suggested by some that the reason for all that is that he is one of the many FBI informants that we know were present at the scene (and in general most right organizations, such as Oath Keepers or Proud Boys, are infested with FBI informants, which makes it plausible that there should be some at the scene on Jan 6) or an agent of some other governmental agency.

Thanks for the explanation.

I don't think it is Joe Biden though. My priors are that sons don't really want to be controlled by their fathers. But in case he had such a relationship with his father, he would had called him less formally, like “Dad” or similar.

Ray Epps is more interesting. I think the worry about January 6 being a potential coup is overblown. Recently Germany had arrested a bunch of people for plotting a coup and restoring monarchy. The media described them as a group of senile men who had got hold of weapons, i.e., nothing serious and all immediately forgot about it. The same is probably true about January 6 except they were not seniors but younger fantasists and some of them had guns (but everybody has a gun in the US). It should not be paid such an attention. Sadly some people died in the crowds but fatal traffic accidents also happen and it is time to forget about this.

The only difference I can see is that Trump was tweeting something and the irrational hate of Trump has been a feature of the US politics. I am not saying that Trump is a good man but he certainly is not guilty of all the outrageous things he is accused of. Whatever Ray Epps' role was, it doesn't change the fact that it was just a spontaneous crowd gathered in naive beliefs, probably instigated by social media viral messaging.

Whatever Ray Epps' role was, it doesn't change the fact that it was just a spontaneous crowd gathered in naive beliefs, probably instigated by social media viral messaging.

Sure, but the question here is that there were some acts of violence and unlawful behavior. They are greatly exaggerated and overblown by the media (as expected) but who initiated them? Most people that are prosecuted are found guilty of the most mundane things akin to "walking where the government told you not to walk". However, we know some people did instigate the violence. Who were those people? We also know the FBI had informants there, and the FBI is not shy of using provocation tactics (see Whitmer "kidnapping" plot) - so were the FBI informants among those who instigated the violence, in order to turn a peaceful protest into something they could make a Congressional commission out of? If there were such people, we'd expect them to not be prosecuted, but instead to be used as vehicles for promoting such agenda.

And here we see a person who seemingly took part in instigating violence, was not prosecuted and is being used as a vehicle to promote the Dems agenda. If we learned he was working for the FBI (or any other part of the government apparatus) - it would confirm that the suspicions above are indeed true. Otherwise, we do not have a plausible explanation of why Epps was treated completely different from what we expect and see other protestors, often not guilty of anything more than walking through a space the government didn't like them to walk, are treated.

  1. There were other messages saying to use code for Joe Biden as they were paranoid about Op Sec.

  2. Hunter mentioned in a message to Hunter’s kid that the kid is lucky that Hunter doesn’t take money for the kid like Joe does vis-à-vis Hunter.

  3. We know they commingled funds.

  4. Finally there is testimony by Tony B.

So far, the evidence heavily suggests Joe was invoked.

I don't think it is Joe Biden though. My priors are that sons don't really want to be controlled by their fathers. But in case he had such a relationship with his father, he would had called him less formally, like “Dad” or similar.

One of Hunter's (former) business associates who was on the email chain in question was interviewed by Tucker Carlson, and specifically confirmed that in this case "Big Guy" was a sort of code when referring to Biden Sr. It would have been weird for them to all call him "Dad"!

It might be. Tucker Carlson is not very reliable though.

Why do you say that?

tucker isn't the source, former business associate tony bobulinski is the source

tucker's reliability is mostly irrelevant here, we're not relying on "unidentified source promise"

Tucker Carlson is not very reliable though.

like what?

I don't know who Tony Bobulinski is and how trustable he is. The fact that Tucker quotes him doesn't add anything. It is just mostly gossip which may be correct or may not. It doesn't update my priors much.

Maybe I am going the way that Taleb calls via negativa. I am careful and exclude things I don't have enough positive information about. That eliminates most of disaster modes (of course, it also makes me to lose some potentially great deals too).

so what are you asking for? direct proof looks like a former business associate explicitly claiming who "the big guy" was in the email chains

tucker is irrelevant to that; basic research would reveal who the source is and a guess about their reliability

your position appears to be essentially you don't know, you've done basically zero research about this topic (and aren't willing to), tucker talking about it triggers your bias and creates a perception there is something unreliable about the source, and your bias about son behavior generally points to it being wrong therefore you have a very high bar for believing it to be true?

is that right?

Exactly.

Why should I even care about this issue? I was just trying to convey how much would I trust this information based on my priors. I don't think I am biased exactly because I don't care about it. However, this is more interesting that Tucker doesn't move my priors.

If I read something on wikipedia that would move my priors.

Fair enough. What is the difference between "my priors" and "my bias"?

Compared to whom?

Practically everyone who is qualified to speak about this matter.

Who is qualified to speak about this matter? I’d say Tucker is about as reliable as any relatively large media person. Do you have evidence otherwise?

For that matter, no one has contradicted Tucker’s 2020 reporting so that is a good bit of positive evidence per se.

The fact that he is a media person disqualifies him already.

He talked rubbish about war in Ukraine. He is not interested in finding truth, just make controversial statements to increase his audience (and income).

What rubbish did he talk about? Was there a fact he got wrong or merely an opinion you didn’t like?

Also, you seem to be ignoring my second point.

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