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.
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.
I don't think you can ever legitimately accuse someone of a logical fallacy who isn't making an argument.
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.
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.
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.
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 recommend reading through http://lesswrong.com/lw/19m/privileging_the_hypothesis
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.
"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).
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.
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.
Really how? How is it out of order for a government that goes around jailing foreign citizens without trial abroad to avoid local laws?