THE DETAILS

I’m a big fan of Occam’s and Hanlon’s razors. And I think of them as linked. The simplest explanations are preferable to and often more likely than highly complex ones and ignorance or incompetence tend to be far more common and probable an explanation than malice. Besides these tending to offer the best or most likely explanations, thinking otherwise is probably just not going to do your mental health any good while also failing to get you anywhere. You, a mere mortal, are just not going to crack the code on the cabal of interdimensional, shape-shifting lizard-people who live in glass palaces within the hollowed-out Moon and from there predetermine the results of the World Cup and the global price of toothpaste.

That said, I do happily hold and nurse a whole bunch of what others would likely call conspiracy theories. I tend to reject that label as I don't think I ever see nor even propose any conspiracy. I mostly wind up at something like "Will someone, please, give me a explanation that makes some sense, please? Or even just something that accords with the last thing you insisted was true, please? Pretty please?" I seldom even get to reject any explanations, formal or informal, because serious offerings so rarely arrive.

But here’s one such holding being nursed. Tell me what you think.

THE CASE

This week folks have been once again talking about the Kirk assassination, likely because, almost a year later, the trial of the accused is set to begin. And in case you’re not aware, there were a whole spectrum of wild conspiracies that arrived the moment of the killing and that were collated, elaborated, and pushed out on the social media circuit and in online forums. I’ve looked into none of those, don’t know anything about Kirk or who he or his family, friends, and allies were, and know nothing about the shooter or ballistics or even about the state of Utah or the university where he was killed.

I didn’t seek out any information about this event but, like so often, instead had it delivered to me by the traditional media and day and night via all the channels they have access to. So, yes, with a couple of communication degrees, a general interest in the press and what they’re up to, and a personal curiosity around visual literacy, what we were given triggered an interest in a particular offering.

Almost immediately after the shooting the FBI arrested two people. One said he did it and the other the FBI apprehended someplace and claimed was their guy. FBI Director Patel even went on social media and triumphantly declared they got their man. A little weird but case-closed I presumed.

Then, hours later, investigators held a press conference with officials un-declaring their catch and asserting they, in fact, did not have their man nor did they identify a suspect. They did, however, insist they had "good video footage," "high quality" and were applying their state-of-the-art facial recognition to it.

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