Who did it? When the truth is hard to establish

It is difficult, but it is there, and there is no doubt about it. It was hidden by lies and disinformation... Hidden by those who “did it” in reality.


Article Editor: Yan Beygelzimer, Dr.Sc., Professor

“The loudest “Stop the thief!” - The thief shouts,” ‘The thief's hat burns on the thief’ - that's them. They don't shout it themselves. They shout for their money, useful idiots shout, deceived respectable people shout, yellow press and fooled respectable publications shout... It is difficult to see the Truth in this clamor. Then, later, it will manifest itself, it will certainly be established.

But what to do now? First, not to run headlong ahead of the locomotive and not to join the general chorus. If only because, according to popular wisdom, it was most likely organized by those “who did it”. Second, to take into account the reputation of the suspects and to think, to hesitate.

There is such an old mathematical formula - the Bayes formula, which is now very relevant in artificial intelligence, medicine, financial forecasts, sociology, etc. It allows you to find the probability of an event provided that another event interdependent with it has occurred.

As applied to this situation, the Bayesian formula takes into account the reputation of the suspect in answering the question. If he or she has a long list of proven criminal acts behind him or her, the probability that he or she committed the crime is higher than the probability for a “nerd” or a person with a clean reputation.

Particularly in this context should be said about a suspect who is followed by a long list of questions: criminal acts, where despite the full clarity of his guilt, it has never been proven. In this case, the dragon tail of such questions acquires a new quality, it almost becomes an answer: this subject is a criminal, but he either has a very strong team of lawyers and a lot of money to bribe judges, or he has very strong connections, or, finally, the court simply serves him. If such an individual is now standing on the sidelines and closely watching the general chorus of condemnation, or even conducting it, the probability that it is he who “did it” and not someone else is close to one.

It is advisable to maintain such a cautious stance towards high-profile topics at all times, not only in the question “Who blew up the Nord Stream?”.

 

Cover photo: Bayes' theorem spelt out in blue neon at the offices of Autonomy in Cambridge. Authorship: mattbuck, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=14658489

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