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Is any sort of split resolution possible, considering the 55-42-3 percentages estimated

@FecalAbhuman

I have stated in the past that I will not resolve this question to PERCENT because I personally see that as a cop-out. Resolves "Left-Wing".

creator was holding to their promises

@FecalAbhuman yeah unfortunately for me i said I wouldn't do percent fairly early on, and I feel like a percent resolution is something you gotta have in place from the start or it becomes a massive mess

holy yap bro im giving this market 1 star

@ZandaZhu I wasn't going to bother rating the resolution, but I will now to cancel out your sour grapes, since it was obviously correct. Don't be an asshole just because you thought he'd be right-wing a few months ago.

@ZandaZhu here I'll make you one special:

Idk bro seems kinda lefty to me

Okay, so: We're going to start by assuming that Tyler Robinson, the accused shooter, is the shooter (This seems fairly likely, from the evidence we have). Let's take a look at what we know as of today.

Strong evidence:

• The target, of course, was right-wing ideologue and pundit Charlie Kirk. Unfortunately, this doesn't narrow it down nearly as much as you'd think: lots of people hate Charlie Kirk, including far-right groyper types, the left, the LGBT community. This points strongly away from Center: Centrists were fairly unlikely to know who Charlie Kirk was before this killing. An indiscernible resolution could still be possible if we don't know what his motivation was.

• We do seem to know what his motivation was. In his own words: "I had enough of his hatred. Some hate can't be negotiated out." Again, this could be read in a handful of directions, since Charlie Kirk hated a lot of people, including the left, groypers, trans people, Lebron James for some reason, but taken with the fact that it was Kirk that got This reinforces the last point as a sign towards left or right, but not center. In my opinion, it points slightly more heavily towards someone leaning left than towards the right: I don't think someone on the right would have killed Kirk for him being hateful, and if they did, they'd have specified which hatred, specifically.

• Robinson doesn't seem to have been particularly motivated by infamy, either: Robinson took specific steps towards hiding his identity, and only confessed to people he thought he could trust to protect him (even though they didn't really do so). Him shooting Kirk seems to be motivated more by wanting Kirk dead than by wanting to be known as the guy who killed him. This points away from a center/indiscernible resolution.

• He did, however, leave a confession to his roommate. This is, of course, because he thought he could trust her, but the specifics of their relationship kind of paint a picture of some sort of interpersonal thing going on between them. I'm not sure. This feels like the strongest evidence for an indiscernible resolution.

• Our strongest evidence points us away from a center/indiscernible resolution. Robinson was aware of Kirk, knew Kirk was hateful, and did not like Kirk being hateful to the point where he thought it "couldn't be negotiated out." What evidence we have in favor of an indiscernible resolution is a bit murkier, and is tied up in an interpersonal relationship that seemed to be what was driving Robinson to the left, if he was.

• I have seen no strong evidence suggesting Robinson was a right-winger at the time of the shooting. All evidence I've seen at this point is extremely weak, based on half-truths, or conveys some strongly motivated reasoning.

Weaker evidence, roughly in order of most to least convincing

• He seems to have a mixed political past. He was raised conservative, by a conservative Mormon family. However, his family seems to state that he'd started moving to the left on some issues, especially LGBTQ+ rights. This points us every which way: he could be closer to how he was raised, signifying right-wing; he could be closer to how his family assessed him now, signifying left-wing; or he could be somewhere between the two, signifying center. Of these, I think the left-wing assessment is strongest from this evidence - I think one discord server makes for a really pretty bad dataset, and if he'd been moving more to the left his high school friends wouldn't know much. I don't think we can take much away from this, but it does inch us closer to the left.

• He seems to have been in some kind of relationship with his transgender roommate. Despite the fact that anyone can be trans or know or romantically pursue someone who's trans, I think it's safe to say that someone willing to be roommates, friends, or lovers with, or some sort of chaser towards a trans person is more likely to, at least, present to the world as left-wing. This is really weak evidence, but points us left.

• The messages on the bullets all reference internet memes and video games. This points at indiscernible, maybe slightly towards left-wing with the "bella ciao" and "hey fascist, catch" engravings, but even then, I'd say they're not very strong pushes, because their primary purpose was almost certainly just to get someone to say "the bullet had 'owo notices ur bulge' on tv" (I know some people also interpreted that specific bullet as being transphobic, but I think that's silly).

• As previously stated, leaked Discord chat logs seem to suggest he was fairly apolitical in at least one or two discord servers. This could point towards center, but it could also just point towards that specific Discord server not being strongly political, or a strong spiral of silence around political matters amongst his friend group.

• He doesn't seem to have a strong political self-identity. This is weak evidence towards the center - we're not really looking at how he personally identifies, and even if we were he could always just lie about how politically active he was.

• History weakly points us towards right or indiscernible. Assassinations are rare - and Left-wing assassinations even more so - but this doesn't rule things out. This is kinda useless so long as there's more evidence involved.

• Demographics, if we choose to bring them in, point us towards center-right. The average white 22-year-old Mormon male from Utah with no college degree is slightly more likely to be politically active and is more likely to be right-leaning. That said, the average demographic argument doesn't count for much, since the average person in any demographic usually also doesn't shoot people.

Of this evidence, the strongest points us away from a center resolution, but leaves open an indiscernible ideology. However, this is tamped down hard by the fact that he stated his motivations fairly clearly (Charlie Kirk's hate) while failing to show any motivations that would really point towards a right-wing resolution. Weaker evidence points us all manner of directions:

I have heard only bad arguments for a right-wing resolution, and the evidence for it is the weakest we've got - history and demographics - so a resolution to "Right Wing" is kind of out of the question.

I've heard decent arguments for a center resolution, and the evidence for it is decent as well - his political past and his friends. I've also seen a bit of evidence that points more towards an indiscernible resolution - mostly the bullet casings, his joking around after the fact, his lack of a strongly coherent political self-identity. A resolution to center is within acceptable bounds.

I've heard decent arguments for a left resolution, and it seems to be mostly backed up by the evidence - his family stated he seemed to be moving towards the left, his romantic situation and living situation seem to point left-ish, and his directly stated motivations seem to paint a picture of someone raised on the right that found himself moving more towards the left.

In all, the portrait of Robinson that I see from this evidence points towards a resolution of left-wing. From what I can tell, Robinson seems relatively in the center with a weak left-wing tilt. I think that left-wing tilt is just far enough to the left for a left-leaning resolution to make more sense than a center resolution. This is, of course, my subjective opinion. I feel fairly confident about this opinion. I'd put it at about 55% left-wing, 42% center, and maybe 3% right-wing, with a confidence of about 80%.

I have stated in the past that I will not resolve this question to PERCENT because I personally see that as a cop-out. Resolves "Left-Wing".

@Marnix So the preponderance of evidence points to center/inconclusive, but it resolves left wing. Got it

@Creagle The strongest evidence points away from center/inconclusive. The weakest evidence points towards center/inconclusive. I do not see this guy as right-wing, so there's really only one option here as far as i can really see

@Creagle Exactly. What's the point of having an 'indiscernible' option if it's not considered?

@Marnix Your strongest evidence appears to be "Charlie Kirk was right wing" which is a different question imo

@Marnix

Now, unrelatedly, a little advice for anyone thinking of making a question like this in the future, here's the advice I'd have for a market like this:

1. don't do it, you have so much life ahead of you

2. no seriously don't do it, this sort of market stops being predictive and starts being a mess way faster than you'd think

3. Don't have "center" as an option at all. Just completely do away with it. You do still need a third option for a Mangione-type case, but "center" makes resolving this so much more difficult for everyone involved. Maybe something like "Unknown/indiscernible," but i don't know.

4. Two months is way more than you need. This story was massive for, like, maybe 3 weeks, tops. Make your resolution date a month out from when a shooter is captured AT MOST, and if no shooter gets captured by a month or two out, N/A the question.

5. Make a date where you'll have to look at the evidence and stick to it. Don't even leave the option of an early resolution on the table. If it's egregious enough, you can just resolve it early without leaving it on the table.

6. Don't let people calling you biased get to you. People get silly when there's money on the line, even fake money. Remember: it could be so much worse. Thank god we're not on a real-money market

@Marnix I think this is a reasonable resolution.

The ideal case for the other results would be:

• Right wing: he’s a Groyper

• Indiscernible: no trace whatsoever (e.g. Crookes)

• Centre/apolitical: expresses apolitical views, and has a different motive for the crime. (Infamy, personal disagreement, insanity, etc)

In this case, it sounds like you’ve decided that the motive was opposition to Kirk’s transphobic rhetoric. Trans issues are firmly aligned with the left in the US. That’s sufficient imo to determine that he is ‘left wing’.

@OP Personally, I think there's more factors at play than just his opposition to Kirk's transphobia (interpersonal situational stuff with his roommate, mostly), but yes. He really didn't seem to be motivated by infamy (from the evidence I saw, he looked like he was hoping to just get away with it without anyone knowing) or insanity (he seemed fairly capable of expressing why he did it), which really pushes me away from seeing a center resolution.

@Marnix isn’t the interpersonal situation what led to his opposition to Kirk’s transphobia?

@Creagle This market resolution was ill done. I should know by now to avoid this kind of "in my opinion" markets.

@FrederickNorris @Marnix He seems to be pro RKBA which codes as right wing, so I would have resolved indiscernible.

@CraigDemel everyone has some assortment of views. Some lefties support bearing arms. (There’s even a Marx quote about it somewhere, and there are socialist rifle organisations.)

I think it’s reasonable to place significant weight on the motive for the most important act of his life.

@CraigDemel I personally know a number of left-wing RKBA people. 2A lefties are a lot more common than you'd think, especially in areas where guns are kinda everywhere

@Marnix Did I understand this right? LGBTQ rights is a question of political lean?

@Marnix Well, it's seems to be something like 1:2 L:R https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/07/24/key-facts-about-americans-and-guns/

@Marnix It's still not clear to me what specifically came out (beyond what we knew when the bullet casings were found and beyond him being against Kirk, both of which were obvious long ago and weren't sufficient to resolve the market). To me, his political ideology is no more clear now than it was a long time back, yet the market didn't resolve at that time (even though it was stated that it would resolve when enough information to resolve became available). The fact that this didn't resolve much sooner almost forces an "indiscernible" resolution, as the rules of the market state that it would resolve when it became discernable.

@PatrickAupperle I think it’s reasonable to hold off for a little while, particularly when we didn’t (and still don’t?) have a full picture of the guy.

We can discern a leaning from what’s out there, but we can also imagine further evidence that could overturn it.

@Marnix

don't do it, you have so much life ahead of you

accurate 😄 I feel bad whenever someone gets a hotly contested market. but hey, you've been thru the trial by fire now! sometimes the best answer is an answer and you've got a great list of lessons learned.

@OP That appears to be the motive or at least the primary one, but even that appears to have been driven by his own relationship with a trans person, not some universally applied set of left-wing political beliefs. The authorities have had weeks to examine everything he's ever said and done and it seems safe to assume we would have heard about it if they had turned up anything that links him to a left wing organisation or other individuals

@OP I agree that it makes sense to hold off if the answer is unclear. If the answer is clear, it should have been resolved sooner. If the answer is unclear when you have to resolve the market, though, you should resolve it as unclear. If it has shifted from being unclear to being clear, I'd like to understand what created the shift.

@Marnix agree w/ the resolution but I think this undersells the evidence for “left wing” - specifically the bullet engravings with anti-fascist messages on them. there is no way a right winger or “centrist” would write these messages unless they were intentionally trying to mislead people about their political beliefs (which seems very unlikely). just because some of the engravings were memes doesn’t mean none of them have a clear message

@jumpman_folder you can be conservative and anti-fascist

@Marnix Thank you for doing your best to consider the evidence thoroughly and honestly. I'm not sure why you don't agree that writing "fascist" on a bullet is a slam-dunk for "left-wing", and also I think considering transphobia as an evil deserving death is definitionally left-wing, but you got the right final answer so I'm not complaining. I also agree with your observation that waiting this long was unhelpful.

About the engravings: I don't think they were ever meant as a public message. They were on the bullet casings, which remained inside the gun, which he was planning to retrieve and return to his grandfather. He carved them a while before, as part of a personal fantasy about violent resistance, probably without yet having any intention of carrying it out. The carvings were things he (and his roommate) found hilarious. Then when he needed a gun, that was what he had. It was only only once he lost control of the gun that he realized, "Oops, I just got 'owo notices bulge' onto Fox news".