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Sierra's avatar

Re: linktree, I think "Gorilla Mind"= evo psych, and Yin Yang might be a ref to the Asian spritual practices he was warming up to post-surgery (i.e. talks about getting into yoga and speaking highly of Shintoism, needing to "zen out" etc), though that is more speculative

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H.N.E's avatar

Yes. I believe it might have something to do with his interest in the book “The ape that understood the universe”.

Not sure.

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Bainne17's avatar

I thought it was evolutionary psychology toon

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H.N.E's avatar

I believe he had an interest in Buddhism. I’m not certain though.

Not sure if this is confirmed or not, but a voice note he sent to a friend he met in Asia (Thailand?) consists of him saying he wanted to “do some buddha” (?).

(I commented a lot sorry, was commenting as I was reading 😂)

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Max's avatar

to "do some buddha" means to smoke weed

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H.N.E's avatar

I think he had 286 posts on Twitter, but someone he retweeted might have deleted that tweet. (What do you think of the 286 theory, if you’ve heard of it?)

Also, about his Goodreads, maybe he read more books than what is present on his Goodreads lists.

And, maybe his picture atop the mountain in Hawaii is to show how he was before his back injury and surgery?

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Max's avatar

just spent 10 min with grok on 286 and feel even more confident it's a nothing burger. 286 is very obscure and almost never harms the patient. Basically patient goes to doctor, doctor bills to insurance, insurance denies it for some reason, doctor refiles, insurance denies it via 286 bc they followed improper appeal procedure. Doctor can just re-appeal with the correct form. And if for some reason they STILL screw it up, they very rarely push that cost on to the patient. when a claim gets denied, only like 1-2% probably ever get 286'd. And less than 10% of those actually affect the patient in any way. So 0.1% of denials see code 286. Unless LM PERSONALLY got screwed by this (His back was fixed, why would he even be going to doctor? And if he did why would he care? dude had hella money) it doesn't make any sense why it would be intentional.

https://grok.com/share/bGVnYWN5_a4512915-871d-4b36-bcdb-679c1320c8ea

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Max's avatar

I saw the 286 thing. it seems very obscure and a stretch to me. IIRC he had breloom in his banner when I was talking to him, almost a year prior to the shooting. Also he appears to have deleted a few tweets in July before going offline to achieve the 286 number. So requires us to believe that he planned this for 6 months, while he traveled. Furthermore, healthcare has like hundreds of denial codes and 286 doesn't seem particularly representative of healthcare corruption. I bet if I spent a half hour i could find 20 that are near 286 that would have been much better choices.

Also, what purpose does LM have for doing this? He already has the manifesto and yet he says nothing in it. He could have written much more. Why make it so obscure? And why don't we see any special numbers anywhere else?

It just seems like people in search of a conspiracy and finding one to me.

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Bainne17's avatar

I’m a big Pokemon fan so the Breloom in his banner was always interesting to me. There’s been so many theories as to why Breloom was there. I had never considered he viewed Breloom as being similar to him, or represented his interests

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Jenna's avatar

This. Good insight and feels far more plausible than any '286 theory.'

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April's avatar

Hi Max,

Have you read the short book Last Known Contact, which is said to be written by a travel companion he met during his time in Bangkok? Its authenticity has not yet been confirmed, but it appears to contain records of his conversations with Luigi, including photos and voice messages.

If the content is reliable, the book mentions his criticism of the health insurance industry and one of his reasons for traveling to Asia in early 2024—he said he wanted to “do some Buddha.”

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Max's avatar

I've heard about it and seen excerpts. But like I go into in 3.5, I'm not considering anything that has come out from anyone post-shooting. I think it's more likely to create less clarity rather than more. I will maybe consider this stuff after part 4. But I think I will be satisfied and done after 4.

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H.N.E's avatar

Max, do you think the public reaction online and the various left-wingers who like Mangione may have influenced what you think of his politics?

You repeat several times that you think he is left of center, and yet, he always seems to have been interested in capitalism and capitalist ideas on Twitter.

I do remember him saying “we live in a capitalist society” on Reddit. But I’m not sure what to make of it. I believe he was saying that the healthcare system and doctors respond far more urgently when you say that your health problems affect your ability to work.

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Max's avatar

Like I explain in 3.5, Luigi does not fit neatly into any political box. He started as a good boy prog and slowly broke away in various ways as he did his own thinking about things. I think he would still technically score lib left on pol comp test, but I don't think trying to put him in a "left" or "right" is particularly useful or possible to do well (obviously, if it were, people wouldn't still be arguing about it). I think the key take away about Luigi is the methodology he used (rationalism) and the positions he held (which I go over in 3.5)

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H.N.E's avatar

“I think we can reasonably claim that Luigi had below average social media usage for his age”.

I honestly find this slightly difficult to come to terms with. I believe he had secret accounts, maybe on Reddit and Twitter/X.

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Bainne17's avatar

I 100% believe he had secret accounts

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