Is it true that Brookline had very few murders in the past 5 years? Increases the chance of it being targeted instead of random.
stmw 12 hours ago [-]
It is a very very safe town.
kazinator 13 hours ago [-]
> Correction 16 December: An earlier version of this story incorrectly defined the kind of plasma that Professor Loureiro researched.
If I get shot and someone writes some libelous bullshit about how I worked with hygienic macro systems, someone kindly jump on that shit ASAP. Thanks in advance!
classified 8 hours ago [-]
Would you want your epitaph to say that you worked on implementing dynamic scoping rules?
cryptonector 12 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
JuniperMesos 15 hours ago [-]
My prediction is that it was a random home invasion robbery committed by someone with multiple previous felonies who had no idea that the person living in the house they were trying to rob was a MIT professor.
But I have no more information than anyone else does, I'm making a low-confidence educated guess, and at some point in the near future it's very likely that the professionals whose job it is to investigate serious crimes will have a better idea of what actually happened than anyone posting in this thread.
screye 13 hours ago [-]
Unlikely. He was killed in the foyer [1] of his building in an exceedingly safe city (Brookline, MA).
In a neighborhood with mixed SFHs and condos, it makes little sense to target a condo. Makes even less sense for someone to break in, but to shoot the victim outside, in the foyer.
Agree. Most killings are not random, but committed by someone the victim knows.
dmoy 7 hours ago [-]
Yea even in the US where there's a rather lot of home invasions (~million/yr), even amongst the ones where the occupier is injured-or-worse (~250k/yr), very very few of them are fatal (<500/yr).
socketcluster 12 hours ago [-]
Other possibility; a disgruntled investor who poured millions into dead-end fusion research and now wishes they had invested in AI research instead? Blames the professor for persuading them to invest in fusion.
It's a tough one to find a motive for...
screye 11 hours ago [-]
Can you quote 1 other example of a disgruntled investor that has killed an American academic over the last 50 years ?
blitzar 1 hours ago [-]
They normally just have their friend the DA lock them up for "fraud"
cmckn 13 hours ago [-]
This basically never happens, about 100 people die a year in the US during a “burglary gone wrong”. People think it’s common, though; it’s the go-to cover story in almost any Dateline episode.
TiredOfLife 13 hours ago [-]
That's 100 times more than I thought.
BobbyJo 12 hours ago [-]
You thought only one person a year died during break ins gone wrong? Vending machines kill more than that.
TiredOfLife 12 hours ago [-]
I am horrified about the huge amount of break-ins.
And even more horrified about the thread on homepage about surveilance cameras. I knew that shoplifting and car theft is essentially decriminalized in US. And now I learn that home invasions are also.
wewtyflakes 11 hours ago [-]
This logic does not follow from or to "That's 100 times more than I thought." You can be both horrified at something and also understand that it is thing that happens.
karlgkk 13 hours ago [-]
The us has a population of about 340,000,100. Notice where the 1 is.
roncesvalles 12 hours ago [-]
Tangential but I think that's a terrible way of making your point because intuitively we don't look at digits of a numbers and think log scale. That looks more like 1/3 instead of 0.000029%.
9 hours ago [-]
Hobadee 12 hours ago [-]
If we are doing random predictions based on scant evidence, mine is a professional hit. Neighbor said he heard 3 shots. If it was a "pop pop...pop", that's 2 in the body, 1 in the head. Professional assassin.
mocha_nate 11 hours ago [-]
My prediction: time traveler. Guy goes back in time to prevent an unspeakable tragedy that happened in the future. The simplest solution to alter the course of human history was this attack. We'll never find the killer because as soon as his work was completed, he vaporized into the ether as his timeline was culled.
DougN7 10 hours ago [-]
Wish that guy had … well, never mind. Better not to say it.
seanmcdirmid 12 hours ago [-]
It could be a disgruntled grad student? That is shockingly not unheard of in academia.
13 hours ago [-]
mothballed 14 hours ago [-]
It's a reasonable guess, but 8:30p seems like a dumb time for a home robbery. Usually they're committed during the day when people are at work, and if not that then deep in the night for maximum cover. 8:30 is almost like the ideal time if you actually want someone to be there and answer the door at an hour where it wouldn't cause enough alarm for them to answer the door with a weapon.
wat10000 14 hours ago [-]
When it comes to small-scale crime like this, the smartest thing is typically not to do it at all. So the people who do it will generally not be very smart.
foobarian 13 hours ago [-]
In this day and age who robs homes any more? You'd be liable to get paid to take a bunch of junk away instead
stevenwoo 12 hours ago [-]
The little but wealthy town of Los Altos Hills next to Palo Alto had Flock come in and install their camera surveillance after a string of burglaries and one or two home invasion style robberies, it's a mostly rural/suburban area. Believe it or not there are also still folks who come from cultures where they do not believe in banks in the USA, so there is a lot of cash and gold in those people's homes.
randycupertino 12 hours ago [-]
When BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) came to Pleasanton CA my fox-news brainwashed racist aunt and uncle and their neighbors where legitimately convinced black people from Oakland were going to come take BART out from Oakland and steal their TVs. And this was back in the day of the giant bulky heavy-backed rear-projection TVs. I was like... first of all they drive cars now and second of all who is going to take BART to come rob you and third of all who would want to carry this stupid heavy thing!! And if they were going to take your 150lb TV they would need a truck and a dolly, not take public transit to do so.
Pleasanton remained safe and bland despite allowing evil public transit.
Eisenstein 12 hours ago [-]
> small-scale crime like this
You mean murder?
wat10000 11 hours ago [-]
Yes. Smart criminals become CEOs where they can kill people wholesale and totally legally.
cykros 4 hours ago [-]
Or leftist politicians, where they can do it on an industrial scale by the millions in death camps, in the name of progress.
wat10000 2 hours ago [-]
You could have so easily left out the word “leftist” and had a nice point, but instead you chose to start a fight.
watwut 2 hours ago [-]
I would point out that when it comes to these, right, far right and fascists win the numbers. And right now, it is far right who is having genocidal rhetorics.
Supermancho 14 hours ago [-]
Indeed, 8:30p is no different from 2p or 10a for the act.
It's most likely a matter of happenstance. It happened to be the warmest time of the day (even though it was evening). Maybe the thinking was someone was home to help them find the valuables, maybe not.
> 8:30p seems like a dumb time for a home robbery.
The assertion that there is some optimization for some specific imagined motivation, is literal fantasy.
pclmulqdq 12 hours ago [-]
I would assume that the most likely options for for "rich person shot in home" are:
"Authorities have investigated whether his death could be connected to this weekend's Brown University shooting and, at this point, a senior law enforcement official briefed on both cases told ABC News there is nothing to suggest they’re connected."
Authorities and the university have also been asking for tips but then flipping the script as soon as they get them: "Accusations, speculation and conspiracies we're seeing on social media and in some news reports are irresponsible, harmful, and in some cases dangerous."[]
Also worth noting... at one point the arrested the wrong guy.
They have no clue. And become hostile when people try to come up with one. While scrubbing student profiles and simultaneously claiming they have no knowledge of doing so. The whole thing is a total clown show and nothing said by the authorities is to be believed without independent verification.
[] Brown University spokesperson Brian Clark
willis936 15 hours ago [-]
Absolutely useless without a name and reputation on the line. It's an absurd to publish that multiple academics killed within an hour drive within one week have "nothing to suggest they're connected".
refulgentis 15 hours ago [-]
Are you from Boston / have you lived there? I do, and thank you for your concern. But this is confusing to say the least.
1. No one should be stupid enough to put their name and rep on the line, in a fluid situation, where there’s 0 idea who did the first anyways, for days now.
2. Dunno what you mean by academics, students and professors? Usually academics refers to professors / grad students / has a job at university related to teaching, but Brown victims weren’t professors. Hard to see how that indicates a connection.
3. It’s a real stretch to put Providence to Brookline at a 1 hour drive. In general, it’s two different worlds, so it’s strange to use it as a clear indicator they must be related.
4. If it’s obvious they’re connected, and making any claim of probability re: their connection should require putting your name and reputation on the line, what’s your name?
willis936 15 hours ago [-]
You are demonstrating a fundamental misunderstanding of trust. Aaron Katersky and Josh Margolin put their name on the line because without that you wouldn't know the provenance of the information and wouldn't know if you should trust it. Citing an unnamed officer making claims that they have insufficient evidence for is not good journalism, so their reputation takes a hit. The officer also deserves this reputational hit since they are making the unsubstantiated claim.
To be very clear here, the claim is that "there is nothing to suggest the two sets of predmeditated murders within a week within an hour are related". The fact that they're the same demographic, high profile, using the same weapon, close in proximity, and close in time are all concrete things that relate them. It is embarrassing to state otherwise, so the officer was not named. However the reporters are not immune to this, so they take the hit.
I am not stating the positive "they are related", I am refuting the negative "they are unrelated".
And as for my identity: I am not a reporter or public official. You don't need to and shouldn't use me as a source of truth. I am a member of the public applying logic to facts. I am closer to this event than you but I won't say more. As a member of HN who respects privacy I'm sure that should be enough for you.
jabbywocker 14 hours ago [-]
You aren’t refuting a negative because the statement isn’t “they are unrelated” the statement is “(with current information) there is nothing suggesting they are related”
If you’re close to the situation, and have a substantiated reason to believe the claim that there’s no current information suggesting they’re related is inaccurate, you should be able to back that up. Except we both know you can’t, because you’re attempting to refute something that wasn’t actually said.
SauntSolaire 14 hours ago [-]
> using the same weapon
The same weapon being.. a gun? Hardly a notable connection.
refulgentis 10 hours ago [-]
Other comments cover the “logic” being applied here. Dunno who those two names are. I’m genuinely worried about your grip on reality based on your writing, I don’t say that lightly and am very, very, serious, to the point I’d prefer to eat downvotes and offend you than hide that and possibly contribute to you worsening.
I hope you’re extremely close to one of these events and are extremely distraught, even though that’s tragic, because it would indicate you’re not just comfortable disassociated from reality.
Note the difference in your approach this morning versus now, to wit, you this morning: “ We have no info but he was the department head of the MIT PSFC. It's easy to imagine a deranged individual picking a high profile target by browsing MIT's website. Or it was a domestic dispute or road rage or any number of things that would drive someone to shoot someone in their home.
We have no information and can only speculate.”
perihelions 15 hours ago [-]
They're only 40 miles apart. Moreover, they're both (apparently) premeditated gun murders targeting academics at famous universities.
edit to add: (For those who weren't aware, the Brown University terrorist is still on the loose).
defrost 15 hours ago [-]
One was a home invasion that may or may not be related to the victims work on fusion plasma. It is very likely unrelated to that work.
The other was a mass shooting style event that targetted an exam preperation review hall populated by econ students and led by a 21-year-old teaching assistant.
It's a stretch to connect an isolated murder of a field advancing physics researcher and a hall full of students just because all the victims are involved in book learning.
Possible connection, sure. At an improbable stretch.
ChatGPT can certainly knock up a Clancy like novel here, no doubt.
UncleMeat 2 hours ago [-]
In a different state, no less.
varenc 13 hours ago [-]
Is there any evidence this murder was related to the professor's work?
sh34r 10 hours ago [-]
If it is, do you think it’s the Iranians taking revenge on American civilian scientists, or a Ted Kaczynski type?
inshard 7 hours ago [-]
This is my theory as well. A google search for the late prof's name returns a .ir website at the top of the result for some reason. It's a tragic loss for the world and his loved ones as are the victims of the brown incident.
15 hours ago [-]
RagnarD 13 hours ago [-]
American MSM has carefully avoided mentioning a critically important fact pointing towards the motives of the killer: the professor was Jewish and openly pro-Israel.
There are a lot of Jewish, pro-Israel professors in the US. I don't see any evidence that it was a factor in this man's death. I think it would be irresponsible for a news organization to speculate until more information is actually available.
(You'll note that even Yeshiva World News isn't speculating about motives here.)
root_axis 12 hours ago [-]
What evidence do you have that the "MSM" are "carefully avoid mentioning" it?
acdha 13 hours ago [-]
You’re trying too hard to make that conspiratorial take: most responsible outlets don’t speculate on motives until there’s some evidence of a connection. For example, the stories I’ve read quoted his neighbors wondering whether there’s a connection to what happened at Brown, which is just an hour away and still has the killer at large. If there’s any evidence of an anti-Jewish motive, I will be shocked if it’s not an NYT headline within minutes.
jimbo808 13 hours ago [-]
The title of this article leads with "Jewish, Pro-Israel MIT Professor..." so I think they've already decided to go with the "victim of antisemitism" default until proven otherwise.
uselesswords 12 hours ago [-]
> most responsible outlets don’t speculate on motives until there’s some evidence of a connection
That is simply not true, every single news outlet without fail speculates, uncritically quotes a speculator, or leaves out warranted critical speculation at their own discretion. Pick a news site that you think doesn’t do this and I will happily find an example from their front page.
alphazard 12 hours ago [-]
Certainly it's more conspiratorial to assume that his death had something to do with his research, or that he was secretly a some kind of Walter White character?
Being politically outspoken on an issue which is contentious in that area, and which has caused violence before seems like the most plausible explanation that I have heard so far.
crazygringo 13 hours ago [-]
How on earth are you making conclusions about the motive of the killer?
People also get burgled and shot. Lovers take revenge. A grad student loses their mind.
It's entirely irresponsible to suggest that something is being hidden if there's zero evidence so far that someone's religion or political views are even remotely relevant.
qball 13 hours ago [-]
And media lies by omission.
12 hours ago [-]
11 hours ago [-]
jimbo808 13 hours ago [-]
Your only data point is the ethnicity of the victim, and that's all it takes for you to suggest it was a hate crime?
richardfeynman 12 hours ago [-]
Another data point is that Jews are getting killed and assaulted around the world. With that said, I agree that for now there's no actual evidence supporting this allegation. But I wouldn't be totally shocked to learn that his ethnicity or zionist beliefs had something to do with this, if indeed he was Jewish (which hasn't been confirmed).
13 hours ago [-]
unmole 13 hours ago [-]
Right, because American media is famously anti-Jewish and anti-Israel. /s
yieldcrv 13 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
juggerlt 13 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
mxkopy 16 hours ago [-]
This is his ORCID profile, which lists his grants and published works:
Flagged. The post is about someone just murdered, yet most of the HN comments on this post are strangely insensitive and dumb. HN ranks highly in Google, so friends and family members may see these comments.
> Warren v. District of Columbia[1] (444 A.2d. 1, D.C. Ct. of Ap. 1981) is a District of Columbia Court of Appeals case that held that the police do not owe a specific duty to provide police services to specific citizens based on the public duty doctrine.
wagwang 15 hours ago [-]
Why are you making this political; besides one of the brown victims was the vp of the college republicans so whats the angle here again?
HardwareLust 11 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
OutOfHere 16 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
gopher_space 15 hours ago [-]
I'm not sure why "bitter grad student" isn't everyone's default assumption.
bilbo0s 15 hours ago [-]
Low percentage of grad students
eichin 15 hours ago [-]
MIT grad students don't generally have classes, let alone finals
bilbo0s 15 hours ago [-]
Which is not to say there are no bitter grad students or colleagues at MIT.
You’ve been downvoted by others because this is lazy stereotyping.
OutOfHere 15 hours ago [-]
By your logic, anything that satisfies Occam's razor is lazy stereotyping. And that doesn't make the idea unlikely anyway.
UncleMeat 2 hours ago [-]
Given how few disgruntled students murder their professors, no it would not be the Occam's Razor conclusion that the murderer was a disgruntled student.
dmoy 14 hours ago [-]
Finals not being over might make the idea unlikely
OutOfHere 13 hours ago [-]
They started yesterday. A student who is going to outright fail it will likely know immediately before the results are in.
FloorEgg 16 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
crazygringo 16 hours ago [-]
Why would there be? I feel like I'm missing the context behind your question.
rany_ 16 hours ago [-]
He is a nuclear scientist so he might have been working for some country's nuclear program?
firefax 15 hours ago [-]
>He is a nuclear scientist so he might have been working for some country's nuclear program?
Or "some country" tried to recruit him and killed him when he said no to maintain the (nonofficial) cover.
reactordev 15 hours ago [-]
Ya’ll read too many conspiracy theories. What makes you think other countries were interested in recruiting him, specifically? I want to see the logic behind this assumption.
tshaddox 16 hours ago [-]
"Conspiracy theory" might be a loaded term, but it's a person with a fairly notable job position (nuclear science at MIT) shot multiple times in his home with apparently no persons of interest yet. Of course it could be something unrelated to his position, like a random burglary or a dispute with someone close to the victim.
dylan604 15 hours ago [-]
If someone said the individual had a serious gambling problem and failed to payback his bookie, it would not be any less credible at this time. It also doesn't make it any more legitimate. Speculation is nothing more than that. Unfortunately, very few care to admit speculation and if it is something in the realm of plausibility, there will be many that accept it as true. People are suggesting Comet 3I/atlas could be under powered control, and convinced it is true with no real evidence.
FloorEgg 15 hours ago [-]
World leading nuclear physicist in emerging abundant energy technology murdered in their home. I don't know. Sounds like part of a James Bond plot or something. The question was only 10% serious, but wow, has it sparked a lot of responses.
decremental 15 hours ago [-]
[dead]
thelastgallon 16 hours ago [-]
> His research addressed "complex problems lurking at the center of fusion vacuum chambers and at the edges of the universe", according to the university's obituary.
>He also studied how to harness clean "fusion power" to combat climate change, CBS said.
Clean energy is pretty controversial in US. Most people are against it.
barbazoo 16 hours ago [-]
> In an open-ended question, 69% of respondents identified the primary advantage of clean energy as some form of environmental protection, like mitigating climate change or improving air and water quality. Only 13% offered lower energy costs as a central benefit, and 22% said clean energy offers no clear advantage.
Yes. It was aliens trying to keep us from inventing warp tech until we are mature enough to stop creating conspiracy theories the minute something like this happens.
ricksunny 11 hours ago [-]
If it was the aliens then they are about to learn what the Streisand effect is.
observationist 15 hours ago [-]
The going story over at X right now is basically that a far-leftist stereotypically shaped reddit mod is killing conservatives and jews, with at least two prominent names being floated without evidence. I'd hold back any judgment until evidence hits the feeds.
I'd assume bsky is blaming Trump death squads being sent after scientists, exclusive reporting on MSNOW at 11.
The only thing that seems true right now, if it's related to the Brown murders, is that the suspect shown on crappy security footage is overweight and walks like they're out of shape.
These murders are being reported, but feel a bit strategically different than murders from even a few months ago, maybe there's a turn for the better. It seems like the whole social media frenzy and fallout is being taken seriously, and they're letting professionals do the investigating instead of conscripting the public and seizing the news cycles.
lowdownbutter 15 hours ago [-]
"Don't ask questions, just consume submission and then get excited for next submission"
The article might be too hasty to report that he's Jewish, especially implying that was the motive by including it in the article title. Lots of chatter X/Twitter about it.
Kinda crazy (scary?) how fast tragic events like this get instantly politicized on social.
627467 16 hours ago [-]
Given his background somehow doubt he is jewish, could be pro-israel. But all this could well be totally unrelated to the event itself.
Isnt it more likely that's due to him living in the US or the Terminator hypothesis?
simple10 15 hours ago [-]
It's possibly related to mistaken identity. There's apparently some guy with a similar name that has some tie to Israel. Articles and social just seem to be running with it without any fact checking.
“Renowned for his pioneering research on plasma dynamics - the component of blood that carries platelets and cells throughout the body - Loureiro also focused on harnessing clean fusion energy to combat climate change. He was appointed director of MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center in May”
gs17 16 hours ago [-]
The Hebrew version doesn't seem to have that error, I wonder what they used to translate it, it feels like a rare hallucination for recent LLMs.
danparsonson 16 hours ago [-]
I can believe that our dystopian future will be powered by dark fusion reactors that only achieve containment through human sacrifice
typeofhuman 16 hours ago [-]
Story as old as time. For the crops!
dvh 16 hours ago [-]
Holy shit, they really wrote it there
m4ck_ 16 hours ago [-]
I wonder if that's some particularly sloppy AI writing or if he really was working in biology (apparently he pioneered research on blood plasma) while also working on fusion energy. Bro was either a 10x professor or AI is just doing AI things I guess. Either way RIP.
eichin 15 hours ago [-]
it's slop. (If you look at the ORCID link posted elsethread there's literally nothing biology related in his 70 publications in the last two decades - and it seems unlikely one would become director of the PSFC with that sort of distraction...)
rany_ 16 hours ago [-]
I can't spot anything conspiratorial in that article, though?
QuercusMax 16 hours ago [-]
There are already other articles claiming he was shot because he's Jewish and has supported Israel. Seems like the cops haven't arrested anybody yet, so we don't really know anything.
He was working on fusion technology, so you could just as well speculate it was fossil fuel interests involved, but that also seems purely speculative.
rany_ 16 hours ago [-]
First thing that came to mind is that he might have been secretly working for Israel's nuclear program but this is all very speculative. It does feel plausible though given that Israel has already assassinated plenty of Iranian nuclear scientists; so there is some precedent for it.
BurningFrog 16 hours ago [-]
It does sound like something Iran might to in retaliation.
rany_ 15 hours ago [-]
There are lots of different scenarios you can conjure up. Another could be that Israel assassinated him after he refused to support their nuclear program OR to silence him.
garbagecoder 16 hours ago [-]
You're right, it's only fair that we let Iranian assassins kill people in the US.
lawlessone 16 hours ago [-]
>He was working on fusion technology
BigFission
We'll probably find out it was mugging.
QuercusMax 16 hours ago [-]
Or something intensely personal completely unrelated to politics. Could be a disgruntled student, lover, business partner, etc.
Horses, not zebras.
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andrepd 15 hours ago [-]
Please don't link to such a rag. There's absolutely nothing of substance in this article and even several glaring factual mistakes.
ekjhgkejhgk 4 hours ago [-]
And you're saying that based on what? You should hide your antisemitism better.
FilosofumRex 11 hours ago [-]
Pros always use silencers - but amateurs instigated/inspired by security services/spies, are meant to be caught and will confess
david_shaw 15 hours ago [-]
>"The theoretical physicist and fusion scientist was known for his award-winning research in magnetised plasma dynamics.
Magnetised plasma dynamics is the study of the state of matter in which the motion of charged particles is influenced by the presence of an external magnetic field, according to Nature.
Loureiro joined MIT's faculty in 2016 and was named director of MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center in 2024."
Although it may be a total red herring, it may be worth noting that there are (debatably pseudoscientific) theories -- primarily Plasma cosmology[1] and the Electric Universe theory[2] -- that are related to (and potentially in conflict with) this field of research.
If I get shot and someone writes some libelous bullshit about how I worked with hygienic macro systems, someone kindly jump on that shit ASAP. Thanks in advance!
But I have no more information than anyone else does, I'm making a low-confidence educated guess, and at some point in the near future it's very likely that the professionals whose job it is to investigate serious crimes will have a better idea of what actually happened than anyone posting in this thread.
In a neighborhood with mixed SFHs and condos, it makes little sense to target a condo. Makes even less sense for someone to break in, but to shoot the victim outside, in the foyer.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmbmBNre5SQ
It's a tough one to find a motive for...
And even more horrified about the thread on homepage about surveilance cameras. I knew that shoplifting and car theft is essentially decriminalized in US. And now I learn that home invasions are also.
Pleasanton remained safe and bland despite allowing evil public transit.
You mean murder?
It's most likely a matter of happenstance. It happened to be the warmest time of the day (even though it was evening). Maybe the thinking was someone was home to help them find the valuables, maybe not.
> 8:30p seems like a dumb time for a home robbery.
The assertion that there is some optimization for some specific imagined motivation, is literal fantasy.
* Drug dealer
* Cheating on spouse and someone got jealous
* Suicide
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmbmBNre5SQ
"Authorities have investigated whether his death could be connected to this weekend's Brown University shooting and, at this point, a senior law enforcement official briefed on both cases told ABC News there is nothing to suggest they’re connected."
https://abcnews.go.com/US/mit-professor-shot-killed-home-bos...
Also worth noting... at one point the arrested the wrong guy.
They have no clue. And become hostile when people try to come up with one. While scrubbing student profiles and simultaneously claiming they have no knowledge of doing so. The whole thing is a total clown show and nothing said by the authorities is to be believed without independent verification.
[] Brown University spokesperson Brian Clark
1. No one should be stupid enough to put their name and rep on the line, in a fluid situation, where there’s 0 idea who did the first anyways, for days now.
2. Dunno what you mean by academics, students and professors? Usually academics refers to professors / grad students / has a job at university related to teaching, but Brown victims weren’t professors. Hard to see how that indicates a connection.
3. It’s a real stretch to put Providence to Brookline at a 1 hour drive. In general, it’s two different worlds, so it’s strange to use it as a clear indicator they must be related.
4. If it’s obvious they’re connected, and making any claim of probability re: their connection should require putting your name and reputation on the line, what’s your name?
To be very clear here, the claim is that "there is nothing to suggest the two sets of predmeditated murders within a week within an hour are related". The fact that they're the same demographic, high profile, using the same weapon, close in proximity, and close in time are all concrete things that relate them. It is embarrassing to state otherwise, so the officer was not named. However the reporters are not immune to this, so they take the hit.
I am not stating the positive "they are related", I am refuting the negative "they are unrelated".
And as for my identity: I am not a reporter or public official. You don't need to and shouldn't use me as a source of truth. I am a member of the public applying logic to facts. I am closer to this event than you but I won't say more. As a member of HN who respects privacy I'm sure that should be enough for you.
If you’re close to the situation, and have a substantiated reason to believe the claim that there’s no current information suggesting they’re related is inaccurate, you should be able to back that up. Except we both know you can’t, because you’re attempting to refute something that wasn’t actually said.
The same weapon being.. a gun? Hardly a notable connection.
I hope you’re extremely close to one of these events and are extremely distraught, even though that’s tragic, because it would indicate you’re not just comfortable disassociated from reality.
Note the difference in your approach this morning versus now, to wit, you this morning: “ We have no info but he was the department head of the MIT PSFC. It's easy to imagine a deranged individual picking a high profile target by browsing MIT's website. Or it was a domestic dispute or road rage or any number of things that would drive someone to shoot someone in their home. We have no information and can only speculate.”
edit to add: (For those who weren't aware, the Brown University terrorist is still on the loose).
The other was a mass shooting style event that targetted an exam preperation review hall populated by econ students and led by a 21-year-old teaching assistant.
It's a stretch to connect an isolated murder of a field advancing physics researcher and a hall full of students just because all the victims are involved in book learning.
Possible connection, sure. At an improbable stretch.
ChatGPT can certainly knock up a Clancy like novel here, no doubt.
https://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/general/2487170/jewish-...
(You'll note that even Yeshiva World News isn't speculating about motives here.)
That is simply not true, every single news outlet without fail speculates, uncritically quotes a speculator, or leaves out warranted critical speculation at their own discretion. Pick a news site that you think doesn’t do this and I will happily find an example from their front page.
Being politically outspoken on an issue which is contentious in that area, and which has caused violence before seems like the most plausible explanation that I have heard so far.
People also get burgled and shot. Lovers take revenge. A grad student loses their mind.
It's entirely irresponsible to suggest that something is being hidden if there's zero evidence so far that someone's religion or political views are even remotely relevant.
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9755-6563
There are multiple court cases decisions showing that police have no duty to protect people. All the way up to the Supreme Court
> Warren v. District of Columbia[1] (444 A.2d. 1, D.C. Ct. of Ap. 1981) is a District of Columbia Court of Appeals case that held that the police do not owe a specific duty to provide police services to specific citizens based on the public duty doctrine.
Which was gopher_space’s material point.
Or "some country" tried to recruit him and killed him when he said no to maintain the (nonofficial) cover.
>He also studied how to harness clean "fusion power" to combat climate change, CBS said.
Clean energy is pretty controversial in US. Most people are against it.
https://www.thirdway.org/memo/poll-shows-americans-want-affo...
It'll be the same cabal that killed the inventor of the engine mod that allowed for 99mpg.
If people want a conspiracy theory, tell them to go with alien civilizations wanted to prevent humans from achieving fusion.
[1] https://youtube.com/watch?v=1UZeHJyiMG8&pp=ygUhU2FyYWggY29ub...
I'd assume bsky is blaming Trump death squads being sent after scientists, exclusive reporting on MSNOW at 11.
The only thing that seems true right now, if it's related to the Brown murders, is that the suspect shown on crappy security footage is overweight and walks like they're out of shape.
These murders are being reported, but feel a bit strategically different than murders from even a few months ago, maybe there's a turn for the better. It seems like the whole social media frenzy and fallout is being taken seriously, and they're letting professionals do the investigating instead of conscripting the public and seizing the news cycles.
Kinda crazy (scary?) how fast tragic events like this get instantly politicized on social.
Isnt it more likely that's due to him living in the US or the Terminator hypothesis?
He was working on fusion technology, so you could just as well speculate it was fossil fuel interests involved, but that also seems purely speculative.
BigFission
We'll probably find out it was mugging.
Horses, not zebras.
Magnetised plasma dynamics is the study of the state of matter in which the motion of charged particles is influenced by the presence of an external magnetic field, according to Nature.
Loureiro joined MIT's faculty in 2016 and was named director of MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center in 2024."
Although it may be a total red herring, it may be worth noting that there are (debatably pseudoscientific) theories -- primarily Plasma cosmology[1] and the Electric Universe theory[2] -- that are related to (and potentially in conflict with) this field of research.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_cosmology
2: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Electric_Universe