Looking through the article for any evidence that this is true:

On average, most indie game releases have around 10%-12% of their sales refunded

Did they compare to average or explain where that number came from or anything? No! And even with their random magic number it matches pretty well with this approximated average (~10%) for all steam games. And another stat of interest from that article:

games costing <$5 only having an 8% refund rate, and those costing $30+ having an 11.9% refund rate.

I think XDA sum up their thesis best as:

Theoretically, someone can buy an indie game and play through it to the end in less than 2 hours, getting any and all Steam achievements associated with it, and then refund the full game.

All theory, complete bullshit speculation. No examples of any game that fits into this category, no hard data, hell not even a single anecdotal quote from some shovelware developer.

What a garbage article, garbage “journalism” and garbage speculation.

I’m trying to find the data around the “data set of 323 mass actions. Chenoweth analyzed nearly 160 variables” and am not finding it. Closest I find is the excerpt from their book here https://muse.jhu.edu/article/760088 which tells a rather mixed story.

I understand this was posted within the context of ongoing events in LA. Of note in the research being shared here is the goal of “overthrow of a government or in territorial liberation” which I think is a very different scope. However, I would encourage reading their latest peer reviewed paper here which I believe does a better job of scoping the LA protests.

Of note is that it addresses the consistent conflating of “violent armed overthrow of the state” with “throwing rocks after getting shot at”.

You won’t because your sources do not say what you think they do.

Quote it then.

came across as someone standing up for the noble police who would never stoop to trickery to find an excuse for violence.

How did you get that? No, fuck the police and peace police too.

Did you read your sources? They don’t say what you think they do.

• From the AP article you linked:

Of more than 300 arrested, there are about 286 defendants ___ Some of those facing charges undoubtedly share far-left and anti-government views. Far-right protesters also have been arrested and charged. ___ But many have had no previous run-ins with the law and no apparent ties to antifa, the umbrella term for leftist militant groups that Trump has said he wants to declare a terrorist organization.

In the classic misguided “journalistic neutrality” it does put additional emphasis on the 6 instances of “far-right extremism” a incidence rate of 2.1%. Do you believe that 2.1% is a majority?

• From the guardian article:

Hunter would later post multiple messages on Facebook bragging of his actions in Minneapolis on the night of 28 May and morning of 29 May, writing, “I set fire to that precinct with the Black community,” and, “My mom would call the FBI if she knew.”

“I’ve burned police stations with Black Panthers in Minneapolis,” he claimed in one message, and in another, “The BLM protesters in Minneapolis loved me.”

He wasn’t a lone actor trying to pin it on them, he was participating in an action with them.

• From the KansasCity article:

While Kansas City police haven’t made any arrests in the May 30 arson incident and say they haven’t seen direct evidence of extremists trying to disrupt the local protests,

Tere are so many agendas at play that it’s hard to tell who’s on what side. In some cases, they say they’re seeing a bizarre alignment between those on the far right, such as militias and the Boogalooers, and Black Lives Matter advocates protesting the death of George Floyd, with anger at police and the government being the common thread.

Which if you stopped to read for a second you would understand why the boogaloo boys specifically had real skin in the game with the protests against police brutality and why they wear Hawaiian shirts bearing the names of people killed in confrontations with police.

READ BEYOND THE GODDAMN HEADLINES

If your point is just that agent provocateurs are not in the same vein as little green men then we are in agreement.

most of the people there engaging in violence would be conspirators regardless of why they were there.

The distinction I’m making is the “secret/secretly” part of the definition. A protest is not meant to be secret, infiltrating one is.

naive defense of police

Why do you perceive combatting the myth of ‘police as tactical geniuses who are highly adept at infiltrations’ as defense of police?

My argument is simply that an individual demonstrating agency in a stressfull moment seems far more likely than an elaborate 5d chess tactical trap set by police. Do you believe that during a protest, individual agency no longer exists?

Don’t know, but it’s very easily done via LRAD. which the LAPD is known to have a “unknown quantity” of.

Note it’s secondary usage as a “sonic weapon”. [Self defense tips] (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3sqIvak-4Ek)

Finding a could other examples doesn’t make me wrong.

You’re right, you are the one making bold claims and so the burden of proof is on you. You got any?

Agitators by definition are conspiritors, by definition making it a conspiracy. Try reading the actual words I wrote, I never said conspiracy theory which i understand has the connotation of false/crazy/unsubstantiated belief and I think you’re confusing that with what was actually said.

People can reply to you without agreeing with the person you’re replying to

Yes, but I don’t understand what you’re trying to communicate. What is your point?

And was expanded to include literal children during the Iraq war.

Iraq/Afghanistan? Russia is following in the steps of the US here.

I said I didn’t think that, and it’s obviously possible and now you’re upset that I used the word “possible”

Not upset, and I do think I misread your list of reasons for why someone would be a ‘violent protester’ as an exhaustive list when you did not mean it as such. My point about priors still stands but you are correct that it is mostly directed at badbytes. What were you trying to communicate with your first comment if not re-enforcing badbytes message?

in this context, trouble is a word used and understood by native English speakers to mean “undirected violence and destruction perpetrated for it’s own sake”

I appreciate this, however this definition runs opposite to your usage above about how police/accelerationists “came to the protest to cause trouble”. Your usage there was to communicate “directed violence perpetrated for political sake”.

The word “violence” is a bit murky here and I’m not sure I agree on it’s inclusion in the definition of “trouble” however with how obstruction and vandalism are considered “violent” by police I stand by the statement that:

The point of a protest is to cause “directed violence perpetrated for political sake”.

The point of a protest is to cause trouble anything else is a parade.

It’s obviously possible for someone aligned with the peaceful protestors to decide to throw rocks at cops

The thing we are arguing about isn’t “possibility” it’s “probability”. To be fair, you have not directly stated you beliefs but the parent comment had stated their priors and they are completely divorced from reality.

It’s a reference to Rachel Corrie and the countless others that are frequently murdered via bulldozer in Palestine.

You can’t just cherry pick random data points and use those to assert broad claims. How about these guys. Was the Minneapolis precinct burning the action of proud boys?

If anything a majority were the most average of average. If you’re gonna keep pushing this narrative at least make sure you get your paycheck from the DHS.

Yes, and if you read further into the actions/tactics of those various departments/agencies you’ll discover that propogating the myth of the “outside agitator” is a core part of those tactics.

It’s not a reasonable guess, it’s propogating propoganda based on half truths.

My dude, they were arresting random people and charging everyone with assault, obstruction, etc. Of the over 14000 people arrested at the end of June 2020 you really believe the majority were right wing accelerationists?

Jacob Fagundo, Timothy O’Donnell, James Massey and Lamar Taylor were all right wing accelerationists?

Yes, ops and peace police exist. Why does that mean that it’s impossible for an individual to “do violence for a principled reason”? Is Luigi also an op?

Literal conspiracy seems more likely to you than someone responding to violence with violence?