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A defense attorney on tictok made a really convincing argument about the wording being inconsistent with a well educated author. She pointed out examples of convoluted language that read more like an average person trying to create what they think a smart and highly educated person would write. I am now convinced that the manifesto was planted.
Possibly.
Unless there's an independent, non-government funded, reputable handwriting expert to examine the writing, and compare it to any known writings he made (example: his handwriting in school assignments), I'm gonna be sus of this.
You know our president elect graduated from a “prestigious” school, right?
I’ve had enough bosses with degrees to know they’ll give them to any old dumbass (especially if they have the right ‘profile’ or connections)
I’m well aware that everyone with a degree from a fancy school isn’t smart or capable. In this case, we’ve seen many examples of the guy’s writing. Moreover, he was valedictorian at his prep school and got an advanced degree in computer science. I think it’s reasonable to conclude that he is smart and well educated.
That doesn't exactly equate to constantly writing well. I've met many engineers and scientists (computer or otherwise) who couldn't give 2 shits about proper English unless it was specifically for a grade, sending to clients, or publication.
Educated doesn't mean that you stop writing informally. It just means you're able to write formally.
For language skills, I think being valedictorian at a competitive prep school is more relevant, since that would require more high quality writing (and discussion of writing) on a consistent basis than any CS program at any level. Regardless, it’s true that no credentials are going to guarantee that someone will never write crap. In this case, we do have examples of casual writing from the suspect (goodreads, twitter) and they generally avoid the kinds of things that the lawyer noted in her video (contradictory language, overly wrought prose). Even if her analysis wouldn’t apply to every person who managed to graduate from an Ivy, to me, in this case, it 100% rings true.
Yeah, and not to mention tonally discordant, I couldn't get a sense of a single writing voice or style. It bounces between looks-like-maybe-formal to completely informal and back in the span of a sentence or two.
Now, it being handwritten and if he wrote it in a hurry, maybe that could account for it, not really any time or ability to proofread, but I have my doubts.
Link? :)
Took me a minute to find it again. Looks like it was taken down from Ticktok but is up on YouTube https://youtu.be/eIVRA_bIjs0
I take her point, but it's naive to say things like, "That's not something an Ivy Leaguer would say." I've known many people from Ivy League and other prestigious universities, and they don't all write well. There are still malapropisms and overly verbose sentence constructions, and some people fall into a habit of trying to sound clever or cultured out of insecurity (a common problem in a highly competitive and judgmental institution). For a while I used to edit people's theses and journal papers and I'd constantly be rewording things to sound less clunky or just to fix basic grammar or word choice. Most of this "manifesto" is pretty plainly written, and the couple of clunky bits don't really prove anything. I've seen worse from highly educated people.
Fair. The generalizations ring true to me but obviously no generalization is 100% and many Ivy grads are dummies, many smart and or well educated people are poor communicators and many excellent writers will write poorly when stressed or unfocused.
I do think that someone from a wealthy background who graduated at the top of his class at an elite prep school would be less likely to fall into the “trying to sound smart” pitfalls. And we haven’t really seen evidence of that kind of writing in his public online accounts.
I am still very skeptical of the police reports stating that they found this note (and the IDs and the multiple passports and foreign currency) on his person. I guess we’ll see what his lawyer says when they argue over what can be used at trial