How will the death of Charlie Kirk influence national events?
Premise: I've been working on a mathematical model to predict human behavior for a few weeks (see prev post here) and now is the perfect time to see how well this approach predicts how real world events play out.
Process: After reading up and Charlie Kirk's personal history to get an idea of him and his connections throughout society, I developed a few metrics to quantify the impact of his death. - First we measure Breadth (how many people were directly effected) and Turnover (How much awareness of event actually translates to action) - Second we measure secondary effects such as Ripple and Half-life - Thirdly we measure Normative and Novel Shift
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0 No observable effect, ( negligible change, verbal condemnation, individual level actions)
1 Very limited (affects < 0.1 % of population, protests, primary network level actions, days long half-life)
2 Limited (affects ~0.1‑1 % of population, modest change, boycott, stikes, rioting, state level, weeks long half-life)
3 Moderate (affects 1‑10 % of population, noticeable change, guerrilla warfare, state level, crisis/disaster level, months long half life)
4 Significant (affects 10‑20 % of population, major change, structured war, national level, years long half-life)
5 Massive (affects > 20 % of population, profound change, total war, global level, decades long half-life)
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Using this table as a guide, roughly 3-4000 people were directly effected by Charlie Kirk's shooting, counting witnesses and my own guess as to how many law enforcement, staff, co-workers etc were directly affected by the event.
Given that is less than .1% of the American population, Breadth is scored as a 1/5. (When measuring the impact on smaller groups like MAGA or Christian Nationals, this would probably impact a larger percent of those groups specifically)
Turnover is scored as a 1/5, given that this triggered a massive manhunt, garnered nationwide attention, and will probably contribute to future discussions on gun control and political violence, as well as lend a martyr effect of legitimacy to his ideas, trigger investigations that will drag the skeletons out of his closest, sparking further debate. I don't see his death triggering anything beyond the protest level directly.
So we average these scores out (1+1/2=1/5) to get a 1/5 for Direct Impact in other words a low Direct Impact.
Ripple: 4/5.The effects of the shooting immediately garnered national attention, with Trump himself giving updates on social media and putting out the worlds first AI generated presidential address, and all living previous presidents spoke out and condemned the violence, as well as a few international heads of state. Half-life: 3/5. I would guess that this story will remain a hot topic in the news and political debate for a few months at most. People of course won't forget about it, but the event will loose relevancy and momentum within 3-5 months. Average the scores to get 3.5/5 Sustained Impact which is medium-high
Normative shift: 2.3/5 IE, how does this event shift what is considered normal or normalized? How unprecedented is this killing? I covered most of this in Turnover, while it will draw a lot of attention to guns, violence, Kirk's own beliefs, and how he interacted with his corner of the world, thus sparking further polarization, this is hardly new or unusual. The only thing that makes this unusually is that Kirk was part of the 'In group'. He was a white, conservative, christian-nationalist. He was a secondary supporter of Trump. Around the same time a young Ukrainian refugee, Iryna, was stabbed to death in NC, the same day Kirk died, there was a school shooting in Colorado, yet Kirk gets all the attention. Why? because he was part of 'the important people' crowd. White neo-nazi's aren't suppose to get shot, that's what impoverished minorities are for. This is on the same par as the CEO shooting last December. It's alarming and unusual that rich people from the Majority are being subject to violence, but this isn't uncharted territory.
Novelty: 1/5 This was going to be a zero, but you can't ignore the fact the Trump administration just dropped history's first ever AI generated presidential address. And it was done super sloppy. No respect for the intelligence or analytical capabilities of the common american people, who all figured it out instantly, forcing the administration to lie and say the AI glitches we all know so well were actually editing errors. Bullshit, but this sets a very dangerous precedent that I will be looking forward to analyzing in future events, as AI will only get better from here,
N&N Shift: 1.65/5* Low, but with with a huge asterisk to flag the use of AI
Overall impact 2.05/5: Low-med
Preliminary findings All in all, not an earth shattering event. It will mostly spark polarizing debate, and be milked by the administration as justification to retaliate and escalate against opponents/minorities as they play populist underdog and prop up Kirk as the martyr he was never meant to be. Most outrage will be manufactured for attention and garnering superficial support. Kirk will be paraded around as a spectacle, but it won't last. The foundation for his toxic and aggressive reputation is flimsy, and his death won't trigger a serious power vacuum of any sort.
Given Trump's biggest threat to his power is the erosion of trust between him and his supporters, this is just the event he and his staff can spin in order to take back the narrative and regain that trust through a show of force to make everyone see Trump and his posse as 'protectors' and 'saviors' of America. So even if Trump is cannibalizing this country for parts to siphon off to his sycophants and bribers, at least he will be able to protect and avenge those of his in-group.
Like wise, we can all look into Charlie Kirk, see what kind of guy he was, how he helped perpetuate neo-nazi ideology, see how guys like him are able to embed themselves in society and grift their way through life, and use him as a learning tool on how nazis and pedophiles were able to consolidate so much power. We can use Kirk as a lesson to know our enemies, see how they act and react, and what.makes them tick.
Pick apart why this guy matters, but Iryna Zarutska doesn't. Why killing a CEO garners a manhunt, but mass claim denial doesn't warrant investigation. We can use Kirk to push for class consciousness.
NEXT I will do an Impact Map to visualize how this event influences specific groups and what chain reactions that can cause down the line
