Throwaway05
7hr ago
Based off of my family and social circle involved in this: be an upper middle to upper class white woman who went to an elite institution, get a semi-rigorous degree and be riotously far to the left and incredibly racist (anti-white).
The other people who got into that sort of role and were typical motivated by public service types, actual minorities and so on seem to bounce out but the ones that keep getting kicked up the ladder seem to match that description. The actual ownership class for the various firms is what you'd usually expect, but the people who do the stuff and middle management is pure Karen in my experience.
Throwaway05
7hr ago
I think athletes are the exception? Probably because most wealthy need to become wealthy or inherit the expectations of the wealthy so they make better decisions.
Athletes are constantly caught in prostitute scandals, rape scandals, even ordering underage women via text message.
Throwaway05
10hr ago
My apologies if I have missed any information to the contrary but what that is evidence of is the guy having "sex parties*" not of arranging for child sex or underage sex.
Which makes sense.
The vast majority of the value of such a service comes from providing something safe and legal**, working the margins of legality for blackmail tremendously increases risk without much actual proposed gain (considering the guy clearly was doing well with money and connections and pissing people off is unhelpful in that even if its lucrative).
*Where sex party means social activity where women who will want to have sex with you will be, without you needing to go out in public to make it happen or for money to exchange hands. This is a thing that clearly happens in finance and entertainment and likely has a well known process for those who are in the know.
**Safe and legal has value. I'm sure Robert Kraft is not alone, but he only got nailed because he made the mistake of going somewhere that made the government uncomfortable for unrelated reasons.
Throwaway05
11hr ago
I mean do we have any actual evidence of third party sex crimes? All the actual evidence seems to involve Epstein's personal consumption, the rest is inferred.
Like we've talked about before their's enough rumoring about Bill Gates and a few others to suggest something but there isn't really a lot of evidence.
I do know there are some alleged victims but as we know with Kavanaugh that's not reliable unless someone skeptical actually thinks they are a victim.
Throwaway05
11hr ago
The stance he describes in the rest of the interview is basically that something fishy may have been going on but at this point literally decades later (and Vance seems to assume after the first series of legal events everything dried up) no further evidence is around.
We do know various intelligence agencies have done a good job at throwing out documents and "forgetting" about things which complicate matters.
Vance also argues that even for things he wants to look into he doesn't necessarily have time to go knock on doors and be like "hey 20 years ago did you know this Epstein guy?" He also uses this excuse on the UFO thing.
I suspect if pressed a bit more Vance would argue that there wasn't an organized conspiracy, just that Epstein knew people in intelligence and leveraged those relationships. This would be certainly be consistent with the way he knew a lot of people, and if you believe the court stuff is above board it would explain things drying up after being acquittances but discovering the malfeasance. If you think the court stuff isn't above board it would explain him using relationships to get out of trouble but then being burned afterwards. Both of those require a lot less conspiracy stuff (in contrast with an organized operation).
Who knows what Vance actually believes, it's entirely possible this is just him politicking for various reasons.
Throwaway05
12hr ago
This is the fun thread so we should quickly move past this but I would delicately suggest some consideration for the fact that some things are broadly funny or fun, some things are niche, some things fail to land, and some things would be considered the blackest of humors or outright horrifying (especially when in real life instead of fiction).
Throwaway05
12hr ago
It's less about any particular instance and more about the pattern.
Throwaway05
13hr ago
My guy, can you please explain to me what you find consistently entertaining about underage sex and abuse related litigation?
Throwaway05
13hr ago
Very much agree, if you actual read the primary source documents (and some of our users have and passed the knowledge along) it really doesn't look like what the conspiracy theories say.
He even has a good excuse for all the connections and relationships. However - some shady financial business happening at least some of the time would make a ton of sense in a way the sex stuff never did.
Throwaway05
14hr ago
Joe Rogan continues to provide some of the most interesting conversations in the world. Yes he seems to have gone down some conspiracy rabbit holes, but he gets interesting people in a seat and has a long ass conversation with them.
Recently he had Vance. A few things popped to me.
-You'll never convince me Vance isn't part of the SSC/Rationalist diaspora, when he goes off of politics he just oozes it.
-For the UFO fans he says he'll keep looking into it but he doesn't have a lot of hope.
-He did a good job defending some of his more questionable personal and political actions (the demon comment, election issues, the current Iran tactics). Less good with some other things like quashing the filibuster.
-Vance states he is an Epstein conspiracy theorist (but not in the popular way), in the interview he focuses more on the financial aspects of whatever Epstein got up to and focuses away from the pedophile stuff, hard to tell if he really believes nothing is there on that end.
-Joe Rogan's haters continue to be annoying and non-credible, he pushes Vance more than I remember seeing him come at most of the political guests I've watched (but is accused of being glazing).
I've been fortunate to be around for or involved in private conversations with "notable" people, it's fascinating. At the same time I'm not a notable person, so even when that's happened I have to just accept the circumstances and hang back. We live in a time where JRE and other things like "In Good Company" (and even smaller things like the brief podcast Enes Y did) give unprecedented access to the thoughts and plans of the profoundly powerful. Previously you had to sit for a public speech or pay for a dinner, now we can really get a bit of a slice of what Vance is about.
What a wonder.
Throwaway05
2d ago
You and other UMC professionals who do their own research are not representative of the super-majority of patients a typical doctor sees in clinics.
To add to this, some of the worst and most misinformed patients are those who come from a background like engineering and have become highly convinced of something that's very incorrect (with or without conspiracy stuff). The less educated and informed patients can be reasoned with or dictated to in a timely fashion where the higher intelligence or education patients who are confidently wrong need a lot of time and space to unpack the incorrect assumptions.
Throwaway05
4d ago
We shall not accept this false butter! For the lord hath clarified the butter, and it has become GHEE!!!!!
Throwaway05
4d ago
I've had it with these monkey-fighting snakes on this Monday through Friday plane!
Throwaway05
4d ago
I still think NYNJ was the most hilarious.
Throwaway05
4d ago
I think you underestimate America's ability to come together and be disgruntled, we are still willing to spend tremendous effort on these things (see the pilot rescue).
Throwaway05
4d ago
I'm saying he would be pissed and want to go to war if the Russians did that?
Throwaway05
4d ago
Can I interest him in some ghee?
Throwaway05
4d ago
His revealed personality is not to escalate to high casualty/ground force war which he’s done in both Ukraine and Iran. His revealed preference would be to cover it up.
With respect to Iran, that question hasn't come up yet, I think he'd be willing if he isn't getting what he needs - but the posters like me who think things are going fine feel like the question of ground war isn't being asked yet.
With respect to Ukraine he seems to think this isn't really any of America's business and that our involvement is unnecessary, with a side helping of "Europe needs to solve their own fucking problems." American military support has become necessary because That Is What We Do but he doesn't seem to care about it, and in contrast with Iran because the hostage crisis was a formative thing for men of a certain generation.
I would bet money that part of Russia's political calculus is "how do we approach this without pissing Trump off enough to get him involved and interested."
An assassination would do that.
Note that Russia's threats toward the US have been very mild by their standards since Trump 2 came on board.
Throwaway05
4d ago
I don't understand what this is supposed to mean.
Throwaway05
4d ago
People actively refuse to use common sense or do research when confronted quite often these days, and the amount of people who trust a random person or influencer over an expert even when it is obviously stupid is quite high (ex: listening to a social media influencer who is getting kick backs to sell a product and that's their obvious business model over a physician).
Much of this stuff can be argued to not be new, but the distrust and hatred of actual experts is 100% a new problem and it's a serious one. We are talking patients refusing life saving treatment because of doctor google (or now AI google) or because of some TikTok.
Throwaway05
4d ago
Americans believe you don't fuck with America and Americans. So does everyone else. We are still heavily protected from drug cartels because of a tantrum the U.S. had in the 80s. It's a large part of our foreign policy.
Assassinating a sitting politician on purpose would be true casus belli. By accident would require a significant amount of reparations.
I mean look at how Iran acted when we did something similar.
Throwaway05
5d ago
The idea that Mitch was near-death was plausible. In fact, it’s still possible that this happened and he recovered and that’s why they’re posting about it now. Pneumonia, right?
Yeah he was probably seriously ill in the hospital and I haven't seen any commentary refuting that - the conspiracy theory is that he was dead or brain-dead and it wasn't commented.
List of conspiracy theories.
Look at this almost all of these are things that people KNEW were fake at the time. They weren't conspiracy theories where something was being hidden, it's that the dominant narrative was ass. The biggest exception is the Mandalay Bay shooting....but nobody has any firm theory with any evidence behind it or anything beyond "that was weird af" and pure speculation.
This probably extends to your next point - conspiracy theories are getting dumber because stuff that would previously be a "conspiracy theory" (like MK Ultra) has enough penetrance that anybody interested in knowing or learning about them does.
Although plenty of conspiracy theories were always super dumb - ex: moon landing faked.
Throwaway05
5d ago
I mean it makes sense, Graham dying and it being announced immediately would just raise more questions about the lack of updates. Although it's entirely possible it was just timing.
Throwaway05
5d ago
Trump seems to personally love American power and want to retain it, hiding the assassination of a high profile public figure goes against everything he's done with his presidency and his revealed personality.
At the same time he'd have two MAJOR prongs trying to force the information out there - the majority of the American political and military establishment (which supports pressure on Russia) and any adversaries who find out (because Trump hiding it and then it being revealed would be a massive embarrassment).
It doesn't make any sense.
You would also need to hide it from his family who would presumably have similar political inclinations.
BTW your recent post on songwriters took something I thought I knew a reasonable amount about and taught me I didn't know shit.
Thank you for that (earnestly).
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