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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 28, 2025

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How much more suspicious activity and lucky coincidences would there need to be to convince you (if you're a current denier) that Epstein was murdered/"allowed" to kill himself?

I want to object to this conjunction. This conjoins two wildly different things.

Maybe let me set out a continuum

a. Epstein didn't want to die and (one or more) people made him not be alive x. Epstein wanted to die and (one or more) people removed safeguards that might have otherwise prevented his suicide z. Epstein wanted to die and managed to kill himself despite typical jail safeguards

Obviously we're going to have to draw the line somewhere between a/z on when it actually becomes a conspiracy and no long (as you say) "legit". I'm putting a finger on the scales here, but I think (x) is probably a lot closer to (z) here.

If we want to start moving closer to (a) here, maybe we could say

d. Epstein didn't want to die, but one ore more people convinced him that if he didn't kill himself, they would torture his family forever. They then removed the safeguards and encouraged him to do so.

Or maybe closer to x.

q. Epstein spoke with someone who told him (truthfully? who knows?) that there was no way to beat his charge and that no one would extract him from the justice system. He then formed an intent to die which he carried out.

t. Same as (q) but the someone also got the guards to look the other way.

We can go on and on. Anyway, I really don't like conjoining "Epstein didn't kill himself" with "Epstein had no option and decide to kill himself" and "Epstein killed himself and the guards let him do it". It's a classic motte and bailey.

I'll divulge my object-level feeling here:

  • High confidence: Epstein formed, based in part on what he learned in that call, an intent and desire to die.
  • Medium confidence: The information that caused him to form that belief was broadly truthful
  • Equipoise/don'tcare: Someone caused the prison to allow this to transpire contrary to typical prison procedure/rules.

From there, I think I'm confident that we should call it a suicide in the broadest sense of "Epstein killed himself". Insofar as you want to get into the conspiracy theory of the last point, eh. It's fine I guess, I don't object, but I don't think it's really much of a conspiracy theory.