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PaperclipPerfector  7d ago (text post)   26652 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 9, 2026

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Stranger rapes with a "perfect victim" (roughly, middle-class and hot) get a lot of attention locally when they happen regardless of the perp.

Nobody gives a flying flamingo about date rapes or rapes of chavettes unless they happen to reinforce a partisan narrative. The Weinstein and Epstein cases have the legs they do because "blue-state white male 'billionaire'* elites are depraved sex pests" can be used to reinforce both partisan narratives, and the (((perps))) having an obvious ethnic skew that powerful people don't want to talk about gives you double super conspiracy theory memeness.

* Epstein liked people to think he was a billionaire, and is widely referred to as one by his left-wing political opponents, but his net worth peaked in the mid three figures. Weinstein never claimed to be a billionaire, and his net worth peaked in the low three figures. This is part of a general problem talking about the super-rich, which is that the level of wealth needed to qualify is between $30 and $100 million depending on who you ask, and neither "millionaire" nor "billionaire" is a useful description at that level. The midwit leftists complaining about "billionaires" absolutely mean to include Weinstein and Epstein in the group they are complaining about.

Stranger rapes with a "perfect victim" (roughly, middle-class and hot) get a lot of attention locally when they happen regardless of the perp.

I basically agree with this. Kind of a variant on Missing White Woman Syndrome.

Nobody gives a flying flamingo about date rapes or rapes of chavettes unless they happen to reinforce a partisan narrative. The Weinstein and Epstein cases have the legs they do because "blue-state white male 'billionaire'* elites are depraved sex pests" can be used to reinforce both partisan narratives, and the (((perps))) having an obvious ethnic skew that powerful people don't want to talk about gives you double super conspiracy theory memeness.

I basically agree with this as well. Although I think that if Weinstein or Epstein had been non-Jewish, the amount of mainstream attention would have been roughly the same. It's basically the fact that they are coded as elites, particularly white elites IMO.

I think they would have got the same amount of attention in the first few months after coming out. But it is the "outsider" (including fake outsiders like Trump when he was in opposition) conspiracy theory-type interest in Epstein which makes the scandal run for years, and I can see that "was he Mossad" is a huge part of that.

Although I think that if Weinstein or Epstein had been non-Jewish, the amount of mainstream attention would have been roughly the same. It's basically the fact that they are coded as elites, particularly white elites IMO.

I think the Jewishness means the Hard-Right pounds the drum harder, but if they were non-Jewish then the NGO-Left would pound the drum harder, so in the end it kinda balances out, yeah.

AFAIK Bill Cosby was canceled for sex stuff and he's black. Is he "coded as a white elite" too? Or are "elite-coded" and "white elite-coded" synonymous?

AFAIK Bill Cosby was canceled for sex stuff and he's black. Is he "coded as a white elite" too? Or are "elite-coded" and "white elite-coded" synonymous?

Probably you could come up with a formula for the amount of attention an allegation of sexual misbehavior will receive based on various factors including the perceived race, social status, notoriety, etc. of the alleged wrongdoer, the alleged victim, etc.

I'm certainly not claiming that alleged sex crimes by non-white celebrities receive no attention. If someone is well known, then a serious accusation of wrongdoing against that person is going to get attention. That being said, I'm pretty sure that if Bill Cosby had been white, the allegations against him would have gotten much more attention.

OTOH, Cosby was conservative coded. On the other hand, Diddy. On the gripping hand, Tyson.

his net worth peaked in the low three figures

Is this a typo or do you mean +10,002,000 with obligations of -10,000,000? Which indeed is very different from a man with $2000 in his account, although we don't have good ways to talk about this.

I was puzzled by this. I think he meant deca-millionaire. Maybe it’s a British thing?

Low/mid three figure millions. Online guesses of peak net worth are 300-500 million for Epstein and 150-250 million for Weinstein.

Dropping the last six figures when talking about client net worth/deal size is a financial professional shibboleth. (Even relatively successful financial professionals are not rich enough to do this when talking about our own money). I should probably stop doing it on the Motte.

I’ve heard “he is worth 100 or 150” without giving the base but I’ve never heard anyone mention figures while dropping the first six.

I probably overgeneralise some of these things. I am still trying to promote "metre" as a colloquial term for 10^9 Euros.

[Joke explanation for non-traders - "yard" is a corruption of "milliard" which was used in old-school British English to refer to 10^9, with "billion" being 10^12. (This convention is still used in French and German.) So a "yard" was traderspeak for 10^9 currency units, assumed USD unless otherwise stated]

You may give the wrong impression, yes :) Though very interesting to know!

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