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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.
I feel like the Epstein political/business links are a way more interesting thread to pull than quibbling over whether he hired 16, 17 or 18 year old girls to act as Escorts at parties. Anybody trying to claim Epstein was sacrificing 4 year olds to Satan is clearly on some galaxy-brain nonsense and is going to float into the air sharting themselves if a civilized discussion emerges. Who was paying for Epstein, how many other whoremonger types have his sort of network and how'd he manage to ascend so explosively strike me as actual questions worth getting answers to.
Epstein is the same as Pizzagate. It is the natural continuation of Franklin, or Bohemian Grove. There are sex trafficking networks that operate all over the world to bind public figures through shared perversion and blackmail. You can see the tail, or the trunk, or the foot all by itself, every once in a while. If you pay attention, you noticed it's all an elephant.
Franklin was boy prostitutes in Franklin Oklahoma connected to high level politicians, including visits to the HW Bush white house. Hunter Thompson filmed a snuff film at Bohemian Grove.
All of this stuff has been around for those with eyes to see for years.
The problem with this thesis is there’s a baseline rate of sexual crimes, and despite all conspiritard claims to the contrary, I do not actually see evidence that the rate for powerful people exceeds the baseline rate—especially given the obvious misincentive to accuse powerful people of things in hopes to score media views or even extort settlement money.
I think the problem is with the organization.
It is possible that there is a small town where a group of wicked people meet up at a local business and abuse their children together, all covered up by the local head of police.
It's a different matter when that same structure is reproduced at an inter-continental scale, with private islands, officials with enough access to allow border crossing, organizations whose overt purpose provide plausible deniability ie modeling agencies, fashion companies, NGOs...
Then we can expect child abuse not to be a matter of opportunity but of sourcing.
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