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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.
This has always been about my view on it. Been aware of Epstein since around 2007 (grew up in Palm Beach County, where he got prosecuted).
My nuanced view is that the pedo-ish stuff is bad, very bad. But it was never the end goal or the raison d'etre of the conspiracy. It created leverage, and the leverage was used for... WHAT? Financial shenanigans was certainly part of it.
Hence why I'm a bit annoyed (not surprised) that everyone wants to string the folks on the epstein list of specifically for sex crimes, rather than possibly more broadly impactful activities that would be very interesting to uncover.
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.
We have evidence. Nothing I've seen would be quite sufficient to convict anyone of note.
The one that raises my suspicion is the so-called Lolita Express. If you were going to either pressure a VIP into a compromising act or reassure them there was no chance of getting caught in said act, 30,000 feet up on a large Boeing aircraft is pretty ideal.
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.
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