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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   7155 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 19, 2026

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I almost feel like there should be a mega-thread for “You Can See Everything.” It will be The Thing everyone online is talking about and writing think pieces about for the next few weeks. Spoiler-free review – it’s as good as everyone says, 9/10. Go in with knowledge of Elizabeth Holmes and what happened at Theranos, don’t go in with knowledge of what happens in the movie.

Some rambling spoilery thoughts from the morning after I watched it:

The movie confirmed my model for Elizabeth Holmes (and by extension, Billy) and many other con men/crazy people.

I think most people have far too binary of a view of these types. They model them as either cynical, lying, grifters who know that they are lying all the time, or insane people who have no contact with reality. I think the real answer is that they are both at the same time, but more by instinct than design.

My take is that the best modeling for Holmes+Billy is Nathan’s analogy to the David Blaine ice pick trick. What Blaine does is a “trick” in the sense that he is fooling the audience and he isn’t hurting himself, but it’s “real” in the sense that he is genuinely putting an ice pick through his hand.

Homles is an extremely weird person, and at least somewhat crazy. And I think her crazy/weirdness manifests in an extremely manipulative manner by instinct. I think she’s a chameleon who adapts to context to get what she wants. At Theranos, she adapted to the role of young, genius, female tech CEO; in “You Can See Everything,” she adapted to the role of poor, sad, beleaguered, earnest, wrongfully convicted, loving mother. Her behavior in the movie is primarily crafted to get sympathy.

But I don’t think it’s all an act, or even mostly an act. I think she’s a genuine shapeshifter. She simply does and says too much stuff that would run counter to a planned, orchestrated con act to get sympathy. Like, telling Nathan that she never lied while at Theranos is very stupid – strategic contrition is the far better play. And telling Nathan that she has literally never, ever lied in her entire life is so absurd that it completely destroys her credibility.

I think I have a little bit of personal insight on this by seeing a friend go through a horrible relationship with a borderline personality disorder girl. She ruined his life for years with emotional manipulation, and though she would have occasional moments of clarity and realize what she was doing, most of the time it was pure instinct. This woman would seemingly genuinely believe that her partner was a piece of shit who deserved to die in one moment, and then ten minutes later she would be head-over-heels in love with her partner and feel that she will die if they aren’t together. The contradictory mental states and beliefs were both real, the mind itself flipped according to subconscious dictations trained and modeled by repeated uses of extreme emotions to manipulate her partner.

There is a part in Scot Alexander’s “You’re Still Crying Wolf” that has always stuck with me where he says that so much of Trump’s seemingly evil behavior is explained by him just being really weird. He talks weird, he acts weird, he constantly does things that normal people can’t model onto a real person because it’s so weird. And that weirdness in part explains his evil. Trump probably didn’t accuse Obama of being born in Kenya out of racism, but out of weirdness.

I think this movie is a great display of this concept. People tend to underestimate the depths and complexities of weirdness. Holmes is an extremely, deeply weird person. Maybe its autism, maybe its some other psychological disorders, maybe it’s just have different personality nobs turned way up or down, but it all amounts to a weirdness that no one can quite wrap their minds around or model, even after a 3 hour documentary.

And Billy appears to be a kindred spirit. There’s a scene where he describes his relationship with Holmes in a completely insane and blatantly manipulative and controlling manner, saying crazy shit like Elizabeth spends every second of every day thinking about how to build monuments to her love for Billy. He sounds like an awful sociopathic narcissist abuser. Then later in the movie, Elizabeth says the same exact stuff about her love for Billy, which indicates that they are both deeply weird and maybe crazy people, but they are, in a sense, right. Their love is (probably) not some insane manipulation, it is real and authentic, but it is so weird that it looks like abuse from the outside.

Enormously entertaining.

At some point what I felt watching it was that this person has been ossified by her choices at Theranos and her refusal to accept them. Her breaking down and crying upon being questioned about Theranos is the sort of thing that might be annoying but effective for a 19 year old but very much not cut at this point.

I think that explains her new persona. In Theranos she could win converts and believers. As it collapsed she took a more and more defensive posture but kept getting pushed back since the evidence was so overwhelming until all that's left is this sort of put-upon autist who can't even get basic jokes (read Carreyrou's account of how she put down the one board revolt to see if it tracks) so how on Earth could she have scammed Walgreens?

I personally think she's much more aware of her tactics than you give her credit for. The tell is the "I don't know" when Seyfried asks Holmes if she knew she'd be on the call. What the hell does that mean? She knows, what she doesn't know is the strategic value of knowing. That single scene alone blew up the entire absurd arc they were pursuing with Billy..

Of course Billy is a weirdo! He married and had kids with a woman undergoing trial for grifting and is actively aiding her in the con. The idea that she's really some abused autist dominated by her sleazy boyfriend is absurd. She already tried this with Balwani with more credibility, it's thinner the second time around.

This is why the movie elides any discussion of Theranos. It's trying to create ambiguity and the idea of falling under this vampire's spell but none of it works at all if you know what happened.

So what's the takeaway? If you remove your safeguards against liars they'll drag you into a whirlpool of uncertainty? No shit, that's why we hate liars. If you deal with manipulative people they may manipulate you? There's nothing really ambiguous here, in terms of Holmes' guilt and willful maliciousness. Nor particularly interesting in terms of telling us something new about how she'll double down endlessly. We know she does that, that's how she got convicted.

But enormously, enormously entertaining.

No shit, that's why we hate liars.

really? this seems like a revealed vs stated preferences disconnect . People who lie seldom face consequences ,and retain jobs and status. I think it's like, we don't like lying in principle, but we can also compartmentalize why people lie, so we are quick to forgive.

Most people do not lie so consistently and totally. You don't seem to be able to be in Holmes orbit without being sucked into her fantasies, and it's never to your benefit. In a sense she is always using people. It'd be exhausting to deal with.

Perhaps we should say that's why people don't like conmen.

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