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PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   5888 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for May 21, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Fellow Motteizans, what are your small scale conspiracy theories? I'm not talking grand narratives here. What minor, apolitical conspiracy theories do you explain to the next table at a diner.

For myself, I think at least some large portion of lottery drawings are not random. I base this belief on the fact that of repeat lottery winners, a suspicious number of them are math professors.

Facts first:

  • Maxwell Ghislane, Epstein’s madame, was wealthy because her father paywalled science journals which had previously been free. It is widely believed that user MaxwellHill was her Reddit account, one of the earliest and most constant users.

  • Reddit co-founder Aaron Swartz was a free info activist. He was in big legal trouble for using MIT’s fast Internet to freely download massive amounts of paywalled science journal archives. He died by hanging.

Theory:

  • The Maxwells’ science journal empire would have been threatened if Swartz’ free information activism had spread to the student populace. She used intelligence service tactics to get close to the inner circle of Reddit admins and powermods, and applied psychological tactics to push him to commit suicide.

Even if not true, it’s interesting that both Swartz and Epstein were found dead, hanged. Miss White in the server room with the noose.

Aaron Swartz is a tragedy. It's one of those cases where he was getting screwed because his lawyer didn't understand how to run a political case.

Lawyers understand the courtroom and how to strike deals with the prosecution. So naturally they want to keep the fight in the courtroom and avoid upsetting the prosecution more than necessary.

They didn't understand that Swartz was much more sympathetic to a lot of fairly powerful people than the academic publishers trying to protect their exorbitant pricing for research that's often publicly funded.

So his lawyers were telling him to keep quiet so they can make a deal, while the publishers were pressuring the prosecutors to make an example of him.

If he had made an aggressive public plea with details of his situation then all of the Silicon Valley tech people Obama needed for his 2012 election campaign would have gone to the Obama campaign and said "he's just a well meaning kid who made a mistake, cut him a deal or I won't support you".

Swartz would have just gotten probation at worst. Instead he snapped under the stress of the aggressive sentences prosecutors were demanding and killed himself.

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