domain:gurwinder.substack.com
Soteriologian
1d ago
I get what you’re trying to say, but the evidence is overwhelming.
Take Ms Maxwell: she sat around Burgerstan for a year while Epstein was arrested and dragged through the legal system, all while having citizenship in France—a country that has refused to extradite citizens to the US on this very matter. How irredeemably stupid do you have to be to have citizenship in a sanctuary state and just sit around on your ass anyway waiting to be arrested?
Whatever this cabal may be, it’s not an elite pedophile cabal. It’s at best a retarded pedophile cabal. And probably not even that: it seems more like a 17-and-364 days larping-as-a-pedophile cabal. Alan Dershowitz supposedly even kept his underwear on. Can you imagine the blackmail? It’s probably some washed up widow from Latin America whose husband died in a cartel spat lying about her age as she gives this crusty old prune a massage with all the enthusiasm of doing the dishes after Christmas dinner (while Dershowitz giddily thinks this is the hottest thing ever). Now that is blackmail!
And most of the people involved aren’t even blackmail-able in any sensible way. Take Clinton—his involvement seems to have been after his presidency. The fuck are they gonna do, blackmail someone who isn’t even in a position of political power anymore? And what of Dershowitz. He’s a Jew. Is Israel blackmailing the Jews into being Jewish?
All of this is so, so stupid. The reality is rightoid conspiritards fantasize about being ruled by a pedophile cabal because of their latent ancestral memory of living under the Catholic Church—a continent-ruling boylover cabal that was on a mission to breed the world’s most beautiful race. The plan was okay for a while, until it worked too well and Mewtwo escaped his cage, rather confused and devoid of purpose, but nonetheless extremely powerful. Thus the whole scheme came crashing down, and the Catholic Church is now so degraded it doesn’t even remember its own secrets: they have an American pope wearing an Apple Watch at mass.
This is the power of the retard hypothesis.
OliveTapenade
1d ago
Well, I mean, it seems to me that we have a situation where the official account (unaided suicide) is mostly plausible, there's a minimum-EDKH that's plausible and would be hidden (aided suicide), and then there's a maximum-EDKH that's implausible and is unlikely to be successfully hidden (murder by a third party).
The case for it aided suicide or murder are that circumstances around unaided suicide seem kind of weird to observers. That's not a whole lot to build a case on.
At any rate, my position is that unaided suicide is most likely, aided suicide is reasonably possible, and murder is sufficiently unlikely that we can rule it out; and that the difference between unaided and aided suicide is unimportant.
When you see someone destroying evidence, you should assume that said evidence was important by default. But if you want a theory, it's that his clients likely included many powerful and influential people, who need to be punished.
I don't actually see anyone destroying evidence, though. What's the evidence that's missing?
RenOS
something is wrong
1d ago
Prioritizing vigor is a good idea for a beginner, but that doesn't mean you need to put everything into it. With 18 dex, I don't see why you can't use a bow? Otherwise crossbows are a good beginner ranged choice. The early game is always the most limited phase, and even full mages can't really cast all that much then.
Btw, don't put too much points into mind until your flask is substantially upgraded. You usually want just enough FP to take full advantage of the flask regen, not more.
Lykurg
We're all living in Amerika
1d ago
The first point of argument is whether these definitions are reasonable and deserve the good connotations that "meritocracy" and "individualism" have.
While formulations similar to yours are often endorsed, theyre not usually understood to work in the absolute way that you use them. For example, imprisoning anyone with a job for reasons unrelated to that job violates your meritocracy, but its generally thought that society has a compelling interest in imprisoning people anyway. Birthright citizenship violates your individualism. In fact, Im not sure there is anything short of granting citizenship to everyone whatsoever, that complies with both individualism and international law against creating stateless people. The absence of a 100% inheritance tax might violate both, depending on whether you consider bestowing inheritance a "judgement", or investment a "position of influence". Clearly, committing to this kind of absolute interpretation puts you into an extreme fringe position. This is especially strange combined with your claimed instrumental justification for these principles - those are usually quite open to compromise.
Now, maybe youll bite those bullets because thats just the true liberalism, but that really changes the conversation. I also dont think throwing your lot in with the wokes is the obvious response there. By those exalted standards, theyre barely different. You would be deciding based on ultra-low probability scenarios where your ideas gain any noticeable influence, and its hard to say where those are better.
2rafa
1d ago
The retard hypothesis is generally true, but when alleging an extraordinarily wide-ranging and complex blackmail scheme that involved half the most powerful people in the world, multiple US presidents, royalty, world leaders, many of the richest people in the world (including the richest at that time) and countless government officials, it’s cheap to then retreat into “they were also so dumb that despite this colossal intelligence operation, they had no idea he was being investigated or going to be arrested, or they did and allowed it to happen, escalating into a media circus that increased attention to the case 100x, then killed him afterwards”.
Soteriologian
1d ago
"If the conspiracy were true, they would have been a lot smarter about it."
Are you challenging the Retard Hypothesis?
Look this tiny highlight from OP: "yo, imma call my mom" when she’s been dead for two decades? How silly! A high-profile international trafficker would construct a good lie, not a stupid lie. And prison staff would be naturally suspicious, and verify that he was actually calling his mother.
I mean what, is everyone involved just hopelessly retarded?
yes
TowardsPanna
1d ago
Later on... You mean if I put around 10 points into Mind to increase FP?
I still don't know in what direction to take this character. He's now level 25 or so, and I've been putting all the points into Vigor for a while, because I was advised to prioritize that stat until it's at 40. Str is at 15, Dex 18. Still lacking a ranged damage alternative except some darts I throw on occasion.
It’s not unlikely that Epstein was “allowed” to kill himself because his attorneys bribed some jail staff, sure. That isn’t what 99% of people online mean when they say there were suspicious circumstances around his death, though.
If “the powers that be” wanted to kill Epstein to prevent him from talking then
(1) They would have been aware in advance of the huge criminal investigation into him and that charges were being prepared, given that it had already involved interviews with dozens of witnesses, and given that the press (notably the Miami Herald) had been reporting on the renewed attention to the case since late 2018.
(2) They would surely have killed him when he was a private citizen and before he was arrested and locked up in a jail in the middle of NYC. Slip some nerve agent or poison into his tea in Paris or London two months before and he dies of natural causes before charges are quietly dropped due to the primary suspect being deceased, happens all the time.
—
Even if he had information or secrets to trade, Epstein would only have talked if he could make a deal. There was no deal to be made. The public can occasionally accept mobsters getting out of jail free / a sweetheart deal in exchange for ratting on the whole organization because they’re only involved in a bit of extortion, drug dealing and the occasional murder of their own kind. The public (and it was public and media pressure that led to the Epstein prosecution) was never going to accept someone who allegedly molested hundreds of teenage girls getting a year or two in prison (a second time).
Epstein’s lawyers told him he was going to die in prison and it is very plausible he told them that in that case he wanted to do it now. He had no immediate family other than his brother, no children, no wife, was too toxic for anyone else to visit. What awaited him was a life in solitary (if he was lucky), no sex, no travel, no interesting conversation, no power, no money, plus occasionally getting stabbed like Chauvin when getting moved between his cell and the yard when the prison officers looked the other way. He wasn’t religious in a way that would preclude suicide. It is not highly uncommon for those on bail for serious charges to kill themselves.
RenOS
something is wrong
1d ago
Golden Vow is great! Early on 40 FP might be a lot so spirits are a better use if you don't have enough, but later it's not much and it will stay strong since it's a % dmg/def buff.
The scaling changes are also what you want if you play an hybrid build anyway.
2rafa
1d ago
All people who live within your borders are, and of right ought to be, citizens of your state, and the government of your state has equal responsibilities to them as to any other citizen.
Why? I don’t think European or Gulf Arab countries have a duty to naturalize their migrant workforces.
Lykurg
We're all living in Amerika
1d ago
Im not talking about a US thats opposed to Israel. They still give them weapons (and steel/chemicals/whatever), just expecting payment. Im also not necessarily talking about short-term buying, thats why it matters things are signaled in advance, so they can make their own stockpile if thats important.
GDP and dollar figures aren't the right way to look at military production.
The GDP stuff is about the political aspect of the spending. Is there something left from the objection after that? Are NK rockets cheaper to make than youd expect based on quality and local labour costs?
anon_
1d ago
You can exclude people from entering your country, you can expel parts of your country (Malaysia/Singapore, India/Pakistan), but you can't treat certain people living in your country as non-citizens.
But they aren't any part of the country. Indeed the whole thing has been about denigrating Israeli territorial claims to the West Bank & Gaza and elevating the case of Palestinian sovereignty over it!
despite Israel's permanent control of the external policy of each enclave.
This is hardly Israels desire. They would like nothing more than to leave Gaza to Egypt and much of the West Bank to Jordan, provided that they actually were guaranteed that their neighbors would not permit the use of that territory as a launching pad for violent attacks. That's the absolute least any country can do for it neighbors in peacetime.
This whole thing is just another hack: "we'll launch rockets from the territory to force you to react, then when you control the ground we'll insist that now it's your sovereign territory and you are obligated to govern it".
anon_
1d ago
The largest opposition of population exchange here has been the Arab world.
It seems impossible to break in any sense, largely because they don't suffer any of the consequences.
anon_
1d ago
So there are new Hamas soldiers being officiated every day. But the officiatiation is not formal and organized. They join small cell structures (in all likelihood apolitical and religiously moderate, if not irreligious) who are then provided with weaponry (and ideas) by a small number of Hamas intermediaries (and these are the extremist ones).
If this is true it is a grave violation of the laws of war. The Geneva convention unequivocally requires that armed forces must be “under a command responsible for the conduct of its subordinates”.
That it should be totally impermissible to create a set of small cells without any independent command authority is completely obvious, especially in the current context.
In any event, they certainly aren't soldiers as the word is used in the field of international law.
Jiro
1d ago
Israel is creating thousands of boys every week who want nothing more than to fight back against Israel — because they just saw soldiers shoot their grandmother, or shoot their little sister, or kidnap their brother, or maybe Israel bombed their entire family, or maybe they were mistreated, or maybe their cousin is starving.
You'll notice that this argument applies to shooting enemy soldiers just as much as it applies to civilians. By your reasoning, Israel shouldn't shoot any enemy soldiers because it creates thousands of boys who saw their brother or father or uncle or whoever get killed by the Israelis, and who want revenge.
Also, notice that bombing Nazis didn't create more Nazis. Why? Because Germany was saturated with Nazis already. Boys who saw their relatives killed were already steeped in Nazi propaganda and probably would become Nazis no matter what you did. If for some reason they didn't, they'd just get drafted anyway.
MathWizard
Good things are good
1d ago
The biggest argument in favor of EDKH, and the reason I endorse a (mild) version of it, is that it was predictive, and already existed prior to its occurring, giving the authorities every opportunity to prevent it. Almost all conspiracies are post-hoc rationalizations that look at the facts and then concoct a theory to retroactively explain the events. But EDKH predicted it ahead of time. Everyone knew that Epstein had dirt on famous and powerful people. We still don't know exactly who, you can't point to any one specific person and say for certain that they went to Epstein's island AND committed crimes while there: anyone who visited might plausibly not have known exactly the details (they might have come expecting sexy 18 year old prostitutes and been shocked and offended when offered an underage one, or Epstein might have known their temperment and offered exclusively legal and willing prostitutes to certain members.) In fact I would be shocked if there wasn't at least one person who physically went to the island and yet committed no crimes there. But there were lots who did, and some of them are probably politicians, and each has a large incentive to want him dead before he can spill the beans. And we knew this and they should have had him on extra super suicide watch as a result. He was one of the most at risk and most important prisoners in the last century. I don't care if they had to have a guard paid to literally sit outside his cell and watch him 24/7, it should have been completely and utterly impossible for him to die via any cause, even a heart attack, without immediate intervention.
The reason I believe EDKH conspiracy is because Epstein is dead, and if there wasn't a conspiracy he should be alive. Now, in a literal sense I think the most likely scenario is that Epstein physically did kill himself with some sort of deal with the powers that be regarding his legacy or heirs or something or other, and then they had the prison warden turn a blind eye. The reason I don't think this falls afoul of the Basic Argument Against Conspiracy Theories is exception D that scott points out in his article:
D. All else being equal, small conspiracies are likelier than big conspiracies. A cult may take over a town without the average person knowing it; it would be more surprising for them to take over a country.
I don't think this requires a lot of people to actually be in on it. Possibly as few as three: one politician, one highly ranked prison officer (not necessarily the top, but high enough to pull some strings), and Epstein himself. Politician gives the go ahead wink wink nudge to the officer, officer arranges the schedules, residence, and guard patrols, and temporarily disables a camera, and then Epstein hangs himself with no witnesses in exchange for whatever the politician promised. It's likely that it was a little more involved, there were probably a lot of politicians on his list who gave tacit approval or wink wink nudge nudge when big politician says he'll "handle it". A bunch of guards might have been suspicious about the slightly unusual orders they received. But most of them don't need to be directly involved or have any incriminating details with which to whistleblow, just conspiracy theories of their own. Even the stronger version where Epstein was literally murdered only requires one additional person: the assassin, who has obviously strong incentive not to whistleblow themselves.
This is important because Epstein had important information. I firmly believe that the real Epstein list was in his head. Any physical list is going to be something like "visitors" to the island which is suspicious but not incriminating enough to act on. Without Epstein's testimony we have no way to distinguish stupid people who wanted to have creepy but legal fun with young adult girls, sex offenders who had sex with underage girls, and national traitors who had sex with underage girls and then got blackmailed by Epstein into abusing their political power for him. They're all going to get away with it. Even if his death involved no conspiracies at all I still want everyone we can possibly verify as responsible to at minimum lose their jobs, and probably go to jail for criminal negligence. He should not have died and we knew he would anyway, before it happened, and yet it still happened. That's why you should care.
Jiro
1d ago
Revealed preference here is related to switching costs, not to which someone would prefer in a vacuum.
What do you think is likely to have happened?
Either he was directly assassinated by the intelligence agencies he was working for, so he won't expose the extent of his operation to the public, or was assisted with his suicide for the same reason.
Why is this important?
When you see someone destroying evidence, you should assume that said evidence was important by default. But if you want a theory, it's that his clients likely included many powerful and influential people, who need to be punished.
As far as I can tell from the outside, the EDKH theory is largely circumstantial
No shit? What else do you expect when authorities refuse to follow up on leads?
anon_
1d ago
My friend, that's what the sales guy said. And by the way he's the cousin-in-law of the prison super.
anon_
1d ago
How much more suspicious activity and lucky coincidences would there need to be to convince you (if you're a current denier) that Epstein was murdered/"allowed" to kill himself?
I want to object to this conjunction. This conjoins two wildly different things.
Maybe let me set out a continuum
a. Epstein didn't want to die and (one or more) people made him not be alive x. Epstein wanted to die and (one or more) people removed safeguards that might have otherwise prevented his suicide z. Epstein wanted to die and managed to kill himself despite typical jail safeguards
Obviously we're going to have to draw the line somewhere between a/z on when it actually becomes a conspiracy and no long (as you say) "legit". I'm putting a finger on the scales here, but I think (x) is probably a lot closer to (z) here.
If we want to start moving closer to (a) here, maybe we could say
d. Epstein didn't want to die, but one ore more people convinced him that if he didn't kill himself, they would torture his family forever. They then removed the safeguards and encouraged him to do so.
Or maybe closer to x.
q. Epstein spoke with someone who told him (truthfully? who knows?) that there was no way to beat his charge and that no one would extract him from the justice system. He then formed an intent to die which he carried out.
t. Same as (q) but the someone also got the guards to look the other way.
We can go on and on. Anyway, I really don't like conjoining "Epstein didn't kill himself" with "Epstein had no option and decide to kill himself" and "Epstein killed himself and the guards let him do it". It's a classic motte and bailey.
I'll divulge my object-level feeling here:
- High confidence: Epstein formed, based in part on what he learned in that call, an intent and desire to die.
- Medium confidence: The information that caused him to form that belief was broadly truthful
- Equipoise/don'tcare: Someone caused the prison to allow this to transpire contrary to typical prison procedure/rules.
From there, I think I'm confident that we should call it a suicide in the broadest sense of "Epstein killed himself". Insofar as you want to get into the conspiracy theory of the last point, eh. It's fine I guess, I don't object, but I don't think it's really much of a conspiracy theory.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1d ago
I don't know if it's just "nothing ever happens", I'm that guy by temperament, and I can't see Epstein denialism as anything other then pissing on me and telling me it must be raining.
I'm leaning more towards status anxiety as the explanation, as I've never seen the same kind of skepticism from them about establishment approved conspiracy theories.
OliveTapenade
1d ago
I wonder if I can take this as an opportunity to just start from the top?
I have very little prior investment in Epstein. I had never heard of him before he became famous on the internet - for years literally the only thing I knew about Epstein was that he's the guy who didn't kill himself. "Epstein didn't kill himself" was a meme I saw in a range of places but I didn't know what it meant or its significance. Eventually I did get curious and looked it up, and what I got was basically that Epstein was a rich asshole, that he had social connections to a lot of other rich assholes, that he liked sex with underage girls, and that he was eventually caught, went to prison, and probably killed himself there. There are theories that he didn't kill himself, ranging from those that seem superficially plausible (e.g. a sympathetic guard helped provide tools and opportunity for him to commit suicide) and those that seem a lot more implausible (e.g. a wealthy or influential person organised an assassination to prevent him revealing damaging information), but I did not bother looking into it much more than that. Either suicide and what we might call the motte of EDKH could be true, and either way it's inconsequential. The bailey of a large elite conspiracy to kill Epstein before he can reveal something dramatic sounds so much less likely that it would take significantly more for me to update in that direction.
So the questions I would ask you, as presumably an EDKH-believer, are:
What do you think is likely to have happened?
Why is this important?
As far as I can tell from the outside, the EDKH theory is largely circumstantial - here are a bunch of odd things that happened around Epstein's death, it is implausible that these were all just coincidences, here are some other plausible explanations. There doesn't seem to be any truly solid evidence of foul play; just a lot of things that seem suggestive. Is that much correct?
Right now where I am is more or less, "probably he killed himself, there's an outside chance that some sympathetic guard or other staff member helped him kill himself, anything larger than that gets Basic-Argument-Against-Conspiracy-Theories-ed away, and I don't care very much which of the former two theories is true". So, why should I update in the direction of anything more significant, and more importantly, why does it matter? Why should I care about this?
anon_
1d ago
They do not. They even removed Israelis from it in decades past.
But even if they did, the fact that Hamas controls it at this moment would mean that they are not responsible. A nation is responsible in humanitarian law for areas that one actually controls, not for areas that it makes normative claims.
For example, the ROC isn't responsible for Mao's starvation even though they still (remarkably) claim they are the sovereign government of all of China.
At some point, it's not a question of amassing evidence. It's a matter of actually analyzing that evidence, putting it into context, and making reasonable judgements about it.
I'm not an expert on the prison system, and I'm guessing no one else here is either. So I have no idea how common it is for prisoners to commit suicide, especially under extreme cases like Epstein. I also have no idea how common it is for cameras to fail or for guards to fall asleep on the job, or any of the other fuckups. It does seem to have been quite the fuckup, but then I'm also guessing that real-life prison is not like the super-prisons shown in hollywood movies- it seems like a really boring job and I could imagine the guards just constantly falling asleep/messing things up while they're sitting around all day watching nothing happen.
for context, i'm currently staying in a building that's supposed to have 24/7 doorman/security guard at the front door. But if you come in at night it's really not hard to find them asleep and just walk past them. Sometimes in the day, too.
I could be convinced otherwise! I'd just like to see a breakdown from an actual expert, showing what normal conditions are like in prison, and how unlikely it was for things to go wrong like this. I don't want to wade through thousands of hours of camera footage myself because I have better things to do. If that makes me a sheep who can't think for myself, so be it.
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