<Here’s a conspiracy about conspiracies: Why would the government want to promote such conspiracy theories? Distraction and demoralization. If the populace is busy hunting pedophiles and aliens, and believes that nothing else matters, then the substantive issues of day-to-day politics recede into the background. All of the populist energy is soaked up like a sponge and wasted on fictional goose chases and witch hunts.>
I have a smart MAGA friend who believes in the Epstein cabal theory (and other Deep State conspiracies), and when I try to pull her away from these conspiracy theories, she jokingly refers to me as her “CIA handler”. In line with what you wrote above, I joked with her that if I were CIA, my psyop would be to dissipate MAGA energy by sending them all down conspiracy rabbit holes. However, her argument is history based, i.e., Deep State ops like MK Ultra, Mockingbird, etc. suggest that “they” are likely still up to no good and that we ought to consider present day conspiracies as prima facie true given this track record. I pointed out the obvious fallacy of arguing that because the Deep State did x, it automatically means it did y, but she doesn’t find this persuasive because the previous “conspiracies” (more like rogue or sanctioned operations in a Cold War atmosphere) are, again, prima facie evidence.
People can't let go of conspiracy theories because to believe in conspiracies is to grant one's self instant belonging, superiority and secret insight. Abandoning that means stepping into Superman's molecule chamber and becoming a regular human again. Who would voluntarily abdicate a superpower?
I think there is something to what you say. It’s fun to be among the elect (even if the FBI is spying on you). On the other hand, I think there is a cascade effect: one conspiracy appears to be credible (or is actually true) and that becomes the gateway drug to more and more.
FWIW, I think a lot of what people find terrible about Epstein wasn't just that he was having sex with teenagers, it's that he was recruiting women into prostitution. I feel like the ethic is that is hiring a prostitute is at worst mildly bad, but pulling a woman into that life is far worse. You can debate whether that is an ethically consistent position but it fits with other views we have (e.g. introducing a kid to smoking or drugs is much worse than smoking/taking drugs) and makes some sense from a consequentialist standpoint.
It's occurred to me that Epstein's friends wouldn't have necessarily known any of this, to outsiders he would appear to be some rich guy who had call girls on retainer. That's some of why I would never hire a prostitute (even back when I was single). Even if the act itself isn't that bad, there's an insanely large amount of dark stuff surrounding that industry that you don't want to contribute to, and you will get zero sympathy if that turns out to be the situation.
Part of the problem is elites have no problem with conspiracy theories. Someone can't have a different opinion on a policy issue than me; they have to be a Russian ageny, corporate shill, or desperate vote whore.
Except that the entire point of the Epstein case is that its a religious crusade. Thats the whole point. In the same way the storming of the bastilles during the french revolution was insignificant in terms of tangible importance its symbolic significance still stands. You may be correct that technically speaking there are more important issues in this country but humans do not frame their existence in objective terms. We live in stories, shape our experience through stories, and act out stories. People pick things to get riled up over that represent deeper problems that are harder (or even impossible) to articulate and their anger is justified because this is how humans navigate the world. There is much more to this than the facts.
This isn’t to say that you bring up some really good points in this article though. I like the conclusions you come to and I will be thinking about this more
It is pretty much confirmed that Epstein's properties (Manhattan, Palm Beach, and the Virgin Islands) were wired up for video recording. Whether Epstein recorded these sexual encounters for financial gain, personal titillation, or passed the footage to the Mossad is unknown. What has happened to these tapes?
Your (poor) simulation of the detailed blackmail tactics suggests you have never read history of how the Stasi and KGB actually behaved. They operated brothels and you can now read the details.
It did not matter that you already supported the party. The secrets and blackmail acquired created leverage along the margin and especially where self interest might clash.
I agree. Sextortion is one of the most effective forms of blackmail and control even if the victim is not told, it's leverage and the tapes can sit on the shelf for a long time until they're needed. DL using the Bill Gates strawman to brush away these concerns is not good enough.
Confirmed by who Luke? Im having trouble finding any secondhand sources. Only relevant articles in quick Google search said that accusation was from an accuser so thats obviously not the most reliable
Peter Thiel had an interesting take on Epstein blackmailing people. His idea was that he was recording people having sex but not as some sort of secret blackmail operation but rather kind of like a mafia/cartel initiation style ritual, and that by getting yourself recorded you would get access to whatever benefits Epstein could give you. Thiel's very well connected and would know a lot of things so I am inclined to think he knows what he is talking about on this.
I'm not sure it's so much that anyone in power found it particularly useful, at least at first, to promote the idea that there was a conspiracy around Epstein and his island, so much as it was a changing nomenclature and legal framework around sex has confused the average American. Ten years when ago when someone heard about "child sex trafficking charges," they'd probably imagine a ring of villains out of True Detective passing around kidnapped 10-year-olds, but legally it can, and usually does, just mean one man paying a 17-year-old for sex. Today, the idea of one man paying a 17-year-old for sex is incredibly scandalous for those under 40 who grew up up with Law and Order: SVU and 19 being the age of consent, but the average baby boomer Trump voter doesn't find it particularly interesting, and if the terminology didn't suggest something far more outrageous they'd probably completely ignore it.
It's kind of amusing to contrast conspiracy theories of the 80s (1980s and 1880s)--where cults, blood-letting, and ritual child abuse from either satanists (McMartin pre-school case) or Jews (blood libel) was invoked to stoke outrage and horror, with today, where, aside from a few adrenochrome conspiracists, outrage is simply manufactured by off-color stories about teenage prostitutes.
I think you bring up some pretty interesting points about marriage here. Someone else, I can't recall who, said that the great child abuse of our time is divorce, and we know it, and we won't do anything about it, so we create other problems to solve instead. I'd add that so many single men, single women, and married-but-anxious men and women have created differences in how the sexes relate to one another, with far more step-fathers and "mom's boyfriends," more men trying to impress women, more women trying to impress men, smaller families and less actual experience with different kinds of people, and I'd wager more paranoia. I'd also add contemporary notions of sexuality: We simply don't have a framework for "It doesn't matter if this person is attractive--you don't have sex with them because sex is meant to be between a married man and woman." CS Lewis, in Mere Christianity, described sins of desire as the least pernicious; I wonder if any contemporary Christian writers would dare agree.
Sarcasm no longer works. Half the population did not see Biden's dementia. I do not know your IQ so I stopped reading after a few paragraphs. I had no idea what your point was.
<Here’s a conspiracy about conspiracies: Why would the government want to promote such conspiracy theories? Distraction and demoralization. If the populace is busy hunting pedophiles and aliens, and believes that nothing else matters, then the substantive issues of day-to-day politics recede into the background. All of the populist energy is soaked up like a sponge and wasted on fictional goose chases and witch hunts.>
I have a smart MAGA friend who believes in the Epstein cabal theory (and other Deep State conspiracies), and when I try to pull her away from these conspiracy theories, she jokingly refers to me as her “CIA handler”. In line with what you wrote above, I joked with her that if I were CIA, my psyop would be to dissipate MAGA energy by sending them all down conspiracy rabbit holes. However, her argument is history based, i.e., Deep State ops like MK Ultra, Mockingbird, etc. suggest that “they” are likely still up to no good and that we ought to consider present day conspiracies as prima facie true given this track record. I pointed out the obvious fallacy of arguing that because the Deep State did x, it automatically means it did y, but she doesn’t find this persuasive because the previous “conspiracies” (more like rogue or sanctioned operations in a Cold War atmosphere) are, again, prima facie evidence.
People can't let go of conspiracy theories because to believe in conspiracies is to grant one's self instant belonging, superiority and secret insight. Abandoning that means stepping into Superman's molecule chamber and becoming a regular human again. Who would voluntarily abdicate a superpower?
I think there is something to what you say. It’s fun to be among the elect (even if the FBI is spying on you). On the other hand, I think there is a cascade effect: one conspiracy appears to be credible (or is actually true) and that becomes the gateway drug to more and more.
Absolutely. Covid really blew this Pandora's box wide open.
FWIW, I think a lot of what people find terrible about Epstein wasn't just that he was having sex with teenagers, it's that he was recruiting women into prostitution. I feel like the ethic is that is hiring a prostitute is at worst mildly bad, but pulling a woman into that life is far worse. You can debate whether that is an ethically consistent position but it fits with other views we have (e.g. introducing a kid to smoking or drugs is much worse than smoking/taking drugs) and makes some sense from a consequentialist standpoint.
It's occurred to me that Epstein's friends wouldn't have necessarily known any of this, to outsiders he would appear to be some rich guy who had call girls on retainer. That's some of why I would never hire a prostitute (even back when I was single). Even if the act itself isn't that bad, there's an insanely large amount of dark stuff surrounding that industry that you don't want to contribute to, and you will get zero sympathy if that turns out to be the situation.
Part of the problem is elites have no problem with conspiracy theories. Someone can't have a different opinion on a policy issue than me; they have to be a Russian ageny, corporate shill, or desperate vote whore.
Except that the entire point of the Epstein case is that its a religious crusade. Thats the whole point. In the same way the storming of the bastilles during the french revolution was insignificant in terms of tangible importance its symbolic significance still stands. You may be correct that technically speaking there are more important issues in this country but humans do not frame their existence in objective terms. We live in stories, shape our experience through stories, and act out stories. People pick things to get riled up over that represent deeper problems that are harder (or even impossible) to articulate and their anger is justified because this is how humans navigate the world. There is much more to this than the facts.
This isn’t to say that you bring up some really good points in this article though. I like the conclusions you come to and I will be thinking about this more
It is pretty much confirmed that Epstein's properties (Manhattan, Palm Beach, and the Virgin Islands) were wired up for video recording. Whether Epstein recorded these sexual encounters for financial gain, personal titillation, or passed the footage to the Mossad is unknown. What has happened to these tapes?
Your (poor) simulation of the detailed blackmail tactics suggests you have never read history of how the Stasi and KGB actually behaved. They operated brothels and you can now read the details.
It did not matter that you already supported the party. The secrets and blackmail acquired created leverage along the margin and especially where self interest might clash.
I agree. Sextortion is one of the most effective forms of blackmail and control even if the victim is not told, it's leverage and the tapes can sit on the shelf for a long time until they're needed. DL using the Bill Gates strawman to brush away these concerns is not good enough.
Confirmed by who Luke? Im having trouble finding any secondhand sources. Only relevant articles in quick Google search said that accusation was from an accuser so thats obviously not the most reliable
FYI skoptsys (russian christians) did both castration and mastectomies.
The Biden administration told Marc Andreesen not to bother with A.I. The plan was to restrict it to a few of their favorite defense contractors.
Peter Thiel had an interesting take on Epstein blackmailing people. His idea was that he was recording people having sex but not as some sort of secret blackmail operation but rather kind of like a mafia/cartel initiation style ritual, and that by getting yourself recorded you would get access to whatever benefits Epstein could give you. Thiel's very well connected and would know a lot of things so I am inclined to think he knows what he is talking about on this.
I'm not sure it's so much that anyone in power found it particularly useful, at least at first, to promote the idea that there was a conspiracy around Epstein and his island, so much as it was a changing nomenclature and legal framework around sex has confused the average American. Ten years when ago when someone heard about "child sex trafficking charges," they'd probably imagine a ring of villains out of True Detective passing around kidnapped 10-year-olds, but legally it can, and usually does, just mean one man paying a 17-year-old for sex. Today, the idea of one man paying a 17-year-old for sex is incredibly scandalous for those under 40 who grew up up with Law and Order: SVU and 19 being the age of consent, but the average baby boomer Trump voter doesn't find it particularly interesting, and if the terminology didn't suggest something far more outrageous they'd probably completely ignore it.
It's kind of amusing to contrast conspiracy theories of the 80s (1980s and 1880s)--where cults, blood-letting, and ritual child abuse from either satanists (McMartin pre-school case) or Jews (blood libel) was invoked to stoke outrage and horror, with today, where, aside from a few adrenochrome conspiracists, outrage is simply manufactured by off-color stories about teenage prostitutes.
I think you bring up some pretty interesting points about marriage here. Someone else, I can't recall who, said that the great child abuse of our time is divorce, and we know it, and we won't do anything about it, so we create other problems to solve instead. I'd add that so many single men, single women, and married-but-anxious men and women have created differences in how the sexes relate to one another, with far more step-fathers and "mom's boyfriends," more men trying to impress women, more women trying to impress men, smaller families and less actual experience with different kinds of people, and I'd wager more paranoia. I'd also add contemporary notions of sexuality: We simply don't have a framework for "It doesn't matter if this person is attractive--you don't have sex with them because sex is meant to be between a married man and woman." CS Lewis, in Mere Christianity, described sins of desire as the least pernicious; I wonder if any contemporary Christian writers would dare agree.
"food stamp rapists"
Sarcasm no longer works. Half the population did not see Biden's dementia. I do not know your IQ so I stopped reading after a few paragraphs. I had no idea what your point was.
The guy was a translator of Sanskrit? Clearly he loved the Aryan race 😡