I think it's obvious Epstein was engineered as a "control theory lever" over a global financial/political system, that despite the best wargaming/simulation, could never be perfectly predicted. The system was simply too complex. So, real politik, and Machiavellian necessity required elements of control to be injected into this system to provide definiteness where ambiguity dared reign.<p>The bacchic excess? Human nature in secret succumbed to unchecked desires, itself a predictable outcome. The OG plan was not "evil" per se, it was pragmatic, but the implementation, necessarily became evil and the evil was normalized and justified by the "importance" of the plan to the stability of the playmakers.
Power corrupts, end of story.<p>Democracy (limited terms), taxation and anti-monopoly regulation are examples that show a path to cure the disease.<p>Nobody should be trusted with too much power for too long.
> end of story.<p>Is it? Here's another version I like even more that unsettles democracy dogmatics: power attracts the corrupt.
It is absolutely correct, hence why limited terms are a prerequisite for functioning democracies.<p>An ill intentioned participant in power will not have unlimited time to do that much damage. A good intentioned participant will not have too much time to become corrupted.<p>The downside is that a good intentioned ruler, may not have enough time to accomplish their good vision. But my thesis is that is a reasonable price to pay to avoid the opposite. A malicious ruler with infinite time to complete their destructive plan.
> A good intentioned participant will not have too much time to become corrupted.<p>The operation of the revolving door would seem to imply otherwise. You set up a situation where politicians are not just expected but <i>required</i> to leave office and then need a job in the private sector. Are they then inclined to do things while in office that make it more or less likely that they get a lucrative gig as soon as their term is up?<p>> A malicious ruler with infinite time to complete their destructive plan.<p>The assumption is that the ruler is the elected official. What do you do if the malicious ruler is a corporation and the elected official is just a fungible subordinate?
But will the elected representatives have the time needed to get good at their jobs? If not they might just be pushed around by bad actors.
A good intentioned participant will not have unlimited time to do good
Sortition is the only system that ensures high quality universal education. If anyone can become president for a year then everyone needs to be able to be president for a year.
Well why not both? It is certainly true that power attracts those who seek to abuse it. But it is <i>also</i> true that a good fraction of those who are demonstrably corrupt started out way more idealistic.
Shouldn't it unsettle King dogmatics just as much?
Not really, because aristocrats and monarchs don't seek power in most systems; rather, they're simply born into it. Those modes of government don't actively select for the power-hungry.<p>(Granted, in e.g. the Ottoman Empire and Imperial China, it was frequently the case that there were dozens of princelings who were, de facto, pitted against each other in contests for the throne. That <i>definitely</i> selected for ambition, brutality, and a willingness to get one's hands dirty.)
Even European monarchs, with the Catholic church holding much of the keys to their authority and being <i>very</i> against it, managed to do a considerable amount of tactical relative-killing. Everywhere else it's basically the norm for monarchies that princes murder each other.<p>A shattering bow<p>A burning flame<p>A gaping wolf<p>A screeching pig<p>A rootless tree<p>A mounting sea<p>A flying spear<p>A falling wave<p>One night's ice<p>A coiled serpent<p>A bride's bed-talk<p>or a breaking sword<p>A bear's play<p>or <i>a child of a king</i>.<p>(Odin listing up some of the things a wise man never trusts, in stanza 85 and 86 of Hávamál)
Being brought up believing you have a divine right to rule and a duty to enlarge your kingdom isn't a selection effect, but worked to pretty much the same outcome in terms of brutality. Even in European states where there were pretty straightforward primogeniture rules of succession, you ended up with hundreds of years of "legitimate" inheritors displaying fondness for foreign military expeditions and tactical ploys to acquire tendentious claims to other territory, and as soon as a direct adult male descendant from a single wife wasn't available succession selected for ambition and ruthlessness considerably more than a parliamentary system.
In <i>theory</i>, born into it. That was just a foil to put an air of legitimacy over the institution.<p>In the real world, there was (and is!) an incredible power game over who decides over what, who gets to live, who must abdicate, how much the real power lies with the King and how much with aristocracy or the Church and so on. It's a constant rebalancing of power factors.
Sometimes it was, sometimes it wasn't. One can point to dozens of historical examples of well-run and stable monarchies, just as one can point to "monarchies" where the power rested with power-hungry and corrupt eunuchs, bishops, or chancellors -- or where the entire process of succession was as red in tooth and claw as anything in nature.<p>The trouble with representative democracy is that it <i>always</i> selects for the most power-hungry of its denizens.<p>And now we're in the midst of a situation that Polybius would immediately recognize: The crossroads where one path leads to rule by entrenched and corrupt oligarchs, at least as bad as any of the court eunuchs of old, and where the other path leads to ochlocracy. I'd take my chances with the latter, especially in this era where direct democracy is possible, but I'm afraid that's not likely how things are going to turn out.
That seems an entirely false sense of inevitability. Once perfectly possible outcome is that representative democracy keeps chugging along as usual in most of the West and we don’t have mob rule or rule by a corrupt group of oligarchs. The present situation in the USA isn’t encouraging, but Trump hasn’t canceled the midterms <i>yet</i>.
Things in Europe aren't looking good. The consent of the governed is being eroded and manipulated just as badly as it is in the US. The UK, for instance, is a tinder box, where the share of the population that simply votes <i>against the status quo</i> is growing to become an absolute majority.
The UK is a country where the Prime Minister may very probably have to resign because he is unpopular. See also Liz Truss and Boris Johnson. Prime Ministers in the UK don’t usually last that long if the public turns against them. Compare to the US, where Trump is deeply unpopular but also in an essentially unassailable position as POTUS. If Keir Starmer, or any other British Prime Minister, gave <i>one</i> press conference where they attacked a female journalist instead of responding to her question, and then criticized her for not smiling enough, they would be out of Downing Street within a day. So no, things are not going “just as badly” in the UK as they are in the US. You’re comparing general problems of discontent in a representative democracy with a total breakdown in standards of public life.<p>I’m not sure exactly what you mean by Brits “voting against the status quo”. That’s what happens any time you change from one party to another in a democracy. Wouldn’t it be more worrying if everyone kept voting for the same party and same policies all the time?
In a world where the best ran country on earth is a "enlighten despotism" AKA Singapore, Nope.<p>They think we just need more LKYs, or really, AI systems controlling everything. A benevolent dictatorial AI running society is exactly what all the futurists think is coming. Go read Orions Arm.
Why is that only a problem for democracy? It’s one of the central problems of civilization and has been discussed by philosophers since the Greeks.<p>In monarchies you’d often end up with kings and people in line for the throne being murdered and all kinds of palace intrigue to select for the most conniving psychopath.<p>In theocratic systems you get hypocrite self dealing priests.<p>In socialist and communist systems you get an aristocracy of political pull where high ranking bureaucrats are basically identical to our billionaires and political elites.<p>I’m not aware of any system that durably protects against being taken over by deranged dark triad personalities. Democracy’s virtue is that it provides some way to clean house without destroying the stability of the whole system, at least when it works.
I'd rephrase it as: nobody should be trusted with unchecked power, especially when it's exercised quietly and indirectly
Fully agree on the root cause, but not on the solution.<p>We should strive for extremely limited power by our public representatives, so their corruption impact is reduced to a minimum. But not only limited power, but also limited budget access, as an extension to limit that power. And that actually means reduced taxation.<p>But at the same time, the budget for justice system needs to increase. It should be most probably the strongest branch of the government. Delayed justice is one of the most common ways of injustice.<p>Corruption within private companies is irrelevant, as the main ones to suffer from it are usually shareholders. Government has no say in that. That is unless companies break the law, and that's why a strong Justice system is necessary. With a reduced size of the state there's also way less risk of private companies and individuals to corrupt public representatives.<p>Monopolies are not always a negative outcome on a free market if the company in Monopoly situation reaches that position by offering better products within the law. However they can be specially dangerous when they're artificially created by the Government (e.g. allocation of a common resource to a specific company --> corruption almost always follows).
> But at the same time, the budget for justice system needs to increase. It should be most probably the strongest branch of the government. Delayed justice is one of the most common ways of injustice.<p>The judical branch should very much NOT be a part of the government itself, but a fully separate branch.<p>> Corruption within private companies is irrelevant, as the main ones to suffer from it are usually shareholders.<p>As we have seen in the past, we have the same, if not worse, power imbalances in private companies as in the public sector. I would therefore not call it irrelevant, but agree that the Justice system can help here if appropriatly staffed.<p>> Monopolies are not always a negative outcome on a free market if the company in Monopoly situation reaches that position by offering better products within the law. However they can be specially dangerous when they're artificially created by the Government (e.g. allocation of a common resource to a specific company --> corruption almost always follows).<p>Do you have a single example for a company who did not over time monetized its monopoly power to the detriment of the customer?
> The judical branch should very much NOT be a part of the government itself, but a fully separate branch.<p>If you don't give that entirely separate branch any executive power, it cannot enforce its rulings. If you do give it separate executive power, there is nothing to rein it in when it becomes corrupt.
Correct. If you conceive of the “rule of law” as being the operating system kernel on top of which the rest of society runs, then there are no checks on the law enforcers and interpreters.<p>This is not a theoretical problem. Prosecuting politicians is a preferred approach in dysfunctional democracies, like Pakistan: <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly77v0n8e9o" rel="nofollow">https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly77v0n8e9o</a>
> Corruption within private companies is irrelevant<p>I'll have some of whatever you're smoking.<p>It's not that useful separating public and private when there are revolving doors and the people who run the companies bribe — sorry, lobby — politicians. It's an incredibly intimate relationship
Wouldn't limiting power also mean limiting their effectiveness? A government (at any layer) needs to have a certain amount of power, else they're just civilians.<p>As for budget, a country needs money to do stuff; if they don't have money they can't do stuff. Stuff can range from having the world's biggest army (several times over) to providing free education to everyone (the great social equalizer IMO, as in social mobility).<p>As for your justice argument, it depends - if power corrupts, wouldn't giving more power to justice corrupt them as well? You see what's happening in the US with various law enforcement branches getting A Lot Of Money - militarization of local police force for example, meaning they have the means to apply more violence.<p>TL;DR, governments and justice systems need a clear description of what they can and cannot do, and checks, balances and consequences when they don't.<p>> Corruption within private companies is irrelevant, as the main ones to suffer from it are usually shareholders.<p>This ignores the vast majority of anyone involved in a private company - the customers. Or even the not-customers that are still affected by what a private company does (think e.g. pollution), but that's where as you say the law should come in.
I always laugh when libertarians propose all kinds of mechanism to prevent the concentration of power in the public administration but at the same time see no problem with a few individuals concentrating exponentially the most important and corrupting of the powers: wealth.<p>God forbid a representative being reelected but there is no problem with a billionaire destabilizing dozens of democracies and around the world.<p>Libertarianism is just the blind worship of people who have money.
Are you just completely unaware with what's going on in the US or something? The reason why we're here is because of corruption within private companies leading to mass accumulation of wealth which has reality-bending effects on politics. Trump and the cronies is as much a symptom as it is a cause; related to the way billionaires bought literally all of news and social media over 30 years and weaponized it for their own personal propaganda.<p>You're not going to solve this problem with a 'strong justice system', you're going to solve it by making sure no one can get that wealthy in the first place. I mean we're literally in a topic about Jeffry Epstein who is so deeply connected to everything that it would make your average TV show seem like a hack.
[dead]
> Power corrupts, end of story.<p>Not all corruption is obvious though. Sometimes you think you are doing the right thing, "just need to bend the rules slightly over here". It is all for a "good cause". I feel like I am as much worried about people who are the righteous wrong, as much as people who are just out there trying to grift to make a buck.
There is another saying from Robert Caro: "Power doesn't corrupt, it reveals". The more power, the more their flaws are amplified.
It’s probably a vicious cycle I’d say.
I do agree with this. If you followed this approach consistently, you would need back pressure against individual and company wealth growth.<p>This could be quite good for competition, but would probably hurt sectors a lot that have high fixed costs/barriers of entry and need to compete with (foreign) unlimited-size companies.<p>I do think that this could fix or at least vastly improve some really difficult problems: The whole judiciary is IMO blatantly unjust right now, because higher wealth can basically buy you better outcomes, democratic representation is flawed because wealth/donations buy you access to politicians (or allows you to enter politics yourself) and even national public opinion on <i>anything</i> is essentially for sale to a degree via profit-driven media.<p>Such wealth-gap limiting could be possibly achieved by progressive taxation that rises logarithmically with revenue for companies and individual wealth (giving a strong incentive to split up wealth, and no leeway via declaring zero profits): Think 1% of revenue under 1M, 2% under 10M, ...<p>I'm very curious how a nation that made strong efforts in that direction would fare.
Isn't it the opposite? If someone can change "democracy, taxation and anti-monopoly regulation" across the country, they have substantially more power than Elon Musk.
> If only Bill Gates and Larry Summers had had my mom to go to for advice, they could’ve saved themselves a lot of grief.<p>Doubt it would have changed anything for Bill. There's a pattern there and this is just a piece of that pattern.
But it might've changed one decision, one meeting, one normalization step
A curiously frivolous way to frame the decision to get involved with a notorious sex trafficker. Nothing to do with values, integrity or culpability, just some boys missing their mommies.
He's strangely breezy about the whole thing.<p>'...a short jail stint in one’s past for “soliciting prostitution” simply doesn’t sound disqualifying, according to the secular liberal morality that most academics hold, unless you researched the details, which most didn’t.'<p>Uh. Really?
Wait - I thought it was a Democratic hoax and that only Epstein was the bad guy? Is Trump wrong?
Not to go full pizzagate conspiracy theorist, but, Epstein is just the most out in the open and famous tip of the proverbial iceberg. These people didn't stop being nonces because some of them got caught.
Same with Summers. He had reputation beyond Epstein contacts.
"There are two kinds of politicians, insiders and outsiders. The outsiders prioritize their freedom to speak their version of the truth. The price for their freedom is that they are ignored by the insiders, who make the important decisions. The insiders, for their part, follow a sacrosanct rule: never turn against other insiders and never talk to outsiders about what insiders say or do. Their reward? Access to inside information and a chance, though no guarantee, of influencing powerful people and outcomes." -- Larry Summers, according to Yanis Varoufakis in "Adults in the Room"<p>It sounds a bit cartoon villainy, but honestly, I see no reason to doubt that he said this. Everything points to these people being casually desperate to be let into ever innermore circles. Even now that this particularly ugly circle is blown open, notice that they still simply <i>do not talk</i> about what their fellow insiders did except in vague generalities.
It isn't really surprising that discretion matters to villains. As much as it matters to everyone else.<p>Except for the parts involving criminal coverups. That seems to plague close-nit groups at any level of society, e.g. world religions, police, finance, families, etc.
I cant help myself. "Adults in the Room ... with half naked teenagers putting the cloth down" or "Adults in the Room ... working hard to destroy the democracy and create violent authoritarian world".<p>Back to your main point, mafia operates similarly. In fact, there is not much difference between the two. What is Larry Summers not saying there is that being part of this circle is making this circle more powerful. Them not talking about what they know is itself "influencing powerful people and outcomes".
[flagged]
The kind of piece of shit who donates basically his entire fortune to charity? And actual charity at that, not Ellison style "Larry Ellison Research Foundation for Prolonging the Life of Larry Ellison and Getting Some Tax Breaks Along the Way".
You'll have to prove the "an actual charity" at that.
It's literally in his name, Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, and Melinda had enough of Bill that she nixed their relationship.<p>Bill and Melinda Gates foundation are also behind Common Core and basically ruined public education in the US.<p>The foundation is a way for Bill to keep doing what he likes without having to pay taxes on it, he's just done a better job of repairing his image than Larry.
Malaria deaths have fallen by 60% in the last 15 years, saving on the order of 12 million lives. Bill's foundation has donated around $4B to the cause.<p>And yeah, it's got Melinda's name on it, but let's face it, virtually all the money is from Bill/Microsoft.
meh..Just because he donated doesn't mean one should ignore or dilute the severity of alleged crimes. Infact, I would trade someone who doesn't commit any such acts and still does not donate over someone who donates but does worst of all the crimes.
You should know better than to be defending evil people.<p>Evil is, as evil does.<p>Bill Gates and his Foundation have a bad rep long before his Epstein link came into the news.<p>Who better to collude with a known child trafficker/molester, than one who has no qualms in killing children via illegal vaccines/drugs to help his nexus with Big Pharma.<p>Bill & Melinda Gates' Foundation's evil illegal "vaccine trials" on tribal children (especially girls) in India (without the consent of them and their parents) directly caused the deaths of several children, hospitalizations of scores of such innocent victims, and it was a huge conspiracy and controversy that was uncovered during investigations by Supreme Court and police.<p><a href="https://m.economictimes.com/industry/healthcare/biotech/healthcare/controversial-vaccine-studies-why-is-bill-melinda-gates-foundation-under-fire-from-critics-in-india/articleshow/41280050.cms" rel="nofollow">https://m.economictimes.com/industry/healthcare/biotech/heal...</a><p>The Gates Foundation operates like a monopolistic unethical pharmaceutical company (as a weapon and Think Tank of Big Pharma) under the guise of a charitable NGO or grantmaker.<p><a href="https://capitalresearch.org/article/bill-gates-big-philanthropy-and-the-troubles-they-create/" rel="nofollow">https://capitalresearch.org/article/bill-gates-big-philanthr...</a>
In this thread; exploiters of child labor engaged in empty rhetorical debate. Zero to be accomplished by it. Just chimps in emotional cages slapping the dopamine button.<p>I am sure the sweatshop kids work under informed consent too and were given a choice between 996 in the textile factory and education.<p>300 million Americans are incredibly deluded about their place in a world of 8 billion.<p>America operates with a monopoly on unethical labor practices.<p>None of you are in the streets to put each other on the hook for your own healthcare or extend the offer to your neighbors. That's how much money obsessed Americans care about their own existence; happy to roll the dice they don't get some illness and lose it all to medical debt versus ask their neighbors to get their back.<p>Meanwhile every other modernized country has single payer.<p>Cosplay rugged individuals who don't need the help, while codependent on sweatshop labor.<p>Such an unserious people.
The American people voted for Biden and twice for Trump - both of whom have unfavorable reputations regarding the way they behave with minor girls.<p>Bush Sr. and Jr. openly did wars for oil, under fake excuses like "WMDs".<p>"Gentleman" Obama too has a dubious distinction - he's the only two-term American President who kept his country directly involved in wars throughout those tenures, including wars he himself signed off to start. Yet he shamelessly went and collected that Nobel Peace Prize.<p>And Trump was so miffed at not getting the Nobel Peace Prize, that he unleashed tariff wars on all allies, and then arrogantly invaded a sovereign peaceful nation (Venezuela), and he's now threatening to seize Cuba (he's already stopped all oil going to it, in order to cripple this struggling nation that CIA destabilized since decades), Greenland, Columbia, Canada and whatnot.<p>AFAIK, no American president has bothered to take serious efforts to prevent gun shootings in American schools and colleges. USA has maximum mass shootings and maximum school shootings compared to rest of the world, the statistics are really shocking. (The evil that happened as the Uvalde school shooting, where the shooter was protected and aided by the police themselves - such avoidable tragedies on innocent children just breaks my heart.)<p>It seems that healthcare and safety of children are the least of the worries of the Americans, as they keep voting for such fakers and warmongers to be their President.
I have no reason to defend BMGF and enjoy a good comeuppance probably more than the next person, but the article you linked to about the issues in India is far from the smoking gun in the hands BMGF you seem to think it is.<p>From the article: an already-approved vaccine (by FDA and others) was given to children via a trial run by an NGO (PATH) and was funded by BMGF. The trial was apparently run unethically, and in addition a year or so later it was found that girls administered the vaccine had possibly experienced adverse events, some very serious.<p>(Based on the article alone) it’s very likely that BMGF would have been totally hands off in overseeing the trial, and would certainly have had strict agreements with PATH. If there were indeed ethical breaches, I’m sure BMGF was very unhappy about this. Moreover, while we of course shouldn’t ignore the safety findings, attributing events causally to the vaccination against the standard background rate of events in a particular population is rife with uncertainty.<p>And of course, the trial potentially being unethically run doesn’t make the (already- and still-approved) vaccine more dangerous… but does make it easier to whip up sensation and clicks for articles, especially if there’s a big rich US Foundation also tangentially involved.
Please stop whitewashing evildoers and stop excluding relevant facts on the exposés of such evils.<p>BMGF (Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation) is funding such evils across the world, this was not some isolated incident that Bill and Melinda Gates were unaware of.<p>Furthermore, did the Gates do repatriations to the victims of this experimental drug? Nope. Did they even apologize for funding clinical-trials-without-consent of experimental drugs that they dared not test properly in their own country? Nope.<p>They knew what evil they were doing, and they didn't care.<p>Bill and Melinda Gates are guilty of mass murders of innocent children. No wonder they were in cahoots with that evil Epstein.<p>And I'll expose some more of your whitewashing here.<p>Entire world knows the FDA is in the pockets of Big Pharma, so FDA approval means shit. FDA itself is funded by Big Pharma.<p>Why Is Biopharma Paying 75% Of The FDA’s Drug Division Budget?
<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnlamattina/2022/09/22/why-is-biopharma-paying-75-of-the-fdas-drug-division-budget/" rel="nofollow">https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnlamattina/2022/09/22/why-is...</a><p>So explain if you dare:
why are the clinical trials of unproven drugs by American megacorporations and American billionaires being done on poor illiterate tribals (or underprivileged communities) in India and Africa, rather than on American citizens first?<p>Don't want your children to die or be affected due to such experimental drugs, do you? Show me where clinical trials of this HPV vaccine has been done on minors in USA.<p>But you feel it is okay if some healthy children in some poor or developing nation die due to such unethical BioPharma experiments, especially when those experiments are done WITHOUT consent from the children and their parents?!!<p><a href="https://m.economictimes.com/industry/healthcare/biotech/healthcare/controversial-vaccine-studies-why-is-bill-melinda-gates-foundation-under-fire-from-critics-in-india/articleshow/41280050.cms" rel="nofollow">https://m.economictimes.com/industry/healthcare/biotech/heal...</a><p>"A standing committee on health and family welfare that investigated the irregularities pertaining to the observation studies in India tabled its report.<p>The committee found that consent for conducting these studies, in many cases, was taken from the hostel wardens, which was a flagrant violation of norms. In many other cases, thumbprint impressions of their poor and illiterate parents were duly affixed onto the consent form. The children also had no idea about the nature of the disease or the vaccine. The authorities concerned could not furnish requisite consent forms for the vaccinated children in a huge number of cases.<p>The standing committee report was a shocker but it became even more significant when it was mentioned that the study was sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF).<p>When a team of health activists - from an NGO (Sama) that specializes in women’s health - visited on a fact-finding mission, they were told that as many as 120 girls vaccinated with HPV had experienced adverse reactions such as epileptic seizures, severe stomach ache, headaches and mood swings. The Sama report also said there had been cases of early onset of menstruation following the vaccination, heavy bleeding and severe menstrual cramps among many students. The standing committee pulled up the relevant state governments for the shoddy investigation into these deaths. It said it was disturbed to find that “all the seven deaths were summarily dismissed as unrelated to vaccinations without in-depth investigations…the speculative causes were suicides, accidental drowning in well (why not suicide?), malaria, viral infections, subarachnoid hemorrhage (without autopsy) etc.”<p>The committee said that in the context of deaths of girls classified as suicide, the role of the “HPV vaccine as a possible, if not probable, cause of suicidal ideation cannot be ruled out.”
Interesting to see how this is getting downvoted. Somewhat expected. Many more head would roll from this scandal. Bill Gates, Peter Thiel are just starters
When your main complaint against someone is "illegal vaccines" and you post it several times, it makes you look very similar to COVID conspiracy theorists.
When my exposé comments (with undisputable facts and valid links) are being deliberately downvoted (to cover up the shenanigans of evil men), then it will only spur me to share those truths to a wider audience.<p>The heart-wrenching laments of the families of healthy innocent children who died in such evil unscrupulous experiments by these evil billionaires and greedy evil Big Pharma megacorporarations, shall be heard across the world.<p>Karma will have its way, and its say.
Yeah, I am surprised that when I am stating known facts with relevant links, my comments are getting downvoted.<p>It is as if Gates's team are lurking here in HN, to immediately downvote any comments that reveal the truths about him. Hmmm.<p>No wonder his wife divorced him. She should have done it long ago.<p>But she too (as part of their Foundation) is culpable for the deaths of those tribal children given those illegal vaccines.
People seem to forget how many companies Bill Gates put out of business by using their designs. It takes years to sue and win damages minus lawyer fees. Then to try to whitewash his reputation by giving the money away.
If Bill Gates was merely using his vast wealth to whitewash his image, after a career as a ruthless businessman, that's understandable (though not agreeable) because that's what billionaires (who became so, by being ruthless and competitive) tend to do.<p>But Bill Gates has been using his vast wealth as a weapon and Think Tank for Big Pharma - he is actively using his wealth and clout (under guise of charity) to harm and kill poor people and innocent children (by doing experiments on them with unproven/dubious drugs as "clinical trials") without their consent.<p>Now that is pure evil.
You'd be surprised how accurate your take is on reputation management teams operating on social media.<p>One time I joked about blocking a domain which would have embarrassed a notorious colour revolution organisation and the next day the domain was snatched up by the named gang.<p>And that particular Reddit account got banned.
Reddit and Twitter are cesspools of noise and misinformation since years.<p>Even whole subreddits are taken over by shady admins, and totally weaponised.
e.g., r/India is filled with anti-India hate posts and malicious misinformation, because that subreddit is controlled by Pakistani admins.<p>I was actually glad when my Reddit user account got banned for speaking some truths about history of my nation, LOL.<p>Lot less stress on HN, it is more peaceful, simple, and informative, I like it.
> Yeah, I am surprised that when I am stating known facts with relevant links, my comments are getting downvoted.<p>Think about it as a noble way to spend your HN karma
I didn't even know that HN has karma! I thought that was a Reddit thing.<p>I have been using HN for some time, but I don't really know how it works.<p>People seem to be downvoting my comments that reveal some hard truths, but I don't see any downvote button when browsing HN conversations.<p>Anyway, I don't intend to downvote anyone. Let people have their own opinions and say, but is there anyway I can find out who is deliberately downvoting my comments?
If only it was just karma. A pattern of getting downvoted can lead to account restrictions.
Ah, I wasn't aware of that. I thank you for the heads up, my friend.<p>But I feel that if my account gets restricted or suspended on HN because of downvotes on my comments that merely state some hard truths, then so be it.<p>It would be a judgement on HN, not on me.<p>I will simply go elsewhere to speak up the truths..<p>Someone has to speak for those innocents whose voices have forever been silenced by evil people.
"You're posting too fast" means you're telling the truth.
Not surprised to see this getting faded into obscurity.<p>Hypocrisy News.
[dead]
But much of the motivation for starting a foundation is from Melinda.
I think it's the opposite. Bill credited his parents for his philanthropic drive and Warren buffet as the person who first introduced him to the idea of giving everything away. He's been active and knowledgeable in his philanthropy and posts frequently about global health, poverty, aid, etc.<p>Melinda also, of course, did work for their joint foundation before she left. Since leaving, she shifted her philanthropic focus more to US women's health and reproductive rights.<p>Bill has committed to giving away nearly all his wealth (99%) over the next 19 years. Melinda is still committed to giving away over 50% of her wealth over her lifetime.<p>I don't see any evidence that Melinda was the primary driver for Bill's philanthropy.
It’s almost like it was done… as a team.<p>Where one side provided all the money, the other side provided the direction.<p>Both were necessary. Weird huh?
You don't get that rich in the first place without being a ruthless asshole.
<a href="https://youtu.be/H27rfr59RiE" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/H27rfr59RiE</a>
Proof please, not a slogan.<p>Like, actual facts.
I should know better than to feed the troll, but…<p>- <a href="https://www.justice.gov/atr/us-v-microsoft-courts-findings-fact#iiib:~:text=satisfaction%20of%20consumers.-,Microsoft%27s%20Pricing%20Behavior,-62.%20%C2%A0Microsoft%27s%20actual" rel="nofollow">https://www.justice.gov/atr/us-v-microsoft-courts-findings-f...</a><p>- <a href="https://www.justice.gov/atr/us-v-microsoft-courts-findings-fact#iiib:~:text=V.-,MICROSOFT%27S%20RESPONSE%20TO%20THE%20BROWSER%20THREAT,-Microsoft%27s%20Attempt%20to" rel="nofollow">https://www.justice.gov/atr/us-v-microsoft-courts-findings-f...</a><p>- <a href="https://www.justice.gov/atr/us-v-microsoft-courts-findings-fact#iiib:~:text=for%20a%20time.-,The%20Similar%20Experiences%20of%20Other%20Firms%20in%20Dealing%20with%20Microsoft,-93.%20%C2%A0Other%20firms" rel="nofollow">https://www.justice.gov/atr/us-v-microsoft-courts-findings-f...</a><p>- <a href="https://www.justice.gov/atr/us-v-microsoft-courts-findings-fact#iiib:~:text=who%20preferred%20Navigator.-,Giving%20Internet%20Explorer%20Away%20and%20Rewarding%20Firms%20that%20Helped%20Build%20Its%20Usage%20Share,-136.%20In%20addition" rel="nofollow">https://www.justice.gov/atr/us-v-microsoft-courts-findings-f...</a><p>- <a href="https://www.justice.gov/atr/us-v-microsoft-courts-findings-fact#iiib:~:text=on%20the%20desktop.%22-,Excluding%20Navigator%20from%20Important%20Distribution%20Channels,-143.%20%C2%A0Decision%2Dmakers" rel="nofollow">https://www.justice.gov/atr/us-v-microsoft-courts-findings-f...</a><p>- <a href="https://birdhouse.org/beos/byte/30-bootloader/" rel="nofollow">https://birdhouse.org/beos/byte/30-bootloader/</a><p>- <a href="http://www.catb.org/~esr/halloween/" rel="nofollow">http://www.catb.org/~esr/halloween/</a><p>One would have had to try very hard to avoid ever hearing about Microsoft's behavior in the '90s.
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor...</a>.
Evil is, as evil does.<p>Bill Gates and his Foundation have a bad rep long before his Epstein link came into the news.<p>Who better to collude with a known child trafficker/molester, than one who has no qualms in killing children via illegal vaccines/drugs to help his nexus with Big Pharma.<p>Bill & Melinda Gates' Foundation's evil illegal "vaccine trials" on tribal children (especially girls) in India (without the consent of them and their parents) directly caused the deaths of several children, hospitalizations of scores of such innocent victims, and it was a huge conspiracy and controversy that was uncovered during investigations by Supreme Court and police.<p><a href="https://m.economictimes.com/industry/healthcare/biotech/healthcare/controversial-vaccine-studies-why-is-bill-melinda-gates-foundation-under-fire-from-critics-in-india/articleshow/41280050.cms" rel="nofollow">https://m.economictimes.com/industry/healthcare/biotech/heal...</a><p>The Gates Foundation operates like a monopolistic unethical pharmaceutical company (as a weapon and Think Tank of Big Pharma) under the guise of a charitable NGO or grantmaker.<p><a href="https://capitalresearch.org/article/bill-gates-big-philanthropy-and-the-troubles-they-create/" rel="nofollow">https://capitalresearch.org/article/bill-gates-big-philanthr...</a>
I mean, do you have a counterexample?<p>FWIW, Bill Gates is one of the people I would have pointed to as one of the less disreputable modern billionaires, and finding out that Melinda divorced him over his Epstein connections really soured my opinion of him.
This. And this also explains why sometimes girls fell love to apparent assholes -- if you are an asshole it doesn't mean you are powerful, however if you are not an asshole then definitely you are not powerful.
You can be both good and bad. Like, it's not an impossibility.
Yeah, doing shitty things while “donating” a bunch of money to make your legacy look really good is a classic move throughout history.<p>These guys don’t want to be remembered for the awful behaviors they had in their personal and business life. They’re extremely conceited and concerned with their image.
"But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?".
Earning a tremendous amount of money and then amusing yourself by spending it on "charity" for the rest of your life doesn't make you a good person.<p>It's just one more method of buying good feelings and trying to buy good will while being in control of large numbers of people.<p>He wants to feel like he's doing good and using money to give him that feeling.
It's like you're allergic to subtlety. Yes, saving untold numbers of children from malaria is a good thing. You can do bad things and good things and while everyone else is arguing about morality, the thing that matters is the end effect. Did Bill Gate's time on earth result in a better world when he's gone or a worse one? I won't pretend to know enough about his life to answer that, but he has prevented a <i>lot</i> of really, really brutal suffering.
Nope. I'm not weighing "good deeds" that amount to his entertainment against the aggressive selfish business destroying greed that got him the money to spend and everything else he's clearly done in his personal life, shrugging my shoulders, and saying "who knows! maybe him doing all this is all for the best"<p>I'd rather have better men had that money to spend and his victims both personal and business leave him penniless and alone at the end.
I’m sure Peter Scully[1] donated to charity at some point, too, and doesn’t make him any less evil.<p>[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Scully" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Scully</a>
<p><pre><code> > basically his entire fortune
</code></pre>
Money is a completely different concept for someone that rich.<p>If I give away 50% of my fortune my entire life falls apart and I am struggling. If I give away 10% it is going to hurt.<p>But Gates? He gives away 99% of his money and he's still a billionaire. His life isn't really going to change in any meaningful way. His money still generates tens or hundreds of millions of dollars a year without him lifting a finger. He gives away 99.9% of his money and he's still worth $100m and again, his life effectively does not change, making now only millions of dollars a year doing nothing.<p>Don't get me wrong, I am glad he's giving his money away and this is far better than Ellison or plenty of others, but that doesn't absolve their crimes/behavior. There's definitely a hierarchy of wrongness, being a cheater is definitely better than being a pedo cheater but neither is good or an excuse. The dude was associating with a known sex trafficker. Definitely not an "ops, I didn't know", his wife definitely knew and told him...
Warren Buffet wrote about this years ago. If you want to judge how "good" someone is you need to look at what they sacrifice. Gates sacrifices nothing. In fact, the entire thing is just marketing and basically worked for a long time. I was shocked to see people talking about Gates like he was a saint a few years ago. Glad to see that's changing.
A lot of the so-called "charity" by wealthy individuals is anything but. It's placing assets in a tax-advantaged positions where some of the proceeds gets used for "charity" (whatever that means) but they still maintain control.<p>For example, the typical tax structure is to put assets into a foundation. That allows the assets to grow and earn income without being taxed. The only requirement is that 5% of the asset pool has to be used on the stated goal of the foundation. That might sound good but it also includes costs like "administration" so, say, having your family as employees. There are limits to this but it's still somewhat of a slush fund.<p>That charity can be used for political influence. A foundation can't donate to candidates or PACs but can instead, for example, fund a think tank from which policy is created or influenced. That think tank will employ people while their party is out of the White House and otherwise nurture people who will go into the administration when their party returns to power.<p>Also, a large foundation such as this wields influence just by its size, by choosing what to fund and where. It can exact generous conditions from governments. Those conditions can extend to companies the foundation's benefactors have an interest in.<p>All of this is about influence. Governments are accountable to their people. Outsized private foundations are accountable to no one.
Also, don't forget, that the work itself can be about 'preparing the ground' for your non-charitable interests (which are probably held in trust, ie not held personally). Eg if you involve yourself in child education (perhaps making it worse) this is not an issue if it makes it more like that your classroom software is adopted. Or, if you are heavily invested in pharmaceuticals, singing the praises of vaccines, is just a tax savvy way of increasing the market that you will benefit from.
> The kind of piece of shit who donates basically his entire fortune to charity?<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/billionaires/" rel="nofollow">https://www.forbes.com/billionaires/</a> ranks him at #13 wealthiest in the world with $108B net worth.<p>He's donated about half his fortune, and 60% of that to his own org.
You should think twice before supporting evil people.<p>Evil is, as evil does.<p>Bill Gates and his Foundation have a bad rep long before his Epstein link came into the news.<p>Who better to collude with a known child trafficker/molester, than one who has no qualms in killing children via illegal vaccines/drugs to help his nexus with Big Pharma.<p>Bill & Melinda Gates' Foundation's evil illegal "vaccine trials" on tribal children (especially girls) in India (without the consent of them and their parents) directly caused the deaths of several children, hospitalizations of scores of such innocent victims, and it was a huge conspiracy and controversy that was uncovered during investigations by Supreme Court and police.<p><a href="https://m.economictimes.com/industry/healthcare/biotech/healthcare/controversial-vaccine-studies-why-is-bill-melinda-gates-foundation-under-fire-from-critics-in-india/articleshow/41280050.cms" rel="nofollow">https://m.economictimes.com/industry/healthcare/biotech/heal...</a><p>The Gates Foundation operates like a monopolistic unethical pharmaceutical company (as a weapon and Think Tank of Big Pharma) under the guise of a charitable NGO or grantmaker.<p><a href="https://capitalresearch.org/article/bill-gates-big-philanthropy-and-the-troubles-they-create/" rel="nofollow">https://capitalresearch.org/article/bill-gates-big-philanthr...</a>
How many billions have you donated?
No, decimalenough, "donating" his money doesn't change what he did, doesn't even make it slightly better.
Listen, billionaires just have to do three things to be beloved:<p><pre><code> 1. Donate 5-10% of their fortune to random unobjectionable charities.
2. Don't abuse children.
3. Stay off Twitter.
</code></pre>
It's not a high bar, we don't need to give a silver medal to those that fall short.
This was enough for Carnegie, and the fact that they're not pursuing similar public works simply illustrates that while they may want to be loved, they don't care if they're loved or not.<p>Because they don't want to be beloved, they want to turn people into dinosaurs. (to adapt the Spiderman quote)
Bill Gates dragged that bar into the murky quicksand though.<p>Evil is, as evil does.<p>Bill Gates and his Foundation have a bad rep long before his Epstein link came into the news.<p>Who better to collude with a known child trafficker/molester, than one who has no qualms in killing children via illegal vaccines/drugs to help his nexus with Big Pharma.<p>Bill & Melinda Gates' Foundation's evil illegal "vaccine trials" on tribal children (especially girls) in India (without the consent of them and their parents) directly caused the deaths of several children, hospitalizations of scores of such innocent victims, and it was a huge conspiracy and controversy that was uncovered during investigations by Supreme Court and police.<p><a href="https://m.economictimes.com/industry/healthcare/biotech/healthcare/controversial-vaccine-studies-why-is-bill-melinda-gates-foundation-under-fire-from-critics-in-india/articleshow/41280050.cms" rel="nofollow">https://m.economictimes.com/industry/healthcare/biotech/heal...</a><p>The Gates Foundation operates like a monopolistic unethical pharmaceutical company (as a weapon and Think Tank of Big Pharma) under the guise of a charitable NGO or grantmaker.<p><a href="https://capitalresearch.org/article/bill-gates-big-philanthropy-and-the-troubles-they-create/" rel="nofollow">https://capitalresearch.org/article/bill-gates-big-philanthr...</a>
Its like George Washington and the other founding fathers, didn't become a king voluntarily, helped create the country and modern democracy, but loved his slaves so much they could only be freed after he was dead. You can create good while actually still being a terrible person. Much of this era is people being upset about their fallen "heroes"
Andrew Carnegie funded a whole lot of stuff we still enjoy today. He was still a piece of shit and responsible for a lot of people winding up dead.<p>Gates has always been a piece of shit. For example, when Paul Allen got diagnosed with cancer, Gates and Ballmer tried to screw him out of Microsoft stock that he owned (this was roughly 1982-ish?).<p>You're a shit person if you try to screw over your "friend" like this. You're a shit person squared if you do it when they just got diagnosed with cancer.
I'd prefer if rich simply paid their taxes and contributions instead of spending money on fighting poor children in Africa.
One of Michael Shellenberger's central theses is, I think, that the government's ability to invest in "extras" like overseas aid, science, the environment, space exploration, etc is <i>directly a function of how large and healthy the middle class is because that's where the political capital to do these things really comes from</i>.<p>Basically the post-WWII period was a golden age for all of the above because the middle class of returning soldiers was there, and it was as power and wealth consolidated in the 80s and onward that there was less and less interest and agreement about spending on stuff other the essentials (which turned out to be mostly just defense).<p>So really it's a two pronged thing:<p>* the wealthy need to pay much more, and the government needs to invest that in services that benefit the middle class (education, health care, energy & transportation infrastructure) and also which keep people from falling out of the middle class (social safety net, consumer protections).<p>* eventually there's a critical mass of middle class people comfortable enough to look out their windows and feel concern about pollution, the poor, etc, and then you ultimately get a combination of individual action, NGOs, and government programmes that meet the very needs that are noticed and lobbied for.<p>But I think the issue is that many advocates want to jump directly from "more taxes on the rich" to "gov't spends directly on my pet issue", and if you miss the second step, you're never going to get the willpower to either raise the taxes or direct the money into environmental initiatives or whatever else.
The same Michael Shellenberger who assured us PV cells are made with rare earth elements?
I think you're referring to this piece: <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2018/05/23/if-solar-panels-are-so-clean-why-do-they-produce-so-much-toxic-waste/" rel="nofollow">https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2018/05/23...</a><p>Yes, I don't love that he puts out hits like that on solar and wind in his effort to promote nuclear as a sole solution, but I still find his larger arguments around the dynamics of environmentalism as a movement persuasive.
I mean literally taxing the literally rich. Most population by "taxing the rich" mean those earning >90k EUR/USD on employment contract. They see the real rich maybe few times in life from a distance on a yacht in Caribbean or Mediterranean but don't connect the dots.
I don't have a magic answer for how to get people on board, but I can say that I make a lot more than that number, and my taxes (in Canada) are way too low.<p>I think some of it is the psychology that government is incompetent and will just waste the money anyway ("let Bill keep his money and build toilets in Africa himself, at least he'll get it done"), and the best way to fight that is probably what Carney is trying to do right now: kick off a bunch of ambitious programmes to build new things like pipelines, rail, airport expansions, etc on an accelerated timeline. Perhaps if people see visible progress they'll be more open to saying yeah okay, I'm all right with paying more to live in a country where we get stuff done.
> my taxes (in Canada) are way too low<p>I'm sure the government will accept donations. Just pay extra as you think they are worth it.
If government is so ineffective and incompetent then stop charging people in the lower band of salaries 35%-45% from their monthly payslips as well.
That made some sense back when the government used to use the taxes to help poor children in Africa, or poor children in the US for that matter. As of 2025 it seems to just leave that sort of thing up to Bill.
You're absolutely right in a cold logical sense, even if it makes other people emotionally react to the comment. This was a kind way to react to a lazy false dichotomy, that it's either taxes or donations.
They do pay their taxes. It's just that they wrote the laws too. And, if you use trusts, foundations, corporations, etc, you are able to legally avoid taxes, while retaining the same control.
Okay, a complete piece of shit with an undigested kernel of sweet corn stuck in it.
Jeffrey Epstein ran a child sex slavery operation for rich people.<p>There is <i>nothing at all</i> you can do that could ever overcome the harm of helping that man, participating in his business, and calling him a friend.<p>I don't care if Jesus Christ himself comes down and says Bill Gates is solely responsible for the ending of all suffering.<p>Raping kids is Bad. Enslaving kids to rape is Bad. This is as clear as you can get in real human society to being The Bad Guy, and Bill Gates spent his precious, limited time on this earth helping him, legitimizing him, and participating in his influence peddling and <i>child rape and slavery</i><p>Bill Gates is a piece of shit.
The problem is how the society allowed him to build that wealth. It shouldn't be allowed, not in that way.<p>He took more from the society than he gave back. And when you take from society, you're not supposed to decide alone how to redistribute. That's the issue
>The kind of piece of shit who donates basically his entire fortune to charity?<p>So he is no longer a billionaire?
And donating to what charity, The Gates Foundation? The one that he controls?
The one that he uses to push his ideological stances and repeatedly fails to help anyone?
Just look how successful his work on improving education system in America was.
What a sacrifice it was for him...
These binary distinctions (mostly) don't work for people in the real world. It's not a book or movie where people are clearly either good or bad, in reality all people are a mix of both.<p>He's still doing his work on philanthropy which is IMO a good thing.<p>The one counterexample to my point that I'd think of is Hitler. And _technically_ he did do good things for Germany as well, the bad just overwhelmingly outshines the good in this case.
>The one counterexample to my point that I'd think of is Hitler. And _technically_ he did do good things for Germany as well, the bad just overwhelmingly outshines the good in this case.<p>Yeah everyone forgets, he killed Hitler. That was a huge win for Germany. But no one ever gives him the credit.
You mean his philanthropy work that influences where public money goes, into companies like Monsanto and Cargill which his foundation profits from?
They work in healthcare, education, gender equality initiatives, green energy..<p>I’m not a fan of MSFT but there are worse uses of the money he made from the company.<p>I think it’s a bit unfair to categorize all of his contributions to charity as “not charitable”.
I don't think a healthy society has anything close to our level of wealth concentration, but even if he's made mistakes, he's saved many millions of lives.<p>Compare that to Elon Musk, who uses his Musk Foundation as a tax shelter, only spending from it for a private school for his children.
He uses philanthropy to force his ideology on everyone and his ideology doesn't work. His philanthropy makes things worse not better.<p>At some point it stops being a philanthropy when it makes lives of people he tries to "help" worse. Like his actions have a ulterior motives...
Sometimes (sometimes) it just implies that someone sent an email, got ignored, and left a paper trail behind
While I understand that once one attains those short of connections, certain intelligence agencies will reach out offering lucrative opportunities for your co-operation.<p>Disgusting nature aside, I can't help but be amazed as to how someone can be so well connected. What sort of skills did Epstein have that managed to have so many people on speed dial?<p>How do you get in a position to correspond with presidents, royals, celebrities and getting them all hooked on you?<p>Amazing indeed.
But less about personal brilliance and more about how social power actually works when money, status, and weak accountability intersect
Isn't part of it that he had leverage on many people, given the amount of evidence there seems to be? I guess that would be one way to further the network via 'favours'.
Wealth and the party scene (drugs and sex) as a carrot and then a stick. It is not amazing, it is vile.
If one stops seeing Epstein as only a blackmailer and instead see him as both a blackmailer and a fixer I think things falls into place.<p>There are after all multiple people being "given" girlfriends or contacts for social networking, shown in the Epstein files.<p>Most obvious example is of course Donald Trump with Melania.
He was basically their drug dealer, except the drug was underage girls. Almost anyone else can’t get away with providing that for as long as he did without getting locked up, but he could do it because he was doing it on behalf of Mossad.
> What sort of skills did Epstein have that managed to have so many people on speed dial?<p>The answer may be disturbing.
[dead]
The most surprising name in the Epstein files is Rebecca Watson also known as Skepchick on YouTube. She has been a thorn in their side for years and years.
> <i>adding: “perhaps you will know Jeffrey and his background and situation."</i><p>This is the most-interesting bit. The introducer put this up front. Maybe it's Nigerian-prince scame logic? Or maybe there really is <i>that</i> much sympathy for pedophiles in Silicon Valley [1].<p>[1] <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/05/business/epstein-investments-palantir-coinbase-thiel.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/05/business/epstein-investme...</a>
Reading more charitably than is likely deserved, it could be "his background and situation (of knowing tons of rich people who might also put funds into this)"
Feels mostly like "if you're responding to this you're already compromised", a bit like "I take it you understand that our Family expects its favours to be returned".<p>I think it's pretty well established now that powerful people in and outside the Valley considered to think that Epstein was a useful contact knowing his "personal situation" rather well and sometimes explicitly referring to it. Suspect it's <i>possible</i> to have innocently accepted an introduction to him or even advice from him in the 2010s because he wasn't <i>that</i> famous at the time, but it seems like they were motivated to minimise that possibility. Even easier to add people to the list you can blackmail in future if you don't even have to arrange island visits for them
> He has paid for college educations for personal employees and students from Rwanda, and spent millions on a project to develop a thinking and feeling computer and on music intended to alleviate depression.<p>Helping poor children from Africa, investing in AI, and burning CDs with dolphin sounds. A classic.
> If only Bill Gates and Larry Summers had had my mom to go to for advice, they could’ve saved themselves a lot of grief.<p>The actual lesson is not "listen to your mom", but "character matters". It doesn't matter how much someone agrees with you, how smart they are, how rich they are, how many great ideas they have etc etc. A rotten character will eventually rot everything around it. Techines/nerds/geeks get so enamoured with ideas they tend to not even see the kind of people ideas come from.
> not yet a pitiful over-the-hill geezer in his 30s<p>Hey. Fuck them. At least most of us are not greedy corrupt fucks. Or died in prison as a consequence of our own sins.
Excerpt from one of the related emails (written by JE):<p><i>"great proposal„ however, it needs to be more around deception alice -bob. communication. virus
hacking, battle between defense and infiltration.. computation is already looked at in various
fields. camoflauge , mimickry, signal processing, and its non random nature, misinformation. ( the
anti- truth - but right answer for the moment ).. computation does not involve defending against
interception, a key area for biological systems, if a predator breaks the code, it usually can
accumulate its preys free energy at a discount . self deception, ( necessary to prevent accidental
disclosure of inate algorithms. WE need more hackers , also interested in biological hacking ,
security, etc."</i><p>Damn! I once worked with a guy that was exactly like this. Not just writing but his style of speech irl was like that, incoherent loosely bound ideas around one topic. Ironically, the harder he tried to appear smart the more idiotic were the things that spewed out of his mouth.<p>We were working with GPUs, trying to find ways to optimize GPU code, he called the team for an informal meeting and told us dead serious, "Why can't you just like, ..., remove the GPUs from the server, then crack them open, turn them outside out and put them back in to see if they perform better". :O<p>I don't know if this has a name, I just thought the guy had schizophrenia. So glad I moved on from that place.
It's called "a stupid man with money". It's really quite simple:<p>* He has money<p>* People want a share of his money<p>* He has enough people to tell him stuff to make his bullshit seem to have some connection with reality<p>* Anybody who argues with his stupid bullshit is no longer welcome and gets no chance to get a share of his money
Maybe he was saying remove the plastic shrouds for better cooling? In a server, it could work
Pseudo-intellectual aka bullshitter.
<a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pseudo-intellectual" rel="nofollow">https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pseudo-intellectu...</a><p><i>computation does not involve defending against interception, a key area for biological systems,</i>. He is confused about software/programming/hacking. Hacking absolutely involves intercepting messages e.g., man in the middle attack. I have no idea what he thinks biological systems is; does he think that bacteria/viruses intercept chemical messages that our brain sends to different organs in our body?<p><i>if a predator breaks the code, it usually can accumulate its preys free energy at a discount</i>. Free energy -- yuck -- that is what happens when scientists give a terrible name to "usable work" or "usable energy". Free energy is about the usable work you can get out of a e.g., coal powered steam engine. He is mixing physics/thermodynamics with biology.
Reminds me of that academic paper that was generated by a computer, this was before current wave of AI agents. The paper was just word soup but was accepted into a journal. Apologies I don't have link typing on mobile.
Sounds like he was confused but genuinely interested in cryptology, which contradicts the cynical narrative about him only donating for social reasons.
>narrative about him only donating for social reasons.<p>That's because it is just that - a narrative.<p>You should find out what Bill Gates has been really doing in India, Africa, etc., under guise of charity.<p>Hint: you may not like what you find.
My brain farts are more cohesive, yet I'm never drunk enough while writing them down to use spaces before punctuation or after a bracket.
Sounds like it could be narcissistic personality disorder.
i don't think its schizophrenia?<p>i mean working in tech you haven't run into that CTO or vp eng who snowjobs the c-suite with a word salad of hot button technical terms that don't quite add up?<p>hell ive even interviewed developer candidates for positions who are like this.
When he was alive a lot of people said Epstein was really smart.<p>But I have read some of his emails, and all of the ones I have seen are full of spelling, punctuation, grammar and capitalization errors. I would not gotten out of sixth grade if I wrote like that.
> But I have read some of his emails, and all of the ones I have seen are full of spelling, punctuation, grammar and capitalization errors. I would not gotten out of sixth grade if I wrote like that.<p>I'd more focus on the ideas being expressed being incoherent. Spelling is surface level, but that word salad made no sense.
I used to know someone wealthy whose continued wealth relied on working with local and state governments. This person's public correspondence in lawsuits and with local government officials was purposefully littered with spelling, punctuation, grammar, and capitalization errors. When I asked them about it, their response was that it was on purpose so that they seemed less smart and thus less threatening, with the hope that they would get more favorable rulings and contracts by not seeming like "one of the big entities."<p>I'm not asking you to believe me on this, but sharing it more as an anecdote of: something on the surface is sometimes not the reality of what's underneath.
In addition, it broadcasts that the sender is too busy with all their important work to spend time refining and proofreading, that you're getting their raw, unfiltered thoughts directly from them, not through an assistant, and that their time is more valuable than yours so the burden is on you to parse their stream of consciousness jumble for precious nuggets of their exclusive wisdom. The semiotics make sense, plus it's just easier and faster.
I remember being told that many of the spelling/grammar mistakes in (English) menus for ethnic restaurants were deliberate to make the (English native speaking) customers feel superior.<p>(Also not saying I believe this at all, just relating an anecdote).
> But I have read some of his emails, and all of the ones I have seen are full of spelling, punctuation, grammar and capitalization errors. I would not gotten out of sixth grade if I wrote like that.<p>I kinda assumed that was (at least partly) a "flex," basically doing something dumb to show you're such hot stuff you can get away with it. It's like Sam Altman writing in lowercase all the time.
I listened to the two hour interview that was posted. It sounds nothing like this. He was extremely well spoken. How carefully he spoke is what stood out most in the interview to me.
> I would not gotten out of sixth grade if I wrote like that.
It has to be a "my time is worth more than your time" flex.
He was probably dyslexic. I know people who type like that too but normal in person.
I've found that problem solving intelligence and language skills are not that strongly correlated. He clearly had some kind of skill to keep his operation running, even before you consider the more cynical explanations in the other replies.
He was an asset being managed by intelligence service officers, this is the only explanation.<p>A failing math teacher at a New York prep school leading to a job at Bear Stearns and then as a wealth manager for billionaires... let's say it doesn't add up unless there were other reasons than his own ambitions and organization skills.<p>Mossad or the Russians engineered his life.
It only doesn't add up if you are viewing him like Warren Buffet in terms of finance. Obviously, his audited track record of returns is nowhere to be found.<p>It very much all adds up if you view Epstein as a financial genius in terms of financial crimes.<p>This idea he was some intelligence created stooge is just absurd. I would suspect he was an intelligence asset exactly because of his ability to launder money and commit financial crimes. His wealth came from taking a cut. The size of his wealth was a reflection of the amount of financial crimes committed. That level of financial crime is how you get a sweetheart deal to keep those crimes in the shadows.<p>Also the kind of thing that would get you suicided. This podcast/social media narrative that he was a created intelligence asset to blackmail the rich and powerful is probably misdirection to not focus on the actual financial crimes. The cover up has been executed to perfection considering the misdirection narratives have taken on a life of their own and we know basically nothing about the financial crimes he commited.
There's no actual good evidence for being a Mossad operative and the agenda of trying desperately to link him to Mossad so strongly is such a transparent agenda it's almost funny.
John Kiriakou Openly says he had to be mossad.
He was probably more impressive in-person.
I like using “astute businessman” as a backhanded compliment sometimes.<p>Usually meaning the revenues and results are there .. although everything about their personal or professional ethos disgusts me.<p>Eh. From time to time you’ll have that one brilliant but grossly tangential asset on a team who leaves you wondering if they’re manic or cracked out from the weekend.<p>Who’s in infrastructure and hasn’t sent a few sleep-deprived and cringey status updates out at 6am :D<p>Okay okay okay fine, it’s an internet comment section I don’t have to be PC. I think this one’s coke.
somehow he was allowed to teach college classes without a degree, doors just open like that when you’re part of the tribe of pedophiles
I think that ... given one specific topic, few people understand it while the vast majority is completely oblivious to its workings.<p>So they then hear someone who speaks like that, with a fast cadence and Andrew Tate's "Confidence" TM, and are inclined to think "yeah, the guy looks like he knows what he's talking about".<p>But for people who have minimal knowledge about the thing, it's evident that said person is just stupid.
It's on a different axis to stupid. These people play another kind of game, like scammers, they filter away people who can see through their bullshit.<p>To them, actually learning a "normal" topic is a distraction. Their game is finding and exploiting weaknesses.
It's literally a marketing funnel for corruption. Having Smart People™ at your "parties" adds a layer of legitimacy and social proof you wouldn't get if you were Bubba from Nowhere Town.<p>Some people will be attracted by the menu, some people won't realise what's happening until they see the video they're starring in.<p>Either way, you own them.
It's seemed to me that he was a habitual/obsessive networker. Someone up-thread described it as an urge to collect smart/impressive people, with the advantage being as you described. I suspect if you took away his horrible other interests, he'd still have been extremely sociable. Maybe aspects of blackmail/control are near-inevitable at the conjunction of criminal behaviour and power?
An email is an email. I used to talk to contacts like that all the time and they did too. These are quick interchanges with folk.<p>The grammar police as well as PC became a thing and now everyone is expected to construct paragraphs of text without any grammatical errors otherwise you're mobbed and lynched.<p>Just because you're expecting full pronunciation doesn't mean others do. I'd rather write with laziness and short hand than having to punctuate a whole paragraph and bore the person to death like this paragraph.
Guily by (lack of) association!
Evil is, as evil does.<p>Bill Gates and his Foundation have a bad rep long before his Epstein link came into the news.<p>Who better to collude with a known child trafficker/molester, than one who has no qualms in killing children via illegal vaccines/drugs to help his nexus with Big Pharma.<p>Bill & Melinda Gates' Foundation's evil illegal "vaccine trials" on tribal children (especially girls) in India (without the consent of them and their parents) directly caused the deaths of several children, hospitalizations of scores of such innocent victims, and it was a huge conspiracy and controversy that was uncovered during investigations by Supreme Court and police.<p><a href="https://m.economictimes.com/industry/healthcare/biotech/healthcare/controversial-vaccine-studies-why-is-bill-melinda-gates-foundation-under-fire-from-critics-in-india/articleshow/41280050.cms" rel="nofollow">https://m.economictimes.com/industry/healthcare/biotech/heal...</a><p>The Gates Foundation operates like a monopolistic unethical pharmaceutical company (as a weapon and Think Tank of Big Pharma) under the guise of a charitable NGO or grantmaker.<p><a href="https://capitalresearch.org/article/bill-gates-big-philanthropy-and-the-troubles-they-create/" rel="nofollow">https://capitalresearch.org/article/bill-gates-big-philanthr...</a>
India's Economic Times has issues as a source.<p><a href="https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-economic-times/" rel="nofollow">https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-economic-times/</a><p>I'm hardly a fan of Gates, btw.
The claims in that article look weak.<p>Out of 10 000, how many children <i>usually</i> die before adulthood?
Would you ask this question if your children got that deadly unproven vaccine?<p>Would you consider them too to be a forgettable statistic of healthy innocents who died in evil experiments by unscrupulous billionaires and their greedy nexus of Big Pharma ?<p>Those who condone and support evil, are no better themselves.<p>Edit: the "claims" in the article that you so frivolously discard as "weak" are from the police & Supreme Court investigations and special committee investigation & report into the deaths and hospitalizations of hundreds of tribal girls after they recieved the HPV vaccine funded by Gates Foundation.
I guess you will accept claims only if they come from the Gates Foundation. *shrugs*
>Scott Aaronson was born on May 21st, 1981. He will be 30 in 2011. The conference could follow a theme of: “hurry to think together with Scott Aaronson while he is still in his 20s and not yet a pitiful over-the-hill geezer in his 30s.” This offers another nice opportunity for celebration.<p>may be somebody would train a model on the Epstein and his associates emails/etc. which would allow to research the workings of the such psychopaths' minds
[flagged]
[dead]
[flagged]
It would fit <i>perfectly</i> if Epstein was a Russian agent.<p>- Where did he get his money from?<p>- Who's interests are served by this whole dodgy setup?<p>- The Trump connection.<p>- The Trump Russia connection.<p>Maybe I imagine but it all seems aligned.
As a European, I find it very funny to see how nobody in the US is willing to address the elephant in the room called Mossad. This looks more likely an israeli operation which sourced girls from russia and likely had the FSB as a customer/scratch my back I scratch yours/collab thing. I mean, most US politicians and the president seem to be on an "israel first" agenda.
It doesn't help that almost all members of the U.S. congress is funded by AIPAC. See how much your representative received from AIPAC here: <a href="https://www.trackaipac.com/congress" rel="nofollow">https://www.trackaipac.com/congress</a>
I call him "Zion Don" for a reason.
His e-mails show him trying and failing to get a Russian visa. Not much of a Russian agent.<p>Actually the person who was trying to help him was until this week the UK ambassador to the US Peter Mandelson. He had to resign this week due to the emails. He previously spent decades attacking the UK Labour's left like Corbyn and trying to make the party more amenable to the type of people Epstein hung around with.<p>Odd that this very American American, with heavy Israeli contacts and some UK contacts is claimed to be associated with Russia with little evidence. He's American through and through (or failing that, Israeli aligned).
Madelson was dismissed from the ambassadorship September 2025, not this week.<p>You might be thinking of his stepping down from the House of Lords (upper house of UK parliament) which did happen recently.
John Kiriakou Openly claims he was mossad in recent interviews.<p>Also look up Israel’s relationship with pedophilia (being a safe haven for the accused and convicted). You’ll find plenty of Jewish in isreal media sources reporting on this.
> - Where did he get his money from?<p>Didn't he steal it from Les Wexner?
I thought this was going to be a joke article about how easy it is to not be a pedo. But it turns out the author did have engagements with Epstein, and is now trying to pretend he just randomly showed up in the files.<p>Do you know how many times I’ve appeared in the files? Zero. It’s very easy to not appear in them. 99.999999% of people didn’t.
Epstein has at least one email where he just lists the names of interesting people. So I suppose not being interesting is one way to guarantee you're not in the files.
I mean, it depends what you mean by "engagements." He was invited to meet Epstein via an intermediary -- but he blew off the invitation and never had any contact with Epstein.<p>In general, Epstein was fond of "collecting" scientists who might entertain his clientele and house guests at parties.
> For whatever reason, I forwarded this email to my parents, brother, and then-fiancee Dana.<p>A very strange action to take for someone who claims to have no recollection of the meeting.
Vacationing in the Virgin Islands, we boated past an interesting small island where someone had a cow figure that would sometimes be visible.<p>And You Will Never Guess Who's Cow That Was. [0]<p>[0] httpdq://click.bait