Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sounds like he was confused but genuinely interested in cryptology, which contradicts the cynical narrative about him only donating for social reasons.
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The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein
231–240 of 653 posts
Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein
#232Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein
#233Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 yet .
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 against the status quo 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 one 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.
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?
Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein
#234Excerpt from one of the related emails (written by JE): "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 inv…
When he was alive a lot of people said Epstein was really smart. 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.
> I would not gotten out of sixth grade if I wrote like that.
Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein
#235Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein
#236Power corrupts, end of story. Democracy (limited terms), taxation and anti-monopoly regulation are examples that show a path to cure the disease. Nobody should be trusted with too much power for too long.
> end of story. Is it? Here's another version I like even more that unsettles democracy dogmatics: power attracts the corrupt.
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.
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.
In theocratic systems you get hypocrite self dealing priests.
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.
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.
Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein
#237Power corrupts, end of story. Democracy (limited terms), taxation and anti-monopoly regulation are examples that show a path to cure the disease. Nobody should be trusted with too much power for too long.
> end of story. Is it? Here's another version I like even more that unsettles democracy dogmatics: power attracts the corrupt.
Well why not both? It is certainly true that power attracts those who seek to abuse it. But it is also true that a good fraction of those who are demonstrably corrupt started out way more idealistic.
Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein
#238Earlier quoted context omitted.
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. '...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.' Uh. Really?
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Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein
#239Power corrupts, end of story. Democracy (limited terms), taxation and anti-monopoly regulation are examples that show a path to cure the disease. Nobody should be trusted with too much power for too long.
It’s probably a vicious cycle I’d say.
Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein
#240Power corrupts, end of story. Democracy (limited terms), taxation and anti-monopoly regulation are examples that show a path to cure the disease. Nobody should be trusted with too much power for too long.
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.