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The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

scottaaronson.blog

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Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

#401
post #383

Power 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.

Sortition may be what you're looking for: "sortition is the selection of public officials or jurors at random, i.e. by lottery, in order to obtain a representative sample". No one can amass power because it's short term and random. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition

Do this but with technocracy.

Also best of luck being random... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertrand_paradox_(probability) and The Problem of Priors.

Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

#402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The natural flow of money tends towards pooling on certain individuals and groups, because accumulating capital is significantly easier when you start with capital. This is unwanted, first because it produces individuals powerful enough to topple the people’s will, and second because it is not in the interest of society for wealth to be accumulated rather than moving. By first principles you need a system to limit ac…

> This is unwanted, first because it produces individuals powerful enough to topple the people’s will Making the government resistant to manipulation is a distinct problem. It's a game theory/mechanism design problem, and its solution doesn't require taking in lots of money. Giving the government more power/money causes people to spend more effort to manipulate it, so any weaknesses are exploited to the fullest exten…

Ideally yes, capital would be the machinery. Now, however, a lot of wealth is numbers sitting on a ledger and backed by stock valuations that have broken their connection with main Street. Or its rolling from one owner to another in derivative markets, doing scarcely little for the economy.

Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

#403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your article is careful to never explicitly state correlation between the vaccine and those seven girls deaths. Without such a link, your argument falls apart. > So answer me honestly: Did that same billionaire (Bill Gates) and his organisation (Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation) do the same exact trials in his home country (USA)? "clinical trials of unproven vaccines on thousands of poor minor girls, without consent…

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What exact vaccine are you talking about, first? Gardasil is actually approved for use not only in India itself, but also the US (and Europe), FYI.

Trials where also done both in the US, Europe and a bunch of other countries (see https://www.clinicaltrialsregister.eu/ctr-search/search?quer...).

> So WHY did BMGF and PATH not take INFORMED CONSENT before giving a dangerous experimental drug? Why were the minor patients MISLED on what they were being given? Why was no medical insurance provided to the patients unsuspectingly undergoing this risky experiment?

First: Your only source that you keep citing found no harm in trial patients linked to the drug. What they did found was a shoddy consent process, with high likelihood driven by efforts to keep costs low.

What your own source primarily blames are local regulators allowing this.

> 6. Is it okay to avoid doing clinical trial in home country with consent, but ethical to do it in another nation on poor unsuspecting minors without consent?

First: absolutely yes. If it is ethical to do a trial in one country, it is ethical to do it elsewhere. Why wouldn't it?

Secondly, clinical trials on Gardasil were done in both the US and Europe before 2008 (see source above).

> I can throw more and more facts and links here. But you already know the game is up, don't you?

I just explained how the sources you cited so far are insufficient to sustain your conclusions and accusations.

But this sentence alone makes me highly suspicious that you have your view set in stone, and that you are cherrypicking and misreading facts to fit it.

This is foolish. You should always ask yourself what information would be necessary to change your view-- my personal conclusion is that nothing really could, because you want to sustain your witchhunt more than you want to know the truth.

Personally, I came into this somewhat curious if there truly was some hushed up medical disaster in India caused by the Gates foundation, but by now my answer is a pretty conclusive no.

Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

#405

Power 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.

Taxation is the mechanism that moves power from the people to the government, and increasingly politicians and their specific interests. Do you actually believe that if your taxes went up, power would be less concentrated, or that you or your countrymen would have more power? Every government goon doing authoritarian dirty work collects a paycheck and wouldn't do their job without it.

Money is power. So to answer your question literally, if MY taxes went up, I would not have more power, but if the rich's did, I would because they'd have less power.

Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

#406

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Lets remove the word 'Jews' and say the government of Israel.

Israel LOVES when people mix up the two. I believe they even intentionally do it and promote it.

It forces non Israeli Jews to identify with the government of Israel, expanding their power beyond their boarders.

I genuinely feel bad for Jewish people. The government of Israel is happy to conflate the two at their expense.

Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

#407
post #383

Power 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.

Sortition may be what you're looking for: "sortition is the selection of public officials or jurors at random, i.e. by lottery, in order to obtain a representative sample". No one can amass power because it's short term and random. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition

I knew about the strategy for using randomness to control corruption, but didn't know it had a procedural name in governance. Thanks for this!

Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

#408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As a “European” you are happy to simply fabricate an unsubstantiated conspiracy involving the Jews.

Only you are saying 'Jews'. The OP mentioned the Israeli secret service.

These are not the same, even if the government of Israel deliberately conflates them.

I think we need to start calling out this deliberate attempt from the Israeli government to correlate the two.

Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

#409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taxation is the mechanism that moves power from the people to the government, and increasingly politicians and their specific interests. Do you actually believe that if your taxes went up, power would be less concentrated, or that you or your countrymen would have more power? Every government goon doing authoritarian dirty work collects a paycheck and wouldn't do their job without it.

Money is power. So to answer your question literally, if MY taxes went up, I would not have more power, but if the rich's did, I would because they'd have less power.

That's only true in relative terms. In reality tax rates go up or down on everyone at the same time, because that's how the negotiations shake out.

If taxes go up on everyone, the rich are still the ones that manipulate the government, but now they have control over more tax revenue. If taxes go down for everyone, the rich are still the ones that can manipulate the government, but now the government has less revenue and can't cause as much damage.

Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

#410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taxation is the mechanism that moves power from the people to the government, and increasingly politicians and their specific interests. Do you actually believe that if your taxes went up, power would be less concentrated, or that you or your countrymen would have more power? Every government goon doing authoritarian dirty work collects a paycheck and wouldn't do their job without it.

> Do you actually believe that if your taxes went up, power would be less concentrated, or that you or your countrymen would have more power? Absolutely. The source of most of the corruption I see in the world today is wealth, and specifically wealthy people paying people off to get their own way. If there was less wealth inequality there'd be much less scope for this. Note: I believe this would be the case even if t…

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