The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

Post by disqard » Fri, Feb 06, 2026, 6:35 PM UTC

vintermann wrote: post #118

watwut wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Post by spiderice » Fri, Feb 06, 2026, 6:38 PM UTC

lazide wrote: post #81

saulpw wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But much of the motivation for starting a foundation is from Melinda.

It’s almost like it was done… as a team. Where one side provided all the money, the other side provided the direction. Both were necessary. Weird huh?

Post by idiotsecant » Fri, Feb 06, 2026, 6:41 PM UTC

viscousviolin wrote: post #449

idiotsecant wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before you get too excited about this just imagine the average line of people at the DMV or the Grocery store and now imagine that those people are in charge of the lives of hundreds of millions. If you think HOAs are bad, you aint seen nothing yet. The current system of oligarch patronage is bad, but at least it keeps the train mostly on the rails.

It's a potentially big problem for sure. It reminds me of stories I've heard about the public education system in some of the Scandinavian countries. From what I remember off the top of my head, Finland has a system where private educational facilities do not exist. Meaning that, if rich or otherwise elite people want their kids to receive a good education, they need to support the public education facilities their o…

Post by elliotec » Fri, Feb 06, 2026, 6:45 PM UTC

alphazard wrote: post #409

elliotec wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Post by ghaff » Fri, Feb 06, 2026, 6:49 PM UTC

jMyles wrote: post #452

kiba wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We really only practice it in one instance in modern democracy and that's jury duty, but that should be expanded into more roles and duties. That's one way to make society truly democratic. In any case, you might be interested in Georgism, which is an anti-monopoly ideology most famously associated with very Strong Opinions on taxation of land and natural resources and untaxing production, along with taxation on poll…

> We really only practice it in one instance in modern democracy and that's jury duty, ...and even there, it's terribly corrupted. There are all kinds of bizarre ways that people are excluded from juries which bias the result. One commonly-cited example is that people who report moral objections to capital punishment are excluded from being empaneled on a federal jury, under the pretext that because capital punishmen…