The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein • Hacker News Board

Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

#61

Post by Insanity » Thu, Feb 05, 2026, 9:58 PM UTC

sobkas wrote: post #45

Insanity wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. He's still doing his work on philanthropy which is IMO a good thing. 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 t…

He uses philanthropy to force his ideology on everyone and his ideology doesn't work. His philanthropy makes things worse not better. 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...

Interesting. Honestly I don't know as much about his philanthropy, which ideology does he push? How did it make lives worse?

Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

#62

Post by bradlys » Thu, Feb 05, 2026, 9:58 PM UTC

dakiol wrote: post #37

decimalenough wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 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.

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.

Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

#63

Post by oulipo2 » Thu, Feb 05, 2026, 9:59 PM UTC

decimalenough wrote: post #14

pixl97 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Turns out Bill is just actually a piece of shit through and through

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".

The problem is how the society allowed him to build that wealth. It shouldn't be allowed, not in that way.

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

Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

#64

Post by jalapenoi » Thu, Feb 05, 2026, 10:02 PM UTC

EFreethought wrote: post #9

moralestapia wrote: post #5

Excerpt 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.

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

Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

#65

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Feb 05, 2026, 10:03 PM UTC

decimalenough wrote: post #14

pixl97 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Turns out Bill is just actually a piece of shit through and through

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".

[deleted]

Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

#66

Post by optimalsolver » Thu, Feb 05, 2026, 10:05 PM UTC

palmotea wrote: post #16

EFreethought wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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 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.

Or SBF playing Legends on investor calls.

Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

#67

Post by soperj » Thu, Feb 05, 2026, 10:09 PM UTC

decimalenough wrote: post #14

pixl97 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Turns out Bill is just actually a piece of shit through and through

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.

Bill and Melinda Gates foundation are also behind Common Core and basically ruined public education in the US.

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.

Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

#68

Post by soperj » Thu, Feb 05, 2026, 10:15 PM UTC

Insanity wrote: post #61

sobkas wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He uses philanthropy to force his ideology on everyone and his ideology doesn't work. His philanthropy makes things worse not better. 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...

Interesting. Honestly I don't know as much about his philanthropy, which ideology does he push? How did it make lives worse?

Common Core for one.

Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

#69

Post by godelski » Thu, Feb 05, 2026, 11:27 PM UTC

decimalenough wrote: post #14

pixl97 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Turns out Bill is just actually a piece of shit through and through

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".

  > basically his entire fortune

Money is a completely different concept for someone that rich.

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.

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.

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...

Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

#70

Post by doublerabbit » Fri, Feb 06, 2026, 12:26 AM UTC

EFreethought wrote: post #9

moralestapia wrote: post #5

Excerpt 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.

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.

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.

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.