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A month ago, you would have said "Not sure why you would bring up Epstein; he's old news and did his time years ago." A year or so ago, you would have said "No

by jerf 7y ago

A month ago, you would have said "Not sure why you would bring up Epstein; he's old news and did his time years ago." A year or so ago, you would have said "Not sure why you would bring up Epstein, he's old news and did his time years ago, and what's with these weird conspiracy theories about some harmless-looking club for people with too much money to play make-believe dress up at each other every so often? I had to google to even find that much." The truth of the whole thing is beyond me. But the first derivative of this stuff is disturbing. It may only be a small amount so far, but it's significant enough stuff that that's a problem even so.

duxup 7y ago
Do you feel Pizzagate is real?
- jerf 7y ago
  What I feel doesn't matter. What matters is the truth. I don't know that the whole thing is true, but the odds that it's "just" Epstein and NXVIM (itself a rather disturbingly large operation, if you read about the court cases, albeit not exactly an unprecedented one; "sex cult" is almost a redundant phrase, if you look at the history of such things, in that cults almost always involve "weird sex stuff"; the weird thing about this one is who was involved rather than its nature) strike me as low. Whether it's just a bit bigger or way bigger, heck if I know. My understanding of my ignorance grows every year, and sometimes it seems like that's all that really does, despite my continuing to acquire "facts" over time. But I do know that in terms of understanding this sort of thing, you can't get anywhere by discarding true signal. Epstein and NXVIM are real, and that needs to be grappled with.
  - duxup 7y ago
    >you can't get anywhere by discarding true signal. What does that mean?
    - jerf 7y ago
      Sorry; sort of referencing information theory and also the rationalism movement. One way of thinking about information is "the extent to which something is a surprise". The rationalists point out that you need to be sensitive to that. Dismissing NXVIM and Epstein today may seem easy, but the question is, would you have believed the truth about them before you heard it [1]? If not, that is a surprise to you, real information, real signal, and you shouldn't discard it. It does not mean that the only logical conclusion is to believe Pizzagate must be true in its entirity!!!11!1. But it does mean you have something to grapple with, a strong signal that your previous model is false in some manner. Brains are lazy and take least effort paths, and the least effort path is just to ignore that there was a contradiction, but your really shouldn't do that. For myself and my priors, Pizzagate as a whole is a bit much to swallow. But "Epstein and NXVIM are the tip of an iceberg, albeit one much smaller than Pizzagate" is not at all. As I alluded to earlier, there's plenty of history that would support that no problem. Read accounts of cults and what they were like to live in from those who escaped, for instance. Human psychology has some very strange, yet weirdly popular, corner cases in it, especially weird ones around group behavior. I do not understand them either intuitively or intellectually, I can not explain them, but clearly they exist. [1]: Bearing in mind that Epstein today is still just somewhat well-sourced allegations with a lot of prior reason to believe they are plausible even just from the mainstream news reports of the past including public knowledge of related past convictions, but that NXVIM has been through court cases and some verdicts have been reached, though I believe they are ongoing overall.
      - duxup 7y ago
        Do you feel like Epstein and NXVIM are related in some way? I feel like you draw keep drawing connections between all these things when the connection is basically that you think people wouldn't belive some non specific past claim about Epstein... and so that means something about Pizzagate? I don't think that people might not belive a thing, anything, and then find out it is true ... has anything to do with anything else.
        jerf 7y ago

by jerf 7y ago

duxup 7y ago

Do you feel Pizzagate is real?

jerf 7y ago
What I feel doesn't matter. What matters is the truth. I don't know that the whole thing is true, but the odds that it's "just" Epstein and NXVIM (itself a rather disturbingly large operation, if you read about the court cases, albeit not exactly an unprecedented one; "sex cult" is almost a redundant phrase, if you look at the history of such things, in that cults almost always involve "weird sex stuff"; the weird thing about this one is who was involved rather than its nature) strike me as low. Whether it's just a bit bigger or way bigger, heck if I know. My understanding of my ignorance grows every year, and sometimes it seems like that's all that really does, despite my continuing to acquire "facts" over time. But I do know that in terms of understanding this sort of thing, you can't get anywhere by discarding true signal. Epstein and NXVIM are real, and that needs to be grappled with.
- duxup 7y ago
  >you can't get anywhere by discarding true signal. What does that mean?
  - jerf 7y ago
    Sorry; sort of referencing information theory and also the rationalism movement. One way of thinking about information is "the extent to which something is a surprise". The rationalists point out that you need to be sensitive to that. Dismissing NXVIM and Epstein today may seem easy, but the question is, would you have believed the truth about them before you heard it [1]? If not, that is a surprise to you, real information, real signal, and you shouldn't discard it. It does not mean that the only logical conclusion is to believe Pizzagate must be true in its entirity!!!11!1. But it does mean you have something to grapple with, a strong signal that your previous model is false in some manner. Brains are lazy and take least effort paths, and the least effort path is just to ignore that there was a contradiction, but your really shouldn't do that. For myself and my priors, Pizzagate as a whole is a bit much to swallow. But "Epstein and NXVIM are the tip of an iceberg, albeit one much smaller than Pizzagate" is not at all. As I alluded to earlier, there's plenty of history that would support that no problem. Read accounts of cults and what they were like to live in from those who escaped, for instance. Human psychology has some very strange, yet weirdly popular, corner cases in it, especially weird ones around group behavior. I do not understand them either intuitively or intellectually, I can not explain them, but clearly they exist. [1]: Bearing in mind that Epstein today is still just somewhat well-sourced allegations with a lot of prior reason to believe they are plausible even just from the mainstream news reports of the past including public knowledge of related past convictions, but that NXVIM has been through court cases and some verdicts have been reached, though I believe they are ongoing overall.
    - duxup 7y ago
      Do you feel like Epstein and NXVIM are related in some way? I feel like you draw keep drawing connections between all these things when the connection is basically that you think people wouldn't belive some non specific past claim about Epstein... and so that means something about Pizzagate? I don't think that people might not belive a thing, anything, and then find out it is true ... has anything to do with anything else.
      - jerf 7y ago