Pseudo-intellectual aka bullshitter. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pseudo-intellectu...

computation does not involve defending against interception, a key area for biological systems,. He is confused about software/programming/hacking. Hacking absolutely involves intercepting messages e.g., man in the middle attack. I have no idea what he thinks biological systems is; does he think that bacteria/viruses intercept chemical messages that our brain sends to different organs in our body?

if a predator breaks the code, it usually can accumulate its preys free energy at a discount. Free energy -- yuck -- that is what happens when scientists give a terrible name to "usable work" or "usable energy". Free energy is about the usable work you can get out of a e.g., coal powered steam engine. He is mixing physics/thermodynamics with biology.

biology is all about thermodynamics. Why do you think we eat?

Not the same. We eat to get macro nutrients: fats, protein, and carbohydrates.

Why do we need those? Oh right thermodynamics.

Don't let the label fool you. Thermodynamics is the study of energy flows at the fundamental level, not only heat.

Ummm. Sorry I don’t agree. Nutrition is vastly more complex than heat or calories.

Thermodynamics doesn't apply to the body in any meaningful way. It sounds like a 19th century idea of how the body might work that people repeat with no understanding.

And, you not only need to get fuel from the food, but also the materials to build the engines, and for making spare parts and consumables. And everything that actually uses the energy. There will be no energy spent on lighting if you can't get the indium needed for making LED lights, and the body only knows how to make LED lights.

Listen to what you're saying. Thermodynamics doesn't apply to the body? So what, I'm a perpetual motion machine?

The mechanisms in the body are not heat engines. The stuff is so tiny that it works basically by reshuffling molecules, so the traditional concept of efficiency doesn't really apply, as the amount of stuff that happens is given by integral math. You get this amount of charges from reshuffling this amount of molecules. The type of stuff that can be done is limited by how hard the stuff sticks together.

Anyway, the core problem of obese bodies is that they can't produce energy. You can't outwill it, the reshuffling just isn't happening, and there is actually no great reason to believe that fat tissue is some kind of fuel tank, rather than a mass of broken cells.

Also, the body can just reshuffle the molecules in an idle mode. You don't need to spend the energy on moving around.

So what you're saying is the laws of thermodynamics that I learned in school don't apply to biological systems?

I'm admittedly in no position to argue deeply about biology, or even physics for that matter, because I studied mechanical engineering. I dealt with physics in an applied manner.

With that said, this story comes to mind:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angus_Barbieri

It seems to disagree with your idea that fat is not fuel. And the first law of Thermo seemed to be applying to this man. He had little to no energy input (via food) and a baseline energy expenditure from just existing, so his system burned stored energy via body fat.

So you can stop eating food and just live in a sauna?

i don't think its schizophrenia?

i mean working in tech you haven't run into that CTO or vp eng who snowjobs the c-suite with a word salad of hot button technical terms that don't quite add up?

hell ive even interviewed developer candidates for positions who are like this.

>i mean working in tech you haven't run into [...]

Yeah, it's on my comment.

My brain farts are more cohesive, yet I'm never drunk enough while writing them down to use spaces before punctuation or after a bracket.

Maybe this style indicates that drugs other than alcohol were involved?

Put away that pill Jeffray . It's NOT aspirin ,, Donnie took it.

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 used to know someone wealthy whose continued wealth relied on working with local and state governments. This person's public correspondence in lawsuits and with local government officials was purposefully littered with spelling, punctuation, grammar, and capitalization errors. When I asked them about it, their response was that it was on purpose so that they seemed less smart and thus less threatening, with the hope that they would get more favorable rulings and contracts by not seeming like "one of the big entities."

I'm not asking you to believe me on this, but sharing it more as an anecdote of: something on the surface is sometimes not the reality of what's underneath.

I remember being told that many of the spelling/grammar mistakes in (English) menus for ethnic restaurants were deliberate to make the (English native speaking) customers feel superior.

(Also not saying I believe this at all, just relating an anecdote).

In addition, it broadcasts that the sender is too busy with all their important work to spend time refining and proofreading, that you're getting their raw, unfiltered thoughts directly from them, not through an assistant, and that their time is more valuable than yours so the burden is on you to parse their stream of consciousness jumble for precious nuggets of their exclusive wisdom. The semiotics make sense, plus it's just easier and faster.

The same with medical doctors. Funnily once in financial subreddit someone claiming to be a doctor from maybe Croatia asked for financial or early retirement advice, but the post was a word salad with misspellings and errors. Commenters immediately reacted that their writing is as illegible as probably their handwriting is, by the way the person reacted one can see that's really a doctor.

Some people have superiority complex and reeky pile of irate thoughts in their heads, and you're very lucky if nothing in your life depends on these kind of people.

> 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.

Funny. Sam Altman is also accused by his own sister of being a diddler!

He was probably more impressive in-person.

I like using “astute businessman” as a backhanded compliment sometimes.

Usually meaning the revenues and results are there .. although everything about their personal or professional ethos disgusts me.

Eh. From time to time you’ll have that one brilliant but grossly tangential asset on a team who leaves you wondering if they’re manic or cracked out from the weekend.

Who’s in infrastructure and hasn’t sent a few sleep-deprived and cringey status updates out at 6am :D

Okay okay okay fine, it’s an internet comment section I don’t have to be PC. I think this one’s coke.

I think that ... given one specific topic, few people understand it while the vast majority is completely oblivious to its workings.

So they then hear someone who speaks like that, with a fast cadence and Andrew Tate's "Confidence" TM, and are inclined to think "yeah, the guy looks like he knows what he's talking about".

But for people who have minimal knowledge about the thing, it's evident that said person is just stupid.

It's on a different axis to stupid. These people play another kind of game, like scammers, they filter away people who can see through their bullshit.

To them, actually learning a "normal" topic is a distraction. Their game is finding and exploiting weaknesses.

It's literally a marketing funnel for corruption. Having Smart People™ at your "parties" adds a layer of legitimacy and social proof you wouldn't get if you were Bubba from Nowhere Town.

Some people will be attracted by the menu, some people won't realise what's happening until they see the video they're starring in.

Either way, you own them.

It's seemed to me that he was a habitual/obsessive networker. Someone up-thread described it as an urge to collect smart/impressive people, with the advantage being as you described. I suspect if you took away his horrible other interests, he'd still have been extremely sociable. Maybe aspects of blackmail/control are near-inevitable at the conjunction of criminal behaviour and power?

Sociable if you’re dumb like prince Andrew. Steven pinker the Harvard professor thought him an idiot. Said he was inane and a fraud who could only respond with stupid adolescent comments. Maybe somd like that sort of person and think they are fun. No doubt lots do, the guy down the pub who’s a laugh. Appeals to similarly dumb folk.

I've found that problem solving intelligence and language skills are not that strongly correlated. He clearly had some kind of skill to keep his operation running, even before you consider the more cynical explanations in the other replies.

He was an asset being managed by intelligence service officers, this is the only explanation.

A failing math teacher at a New York prep school leading to a job at Bear Stearns and then as a wealth manager for billionaires... let's say it doesn't add up unless there were other reasons than his own ambitions and organization skills.

Mossad or the Russians engineered his life.

John Kiriakou Openly says he had to be mossad.

John Kiriakou talks a lot. Not that I don't think things he says are convincing, but he sure has a lot to say for a former CIA officer.

It only doesn't add up if you are viewing him like Warren Buffet in terms of finance. Obviously, his audited track record of returns is nowhere to be found.

It very much all adds up if you view Epstein as a financial genius in terms of financial crimes.

This idea he was some intelligence created stooge is just absurd. I would suspect he was an intelligence asset exactly because of his ability to launder money and commit financial crimes. His wealth came from taking a cut. The size of his wealth was a reflection of the amount of financial crimes committed. That level of financial crime is how you get a sweetheart deal to keep those crimes in the shadows.

Also the kind of thing that would get you suicided. This podcast/social media narrative that he was a created intelligence asset to blackmail the rich and powerful is probably misdirection to not focus on the actual financial crimes. The cover up has been executed to perfection considering the misdirection narratives have taken on a life of their own and we know basically nothing about the financial crimes he commited.

With the girls, the rich and powerful, the financial fraud...

Wouldn't immoral foreign intelligence be doing a terrible job if they weren't doing everything they could to become involved in Epstein's world?

Why wouldn't Russia or Mossad be involved? It's almost a cartoon caricature of what a spy agency does. If it was in a movie it wouldn't be believable it's so on the nose.

I think they engineered it from the start, a Jay Gatsby kind of situation – find the right young man and engineer him to be the center of a situation to attract everybody and use the access to who comes to their advantage.

Even if it wasn't from the start idk how incompetent foreign intelligence would have to be to not be involved.

There's no actual good evidence for being a Mossad operative and the agenda of trying desperately to link him to Mossad so strongly is such a transparent agenda it's almost funny.

Yes I agree. His conversations online were completely inane. With women he’d quickly resort to insults or asking for nude pictures. I don’t see a shred of intelligence in any email. Additionally no mention of any current affair or political story, which most intelligent people have an interest in. Steven pinker the Harvard professor thought him an idiot and because he called him out he was banished from the island. I think he worked for Russia. Taking girls, photographing them with numerous men and sending the info to Russia. That’s another thing, there’s no talk of doing deals in his correspondence so I believe he had one major source of income, Russia.

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

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.

> 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'd more focus on the ideas being expressed being incoherent. Spelling is surface level, but that word salad made no sense.

Spelling is a courtesy to the person who has to make sense of what you send them.

He was probably dyslexic. I know people who type like that too but normal in person.

It has to be a "my time is worth more than your time" flex.

I listened to the two hour interview that was posted. It sounds nothing like this. He was extremely well spoken. How carefully he spoke is what stood out most in the interview to me.

> I would not gotten out of sixth grade if I wrote like that.

> full of spelling, punctuation, grammar and capitalization errors

I can spell correctly in a few different languages without having to think about it. I suspect you can, too. I can do a lot of math in my head that Jeffery Epstein probably couldn't have done with a calculator. I'm not a billionaire, though, and I never will be. The kind of smart - "street smart", it's sometimes called - that makes you that kind of rich is a different kind of smart that shows up as being a competent writer. Make no mistake, though, it wasn't stupidity or incompetence that got him where he was.

I can’t stand people putting a man on a pedestal just because they are ‘rich’. Lots and lots of men pimp others to do the work, mafia style. You don’t need to be clever to do that, just nasty and in his case very dirty.

Agree. Steven pinker the Harvard professor said Epstein was not an intellectual and incredibly stupid. He couldn’t have a conversation either him and Epstein spoke like a teenager.

Reminds me of that academic paper that was generated by a computer, this was before current wave of AI agents. The paper was just word soup but was accepted into a journal. Apologies I don't have link typing on mobile.

Postmodernism generator:

https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/pomo/

lol reminds me of the new-age bullshit generator https://sebpearce.com/bullshit/

Sounds like it could be narcissistic personality disorder.

Maybe he was saying remove the plastic shrouds for better cooling? In a server, it could work

Sounds like he was confused but genuinely interested in cryptology, which contradicts the cynical narrative about him only donating for social reasons.

>narrative about him only donating for social reasons.

That's because it is just that - a narrative.

You should find out what Bill Gates has been really doing in India, Africa, etc., under guise of charity.

Hint: you may not like what you find.

Any links to help us get started?

Evil is, as evil does.

Bill Gates and his Foundation have a bad rep long before his Epstein link came into the news.

Who better to collude with a known child trafficker/molester, than one who has no qualms in killing children via illegal vaccines/drugs to help his nexus with Big Pharma.

Bill & Melinda Gates' Foundation's evil illegal "vaccine trials" on tribal children (especially girls) in India (without the consent of them and their parents) directly caused the deaths of several children, hospitalizations of scores of such innocent victims, and it was a huge conspiracy and controversy that was uncovered during investigations by Supreme Court and police.

https://m.economictimes.com/industry/healthcare/biotech/heal...

The Gates Foundation operates like a monopolistic unethical pharmaceutical company (as a weapon and Think Tank of Big Pharma) under the guise of a charitable NGO or grantmaker.

https://capitalresearch.org/article/bill-gates-big-philanthr...

I really don't understand why this is being flagged. There's a long history of people conducting medical trials without informed consent to save money and it's something we need to keep an eye out for when trials are conducted in poor communities.

It's called "a stupid man with money". It's really quite simple:

* He has money

* People want a share of his money

* He has enough people to tell him stuff to make his bullshit seem to have some connection with reality

* Anybody who argues with his stupid bullshit is no longer welcome and gets no chance to get a share of his money

Ugh. I worked for a guy like this, he was a full-on cybersecurity paranoiac. You need to be a special type of person with near-infinite patience of stupidity just to be able to work under them.

Well, it's a prompt to his assistant. It's more short-hand communication than anything else. My self-notes often look like that. They're just phrases to bring to mind some ideas rather than others or direct towards something.

Someone[3] mentioned how he sounded in an interview and I went and found his conversation with Steve Bannon. My daughter just went back to sleep and I'm not one for listening to stuff anyway so I sent it through Voxtral and put it through a visualizer[1] so I could read it and I can see why someone might want to listen to him.

He name-drops famous people a lot, definitely farms those connections and so on, but the things he mentions do reveal a systems-level comprehension of many concepts and how they affect each other. And he does it by describing these things in a simple way that must have been easy for them to understand. Personally, I think it obscures a lot of the detail but it has the flavour of the insight porn genre that was once popular.

A few of the examples are that he describes the subprime crisis as originating in Clinton-era home-ownership reform that pressured government lenders to essentially back many subprime mortgages (expanded during the Bush-era). Then he talks about mark-to-market accounting and how that accelerated (maybe even was one of the causes) of the 2008 crisis. That is sort of true, which is why new rules allow for some kinds of assets to be valued differently[2].

Anyway, unlike others here I don't think he's incoherent or stupid or whatever. The crimes he was convicted and about to be convicted for are pretty horrific but I think people are treating him like some kind of moron when I don't think that's accurate. I'm not saying this to praise the guy or defend him. I just don't think it's true.

0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpWEc-LMT10

1: https://viz.roshangeorge.dev/voxtral-viewer/?t=jeffrey-epste...

2: https://viewpoint.pwc.com/dt/us/en/pwc/accounting_guides/loa...

3: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46911540

I took your transcript and discussed it with Claude Opus 4.6, after removing both Epstein's and Bannon names (not that it mattered, it understood perfectly who they both were, but didn't mention it until after I asked it explicitly).

Claude suggested an interesting pattern: on several topics, Epstein starts with some medium level concept (not naive, but not expert-level), then distracts with a metaphor or a short anecdote, then drops some hint that he has great authority on the subject ("I was in the room", "I had insider knowledge") and finally changes subject or claims that nobody really knows, without ever going deeper.

> A few of the examples are that he describes the subprime crisis as originating in Clinton-era home-ownership reform that pressured government lenders to essentially back many subprime mortgages (expanded during the Bush-era).

But I think that's incorrect. The lynchpin of the subprime crisis was really the repeal of the Glass-Steagall act in 1998, which made sure that consumer-facing banks had strict limits on how much they could be leveraged in their investments. This set them apart from investment banks which were allowed to take bigger risks.

Then, a bunch of financial fuckery in new kinds derivatives generated the idea that they had "solved" the risk factor of subprime mortgages and that they could open the floodgates on accepting any and all mortgages without doing any of the traditional underwriting. They sliced them into tranches using a magic formula which nobody understood and sold them off. The ratings agencies helped by stamping this garbage with top grades and tricking institutional investors into holding the bag.

The result was that when it all imploded the US consumers were the ones who got hosed -- because those consumer banks were over-leveraged in these bad investments.

It was criminal activity all the way. It was conspiracy to make billions of the short-term commissions on all the mortgage transaction activity, while sticking someone else with the toxic waste.

It was not a simple policy decision from the 90's. That narrative is just another way for the oligarchs to rewrite history and evade responsibility. Ensuring that we'll learn nothing and they can do this all over again once people forget.

Word salads can be very intimidating if the words are extremely technical and the person behind them carries a lot of clout. It's a bit of a trick that some people are very good at.

Bill Gates was known for making PMs and tech lead type people scared, often literally so, by going deep into technical details.

Elon Musk sometimes also talks a lot of details, to the point of actual rocket engineers working for him being impressed. At the same time, it is sometimes painfully obvious that he hasn't got the basics even remotely correct.

I'm not saying that Epstein was like that, but the fact that these three people used to hang out isn't surprising, they're likely to be socially compatible.

> "Why can't you just like, ..., remove the GPUs from the server, then crack them open, turn them outside out and put them back in to see if they perform better"

I don' know what "turn them outside out" but it sounds like they are suggesting removing and replacing the heatsink. Funnily enough, replacing thermal paste can improve temperatures [1].

[1] https://www.xda-developers.com/finally-replaced-gpu-thermal-...

That's a very generous interpretation. Excessively so. He may have heard of someone suggesting that and repeated it in garbled form, but that would not refute the accusation of bullshittery.