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Notes -
I’ll take issue with this bit because I encounter it a lot:
This is actually a very reliable heuristic regarding supposed US government plots in more recent times. The examples you cite regarding the CIA/IC/DoD are the classics in the genre. But the key context to keep in mind is that the Cold War was a very different time, with very different norms and processes. Significant changes for oversight were made in the 1970s and the Overton Window for acceptable behavior shifted a fair bit the last few decades. So when evaluating present claims of a plot you can’t over index on what took place so long ago. (The same dynamic goes for the medical study example you cite; it was a different era and if anything we’ve overcorrected on medical ethics.)
In other words, the half life of cover ups is shorter and the big crazy stuff is just not going to fly. Things like the Bush torture and warrantless wiretapping programs come to mind. Or the cover up around Pat Tillman’s death. Or the shoddy justification for the invasion of Iraq (the IC takes major efforts to avoid repeating the mistake of politically influenced/misused assessments after that). We had multiple broad, sensitive leaks under the Obama administration and the Trump administration was chock full of leaks and tell alls. And investigations of investigations.
If there are public allegations of some plot, then it’s already past the point where the plot, if true, managed to avoid being detected.
Everybody knows how easy it is for a leak or an investigation to happen and intelligence bureaucrats are strongly incentivized to avoid the very appearance of evil, or anything sensational.
The IC is a big place and mistakes and shenanigans happen, but it’s very different from the Wild West days of the earlier part of the Cold War and grand plots and cover ups are very, very hard.
This is false. As others pointed out MKUltra got exposed by a lucky coincidence. The full extent of the program is still not known, and an alternative version of events were all the documents were properly disposed of, and we never hear of it outside of the testimony of a few traumatized kooks, is hardly implausible.
You can’t call my theory about hypothetical modern day plots being far more unlikely false by citing an ancient one as you have because you aren’t addressing any of the points I made about why the past was different.
You’re simply not engaging the points I made by describing the particulars of MKUltra.
I disagree. The point I'm making is that MKUltra got exposed not due to a "half-life on cover ups", but because of a fluke, where an alternative version of events could result in it always remaining a rumor (a.k.a. crazy conspiracy theory) at most. A shorter half-life cannot fix the issue, because that was not the source of it.
Now you might say that whatever changes were implemented after the cold war would not have allowed it to go undetected (rather than merely catching it sooner), but you haven't really backed your claim, if it is the claim you are making.
I’m using “half life” metaphorically. I’m not literally saying there is a causal mechanism directly affecting every plot the way it works in chemistry.
An MKUltra today would be far less likely to either get off the ground or remain covert for the reasons I outlined. That the actual MKUltra was exposed by the dint of luck back in the day does not challenge what I am trying to relate.
This is probabilistic thinking applied to evaluating incomplete evidence. The environment has changed a lot in 50+ years and so directly mapping plots of yore onto potential plots today is a faulty model because the priors are not updated sufficiently.
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What about Epstein's "suicide"?
He probably just killed himself. God knows he had plenty of reason to; his life was basically over. He had already tried to strangle himself two weeks earlier. I get that it looks sus what with all the video cameras not working etc but there is a very parsimonious explanation: jails are often run like shit. Fuckups are the rule, not the exception.
I don't really see what an assassination would accomplish either. The theory goes that some powerful somebody wanted to cover up their sex crimes, but between Ghislaine Maxwell, the victims, and the staff, surely there were and still are plenty of witnesses to whatever (and whoever) was going on.
Yes, the great likelihood is that Epstein did in fact kill himself. If there was a ‘conspiracy’ it’s that he got his lawyers to bribe prison staff to make it easier for him to kill himself, not that he was murdered. He was 100% going to be convicted and spend the rest of his life in jail as a sex offender, alternating between getting shanked like Chauvin and being locked up in solitary confinement with no hope of ever being released.
The theory that Epstein would talk has no substance. He was already old, there’s no way public pressure would allow for a sweetheart deal where he got out after 5 years in exchange for ratting out everyone else, especially with the victims on TV discussing his crimes.
By the same token, why wouldn't he talk? What does he have to lose? If I were going down with my criminal empire, I wouldn't want to go down alone.
Because Epstein’s whole thing (in addition to teenage girls) was being a rich socialite who enjoyed the company of powerful and brilliant people, that’s why he donated money to STEM college faculties (unlike most donors, he had no children he was trying to buy admission for) and liked associating with scientists and professors. Epstein wasn’t betrayed by Prince Andrew or Bill Clinton, he was ‘got’ because public and journalistic pressure mounted and prosecutors built up a lot of evidence. His friends didn’t betray him per se, even if they were unable to protect him.
If you and your friend are both involved in a criminal conspiracy, but you make a series of dumb mistakes and get caught, why rat them out, especially if it won’t reduce your punishment in any appreciable way? The most obvious theory is that Epstein didn’t feel betrayed by his associates and so had no reason to turn on them for zero benefit other than ‘revenge’, which probably wasn’t applicable in this case.
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One guy dying, very possibly due to foul play and government involvement is not a major plot, and obviously, it was an extremely poorly done cover up because here you are talking about it.
The more scrutiny there is and the longer it goes without conclusive evidence emerging, the more I would adjust to “not a plot.”
If taken seriously, this makes your claim unfalsifiable. Nobody can ever prove a coverup is successful because if they're even able to talk about it, it's not successful.
It's a well-done coverup because nobody's going to be jailed or even arrested for killing Epstein. And it's a "well-done" coverup in the sense that ymeskhout's standards would imply that he shouldn't believe it's a coverup, even though it obviously is. The fact that everyone else can say "hey, Bayseian probability, this wouldn't have happened by chance" and figure it out won't change that.
I think the most likely explanation is that Epstein did indeed kill himself, but I also don't consider it unreasonable to doubt that explanation even without any conclusive evidence in favor of the murder theory. If someone wants to hold the murder theory with confidence greater than "hmm, looks sus" then ideally I'd want to see some attempts to shore up the specifics.
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We can prove with the benefit of hindsight a coverup was successful for some amount of time.
Sometimes, extremely successful intelligence operations get declassified after some decades and we get to look at what success looks like.
Epstein has had a lot of theories floating around him for a while. Other commenters here have described why suicide is still a very plausible explanation and so you can read them for counter theories.
But I’ll reemphasize that the framework I was describing about cover ups and maintained secrecy applies mainly to large plots, not necessarily the death of a single guy in prison where at least theoretically a small group of rogue actors could have taken action.
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You bring up a good point that I hadn't considered before. It's potentially inappropriate to over index on norms and plots from half a century ago, and that we should instead use more recent cover-ups as the template. That's reasonable, though I'm reluctant to draw too definitive of a conclusion because I don't want to assume that something doesn't exist just because we haven't heard about it.
It’s more about tweaking one’s priors a bit than making any definitive conclusions.
Things we haven’t heard of that at least someone would find controversial certainly exist in the shadows. But the really sensational stuff like QAnon had going is just incredibly unlikely in today’s more politically correct, partisan, and digital US environment.
Though I will say this method won me a good chunk of change with a smart guy willing to put money on the line that Trump was going to expose a number of plots along QAnon and RussiaGate lines.
Or look at this modern plot from Taibbi about some supposed binder of CIA misdeeds about Trump. Why the hell is this binder allowed to exist by the Deep State, or, why wasn’t this dealt with when Trump was in office? In the opening paras of the actual Substack article he says his sources say Trump ordered it declassified at the end of his term. So why didn’t that happen? Why is this breaking news three years later?
The most likely story is Taibbi is listening to dumb people describe things they don’t understand.
Not to completely dismiss your talents but I think the biggest factor that made you money was being lucky enough to find someone willing to put up cash on something so bonkers.
Taibbi has no credibility with me. His reporting on the Twitter Files appears accurate enough but he gets indignant when you point out the obvious conflicts of interest of him tailoring his criticism of Twitter to avoid saying anything bad about its new owner. My conclusion from back then was "Taibbi feels constrained from criticizing Musk because Musk is too valuable a source" and the dude just voluntarily tweets out his text message to Musk admitting this. He exhibits very selective curiosity about the stories he covers, stopping short of what becomes inconvenient to his narrative. If his sources are accurate about the declassification of this surveillance report, why doesn't he just get the report itself instead of bizarrely reporting on the number of inches of the binder it's contained in.
He was a very early member of the rationality community and liked the practice of making bets.
Plus a tendency for conspiratorial thinking.
The election stealing and RussiaGate theories are likely going to be popular for decades, annoyingly. At least classic conspiracy theories weren’t so partisan.
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