[HN Gopher] Larry Summers resigns from OpenAI board
___________________________________________________________________
Larry Summers resigns from OpenAI board
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/19/technology/larry-summers-...,
https://archive.ph/ASfq6
Author : koolba
Score : 165 points
Date : 2025-11-19 13:16 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cnbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cnbc.com)
| koolba wrote:
| In related news, Harvard is also launching its own investigation
| into its former president Summers:
| https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/11/19/harvard-opens-...
| pessimizer wrote:
| MIT and NYT need to get back on it, too. Lots of people still
| not feeling any consequences, much like Epstein during life.
| The girls were threatened more than he ever was (and still
| are.)
|
| It seems like the NYT was cackling in glee just a couple months
| ago, saying that even Trump had to finally buck the conspiracy
| theories of his evil, ignorant MAGA followers and admit that
| there was absolutely nothing to see and nothing interesting
| about the Epstein case and it's actually silly that you would
| think there was. Nice that MAGA demands accountability from
| Trump in a way Democrats don't from their leaders.
|
| It's also telling that the NYT is the only major outlet to
| consistently be reticent to state unequivocally that Epstein
| killed himself. Always said "found to have committed suicide."
| Somebody there with editorial veto control knows that flimsy
| story isn't going to last forever. Even if he hadn't been made
| cellmates with an insane _strangler_ murder cop with nothing to
| lose, hadn 't said that the "suicide attempt" was insane murder
| cop trying to kill him, and was taken off suicide watch _one
| day_ after that "suicide attempt."
|
| _The night Jeffrey Epstein claimed his cellmate tried to kill
| him_ , CBS News 2025/09/22
|
| https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jeffrey-epstein-claimed-cellmat...
|
| Nicholas Tartaglione
|
| https://www.lohud.com/story/news/crime/2019/09/23/feds-how-n...
|
| [edit: re Tartaglione, who never had the slightest chance of
| ever getting out of prison. Has anybody checked if the
| financial situation of his family changed for the better since
| the incident?]
| ternaryoperator wrote:
| > It's also telling that the NYT is the only major outlet to
| consistently be reticent to state unequivocally that Epstein
| killed himself. Always said "found to have committed
| suicide."
|
| Nonsense. "...Mr. Epstein, who died by suicide... [0]
| "...disgraced financier who died by suicide...[1] etc.
|
| [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/18/us/politics/trump-
| epstein... [1]
| https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/12/us/politics/trump-
| epstein...
| squillion wrote:
| Let's not forget that time he advocated for dumping toxic waste
| in poor countries.
|
| "I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste
| in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to
| that."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summers_memo
| hyperman1 wrote:
| Wow. That text is wild! Another excerpt: I've
| always thought that under-populated countries in Africa are
| vastly UNDER-polluted, their air quality is probably vastly
| inefficiently low compared to Los Angeles or Mexico City.
| recursive wrote:
| The /s was supposed to be implied.
| datatrashfire wrote:
| Would you accept 0 pollution if it meant you had no
| electricity, electronic devices, or access to transportation?
| All of those things create pollution.
| estimator7292 wrote:
| Hey, you probably don't want to sympathize with a guy that
| everyone around you thinks is irredeemably evil.
|
| And if you _do_ still want to sympathize with such, maybe
| examine that motivation for like three seconds.
| llbbdd wrote:
| I've never seen this before but I'm surprised anyone ever
| thought in good faith it wasn't tongue-in-cheek. I think one
| would have to have a cartoon-villain-tears-down-orphanage-to-
| build-mall view of how people work to not read the dripping
| tone in this memo.
| sapphicsnail wrote:
| He was literally part of a ring of rich and powerful
| pedophiles who trafficked underage women.
| llbbdd wrote:
| Evil people can make jokes too, and mimicking the formal
| tone of an official document is a bit as old as time.
| sapphicsnail wrote:
| It's certainly a possibility but I also wouldn't put it
| past him to advocate for something that evil.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| I'm not really in a charitable mood with this guy right
| now.
| naIak wrote:
| "I know I'm wrong, but still I have to double down on
| this to save face"
| squillion wrote:
| I'd only entertain the possibility that it was tongue-in-
| cheek if it came from someone critical of the World Bank and
| laissez-faire economics in general, for instance Joseph
| Stiglitz, who has also been chief economist at the World Bank
| and was critical of it. But if you're fine with structural
| adjustment - which many see as basically tear-down-orphanage-
| to-build-mall - you don't get to make that kind of jokes.
| It's too close to home.
| erikpukinskis wrote:
| What's the joke?
| shkkmo wrote:
| To me that memo is pretty clearly a sacarstic version of
| reductio ad absurdum.
| rhcom2 wrote:
| And Jonathan Swift was _actually_ advocating eating children.
| palmotea wrote:
| > And Jonathan Swift was actually advocating eating children.
|
| If you're going to engage in satire, its best the satire be
| obvious.
|
| I believe there are capitalist economist types who believe
| what Summers wrote unironically.
| rhcom2 wrote:
| Also known as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law
| mwcremer wrote:
| Sorry, did you mean "Summers unironically wrote" or
| "capitalist economist types unironically believe" ?
| jonny_eh wrote:
| Jonathan Swift was a writer and known satirist with publicly
| known views that were opposite to the absurdist views
| expressed in his famous satire.
| burkaman wrote:
| He also famously gave a speech declaring that one of the
| reasons women were underrepresented in science and engineering
| faculty positions was "issues of intrinsic aptitude". -
| https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/science-jan-june05-summ...
|
| It was 20 years ago but he has not changed his views, in one of
| his emails to Epstein (in 2017) he "observed that half the IQ
| in world was possessed by women without mentioning they are
| more than 51 percent of population..."
| watwut wrote:
| I remember brouhaha a whole bunch of pundits and thinkers
| defending him against evil feminists. On the grounds of
| intelectual curiosity and rational thinking.
|
| Hey, turns out the dude trades "how to flirt with women in
| workplace whem they do presentation" advice with literal
| child abuse sex ring leader.
|
| Surely he could not possibly be sexist, nah.
| tptacek wrote:
| Most notable about that is the implied confession that he was
| lying in his original formulation, which was that there was
| more _variability_ in male intelligence than female
| intelligence (higher highs, lower lows). In fact, his private
| undisclosed belief was simply that women were inferior.
| abigail95 wrote:
| This is dumber than "Helicopter Ben" Bernanke.
| Teever wrote:
| There's an interesting list of criticisms about Larry Summers
| here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15320922
|
| Based on an interview that I've seen of him a few years ago and
| these emails between him and Epstein he seems kind of... not
| smart?
|
| It raises a really interesting question which is how do people
| like him climb so high up the ladder?
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| What do you mean? I assumed he was cozied up to by the likes of
| Epstein because he had already ascended the ladder.
|
| I see, because you think he's "not smart"... Yeah, I think
| "smart" and "makes smart choices" are two different things.
| Teever wrote:
| According to wikipedia:
|
| > Summers's ties to Epstein reportedly began "a number of
| years...before Summers became Harvard's president and even
| before he was the Secretary of the Treasury."[59] Flight
| records introduced as evidence in the 2021 trial of Epstein
| associate Ghislaine Maxwell show that Summers flew on Jeffrey
| Epstein's private plane on at least four occasions, including
| once in 1998 when Summers was United States Deputy Secretary
| of the Treasury and at least three times while Harvard
| president.
|
| And on the wikipedia page of Summers' wife:
|
| > In an email to Epstein released in 2025 by the House
| Oversight Committee, New mentioned a recorded but unreleased
| episode of Poetry in America featuring Woody Allen, who was
| introduced to New by Epstein. In an email to Epstein, New
| mentioned she would reread Lolita (a book Epstein was known
| to have by his bedside) and, separately, recommended he read
| My Antonia by Willa Cather, describing both as stories of 'a
| man whose whole life is stamped forever by his impression of
| a young girl[20][21].
|
| I recently listened to a podcast about Robert Maxwell[0], the
| father of Ghislaine Maxwell and in the second part of the
| podcast they went into great detail about Maxwell's
| publishing empire and how he apparently started the modern
| academic publishing industry as we know it.
|
| It seems like Epstein learned from Maxwell's father the
| technique of finding academics who have desirable resources
| whether they be intellectual or social and then cultivating
| relationships with them by offering them what they always
| wanted but never felt they had be it academic recognition
| from peers in the form of positions at journals or
| conferences or dates/sex with young beautiful women and/or
| girls.
|
| Attention from peers and women/girls is like a kryptonite to
| nerds like Larry Summers, his wife, or Marvin Minsky and
| Epstein was able to parlay that influence on these nerds to
| influence the wealthy and powerful.
|
| But the question of how Summers got into the position that he
| found himself in still remains. You listen to the man speak
| and he isn't very smart. He continued a personal relationship
| with a convicted pedophile and sought dating advice from this
| person. The more you dig into this Summers guy and his wife
| the more you realize they're just... dumb.
|
| As an outsider looking in I'm starting to wonder if this
| world is just a bunch of academically capable but socially
| stunted individuals being preyed on by socially voracious
| people like Epstein with no morals?
|
| [0] https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/part-one-robert-
| maxwel...
| edbaskerville wrote:
| > As an outsider looking in I'm starting to wonder if this
| world is just a bunch of academically capable but socially
| stunted individuals being preyed on by socially voracious
| people like Epstein with no morals?
|
| The present-day tech world seems like a pretty extreme
| version of this phenomenon. Many of our sociopaths (e.g.,
| Musk, Zuckerberg) got a boost from actual technical
| abilities along the way, which I suppose is similar to
| Epstein--he seems to have been pretty talented at finance.
|
| (Edit: Musk and Zuckerberg are not socially talented in the
| usual sense, but have still been extremely successful at
| getting other people to do what they want.)
| fakedang wrote:
| On what basis do you say that Epstein was pretty talented
| at finance? This guy was a math teacher with no actual
| degree. The only reason he got his gig in finance was by
| schmoozing up the dad of one of his students, who was CEO
| of Bear Stearns.
|
| The only talents Epstein really had were in cozying up
| the right people at the right time with the "right" stuff
| (which we all know about now).
| add-sub-mul-div wrote:
| He's a pretty terrible asshole, but being dumb isn't the same
| thing as being wrong about economics. I'm not dumb, but I
| shouldn't be trusted to make economy-level decisions. Humility
| is underrated.
| Finnucane wrote:
| When has he been right about economics?
| benhill70 wrote:
| He just supported the status quo. Look how much money he lost
| during the 2008 crisis.
|
| Summers is just weather vane for current economic thinking.
| He's not a particularly brilliant at anything.
| GolfPopper wrote:
| Telling people in power what they want to hear.
|
| I listened to an interview with Summers in the run-up to the
| 2007-8 financial crisis, and what he was doing was obvious to
| any grade school student who has ever witnessed someone else
| sucking up to an authority figure.
| Finnucane wrote:
| The bond deal he made to pay for Harvard's Allston campus
| expansion blew up in the crash and nearly bankrupted the
| university. It takes a special kind of genius to bankrupt
| Harvard.
| profsummergig wrote:
| Someone (maybe Charlie Munger) said that the presence of a
| woman he has lust for reduces a man's IQ by 20 points.
|
| Seems anecdotally true.
| lapcat wrote:
| > It raises a really interesting question which is how do
| people like him climb so high up the ladder?
|
| The real world is not a meritocracy. Awful, greedy, immoral
| people protect and promote each other. They also have an
| insatiable appetite for power, status, and wealth. You're
| rewarded for playing the game, for lying, and especially for
| keeping terrible secrets.
| bamboozled wrote:
| I think this is a side effect of having "paid law
| enforcement", it's not that the cops are bad, but their
| bosses are. The people who fund the law enforcement are
| ultimately at the mercy of the "rich and powerful" in some
| way or another, so basically people of a certain status get a
| pass.
|
| It _might_ look different if tax payers funded Law
| enforcement via different means, but it would never be
| allowed to happen, by,,,the elites.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| > Based on an interview that I've seen of him a few years ago
| and these emails between him and Epstein he seems kind of...
| not smart?
|
| "Funnily", if you read Epstein's contributions to a lot of his
| emails, he also gives off that same vibe.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| Don't get me started on Trump
| AlexandrB wrote:
| > It raises a really interesting question which is how do
| people like him climb so high up the ladder?
|
| I think ladder climbing is its own skill only loosely
| correlated with intelligence.
| m463 wrote:
| > how do people like him climb so high up the ladder?
|
| I think about things like this...
|
| Some people enjoy watching horror movies, and some people
| don't. Some people enjoy watching game of thrones, and others
| don't.
|
| And I know a lot of smart people disengage from politics
| because it is a big mess.
|
| In the same way, I think lots of people on and around the
| ladder disengage in the same way, and these people rise (and
| feel empowered).
|
| I also remember reading how steve jobs would figure out if
| someone was a good employee. He would go to their coworkers and
| say "I hear xxx is shit". If people would defend xxx, then
| maybe he was ok, while if they didn't say much, maybe xxx was
| shit.
|
| so... this might be the pattern.
| bamboozled wrote:
| They know they above the law from the minute that reach a
| certain level of status, they don't care about the emails and
| if people see them, they know there will be next to zero
| repercussions for them.
| johnwheeler wrote:
| I saw the email correspondence between him and Epstein. The sense
| that I got is he's pursuing some young girl half his age. And he
| actually thinks that she is attracted to him. Powerful, ugly men
| are so stupid sometimes.
| pton_xd wrote:
| That's a charitable take. It was them joking about how to
| leverage his power to pressure her into a relationship. Also
| the woman's dad is the founding president of some major Chinese
| bank (AIIB) that he was cozying up to.
|
| Also a reminder, he was texting with Epstein up until the day
| before his arrest in 2019. Well past the point where Epstein
| was basically a meme for child abuse. Absolutely horrifying.
| perihelions wrote:
| > _" It was them joking about how to leverage his power to
| pressure her into a relationship"_
|
| Supporting background:
|
| > _" Summers went on to describe what he saw as his "best
| shot": that the woman finds him "invaluable and interesting"
| and concludes "she can't have it without romance / sex."_
|
| > _" Throughout June, Summers fed Epstein updates about the
| woman's workload and continued contact. Epstein urged him to
| play the "long game" and keep her in what he called a "forced
| holding pattern.""_
|
| https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/11/17/summers-
| epstei...
| delusional wrote:
| Reading about the case, you get the sense that this is the
| general disposition from these abusers. They know what they're
| doing is wrong, and they understand the power imbalance, but
| they sort of excuse it and justify it by softly believing that
| the women actually want them. That they are actually sexy. And
| that they are helping the women, somehow.
|
| It's quite disgusting, but also totally believable.
| Importantly, the soft explanations don't excuse the behavior.
| add-sub-mul-div wrote:
| Actual unedited title: "Larry Summers resigns from OpenAI board
| after release of emails with Epstein"
| rchaud wrote:
| It might have gotten flagged as political content if the full
| title was used.
| pton_xd wrote:
| Reid Hoffman already resigned so I guess, kudos to him for
| getting ahead of the curve!
| dylan604 wrote:
| Next up will be selling of shares to finance defense teams
| foobarian wrote:
| Title as interpreted by me: "Larry Summers was on the OpenAI
| board this whole time"
| pphysch wrote:
| Echoes of Kissinger on Theranos' board (and many other
| examples, no doubt).
| wantlotsofcurry wrote:
| I had to look this up. That is absolutely insane...
| dylan604 wrote:
| If you don't have time for the book, there's a decent
| documentary available
| hermitcrab wrote:
| I still haven't got over war criminal Kissinger getting a
| Nobel Peace Prize.
| ZeroConcerns wrote:
| Well, good to see Hahhvuhhhd is not above the British monarchy
| when it comes to eventually ejecting sex pests! A low bar to
| clear, but well done!
|
| Now, just for certain ex-Brit colonies to follow their example!
| Quick... who can think of a popular leader who is, ehhhm, quite
| intricately linked to the same, ehh, _gentleman with pretty
| specific tastes_?
|
| Anyone?
| pessimizer wrote:
| And, to be less coy, how is the opposition party the one that
| treats Bill Clinton as its most valuable elder statesman? It's
| somehow Epstein all the way down. Glad I'm a left-wing
| Chomskyite, cynical about all of those corrupt, elite
| institutions. Wait...
| stouset wrote:
| Bill Clinton hasn't been relevant in politics for like twenty
| years. Nobody on the left thinks about or cares about him.
| ZeroConcerns wrote:
| He's still extremely relevant, if only to derail
| discussions as demonstrated here. I'm waiting for someone
| to bring up Al Franken!
| frmersdog wrote:
| Depends on how deep the pillow talk went during the Obama
| admin.
| benhill70 wrote:
| As someone who voted for Bill Clinton. If Bill Clinton is
| implicated, then he needs to suffer for it.
|
| I think the real question is why didn't the Biden
| administration release the files. How many very powerful
| people left and right are in there?
| KerrAvon wrote:
| tl;dr: Because there were ongoing investigations (which was
| true) and it's generally considered bad to release your
| evidence before trial, or something like that, IANAL.
|
| This will also be Trump's (false) reason for not releasing
| them.
| GenerocUsername wrote:
| Why was t true before but false now?
|
| I suspect it's been the false reason the whole time.
|
| No one is investigating anything, only wiping hard drives
| and tying up loose ends
| koolba wrote:
| > I think the real question is why didn't the Biden
| administration release the files. How many very powerful
| people left and right are in there?
|
| If I had to guess it's because there's nothing
| incriminating about Trump in them. Otherwise we all know
| they would have been leaked a long time ago.
| WhyOhWhyQ wrote:
| Pretty sure Obama is the MVES of the Democratic party.
| fsckboy wrote:
| Obama was the hothouse flower of the Democrat party that
| Bill Clinton singlehandedly wrought. No Bill Clinton, no
| Barack Obama. Before Bill Clinton, here's what the NYTimes
| (left wing though not as far left as now, but i.e.
| sympathetic) had to say about the field of Democrat
| candidates for president:
|
| _" The strongest and saddest impression this viewer took
| away from the collective appearance of the Democratic
| Presidential candidates on national television was that
| Snow White was missing, while the Seven Dwarfs prattled
| on."_ https://www.nytimes.com/1987/07/04/opinion/in-the-
| nation-the...
|
| and you saw similar dynamics at play in the most recent
| series of elections. Biden was rammed into the nomination
| in 2020 because non of the field of candidates had a broad
| enough base of support. On the other side, Trump did what
| Clinton did, reshaped his party in his own image.
| runako wrote:
| > its most valuable elder statesman
|
| That's Barack Obama. Among other things, he's not 80 and
| still has the vigor of youth. Clinton is just old at this
| point.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| > Bill Clinton as its most valuable elder statesman?
|
| Huh? Bill Clinton has been a relatively invisible ex-
| president compared to the other modern ones (aka Carter &
| Obama, Biden hasn't been gone long enough for data).
|
| Perhaps that's because he didn't want to overshadow Hillary,
| but it's at least partly because of the Lewinsky affair.
| ciconia wrote:
| In a way it's comforting to know those people who hold these
| positions, with distinguished careers and supposedly made of
| better stuff than us _mere mortals_ , are in fact just a bunch
| of miserable weasels, a-holes and sycophants.
|
| We in western democracies used to regard with disdain those
| corrupt, ridiculous leadership figures in so-called banana
| republics and third-world dictatorships, with their openly
| corrupt dealings and amoral excesses.
|
| Now that the moral posturing of the west is unraveling, the
| question is really what comes next. Fukuyama talked about
| western liberal democracy being the "end of history", but it is
| more and more evident that this is a system ripe for
| disruption.
| frmersdog wrote:
| >We in western democracies used to regard with disdain those
| corrupt, ridiculous leadership figures in so-called banana
| republics and third-world dictatorships, with their openly
| corrupt dealings and amoral excesses.
|
| Not that I wholly disagree, but in the interests of robust
| conversation, I feel compelled to ask:
|
| When?
| ebbi wrote:
| It's in everyday things.
|
| Like this most recent headline from AppleInsider:
|
| "Cook controversially dines with Saudi Crown Prince at
| White House"
|
| Now, I'm no Saudi Crown Prince stan, but would the word
| 'controversially' have been used if Cook dined with Biden -
| who funded and supported a genocide, in which hundreds of
| journalists were killed? Why was the word 'controversially'
| not used to refer to also being at the table with Trump
| there?
|
| Yes, it's controversial that Cook had dinner with the Saudi
| Crown Prince. In my view it's even more controversial to be
| having dinner with Trump.
|
| This is just the most recent headline I can give as an
| example. But there are many like this.
| nixosbestos wrote:
| > In a way it's comforting to know those people who hold
| these positions, with distinguished careers and supposedly
| made of better stuff than us mere mortals, are in fact just a
| bunch of miserable weasels, a-holes and sycophants.
|
| There's nothing that quite makes me feel like humanity has
| undergone speciation than the fact that this STILL HAS TO BE
| FUCKING SPELLED OUT FOR PEOPLE.
|
| Hero worship is sycophancy of the highest order. Ugh, and I
| know you're so right.
| giantfrog wrote:
| You can't even be friends with a notorious pedophile and sex
| trafficker anymore without the woke cancel culture mob coming
| after you...
| CodingJeebus wrote:
| You should really Google some of the emails he wrote to
| Epstein. Summers wasn't just friends with Epstein, he was
| Epstein's padawan.
| ivraatiems wrote:
| I think you missed the sarcasm in the original post ;)
| CodingJeebus wrote:
| ah crap, my gullibility strikes again
| ncr100 wrote:
| <3
| nixosbestos wrote:
| Man, it's so understandable. Especially when 35-40% the
| country is doing exactly that kind of bullshit
| equivocative defense. Frankly I'm shocked the shitheads
| usually here read the room and have kept the child-rape
| apologia to themselves.
| acdha wrote:
| Poe's law applies too much these days. I've tried to get
| out of the habit of leaving jokes ambiguous like that
| because it's just too easy to trip readers up, especially
| when not everyone has native level awareness of idioms or
| social context.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| Part of the problem is also frankly that HN has a culture
| that encourages serious engagement (or at least a
| facsimile of it) with the worst opinions it's possible to
| have. You just can't keep your sense for sincerity finely
| honed in an environment like that.
| Chris2048 wrote:
| > the worst opinions it's possible to have
|
| can you give examples?
| dylan604 wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45982802
| patja wrote:
| Part of the purpose of sarcasm is to inject humor.
| Personally, I don't find anything humorous about sexual
| assault.
| Maxatar wrote:
| The main purpose of sarcasm is not humor, it's to use
| irony as a form of contempt. To the extent that humor is
| involved it's usually done so as a form of mockery.
| btilly wrote:
| I am perfectly OK with having contempt for powerful
| pedophiles. The opportunity for laughter is a bonus.
|
| I just hope that the fallout doesn't begin and end with
| Prince Andrew and Larry Summers.
| Larrikin wrote:
| There is such a long history of using humor to affect
| change and discuss extremely serious matters. Legally
| it's protected speech because of it's importance.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satire
| awalsh128 wrote:
| Don't read Swift's A Modest Proposal then.
| seydor wrote:
| What has the world come to , bowing down to children ....
| throwaway290 wrote:
| they telling us to "think of the children" again am I right?
| /s
| cptroot wrote:
| You dropped this
|
| /s
| dyauspitr wrote:
| *if you're a democrat
| tclancy wrote:
| Game's gone.
| jmyeet wrote:
| I cannot overstate the potential significance of what's going on
| in Congress currently and it has global implications.
|
| Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell sit at the nexus of an
| international pedophile ring that threatens to bring down many
| billionaires and even some governments. There is a concerted
| effort to prevent the release of this information and we're far
| from done yet.
|
| A lot of effort was made by the administration to prevent the
| discharge petition reaching 218 signatures. For anyone unfamiliar
| with how the House of Representatives works, the majority party
| chooses the Speaker and the Speaker decides what bills get a
| vote. But if a majority of the 435 representatives (so 218) want
| the House to have a vote, there's a procedure called a discharge
| petition. If it gets 218 signatures, the Speaker has to schedule
| a vote within a week or so (I forget the exact time line).
|
| The Speaker Mike Johnson went so far as basically putting the
| House in recess for 8+ weeks to avoid this happening. He avoided
| wearing in an Arizona congresswoman for that same period because
| she was going to be the 218th signature. _The government was
| literally suspended to avoid this outcome._
|
| Then the Speaker changed tactics to try to pass the bill with a
| procedure called "unaminous consent". Basically, if no House
| member objects, the bill passes. Why would he do this? To avoid
| having votes on the record. This was good politics to force a
| role call.
|
| The Speaker continues to play defense here because carve outs
| were added to the bill to exempt files for "national security"
| reasons and anything under active investigation. That's brazen
| obstruction and the least surprising thing is that the president
| announced an investigation this week. It's explicitly to prevent
| the release of some evidence. Make no mistake.
|
| It's not unique to this administration either. the previous
| administration sat on all of this for 4 years doing absolutely
| nothing.
|
| Where doe sthis lead? Foreign governments and intelligence
| agencies who were not only aware of what was going on but they
| (allegedly) actively benefit from and participated in this
| trafficking ring to get access to and/or blackmail powerful
| people. That's the "national security" interest.
|
| As many of us are aware by now, Ghislaine Maxwell's father was
| the British media mogul Robert Maxwell who was a Mossad asset and
| got a state funeral in israel for his contributions to the state
| of Israel going back to suplying militia wth weapons in World War
| Two that were ultimately used for ethnic cleasning. And how did
| Maxwell die? He mysteriously fell off his own boat and drowned,
| his body being found the next day I believe over a hundred miles
| away somehow.
|
| If this stuff gets out, many heads will roll in government, in
| business and in prestigious colleges. Look no further than one
| Alan Dershowitz. Harvard in particular has unclean hands and is
| elbow deep in all of this. And certainly whatever you do don't
| look into how Kimble Musk met one of his "girlfriends".
|
| This is only the beginning.
| rchaud wrote:
| Well it's a good thing that the DOJ and FBI have highly
| qualified and totally non-partisan bosses that will see to it
| that justice will be done /s
| foobarian wrote:
| I'm sure I don't know what you mean. The FBI director is such
| a good guy he even writes children's books.
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| The likely most damning/embaressing thing that has led to
| Summers resignations -- being a powerful 65-year-old man trying
| to pressure a 37-year-old mentee into having sex/relationship
| with you -- is considered (by me too) icky and unethical and an
| abuse of power, undoubtedly a violation of many ethics codes
| and depending on how it's done possibly some laws -- but is not
| actually anything to do with pedophilia or child abuse at all.
|
| i know we like expanding the categories of all sins and then
| only refering to things by category name without the specifics,
| but.
| frankfrank13 wrote:
| Alternatively, there is no justice, and even the truth is lost
| to partisan politics. I have a strange feeling this benefits
| foreign intelligence, not harms it. Mossad, for example, knows
| who slipped through the cracks. Knows how much worse the
| "truth" is beyond the code names and vague emails. Now they
| have _more_ power, not less.
| jmyeet wrote:
| This kind of thing can only exist in a climate of apathy and
| nihilism. The powerful want you to think the situation is
| hopeless and nothing will change. But remember this: at no
| point in history has a steady state been maintained for
| significant periods of time. Ever.
|
| We are at a dangerous point in history. I personally believe
| that inequality is inevitably going to end in violence and
| we're beyuond the point of avoiding this with electoral
| politics. People are struggling to eat and survive at a time
| where we'll likely mint our first trillionaire in our
| lifetimes. This simply can't continue.
|
| I'm personally for outing wealthy and powerful pedophiles who
| are meaningfully making all of our lives worse to accrue
| completely unnecessary extra wealth.
| erikpukinskis wrote:
| What's partisan about what your OP described? Democrats and
| republicans alike were entangled in Epstein's crimes.
| Bhilai wrote:
| > This is only the beginning.
|
| And perhaps the end. If its as serious as you claim it is
| nothing will come out of it.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| >He mysteriously fell off his own boat and drowned, his body
| being found the next day I believe over a hundred miles away
| somehow.
|
| Maxwell had been stealing from his worker's pension fund and it
| was all starting to come out. It is plausible that he killed
| himself to avoid the consequences. He was a monster.
| lvl155 wrote:
| Can't get over the fact that Sheryl Sandberg was Larry's protege
| all those years ago.
| 0xcafefood wrote:
| She studied under him.
| tptacek wrote:
| Why? He was one of the most prominent economists of his era.
| This is in the news because it's newsworthy, not because he's
| been radioactive this whole time.
| SilverElfin wrote:
| This whole Epstein thing feels like a distraction. Yes, the
| people involved are reprehensible and deserve consequences. But
| why is this such a big focus for some people on the left and the
| right (apart from an opportunity to attack their political
| opponents)? Consider that even if Epstein had 1000 victims, there
| are still far larger-scale problems the country is facing that we
| aren't spending the same time on.
|
| It's not enough to say "we can do more than one thing" - our
| attention is limited. And instead of those bigger issues
| dominating our conversation and political will, we're focused on
| the Epstein issue. I also seriously doubt something will come of
| it. I expect that when anything is eventually released, it may
| have been selectively redacted or withheld, and any convictions
| will take years if they happen at all.
|
| Meanwhile, vile politicians like MTG are latching onto this
| fervor and using it to push their own relevance and position on
| the American political stage. In her case, it's a desperate play
| to disown her past of "Jewish space lasers", QAnon, pizzagate,
| and all of that. But the naive public is eating this up. And
| they're using what is a minor issue to hitch themselves onto
| otherwise harmful people.
| e584 wrote:
| The story goes way beyond the abuse itself, they were
| videotaping everything to black mail other rich people and even
| world leaders... it's one of the biggest scandals in American
| history and it's about more than Epstein alone.
| tastyface wrote:
| Why is it such a big deal that many of our leaders (including
| Numero Uno) are likely rapists and pedophiles?
|
| I don't even know how to answer that question.
| SilverElfin wrote:
| Like I said - it's reprehensible. I'm not minimizing the
| crime but pointing out there are bigger problems. Focusing on
| this instead of inflation or housing or healthcare means a
| lot more people will suffer than there are victims of
| Epstein. We have to prioritize. If too much attention and
| energy goes to this, bigger problems will be left
| unaddressed. The things I'm listing are occupying virtually
| none of the national focus right now, for example.
| stevesimmons wrote:
| Why do you think the current government would be the
| slightest bit interested in solutions to housing, inflation
| or healthcare if Epstein wasn't an issue?
| havblue wrote:
| I'm not as alarmed that one of the most influential economists
| in America is a potential sex trafficker. I'm alarmed about to
| what degree the most influential people in America are being
| blackmailed.
| kccoder wrote:
| I don't know what you tell you if the systematic abuse of
| hundreds (some reporting does suggest more than 1000) children
| doesn't rile you up. The fact that it is nearly exclusively
| rich and powerful people who participated only amplifies the
| effect. Most of us are absolutely fed up with the two-tier
| justice system, where the rich, powerful, and connected get to
| do whatever they want, while regular folk continually have
| their rights eroded. The powerful are often able to divert our
| attention from the injustice of the rich/powerful by dividing
| the people with propaganda, pitting one side against the other.
| Turns out the Epstein situation is one of the rare cases where
| nearly everyone agrees. You should expect it to receive
| increasingly large amounts of attention until we actually
| receive the real info and heads roll.
| Zigurd wrote:
| Epstein put a lot of rich and powerful people with influence in
| government and industry into compromising positions. Those
| thousand victims weren't a hobby. He was creating blackmail
| material and using it for his own gain, and to sell to others.
| The amount of money flowing through the scheme is so large that
| it has to be from government entities, like intelligence
| agencies. Sergey Lavrov's name has come up in the documents.
| It's very plausible that a lot of the money Epstein got
| originated in Russia. That's a national security problem.
| drivingmenuts wrote:
| It's interesting that only now he is stepping back now that he's
| been found out. It demonstrates that it's not about ethics or
| morals, but about publicity and damage control.
| egillie wrote:
| most of what we know today we knew years ago, too
| zem wrote:
| it's the good old eleventh commandment, "thou shalt not get
| caught"
| bamboozled wrote:
| The tax paying class of the world just have to watch all this
| horseshit go on, watch the institutions and the law enforcement
| agencies protect these people with our hard earned money,
| meanwhile if we break a single law, there are consequences for
| us, sometimes massive.
|
| It's a bullshit world we're living in, but I guess it's always
| been the same?
|
| It seems for the wealthy, raping children is an acceptable
| pastime and we're just supposed to accept that it's ok?
| standardUser wrote:
| By most metrics, it's almost always been worse. But that
| doesn't make the modern era suck any less.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| "The big thieves hang the little thieves"
| naIak wrote:
| I understand you want to highlight this, but you don't have to
| begin your sentence with "It's interesting that..." because
| this is not interesting or novel in the slightest.
| seydor wrote:
| This guy Epstein modus operandi of cozying up and becoming
| wingman to powerful people confirms that he was some kind of spy.
| But it's still weird to see a well known professor of 61 years
| texting about gurlz to his middle aged wingman. Who does that and
| is this really what millionaires do, reliving high school?
| kenjackson wrote:
| I really think there is so much variance to how people live.
| Looking at some of the Epstein emails I'm floored by the
| behavior. It really seems like middle schoolers. And the racist
| chats that came out from the Young Republican group earlier
| this year -- I can't imagine ever being a part of a chat group
| like that. I would literally think I was being pranked or they
| were genuinely crazy racists, but they were actual early
| leaders of one of our two major political parties.
|
| The thing that perplexes me is that these people aren't in
| poverty or victims of some violent trauma. They are among the
| elites of the country -- and yet this is still how they behave
| -- are these people a niche group or am I?
| braebo wrote:
| Most people are followers whose belief systems are spoon fed
| to them by the largest village willing to accept them.
| Understanding cult psychology and the agendas of the people
| driving the bus is typically enough to understand their
| worldviews and subsequent behavior. That's just my gut read
| on it..
| reverius42 wrote:
| > they were genuinely crazy racists, but they were actual
| early leaders of one of our two major political parties
|
| Why not both?
| jeffwask wrote:
| I think it depends on how they got rich. From the outside to me
| it looks like the ones who sacrifice their 20's to the grind
| and getting rich never get that shit out of their system like
| the rest of us do and end up as emotionally stunted adults
| trying to recapture their lost youth.
| fakedang wrote:
| What the actual fuck logic is this?
|
| I grinded fairly well enough in my 20s, just as many other
| people I know who did. We're much better off than 99.99% of
| the world. That doesn't make us think of sexually abusing
| children and adolescents one bit because we need to "flush
| that shit out of our system" and "recapture our lost youth".
| I have better ways of recapturing my lost youth, by computer
| games, more time for hobbies and fucking closer to my age
| like rabbits.
|
| PS:- being in the upper echelon does mean you have a somewhat
| easier access to the circles that engage in these vile
| activities, and yes you'll be completely excluded if you say
| no to them. Many are okay with that, while those who aren't
| are the ones in the files.
| frmersdog wrote:
| High school never ends.
| freejazz wrote:
| I think you mean forever trying to be cooler than he was(n't)
| in high school.
| gtowey wrote:
| Money and power have been seen as corrupting influences since
| the dawn of humanity.
|
| Those who seek those things -- money for money's sake, power
| for power's sake -- often tend to see their success as somehow
| making them "above" others. They derive perverse pleasure in
| seeing just how much they can flaunt society's rules. 'The
| rules don't apply to me' is like a drug in itself.
| aborsy wrote:
| He was killed in maximum security custody, so an Intel
| operation.
| tclancy wrote:
| >This guy Epstein modus operandi of cozying up and becoming
| wingman to powerful people confirms that he was some kind of
| spy
|
| Ah yes, no one else has ever tried to ingratiate themselves
| into the world of the rich and famous. It's spies all the way
| down!
| renewiltord wrote:
| A thing to remember is that Chamath Palihapitiya is a
| billionaire but spends his time on Twitter trying to convince
| people he has a big dick[0].
|
| > _i 'll bet your entire net worth x 10. the anaconda is the
| worst kept secret of silicon valley..._
|
| I think the truth is probably that insecurity does not prevent
| success. Some argue that it might be the source of it. But
| probably the truth is there are secure billionaires and
| insecure billionaires and the latter are very obviously
| insecure because despite their success they do things like
| this.
|
| 0: https://x.com/chamath/status/1931039584672186651?s=20
| alex1138 wrote:
| "Winklevoss twins are assholes [but I have nothing substantive to
| say against their claim of product theft]" - LS
| alex1138 wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVG5V7FzB_Q
| booleanbetrayal wrote:
| I have loathed Larry Summers since the repeal of Glass-Steagall.
| He has consistently treated the American public like he treats
| women in the Epstein emails. So glad he's finally getting his
| comeuppance.
| game_the0ry wrote:
| Not enough, if you ask me. He should be publicly shamed and
| humiliated. Truly one of the most evil maniacs of our time.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Is that not what is happening?
| jordanb wrote:
| He was working at the Center for American Progress to ensure if
| the Democrats got back in power they would be committed to not
| fixing anything, fulfilling any promises, or doing anything
| beyond Clinton/Obama/Biden managed decline.
|
| Good riddance.
| legitster wrote:
| So far, what has been revealed in the documents is embarrassing,
| but not necessarily implicating:
| https://searchepsteinfiles.com/person/163
|
| For the most part, the threads are a mix of:
|
| - Really cringe dating advice
|
| - Epstein connecting Summers with other important people
|
| - Dishing on Trump and his inner circle
|
| Given there were many more prominently featured people with more
| dirt in here, I wonder if Summers is worried there's a lot more
| that's about to be revealed.
| hintymad wrote:
| Epstein seemed to be a power broker and a political fixer. If
| so, naturally many high-profile people would have interacted
| with him and even have confided in him. It does not mean
| everyone associated with him knew or participated in his
| criminal activities, right?
| noitpmeder wrote:
| Agreed, but continued communication after he was found guilty
| of sex crimes is definitely a bright red flag.
| hapless wrote:
| hang loose, young lady, i have to ask this sex criminal how
| best to respond to your latest message
| hapless wrote:
| he didn't have any power or ability to fix anything that
| didn't involve trafficking young girls
|
| he can "fix" you up with a teenager who will give you a
| private "massage"
| legitster wrote:
| Not sure where you are getting this from. He regularly
| connected people with each other. The sex trafficking was
| just a small part of his nefarious power network
| legitster wrote:
| An example of one of the typical meetings Epstein was able to
| finagle with Summers:
|
| > this week, thiel, summers,bill burns, gordon brown,
| jagland, ( council of europe and nobel chairman ). mongolia
| pres , hardeep puree ( india), boris ( gates). jabor (
| qatar). sultan ( dubai, ), kosslyn ( harvard), leon black,
| woody. you are a welcome guest at any.....also if you >think
| there are interesting people in town, everyone here for
| climate summit, clinton ,security council, holy shit im on
| for next 30 minutes
|
| https://searchepsteinfiles.com/file/text/HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_028.
| ..
|
| He also regularly provided research funding for universities.
| worik wrote:
| > Epstein seemed to be a power broker and a political fixer.
| If so...
|
| If so we are getting a window into a world we rarely see. For
| some of us this is confirming our priors, for others this
| will be profoundly shocking.
| hapless wrote:
| really cringe dating advice about pursuing an affair with a
| student almost 40 years younger than he is
|
| it's way beyond cringe
| legitster wrote:
| Has the name of the woman come out? She's not directly named
| in their communications.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Yes, it has.
| dylan604 wrote:
| > - Dishing on Trump and his inner circle
|
| At this moment in time, this is the most serious crime to those
| in charge
| perihelions wrote:
| > _" In other exchanges, Mr. Summers appeared to ask Mr.
| Epstein's advice on how to pursue a romantic relationship"_
|
| That's NYT-speak for "they joked crudely and overtly about
| pressuring the woman into unwilling sex". You can dump the _New
| York Times_ and read competent writing here:
|
| https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/11/17/summers-epstei...
|
| > _" Summers went on to describe what he saw as his "best shot":
| that the woman finds him "invaluable and interesting" and
| concludes "she can't have it without romance / sex.""_
|
| I think it remarkable how the NYT buries (far down on the page),
| and CNBC omits altogether, the underlying story about what Larry
| Summers was actually doing. CNBC euphemizes the whole thing away
| to vapor (there were mails--the end). These aren't good
| expositions.
|
| (Speaking of the NYT' coverage, there's a new revelation one of
| their reporters actually helped Epstein evade scrutiny--it's
| another bit from the recently-disclosed email tranches. Their
| reporter Landon Thomas secretly tipped off Epstein that one of
| his NYT coworkers was "digging around" into Epstein--even gave
| Epstein the guy's name).
|
| https://bsky.app/profile/chrisgeidner.bsky.social/post/3m5hn... (
| _" Fall 2017: Then-NYT reporter literally warning Epstein that
| someone is "digging around again."_)
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > That's NYT-speak for "they joked crudely and overtly about
| pressuring the undergraduate into unwilling sex". You can dump
| the New York Times and read competent writing here:
|
| What undergraduate? According to the link you provide, she
| graduated in 2004 and was the subject of discussion between
| Epstein and Summers in 2018.
| perihelions wrote:
| I got some of basic facts very wrong; I've removed that
| error.
| einpoklum wrote:
| On the contrary, he's the perfect man to be on OpenAI's board;
| before and after these extra revelations.
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