126
submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by glimmer_twin@hexbear.net to c/chapotraphouse@hexbear.net

Disclaimer: I don’t want this to come across as downplaying the suffering of the victims, or the horrific nature of the crimes.

That being said, I think Epstein is becoming an obsession for people that is pointless, doesn’t advance the left wing movement, and is borderline unhealthy to be honest.

People on this site and beyond are doing borderline Q-Anon level baking, using random scraps from documents and making extremely tenuous connections. This shit is unhealthy, obsessing over it and staring into the abyss of depravity is just going to cause yourself psychic damage, and for what? It’s borne out of the same thing as all conspiracism: a feeling of powerlessness, a feeling that by uncovering the mystery, doing this “investigation”, finding some hidden truth, you are doing something tangible rather than just obsessing and suffering on the internet.

This isn’t to say I don’t think all things are on the table - “he was mossad”, “this or that person was involved”, “what if he’s still alive?”. But ask yourself, what changes? What changes if any of this is true? Are any of us shocked or surprised by 99% of the names dredged up? These are all people that we already consider ontologically evil for numerous other crimes and their class position. We already know that there are 10,000 ultra powerful, ultra wealthy people who control the world, who act with impunity, who are all interconnected and who all have bourgeois class solidarity that the workers can only dream of at this stage.

And what tactical or strategic advantage is offered to working class movements we are involved in by uncovering this hidden truth? We currently have no power to punish the guilty or prevent it from happening again. Epstein himself is likely dead, most of the people mentioned are dead, or ancient and on their way out. Should we be forming pressure groups and protesting our governments to thoroughly investigate and punish the guilty? If half of what is in the files is true, our governments are riddled with people who are complicit if not actively involved.

So what is the route by which the people’s justice can be served? The same as always - the working class needs to win political power. Our time is better served thinking about how we can advance the ball on concrete issues, work with our irl organisations to build working class power. I think driving ourselves mad on the internet and expanding so much mental energy tying red string between random names and events on our mental corkboards is deleterious to this mission.

Now, I’m open to the idea that using the Epstein angle in propaganda to disillusion workers of billionaires and capitalism could be useful, but that doesn’t require more than a cursory knowledge of the situation, knowledge we’ve all had for 6 years at this point.

As marxists we shouldn’t be hyperfixating on Epstein as the keystone of everything “evil” on earth. We have a class analysis and an understanding of the system superseding the role of the individual. Things such as “epstein was working for Mossad” - ok, that may well be true, but does it change our analysis of Israel? Does it affect how we view the settler-colonial relationship? Could it possibly make them any more morally bankrupt than the genocide we’ve been watching for 2.5 years? Than a century of ethnic cleansing?

I get this feeling that doesn’t sit well with me, that this is becoming some grotesque spectacle of “true crime”, motivated by an inability to look away, by the conspiratorial powerlessness I mentioned above, and by the same instincts that make endless podcast series and TV shows about gruesome murders eternally popular. And it is taking up so much oxygen on the left - ffs, the United States is about to try and topple its second government in a month and everyone is too busy combing through the epstein files to see if the-democrat or the-republican are in there.

Tl;dr: don’t drive yourself insane trying to know the unknowable, focus on the concrete, focus on things you can change, advance the ball!

(page 2) 50 comments
sorted by: hot top new old
[-] AssortedBiscuits@hexbear.net 4 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

(Refusing to read the 80+ comments before giving my hot take like a gigachad)

I think we should know enough for the sake of radicalizing others. How much we should know depends on how the people we interact with in our daily lives are invested in the liberal status quo. For me, it's enough to say that Epstein was a human trafficking pedo who leveraged his ability to procure victims in order to seep his way into the inner circles of rich powerful people who are also pedos. "It's a big pedo club, and you ain't in it!" However, I also know that the vast majority of people in my life are not that invested in the liberal status quo even if they lack revolutionary consciousness and aren't socially progressive. Most people who I rub shoulders with are in the "voting is a waste of time" camp, so convincing them that some dude is a rich pedo isn't particularly hard because they have no real reason to believe in the contrary.

I think conspiracy theories can be weaponized. Fascists do it all the time with the conspiracy theory-to-Jews control the world pipeline. "The CIA is behind so many conspiracies and they have the complete blessings of transnational corporations and the billionaires who own them" is as much of a leftist pipeline as watching Hasan vods. I don't think it's wrong of me to introduce the "Princess Diana was assassinated because she was about to out Jimmy Savile for being a necrophiliac pedo with connections to the Royals" conspiracy theory to someone who really likes Princess Diana.

load more comments (2 replies)
[-] chgxvjh@hexbear.net 9 points 2 days ago

I don't think I have really seen deranged takes on here.

[-] glimmer_twin@hexbear.net 6 points 2 days ago

The top thread on the site when i logged on this morning was speculation about epstein’s death being faked and him being smuggled out of prison. That’s pretty out there lol.

[-] BanMeFromPosting@hexbear.net 6 points 2 days ago

Why is that so unrealistic to you? We know a lot of shady stuff happened around the time Epstein "killed himself". The general vibe has been that he got merced, but why would it be so unrealistic that he got zipped out instead?

[-] glimmer_twin@hexbear.net 4 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Sure, it could have happened. The entire thrust of my post is that it doesn’t materially change anything whether he’s alive, dead, murdered, suicide - and unless the working class takes power nobody will ever know. So why bother being concerned about it when there are more pressing matters to expend time and mental energy on.

[-] BanMeFromPosting@hexbear.net 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Materially nothing changes when we die either, but I still care

edit: Caring about wether he's dead or not is different from finding the speculation itself deranged though. Why do you find it so unreasonable to think he's alive?

[-] glimmer_twin@hexbear.net 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I’m not getting into a back and forth argument about whether epstein is dead or alive because I think it’s a total waste of time. Occam’s razor: he is dead, so alternative theories have the burden of proof on them and are outside the average person’s perspective on this event. Hence, “out there”.

Edit: as an aside, “proof” in general is a huge issue with epstein baking. 90% of what we have is borderline hearsay or “these rich powerful people emailed each other once”. That’s the same level of evidence pizzagate had.

[-] BanMeFromPosting@hexbear.net 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

That's not how Occam's razor works. I'm not asking you to get into a back and forth about his state of being. I was asking you why you considered it so "out there" to be having a discussion on if he might be alive, considering all the stuff we do know about the day he "killed himself" and the general consensus that whatever happened, it wasn't suicide.

As to your edit I haven't mentioned proof as far as I can see?
You're being too vague for me with regards to the "baking". I've only seen people post/discuss extended correspondence or singular correspondence in the case of Norman Finkelstein.
I'm the only one who has done any "baking" that approaches what I think you're talking about, by sharing an article of Bjorn Lomborg denying further relations to Epstein. Considering who Lomborg is connected to, his material interestes and the general pattern of academics of his type and class meeting up with Epstein "just one time" for "a simple dinner" due to his "philantropic work" I felt like it was a pretty rational thing to find suspicious and worth of sharing.

[-] M68040@hexbear.net 9 points 2 days ago

He's important as a convergence point and a binding agent for many of America's problems, but it's also crucial to keep in mind that all this didn't start with him and it clearly didn't end with him.

[-] FugaziArchivist@hexbear.net 6 points 2 days ago

I can appreciate this sentiment and think that basing one's politics entirely on conspiracy is ill-advised. You're right that the essence of conspiracy is lone-wolf investigation to uncover truths that can never be 100% proven. They are dives into the underworld by isolated loners who don't get anywhere in the end (from Warren Beatty in the Parallax View to Rust Cohle in True Detective). But, I think there is a place for conspiracy thinking sometimes and don't find it entirely pathological, particularly when you can appeal to non lefties about a power elite that does in fact collude. What better way to describe the ostensibly different political parties as the same arm of the capitalist ruling class? I would also ask: is this topic really taking up "all the oxygen on the left"? The drib-and-drab release of the files is still recent. The most absurdly damning stuff only came out this past Friday, so of course people are going to be distracted by it from all over the political map. Yes, it's 90% of my Twitter feed right now, but not forever. I wouldn't say a weekend or a couple weeks of Epstein-brain is taking up all the oxygen on the left. Do you remember the first wave of Epstein-brain in 2019, when he died in the MCC? That captured everyone's attention, but people were able to come back from the brink okay. I recall Cushbomb losing it pretty hard, going on Mike Recine's podcast and Grubstakers podcast to talk Epstein, and then losing it at a Getty image of a freakish mask hanging on a wall.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] aanes_appreciator@hexbear.net 5 points 2 days ago
[-] starkillerfish@hexbear.net 7 points 2 days ago

And what tactical or strategic advantage is offered to working class movements we are involved in

Who is we exactly

[-] glimmer_twin@hexbear.net 7 points 2 days ago

People on this website should be involved in whatever decent group they can be irl. Otherwise they’re not a really communist beyond a lifestyle/fashion identifier

[-] Dessa@hexbear.net 15 points 2 days ago

10000-com

There is literal organizing and radicalizing happening all across the country due to ICE, and Epstein is sucking the air out of the room. This is intentional

[-] FALGSConaut@hexbear.net 13 points 2 days ago

I'm just trying my best to not lose my mind thinking about how the world is run by a group of pedophile billionaires/royalty and even when it's slowly coming to the open no one seems to be able to make these ghouls face any meaningful consequences. I don't know if you can even call it an open secret anymore that a bunch of the richest most powerful people were hanging out with a pedophile convicted of trafficking minors even after he "served" his first sentence. Like how can you not see that as the upperclass approving/taking advantage of his crimes? Especially when they take every step imaginable to obscure evidence of his wrongdoings?

[-] himeneko@hexbear.net 11 points 2 days ago

the only thing that rly broke my brain on the epstein stuff was how much stuff involved the weirdo pedophile trans researchers, and just how interconnected that is with the broader right. it hurts to see a direct connection between the chaser vibes of the pedo elite and how it led to a decade long campaign of disenfranchisement of trans people. this kind of thing has been speculation for a while but to have it confirmed still hurts

[-] BrainInABox@lemmy.ml 5 points 2 days ago

Is there anywhere where you can get just the concrete stuff that is definitely in the files, without having to filter through speculation and implication?

[-] darkcalling@hexbear.net 2 points 2 days ago

Ignore anything labeled as coming from the tip line or tips. That shit is literally no better than posts on 4chan and most of it poured in during a highly contentious political period where Dems were extra eager to slander Republicans and Trump (not that he isn't guilty as hell but some of this stuff is almost certainly made up) and vice versa with Repubs desperate to slander Clinton and the Democratic party and so on.

Pay attention only to the Epstein emails and FBI files that are not tips but court proceedings, documents, victim documents (diaries, statements, etc).

load more comments
view more: ‹ prev next ›
this post was submitted on 02 Feb 2026
126 points (95.7% liked)

Chapotraphouse

14263 readers
837 users here now

Banned? DM Wmill to appeal.

No anti-nautilism posts. See: Eco-fascism Primer

Slop posts go in c/slop. Don't post low-hanging fruit here.

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS