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Comment by bflesch

6 hours ago

Indeed. It started with intercepting letters and couriers, then storing phone calls, radio communications, operating labs to build DNA databases from blood samples, and now large-scale data collection for AI.

Archives tie Epstein and Maxwell individually to various companies in those areas, and a truckload of familiar family names show up along them. My assessment is that people like Thiel and Musk are not self-made, they are intelligence nepo children leveraging aristocratic/colonial offshore wealth of their families.

What is better than being rich and above the law due to your role in intelligence?

4 comments

bflesch

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coliveira  3 hours ago

Don't forget Bill Gates. People generally don't know he's heir of one of the richest banking families in Washington state.

  • bflesch  2 hours ago

    One thing is old money, another is telling everyone you are selfmade when in fact you are a nepo kid.

    If you are old money you tend towards intelligence roles because they give you diplomatic passport and make you immune to the law. It is much better than owning 5 passports from some banana republic because in the end only military might of the colonial powers counts (e.g. the british crown).

    So many of the silicon valley idols we cherish are in fact old money, parents were in intelligence, the child made a tech company, tech was national security relevant, they got funding and daddy handled their competitors through their government institution. Have a look at founders of YC for example. Or Mr. Thiel who officially came from nothing but miraculously has a university named after him and is super-deep into intelligence. Or Musk where unfortunately a lot of archives from South Africa are unavailable for research, but his wealth definitely does not come from repatriating colonial wealth from South Africa to the US.

    In terms of realpolitik all is fine but if you start fabricating terrorist attacks to cover up a potential PR scandal for your shitty family you are way out of line. And at that point only the next large-scale attack helps you cover up the scandal. Several tangential names in the Epstein files fall victims to freak terrorist attacks - those are quite convenient because they get rid of idealist defectors and have a new thing to set the public agenda with.

    It is how the world works and we have to accept it.