Comment by slg
6 hours ago
>It's just as likely that she is totally lacking in self-awareness, and that she simply does not know when to shut her mouth because she has no idea how stupid she sounds.
No, because she doesn't sound "stupid" in the movie. The mountain of evidence against her is so extreme that being able to carve out any narrative in which her innocence has any plausibility requires such a calculated and well constructed plan that is shows a high level of social intelligence and self-control. Fielder literally lives with her 24/7 for weeks and her mask doesn't slip. You don't have to believe her story to recognize she's not a "stupid" person who "does not know when to shut her mouth".
You are talking about someone that spoke with a rather manipulated voice almost 24/7 for years. Of course she can act all day, every day. It's a big part of what her job was.
Maybe I wasn't clear. I'm not saying she's innocent. I'm saying this idea of her being guilty is incompatible with this view that she's just a stupid person with no self-awareness who doesn't know when to shut up. One of those two descriptions of her is wrong.
That's why I referenced that Fielder quote. Either she's innocent (unlikely) or she's an incredibly self-aware person with a remarkable degree of social intelligence. The image she's painting of herself is too expertly constructed for her to have gotten there accidentally, it's either the truth or a deftly orchestrated piece of fiction. You can't manipulate people to the level she has been accused of through nothing but dumb luck.
I don’t agree with this view towards two options. Humans are complex and reducing it to this narrative eliminates so many possible narratives where she could be incredibly self aware in one compartment and also completely delusional in another. Multiplied by 50 different dimensions.
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This is exactly what sociopaths do. What would have been interesting is having someone who knows how to trigger one talk to her. For example the FBI have technical guides on interviewing sociopaths/psychopaths with techniques for getting them to drop the mask. Having this guy living with her for all that time made him the perfect patsy for her manipulation.
Journalist Ron Jonson had the same experience. He went into a prison to interview a convicted... serial killer I think, knowing that he was a psychopath and having read up on how psychopaths manipulate people, and still came out convinced he was a poor innocent guy wrongly convicted.
Look, I'm not trying to belittle your opinions. I just disagree with your assessment about Elizabeth Holmes' intelligence, and more generally, about the rave reviews for this so-called documentary, which in my view merits far less attention than it has received.
According to your theory, Elizabeth Holmes proves herself to be an intelligent person simply because she is able to come up with a plausible narrative. Of course, I have no doubt that she and her defense lawyers made up some narrative to justify her actions and make her appear innocent. That's what lawyers do, and she is evidently smart enough to memorize and perform the script her lawyers wrote for her. It's the same with any criminal trial: whenever a defendant pleads "not guilty," the defense team must find a plausible narrative they can use to refute the evidence. But this does not require "a calculated and well constructed plan that shows a high level of social intelligence and self-control" on the part of the defendant. All it requires is a defendant who is able to learn the narrative written by the attorneys.
And when you say that "her mask doesn't slip," that merely shows that she is a reasonably good actor. It does not mean that she is innocent or intelligent.
My point is simply this: Elizabeth Holmes is nothing more than a liar and a fraud. There's absolutely nothing about her that is different from all the other con men and fraudsters sitting in jail or prison. Based on all the rapturous reviews about this so-called documentary, maybe Holmes is indeed a talented liar and fraudster, but that hardly makes her special or different from all the other criminals convicted of similar crimes. It only means that, at most, she may be slightly more convincing than the others.
But when her speech and her behavior in the film are understood in the context of the evidence against her, it is obvious that she is lying and that she is probably not very bright. This documentary does not improve her image. It only makes her look foolish.
>There's absolutely nothing about her that is different from all the other con men and fraudsters sitting in jail or prison.
Have you actually seen the movie? You seem to be talking around that question in an almost Holmesian manner. Because this statement is incredibly definitive to a degree that is bordering on objectively wrong. I mean "absolutely nothing"?. At the very least, she's a lot weirder than your average conman. The simple act of selecting Nathan Fielder for this project is a bizarre choice that shows something unique about her.
I've read Bad Blood and seen the movie. Both can be true. Some con men or confidence people have the ability to uphold untruths much longer than a normal person would be comfortable with. Reading Bad Blood, you're distanced from the psychology of Holmes, but in the movie your placed directly in front of her.
Holmes constructs a world with her lies. I don't how much time she spends brushing it off, or she just adapts it to her normal behavior, but there are scenes which are telling. Like when she explains how the device works and speaks in a painfully roundabout way to make it seem like she's not lying. Watching a panel about the movie with the Bad Blood author someone mentioned she almost is dressing the exact opposite of her old appearance. Earthy brown sweater instead of black turtleneck and hair down instead of in a pony tail. Even her initial image is eerie in how much she directly knocked off Steve Jobs' appearance on reflection.
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Your question implies that anyone who has not seen this latest film about Holmes is unqualified to form an opinion about her guilt or innocence. And that is what really matters in this debate: whether Holmes is in fact guilty or innocent. So it's worth asking what knowledge you have acquired about her case.
Have you read John Carreyrou's award-winning book Bad Blood? Have you seen the HBO documentary directed by Alex Gibney that chronicles the rise and fall of Theranos and its blood-testing claims, The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley. For my part, I have indeed read Carreyrou's book, and I watched Gibney's documentary, and I also followed the press coverage of Theranos and the criminal trial of Elizabeth Holmes. It is on the basis of all this evidence that I am speaking knowledgeably about the facts concerning Elizabeth Holmes, including the likelihood that she is a almost certainly guilty of the crimes for which she was convicted.
And what about you? Do you know anything about Holmes beyond the pseudo-documentary you just saw? The reason why I have replied to your question with a question is because you also seem to be talking in a "Holmesian" manner, taking everything she does and says at face value. So it seems like a valid question to inquire about your level of knowledge about her criminal record. Another interesting question is: Do you really believe, against all the evidence, that Elizabeth Holmes could be innocent?
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or she's just delusional, smart people can be delusional
Delusional to what degree? Because fraud and manipulation typically require intent. If she has lost touch with reality to the degree that she believes her lies, she needs psychiatric help and I haven't seen a single person offer that defense including her legal team or the two successive men that served the joint role of her business and romantic partner. If she's that detached from reality, wouldn't it be more likely that she's the one being manipulated by the non-delusional folks around her? How could she be the ringleader of this fraud and manipulation if she's the delusional one and everyone else is sane? Those are some of the questions the movie explores.
I'm thinking it's some kind of delusion of grandeur, not a delusion of ignorance, she is on some secret mission from god
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