Why Are There So Many Photos of Epstein with Scientists?

Plus, a General Theory of Epstein's personality.

With Jeffrey Epstein back in the news for the umpty-umpth time, here’s something I wrote behind the paywall last June about why he got his picture taken so often with famous scientists:

On a different Epstein topic, why are there so many photos of Epstein with famous scientists?

Epstein was friends with literary agent John Brockman. Now in his 80s, Brockman was a ball of fire in his prime, a more intellectually interesting era back before the Great Awokening dumbed things down. Brockman had started out as a banker, got involved with Andy Warhol’s Factory scene, and became an author’s agent. He specialized in scientists and science writers, and by the first decade of this century, had so many as his clients that he was bringing them together in various public events to generate synergy.

For example, Brockman started the non-profit Edge Foundation. It ran the Edge.org website in which Brockman’s clients would each year give their individual answers to some Big Question. I’d read it over closely each year.

The big event on the Edge Foundation’s calendar was the Billionaire’s Banquet for scientists and tech zillionaires during the TED Talk annual convention. Brockman got Epstein to pay for it, in return for which Epstein (who’d taught high school physics) got to pal around with prominent scientists.

Epstein couldn’t hang intellectually with his heroes, so with his conman’s cunning he developed some pseudo-profound questions to throw at the big brains of the “What is ‘up?’” ilk to get them to say, “Well, that’s actually a very insightful question, Jeffrey.” I’m reminded of this Ali G segment:

Was it all part of a sinister and/or degenerate plot?

Maybe.

Maybe not.

To update now in December: I think it’s now clear that a lot of people, male and female, just plain liked Epstein.

This seemed to be especially true for rich and/or famous Jewish guys. To them, perhaps Epstein reminded them of, say, a beloved old uncle back in Coney Island, crude and crooked, but warm and friendly toward them. Epstein was, to them, a new and improved Jewish man of the people who reminded them of their roots a generation or two or three ago, a slightly mobbed-up outer boroughs mensch, but one who could hang with billionaires and scientists.