[EFreethought]

When he was alive a lot of people said Epstein was really smart.

But I have read some of his emails, and all of the ones I have seen are full of spelling, punctuation, grammar and capitalization errors. I would not gotten out of sixth grade if I wrote like that.

[lebca]

I used to know someone wealthy whose continued wealth relied on working with local and state governments. This person's public correspondence in lawsuits and with local government officials was purposefully littered with spelling, punctuation, grammar, and capitalization errors. When I asked them about it, their response was that it was on purpose so that they seemed less smart and thus less threatening, with the hope that they would get more favorable rulings and contracts by not seeming like "one of the big entities."

I'm not asking you to believe me on this, but sharing it more as an anecdote of: something on the surface is sometimes not the reality of what's underneath.

[ddq]

In addition, it broadcasts that the sender is too busy with all their important work to spend time refining and proofreading, that you're getting their raw, unfiltered thoughts directly from them, not through an assistant, and that their time is more valuable than yours so the burden is on you to parse their stream of consciousness jumble for precious nuggets of their exclusive wisdom. The semiotics make sense, plus it's just easier and faster.

[PlunderBunny]

I remember being told that many of the spelling/grammar mistakes in (English) menus for ethnic restaurants were deliberate to make the (English native speaking) customers feel superior.

(Also not saying I believe this at all, just relating an anecdote).

[bawolff]

> But I have read some of his emails, and all of the ones I have seen are full of spelling, punctuation, grammar and capitalization errors. I would not gotten out of sixth grade if I wrote like that.

I'd more focus on the ideas being expressed being incoherent. Spelling is surface level, but that word salad made no sense.

[rob74]

Spelling is a courtesy to the person who has to make sense of what you send them.

[palmotea]

> But I have read some of his emails, and all of the ones I have seen are full of spelling, punctuation, grammar and capitalization errors. I would not gotten out of sixth grade if I wrote like that.

I kinda assumed that was (at least partly) a "flex," basically doing something dumb to show you're such hot stuff you can get away with it. It's like Sam Altman writing in lowercase all the time.

[Der_Einzige]

Funny. Sam Altman is also accused by his own sister of being a diddler!

[optimalsolver]

Or SBF playing Legends on investor calls.

[imetatroll]

It has to be a "my time is worth more than your time" flex.

[throwjefferey]

He was probably more impressive in-person.

[andrewflnr]

I've found that problem solving intelligence and language skills are not that strongly correlated. He clearly had some kind of skill to keep his operation running, even before you consider the more cynical explanations in the other replies.

[colechristensen]

He was an asset being managed by intelligence service officers, this is the only explanation.

A failing math teacher at a New York prep school leading to a job at Bear Stearns and then as a wealth manager for billionaires... let's say it doesn't add up unless there were other reasons than his own ambitions and organization skills.

Mossad or the Russians engineered his life.

[astrange]

He was probably dyslexic. I know people who type like that too but normal in person.

[fatherwavelet]

I listened to the two hour interview that was posted. It sounds nothing like this. He was extremely well spoken. How carefully he spoke is what stood out most in the interview to me.

[moralestapia]

I think that ... given one specific topic, few people understand it while the vast majority is completely oblivious to its workings.

So they then hear someone who speaks like that, with a fast cadence and Andrew Tate's "Confidence" TM, and are inclined to think "yeah, the guy looks like he knows what he's talking about".

But for people who have minimal knowledge about the thing, it's evident that said person is just stupid.

[actionfromafar]

It's on a different axis to stupid. These people play another kind of game, like scammers, they filter away people who can see through their bullshit.

To them, actually learning a "normal" topic is a distraction. Their game is finding and exploiting weaknesses.

[furyofantares]

> I would not gotten out of sixth grade if I wrote like that.

[razingeden]

I like using “astute businessman” as a backhanded compliment sometimes.

Usually meaning the revenues and results are there .. although everything about their personal or professional ethos disgusts me.

Eh. From time to time you’ll have that one brilliant but grossly tangential asset on a team who leaves you wondering if they’re manic or cracked out from the weekend.

Who’s in infrastructure and hasn’t sent a few sleep-deprived and cringey status updates out at 6am :D

Okay okay okay fine, it’s an internet comment section I don’t have to be PC. I think this one’s coke.

[sallycarmen]

Agree. Steven pinker the Harvard professor said Epstein was not an intellectual and incredibly stupid. He couldn’t have a conversation either him and Epstein spoke like a teenager.

[commandlinefan]

> full of spelling, punctuation, grammar and capitalization errors

I can spell correctly in a few different languages without having to think about it. I suspect you can, too. I can do a lot of math in my head that Jeffery Epstein probably couldn't have done with a calculator. I'm not a billionaire, though, and I never will be. The kind of smart - "street smart", it's sometimes called - that makes you that kind of rich is a different kind of smart that shows up as being a competent writer. Make no mistake, though, it wasn't stupidity or incompetence that got him where he was.

[sallycarmen]

I can’t stand people putting a man on a pedestal just because they are ‘rich’. Lots and lots of men pimp others to do the work, mafia style. You don’t need to be clever to do that, just nasty and in his case very dirty.

[jalapenoi]

somehow he was allowed to teach college classes without a degree, doors just open like that when you’re part of the tribe of pedophiles

[doublerabbit]

An email is an email. I used to talk to contacts like that all the time and they did too. These are quick interchanges with folk.

The grammar police as well as PC became a thing and now everyone is expected to construct paragraphs of text without any grammatical errors otherwise you're mobbed and lynched.

Just because you're expecting full pronunciation doesn't mean others do. I'd rather write with laziness and short hand than having to punctuate a whole paragraph and bore the person to death like this paragraph.