South Park, Epstein, and Radical Cope

It might not be boring, but it's not at all surprising

When I was a proper 11 year old, I binge-watched the entire catalog of South Park (hope this explains why I’m the way I am). One episode that I’ve never forgotten aired in 2010. Therein Tiger Woods is implicated in a sex scandal and is found out to have cheated on his wife. This sparks an outrage across the country, with everyone questioning why rich and successful men try to have sex with so many women.

Naturally, the conclusion is that there is a sex addiction epidemic. Some of the main characters are brought to a center where they can be treated for sex addiction. Here they meet other lovable sex addicts such as Michael Douglas, Bill Clinton, and David Letterman.

Unfortunately, all attempts at treatment fail. Sex addiction appears to be untreatable with simple means - men just refuse to let go of their desire to have sex with absurd numbers of women. After careful deliberation, government officials realize the structural cause of why men like sex: an alien wizard has cast a spell.

The episode ends with special forces storming Independence Hall and killing the alien wizard responsible for men’s sex drives. And they all lived happily ever after.

Now, being a proper 11 year old, I understood the joke: men are basically monkeys. We’re just evolutionarily desperate to have sex. Polite modern society manages to put a lid on inappropriate behavior, but when men find themselves in positions of power, they quite frequently use their vast resources for sex.

What I did not understand was that South Park was making fun of real people. That there were actual people in the United States (and likely elsewhere) who put their heads in the sand and denied this.

Then came the Epstein files. The DOJ released millions of pages of documents on the Jeffrey Epstein case. As we already knew, Epstein had sex with minors. But many have found another shocking revelation: rich, successful, powerful people were friends with Epstein and often cheated on their wives. Epstein often gave them relationship advice. Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Noam Chomsky, Stephen Bannon, the list goes on.

It’s as if every conspiracy theory about an elite sex ring has been simultaneously confirmed. Sort of…Not really. For the cynical eye, none of this is all that surprising. A single look at Steve Bannon should make it obvious that he’s definitely a horny dude. We already knew about Bill Gates’ relationship with Epstein and please don’t get me started on Bill Clinton.

I think this is what led Quilette founder Claire Lehmann to refer to the Epstein file dump as “boring”. Sure, we now have pictures of Brett Reiner and Epstein with women, but there is zero credible evidence of criminal wrongdoing by anyone else. There’s a reason no one has been charged.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m willing to believe that some of the people mentioned in the Epstein files also broke the law. The same monkey-brain that leads men to cheat also leads them to attraction to 17 year olds. Famous sportsmen have often been implicated in having sex with underage prostitutes and we all know about Polanski and Woody Allen.

Nor do I find the story “boring” as Claire does. I think it provides a good amount of entertainment value. In good part owing to Elon Musk’s complete social incompetence and inability to grasp Epstein’s hints. But there is an element to the story that feels like one big South Park episode. Society spends seven years obsessing over an elite pedophile ring and eventually discovers that…many powerful men cheat on their wives.

And there is of course reason to be concerned by how men behave. When getting married you say “till death do us part”. Really? You said those words and then cheated on your wife with Stormy Daniels? Infidelity ruins relationships, households, messes up children, yada-yada. But we already knew all that. And that’s all we got. We did not get an elite pedophile child trafficking ring. We got Elon trying to get laid. The man has 14 confirmed children. What else is new?

Neither am I all that surprised by the reaction to the Epstein files. People are desperate for rich people to all be evil and ruining our lives. After all, that would mean that there’s a simple way to improve society: get rid of the evil powerful individuals on top! But if there’s no cabal running the world, then how can we quickly fix our problems?

If our problems don’t come from the Jews controlling the media, communists turning the kids trans, or billionaires not paying their taxes, then there’s no simple solution to society’s ills. We’ll be stuck making incremental progress forever with 2% economic growth. The human brain hates that idea. We want progress yesterday. Radical ideologies that blame your inability to get a girlfriend on George Soros are able to promise you that progress quickly. Meanwhile the centrist peddling small changes to the income tax system for marginal efficiency gains just doesn’t seem that sexy.

And as we’ve already established, men all have monkey-brains craving sex.