Speaker 1: Pushkin. Welcome back to Risky Business, the show about making
Speaker 1: better decisions. I'm Maria Kanikova.
Speaker 2: And back in New York City, New York, not Las Vegas.
Speaker 2: I'm Nate Silver. What are we talking about, Maria?
Speaker 1: So first we're going to do a little bit of
Speaker 1: a poker update. As you guys known, it wasn't here
Speaker 1: last week, so you had him in absentsha a pre
Speaker 1: taped interview because he had a deep run in the
Speaker 1: main I've had a few runs as well, and there's
Speaker 1: lots of news from the World Series. So we're going
Speaker 1: to start with a poker update. Then we're going to
Speaker 1: get a little bit more serious and talk about some
Speaker 1: conspiracy theories in the air.
Speaker 2: Maria, is the World Series Poker still going on? It
Speaker 2: is like today the last official day where you can
Speaker 2: enter a new event. Is that right?
Speaker 1: No, there are two more days night, so we're recording
Speaker 1: this on Tuesday, July fifteenth. There are multiple bracelet events,
Speaker 1: and then tomorrow there's also a turbo. You know that
Speaker 1: we love turbos. They're a nice, nice little ways to
Speaker 1: try to get a fast bracelet. At the end of
Speaker 1: the series, so a few more days left, I have
Speaker 1: been not at the World Series, but at the WPT
Speaker 1: event at the Venetian. Had a nice deep run there
Speaker 1: and actually busted in fifty third place last hand of
Speaker 1: the night yesterday. So we were you know, anyone who
Speaker 1: plays poker, you know, at the end of the night
Speaker 1: they pause the clock and they say four more hands,
Speaker 1: five more hands. Well I wish they had said four
Speaker 1: more hands, because on hand number five I was dealt
Speaker 1: pocket jacks with eighteen big lines on the button, and
Speaker 1: the small blind who was an incredibly of European player
Speaker 1: who'd been three betting me all day, three bet me
Speaker 1: and we went with the jacks. In that time he
Speaker 1: happened to have pocket kings and that was the end.
Speaker 2: What kind of euro Romanian? I try to get the
Speaker 2: Euros to talk more like the Romanians the Eastern Europeans
Speaker 2: are like, but like someone like the Germans or the Dutch,
Speaker 2: or like a little more serious than they need to be.
Speaker 2: I try to break them out of their shells, you
Speaker 2: know what, Maria.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely, that's a great strategy. This Romania was
Speaker 1: very sweet, very nice, very talkative, and took all my chips.
Speaker 2: I busted the last time of the night, in my
Speaker 2: last World Series event, what was a three K midstake something,
Speaker 2: although it was someone like like, I don't think that
Speaker 2: poker players should intentionally make a goal of like, oh
Speaker 2: I made it to X day, Like, if anything, it
Speaker 2: reduces your flexibility. In my case, it was to kind
Speaker 2: of settle my business and get out of town. But
Speaker 2: it might not be playing another tournament or taking an
Speaker 2: off day or things like that, and so like it's
Speaker 2: an arbitrary cutoff busting out on the last it looked
Speaker 2: like but I I, you know, last hand before dinner, break,
Speaker 2: last hand, last orbit at the end of the day.
Speaker 2: Can sometimes we get opportunity to pick to pick up
Speaker 2: chipsyp a little bit tired, right, yep, conflict diverse and yeah, no, no.
Speaker 1: Shame, Maria, No, no, no shame at all. You know.
Speaker 1: I actually I have a story about this because psychologically
Speaker 1: it's actually a really interesting thing because I think that
Speaker 1: this is this is something that carries over, you know,
Speaker 1: from the poker world to the real world, where people
Speaker 1: just want to like they want to last, right, like
Speaker 1: they don't want to they don't want to bust in quotes.
Speaker 1: And I back when I was just learning poker and
Speaker 1: I was still really working closely with Eric Sidell, and
Speaker 1: he was giving me a lot of coaching. I remember
Speaker 1: it was a big event. It was late in the night,
Speaker 1: you know, we had a few hands left and I
Speaker 1: remember folding preflop I think pocket sevens something like that
Speaker 1: because I just didn't want to deal with it. I
Speaker 1: didn't want to and there were like a few hands
Speaker 1: left in the night, and I told him this. I
Speaker 1: was like, you know, I was just tired, and he
Speaker 1: just he didn't say anything. And then later he came
Speaker 1: up to me and he's like, we need to talk
Speaker 1: about that. He's like, do you see you know Jason
Speaker 1: Kuhn or I Caxton, you know, some of the best
Speaker 1: players in the world folding pocket sevens in that spot.
Speaker 1: And I was like, no, I guess not. He's like,
Speaker 1: you can't do that right, like you're leaving ev And yes,
Speaker 1: I understand that you're tired and you don't want to bust,
Speaker 1: but these are bad reasons and you need to play
Speaker 1: like you are there to play, and you're there to
Speaker 1: play your best game, and you have to take those spots,
Speaker 1: and you have to take advantage of people who aren't
Speaker 1: willing to take those spots. Those are the people who win.
Speaker 1: And you know, I think that really that conversation really
Speaker 1: stayed with me because it's such important life advice, right, like,
Speaker 1: don't don't fold when you're just like feeling a little
Speaker 1: risk averse if it's not for the right reasons. The
Speaker 1: why has to be correct, and the why can't be
Speaker 1: I don't want to bust, right, that's that's not that's
Speaker 1: not a good reason.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And also knowing when the marginal spots are and
Speaker 2: what's less marginal, right, Like, it's fine to fold the
Speaker 2: very marginal stuff, but like you have this exponential thing
Speaker 2: where hands quickly escalating value, and in most positions, folding
Speaker 2: sevens from some reasonable position is a substantially positive expected
Speaker 2: value play. Even if you even if you like lost
Speaker 2: twenty IQ points the men you put chips in the hand, right,
Speaker 2: you know, you're probably still gonna make enough money by
Speaker 2: flopping sets and continuing carefully when the board's dry and
Speaker 2: things like that. Right, And like you do have to
Speaker 2: pay yourself a little bit. The World series as long
Speaker 2: of it, how would you how would you rate your
Speaker 2: overall World Series?
Speaker 1: Well, we're not done yet. We're not done yet. Okay,
Speaker 1: I still have I still have a few events to go.
Speaker 1: I'd give myself, uh a B minus maybe in yeah,
Speaker 1: in this world series, but we'll see, we'll see.
Speaker 2: Maybe.
Speaker 1: You know, I bink a bracelet in the last two
Speaker 1: days and I'm like, just kidding. No, Actually, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: change my rating because you know, the the B minus
Speaker 1: isn't for results only, it's for kind of overall play,
Speaker 1: et cetera. And I definitely, you know, I think I've
Speaker 1: played well in some of it. I think I made
Speaker 1: some mistakes in some events, like there's you know, there's
Speaker 1: a lot going on, there's a lot to learn, and
Speaker 1: there's always room to improve. So I think that that's
Speaker 1: a reasonable reasonable grade for myself.
Speaker 2: How about you, Nate, I'll give myself a B plus
Speaker 2: as far as how I played. So, I think I've
Speaker 2: become like pretty adept to exploitive things. Picking up on
Speaker 2: vibes tells just general exploited to play to beat those players.
Speaker 2: I focus less on hanging around with elite players, and
Speaker 2: I think those spots were more tricky. I'm kind of
Speaker 2: in this like weird spot mixed games are I think
Speaker 2: it's not Texas no limit hold them basically right, and
Speaker 2: like for the first time in some period I put
Speaker 2: more study into those mixed games. It also bricked all
Speaker 2: my events where you often face like much tougher field.
Speaker 2: So it's probably the World Series that like was very
Speaker 2: much at the median of like what you could reasonably expect, right,
Speaker 2: And the thing is, like, so I wound up. I
Speaker 2: think when I tell it up, I'm going to have
Speaker 2: lost a little bit of money despite cashing the main
Speaker 2: event and when they've have been after that for like
Speaker 2: a combined sixty two thousand or whatever, Right, but fifty
Speaker 2: thousand offsets a lot of ten K buy ins. I
Speaker 2: bought in twice to this win ten k and to
Speaker 2: various mixed games ten k's right, And then so yeah,
Speaker 2: even then you're like, I think a little bit down
Speaker 2: for the tournament. Like I said, I'll do the math,
Speaker 2: but like, but that's kind of like I think you
Speaker 2: are allowed to look at signs of successful play that
Speaker 2: like aren't necessarily just how much you increase your hand
Speaker 2: in mob Hendon is the encyclopedia of everybody's poker results, right, Like,
Speaker 2: you know, if you're in the mix, as I call it, right,
Speaker 2: you're building a big stacks early, You're lasting a long time.
Speaker 2: You're part of the story of the tournament. You're attracting
Speaker 2: some maybe media attention from your friends. You have some
Speaker 2: fun hands that you can play and talk about later.
Speaker 2: Like if you're in the mix constantly, then that feels
Speaker 2: to me like airing towards the side of a more
Speaker 2: successful World Series, even if you do run Jackson King
Speaker 2: sometimes or lose, flips, bad meats, et cetera sometimes.
Speaker 1: Yep. I think I think that that is all correct.
Speaker 1: I'm also down for the series, not nearly as down
Speaker 1: as I was last year. As you know, last year
Speaker 1: I was down. I was six figures. That is not
Speaker 1: true now. And like I said, a few events left
Speaker 1: and as everyone knows and every winning player knows, like
Speaker 1: it is all the big scores, right, like that's what matters.
Speaker 1: That's that's what actually will make the difference. So we'll
Speaker 1: see and we can check back in next week. But
Speaker 1: I just want to give a big shout out. By
Speaker 1: the time you guys hear this, there will be a winner.
Speaker 1: But we have the first woman in over thirty years
Speaker 1: at the final table of the World Series main event,
Speaker 1: Leo maud Gets from Spain. She's lovely. I've known her
Speaker 1: for a number of years and she's very easy to
Speaker 1: root for and a great player. And I just want
Speaker 1: to give a shout out to a pretty historic moment
Speaker 1: for the World Series. I think I think that that's
Speaker 1: really great, and it's just it's a crazy final table, right,
Speaker 1: the number of players who are incredibly well known players
Speaker 1: and good players, it is just astounding. Kenny Hallard, who's
Speaker 1: one of my fellow ambassadors from Poker Stars, this is
Speaker 1: his second World Series of Poker final table got Mike
Speaker 1: Mazraki the Grinder, who is a legend, won the fifty
Speaker 1: k Players Championship four times, including this year. Adam Hendrix,
Speaker 1: you know, really nice guy, really solid player. So you know,
Speaker 1: we a lot of people to root for and everyone
Speaker 1: I was anti sweating, and anti sweating is very fun.
Speaker 1: It's people you really don't want to win. But I'm
Speaker 1: very glad that all of my anti sweats are out
Speaker 1: of the main event.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Adam Hendrix is when I play against the most
Speaker 2: most nice guy, very good player, talking about someone who's
Speaker 2: always in the mix, right, he just always somebody who
Speaker 2: seems to have have a lot of chips. You know,
Speaker 2: it seems to me like I mean, there are a
Speaker 2: few pure amateurs or predominantly amateurs left. Right, It does
Speaker 2: seem to me as though you are seeing fewer true
Speaker 2: blue amateurs when bracelets or reach very long into the
Speaker 2: World Series main event, right, like, there were a lot
Speaker 2: of big names at various stages of the top one hundred,
Speaker 2: two hundred, three hundred, et cetera, as compared to in
Speaker 2: years past. I think, you know, I think that means that,
Speaker 2: like I think the games are getting tougher. At the
Speaker 2: same time, if you are I don't need call Marie
Speaker 2: and I kind of quasi professional, like you do have
Speaker 2: more resources to study from than ever before. But like
Speaker 2: everything else, right, it's becoming like it's becoming more about
Speaker 2: who's putting in, putting in the hours, putting in, putting
Speaker 2: in the work, and back.
Speaker 1: To me, because this is all about me speaking of
Speaker 1: fish and you know, putting in hours, et cetera. I
Speaker 1: have a cautionary tale from this week's World Series from
Speaker 1: from my play. Yeah, and this is something that we
Speaker 1: can that we can all learn from, whether you play
Speaker 1: poker or not. You know, Nate, I've written about this
Speaker 1: a lot. How you know, I really into focus and
Speaker 1: multitasking bad right, and I went against that. And I
Speaker 1: was multi tabling two online bracelet events on Sunday when
Speaker 1: there were two online bracelet events going on, the three
Speaker 1: K high Roller and the Mystery Bounty. And I was
Speaker 1: one of the chip leaders in the three K high
Speaker 1: Roller with over eighty big lines. I was in seventh place,
Speaker 1: and I had eleven big lines in the Mystery Bounty.
Speaker 1: And I went all in in the Mystery Bounty with
Speaker 1: a six OFFT suit and then realized that I had
Speaker 1: misclicked and went all in in the three K high
Speaker 1: Roller with the a six OFFT suit and not the
Speaker 1: Mystery Bounty. And I was and I was called by
Speaker 1: Pocket Aces and that was the only stack at my
Speaker 1: table I actually covered me. I had eighty big lines.
Speaker 1: I had eighty biglines. The Pocket Aces had eighty six
Speaker 1: big lines. We were two of the biggest stacks in
Speaker 1: the tournament. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you
Speaker 1: absolutely torched three thousand dollars on fire. I just I've
Speaker 1: never done that before. It has never happened to me.
Speaker 1: And I was just I was mortified. I was like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, how did I do that? And then
Speaker 1: I also imagined the person tagging my profile right online,
Speaker 1: I'm being like donkey fish like shoves eighty big lines
Speaker 1: over and open with a six opsuit. The funny thing
Speaker 1: is that would have actually gotten through like ninety nine
Speaker 1: percent of the time. This person just happened to have
Speaker 1: pocket aces. But yeah, so so that was a major
Speaker 1: mis click. Don't multitask people, It's not a good idea. No.
Speaker 2: Look. One thing you notice is that as you get
Speaker 2: deeper in these events and you and maybe deeper in
Speaker 2: the series, people are more fatigued. Right, You notice more
Speaker 2: puns like avoiding a pun?
Speaker 1: Did do you think that was a punt?
Speaker 2: A certain type of punt. It's a point caused by
Speaker 2: fatigue or inattendants. I suppose right.
Speaker 1: The windows had changed places that in my defense, so
Speaker 1: so they.
Speaker 2: Use like the wrunk place or something or like I
Speaker 2: barely should But.
Speaker 1: No, I don't. I don't you can change I don't
Speaker 1: even know how to do that. I think you can
Speaker 1: change the felt of all your tables, but I don't
Speaker 1: know if you can change the felt of just one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I like if I when I have barely been
Speaker 2: playing online anymore. When I do, I will use different colors.
Speaker 2: Give me visual cues. But yeah, look, I think and
Speaker 2: I've misclicked in real life too, you know, put out
Speaker 2: the wrong chip and and things like that. I think
Speaker 2: only I had like one or two of those and
Speaker 2: four or five weeks this year, which is for me
Speaker 2: pretty good, right. But no, I mean, I know I
Speaker 2: went on of the main event and a blaze a glory,
Speaker 2: I triple blarow, bluffed with the combo draw. I think
Speaker 2: it was a good play. But you know, and even
Speaker 2: if you make a misclick, I think you have to
Speaker 2: be kind of like butterfly effect as a term pocket
Speaker 2: players for some people use for like, everything in the
Speaker 2: event's different from the time that you play a hand.
Speaker 2: The cards are shuffled differently, you give them back the
Speaker 2: dealer differently, right, the random number seat is different online
Speaker 2: and so like, well, for sure, I think I think
Speaker 2: people make.
Speaker 1: There are lots of Yeah, there are lots of butterfly effects.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Yesterday during the World Poker Tour event that I was playing,
Speaker 1: there was one hand where I ended up folding a
Speaker 1: big combo draw on the flop. After there was you know,
Speaker 1: a bed and a reraise, and I you know, I
Speaker 1: just determined that you know, there's no way I'm good
Speaker 1: and I'm so basically, I ended up folding and had
Speaker 1: I just called, which I was very close to calling,
Speaker 1: you know the pod odds we were there, but I
Speaker 1: just I ended up folding. It was a big multi
Speaker 1: way pot and I actually hit it on the turn,
Speaker 1: but I had folded my hand, and I would have
Speaker 1: knocked out this incredibly aggressive player who then went on
Speaker 1: to build a huge stack. And it's so funny because
Speaker 1: I was just thinking back to that hand. I didn't
Speaker 1: make a mistake, and you can't think that way, right, Like,
Speaker 1: if you made the correct fold, it's okay if you
Speaker 1: hit it, Like, you can't think that way. But I
Speaker 1: was like, huh, I was actually thinking about the butterfly
Speaker 1: effect and kind of downstream effects. I was like, had
Speaker 1: I called right, this guy would not have knocked out
Speaker 1: all these other players, and so many other people's tournaments
Speaker 1: would have been very, very different from that one hand.
Speaker 1: And I mean that's true of so many decisions in
Speaker 1: life obviously, but in poker you can actually track them.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of funny, right in poker, you can track, like,
Speaker 1: had this hand played out differently, you know, all of
Speaker 1: these other things happen, and I think that that's just
Speaker 1: a good to remember and also good not to dwell on, right, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, that's life and that's the nature of randomness.
Speaker 1: So yeah, Nate, we can wrap up the World Series,
Speaker 1: and we'll wrap up next week after I actually finish
Speaker 1: and we know who the main event winner is. Let's
Speaker 1: take a break and then switch gears and talk about
Speaker 1: something a little bit more serious. So, Nate, the last
Speaker 1: few weeks, there's a name that's never really gone away,
Speaker 1: but has been a little bit less in the air
Speaker 1: and suddenly is back in the spotlight. Jeffrey Epstein.
Speaker 2: Jeffrey Epstein.
Speaker 1: We thought, we thought we were done. We thought we
Speaker 1: were done, and we were not done.
Speaker 2: There was a member of the New York State Assembly
Speaker 2: named Harvey Epstein who was running in my legislative district.
Speaker 1: That's a little bit of the most talked of fortunate. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you know, Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide. I'm going to
Speaker 1: put it in quote because we're going to be talking
Speaker 1: about conspiracy theories, so I'm going to put it in
Speaker 1: in quotation marks. But this is a conspiracy theory that
Speaker 1: actually a lot of people believe in he committed suicide
Speaker 1: in prison while awaiting trial on various charges of sex trafficking,
Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera. His co conspirator, Gislen Maxwell, is
Speaker 1: serving a prison sentence currently, I think twenty years. But
Speaker 1: the Epstein files, right, the files that all of this
Speaker 1: was built on, clients, video footage, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 1: There's been talk that this exists, right, that there's like
Speaker 1: this treasure trove of data that's been kept secret. And
Speaker 1: one of the things that Donald Trump said is, We're
Speaker 1: going to bring all these people to justice. We are
Speaker 1: going to kind of bring the Epstein files to the light.
Speaker 1: We're going to share all of this. And then all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, no, there are no there's no there
Speaker 1: are no client lists, there's nothing there. We should forget
Speaker 1: Jeffrey Epstein. No one cares about him, nothing's going to
Speaker 1: be released, and so the statement's completely changed, and so
Speaker 1: conspiracy theories are in the air and people think that
Speaker 1: there's some massive cover up, and this is one of
Speaker 1: those moments. And these moments are incredibly rare. Inn You
Speaker 1: and I have talked about this before, where there seem
Speaker 1: to be you know, Trump's supporters who are saying, wait, wait,
Speaker 1: wait a second, what the hell? Right, we were promised
Speaker 1: names and justice for these people who have committed sex
Speaker 1: crimes against children, right, what's going on now? Why are
Speaker 1: you telling us that there are no names? And so
Speaker 1: this is one of those rare moments where people seem
Speaker 1: to not be happy on the Republican side as well
Speaker 1: as on the Democratic side.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what's a conspiracy theory, Maria in your opinion, Well.
Speaker 1: There are plenty of conspiracy theories in here. I mean,
Speaker 1: one of the biggest ones is that, obviously, as Elon
Speaker 1: Musk alleged after his falling out with Trump before his
Speaker 1: reconciliation with Trump. Although now I think they've fallen out again.
Speaker 1: I can't. I can't keep it straining. They're in, they're out,
Speaker 1: they're in, they're out. But I think they're out right now.
Speaker 1: But Elon Musk alleged Trump's name is in the files,
Speaker 1: and not in a good way, because let's uh, let's
Speaker 1: just caveat this for a second. So if your name
Speaker 1: is in quote unquote the Epstein files, that doesn't actually
Speaker 1: mean that you're implicated, right, The Epstein files is just
Speaker 1: to catch all name for all of the evidence trial transcripts,
Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera. So you might have been deposed, right,
Speaker 1: you might have been giving a statement, you might have
Speaker 1: been There's there are a lot of ways your name
Speaker 1: can end up in the Epstein files. But what Elon
Speaker 1: Musk suggested alleged was that was tied up in it
Speaker 1: in not in a deposition way, but in a much
Speaker 1: more direct way. And so the biggest conspiracy theory might
Speaker 1: be that, you know, Donald Trump does not want these
Speaker 1: files released because they implicate him. Right, So that's I
Speaker 1: think the biggest conspiracy theory Trump and other people who
Speaker 1: are high up in the government.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, I I'm not sure I love
Speaker 2: the term conspiracy theory. It's like a kind of cousin
Speaker 2: of misinformation, which is the term I don't like necessarily
Speaker 2: and part because like some conspiracy theories like later proved
Speaker 2: to be true or plausible, right, I mean, the Lablique
Speaker 2: thesis of Covied origins is not generally accepted as the truth.
Speaker 2: It's generally accepted though now by the scientific community in
Speaker 2: most governments, is a plausible you know, fifty to fifty
Speaker 2: or something theory, Right, Things like the Tuskegee experiment or
Speaker 2: lower stakes more recent like you know Hunter Biden's laptop.
Speaker 2: There's lots of stuff that gets labeled this way, and like,
Speaker 2: why wouldn't why shouldn't you be a little suspicious of
Speaker 2: whether Epstein really killed himselves? Right? Oh?
Speaker 1: No, I mean that one for sure, that one I
Speaker 1: actually am suspicious off as well. I think that a
Speaker 1: lot of things get labeled conspiracy theory. I think conspiracy
Speaker 1: theory is an incredibly useful term, but it can't get
Speaker 1: thrown around on things that it doesn't actually fit. This
Speaker 1: is the same argument I make with con artists when
Speaker 1: people are like, oh, this is a con artist. That's
Speaker 1: a con artist. I'm like, no, you need to be
Speaker 1: specific in what a con artist is, right. A con
Speaker 1: artist is an incredibly specific term, and you can't start
Speaker 1: labeling all people con artists that you disagree with or
Speaker 1: that you think our salesmen are, you know, doing something
Speaker 1: that you think is a little bit icky, because at
Speaker 1: that point, con artist stops meaning anything. And I think
Speaker 1: that's the same is true of conspiracy theory. Nate, Have
Speaker 1: I told you my favorite conspiracy theory joke about the
Speaker 1: jfk assassination, Someone.
Speaker 2: About God or yeah, go tell tell to the audience.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, So you know, this guy dies and he's
Speaker 1: kind of been an his entire life. He's been obsessed
Speaker 1: with the jfk assassination and that's kind of his He
Speaker 1: just wants to know. He's been digging and digging and digging.
Speaker 1: And he gets to Heaven and he's at the pearly
Speaker 1: gates and God says, you know, you have one question,
Speaker 1: and I promise to answer it truthfully anything in the
Speaker 1: world that you want to know. And he says, okay, yes,
Speaker 1: I know exactly what I want to ask. Who killed Kennedy?
Speaker 1: And God says, you know, it was Lee Harvey Oswald.
Speaker 1: He was acting by himself, there were no co conspirators.
Speaker 1: And the guy says, oh man, this thing goes further
Speaker 1: up than I thought.
Speaker 2: I've always loved that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, look, I mean it's that joke just absolutely encapsulates
Speaker 1: the way that conspiracy theorists' minds work that no matter
Speaker 1: what evidence you present, no matter kind of what you
Speaker 1: show them, once they believe something, they will go to
Speaker 1: the end of the world to prove that that's true.
Speaker 1: And you can't bring them out of that conspiratorial frame
Speaker 1: of mind. So that's the distinction, right, where with something
Speaker 1: like the COVID labliku. By the way, you know, people
Speaker 1: were trying to discredit that theory and make it seem
Speaker 1: like a conspiracy theory, but you know, as evidence mounted up,
Speaker 1: it became less and less plausible to do that. So
Speaker 1: you know, you have people on both sides of that,
Speaker 1: including people who said it was definitely not a lablak
Speaker 1: who did change their minds. So that's kind of a
Speaker 1: little bit you know, I think a little bit of
Speaker 1: a nuanced difference between before.
Speaker 2: And some of them initially thought it was a lableak
Speaker 2: and then changed their mind and then changed their back, right.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, this is a case where it's like, Okay,
Speaker 2: what evidence do you have of like people conspiring to
Speaker 2: manipulate the evidentiary record. In that case, there was actually
Speaker 2: lots of like foid documents and things like that that
Speaker 2: seemed to involve discourse. It was like not very scientific. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I think one thing you have to like think about
Speaker 2: is like who are the alleged co conspirators and how
Speaker 2: plausible is it that like that they're all working in
Speaker 2: cahoots with what you're.
Speaker 1: Right, absolutely absolutely. I think I think that when you're
Speaker 1: looking at conspiracy theories, one of the questions you have
Speaker 1: to ask, and this is something that I think we
Speaker 1: talk about a lot on the show, is incentives. Right,
Speaker 1: what are the incentives here? Who has the incentive to
Speaker 1: kind of cover this up? Is? Is it plausible? Right?
Speaker 1: And why?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: So, in the case of something like the COVID lovel Yeah,
Speaker 1: the incentive structure was bad, and it was so that
Speaker 1: makes it much more likely. In the case of a
Speaker 1: JFK assassination, No, I mean, I'm sorry, Like, the incentive
Speaker 1: structure was very different, right, it was the assassination of
Speaker 1: a president. Like, everyone's incentives are aligned to try to
Speaker 1: figure out what the hell happened. So, you know, those
Speaker 1: are two incredibly different situations. Now, in the case of
Speaker 1: something like Jeffrey Epstein the Epstein Files, it can get money, right,
Speaker 1: because it's become clear that a lot of incredibly powerful
Speaker 1: people were involved for years in what in Epstein's antics.
Speaker 2: I mean, I've never really thought much about the Jeffrey
Speaker 2: Epstein story until this Trump angle, I guess, right. I mean, look,
Speaker 2: I do think on a basic level, when like when
Speaker 2: people promised to reveal information and then a very circumspect
Speaker 2: about it later. Then that's a very reasonable plug. You know,
Speaker 2: if a guy my age wearing a hat probably not
Speaker 2: that much underneath. Right, it's not a conspiracy theory. It's
Speaker 2: like inference, human inference that normal people would make. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And I mean it's like.
Speaker 1: By the way, we do have evidence. But with Jeffrey
Speaker 1: Epstein that he there was tons of evidence against him,
Speaker 1: and very powerful forces blocked it from coming to trial
Speaker 1: many many times until it finally did in twenty nineteen. Right,
Speaker 1: there were a lot of attempts to prosecute him, a
Speaker 1: lot of attempts to bring him to justice, and they
Speaker 1: never went anywhere. So we know that there were a
Speaker 1: lot of very powerful forces on his side for a
Speaker 1: very very long time. So that's more evidence, just like
Speaker 1: your hat night.
Speaker 2: And I guess as I've gotten like older and a
Speaker 2: bit wealthier, like I do think that, like you know,
Speaker 2: powerful people, the circles are kind of small, I mean,
Speaker 2: extremely powerful people, right, the circles are kind of small.
Speaker 2: They kind of all know one another. Right. They can
Speaker 2: be kind of high on their own supply or unscrupulous
Speaker 2: in different ways, I think, Right, like, yeah, I don't know,
Speaker 2: and you as to see when they fail, right, Like
Speaker 2: in New York, we have a lot of rich people
Speaker 2: who are very unhappy as a Roun Mamdanni who won
Speaker 2: the primary, and are very unhappy that like all the
Speaker 2: alternatives to him suck and have been rejected by voters,
Speaker 2: and they are powerless. It's kind of fun to watch it, Like, no,
Speaker 2: there's not really any toil. Let's get a right in
Speaker 2: on the ballot. You can't really get people off the ballot,
Speaker 2: but yeah, it's funny when the perfectable can't control everything.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I mean with this specific administration, given how
Speaker 1: much information manipulation has to in place. I always you know,
Speaker 1: I hate like because I'm so against conspiracy theory like thinking,
Speaker 1: and I think it's such a pernicious kind of way
Speaker 1: that our minds work because people are very susceptible, and
Speaker 1: some people more than others. But our minds do get
Speaker 1: susceptible to kind of conspiracy theory like thinking, because there's
Speaker 1: a lot of things going on cognitively, right, Like the
Speaker 1: human brain loves to see patterns, right, and loves to
Speaker 1: find patterns where patterns don't exist. You know, it's something
Speaker 1: that like we always do, or patterns seeking animals, and
Speaker 1: that manifests themself in all sorts of ways. We like
Speaker 1: cause and effect, right, we don't like uncertainty. We like
Speaker 1: to tell stories. So there are all of these things
Speaker 1: that predispose us to kind of falling for conspiracy's cognitive dissonance.
Speaker 1: You know. That's kind of one of the original, kind
Speaker 1: of original theories that explains a lot of conspiracy thinking
Speaker 1: with Leon Festinger back in nineteen fifty. Now, I'm sure
Speaker 1: you know this very famous story, right, the Alien cult
Speaker 1: the Seekers. There was a woman, Dorothy Martin, who communicated
Speaker 1: with alien civilizations, and she had a date that you know,
Speaker 1: aliens were going to come and take all of these
Speaker 1: faithful people with her. That everyone believed her. You know,
Speaker 1: there was this big cult. The day came and went
Speaker 1: and there were no aliens, and then she's like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, we got the dates wrong in this rod
Speaker 1: and the cult didn't fall apart, right, They still believed her, right,
Speaker 1: They were like, oh, okay, you know she's not lying.
Speaker 1: She really does communicate. It was just other stuff and
Speaker 1: you explain everything away. And that was kind of one
Speaker 1: of the original manifestations that was studied in a serious
Speaker 1: way about how the human brain is just capable of
Speaker 1: just dismissing everything right and just telling its own story.
Speaker 1: So this is all kind of a big aside to
Speaker 1: say that I am very much against. As soon as
Speaker 1: something is like a conspiracy theory, I want to try
Speaker 1: to debunk it, right. But then sometimes you find yourself
Speaker 1: being like, Okay, well this is what we were talking about,
Speaker 1: Like with the COVID LABLA immediately I was like, no,
Speaker 1: this seems actually like it might be plausible, right, Like
Speaker 1: even back then, I was like, why are we dismissing
Speaker 1: this right away? We have no evidence. There's so much uncertainty,
Speaker 1: there's so much unknown, there's so much ambiguity. How can
Speaker 1: you know for sure it was one or the other? Right?
Speaker 1: You need to as a scientist, you need to entertain
Speaker 1: all the possibilities before you get more evidence. And with
Speaker 1: the Epstein files, like I actually have the same feeling
Speaker 1: like wait, like why are we dismissing it one way
Speaker 1: or the other? Like we need more evidence, we need
Speaker 1: to know what's going on. And if you look at
Speaker 1: the incentive structures, like I don't know, the incentive structures
Speaker 1: are all out of whack here. Right, Maybe there's nothing there,
Speaker 1: but maybe there is, And we can't just dismiss it.
Speaker 1: We can't just say it's a conspiracy theory. Like it's
Speaker 1: one of these things where there is this cloud of
Speaker 1: uncertainty and ambiguity that hampers accurate decision making, accurate decision assessment.
Speaker 1: And those are the moments where we need to be
Speaker 1: careful and entertain all sides and not dismiss anyone as
Speaker 1: conspiracy theorists as much as I hate to say it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I take an even more obvious example. You know,
Speaker 2: there was a conspiracy I'll use that term among senior
Speaker 2: White House officials to cover up Joe Biden's cognitive decline. Right,
Speaker 2: And you would be called lots of names if you
Speaker 2: kind of pointed that out. And there's an example of
Speaker 2: where it was a very small circle, right, I mean,
Speaker 2: like sometimes the signs of this are like pretty obvious, right, Like,
Speaker 2: it seems like there's got to be some politically inconvenient
Speaker 2: angle for Trump somewhere in the Epstein vials, right, don't
Speaker 2: know if it's him, or when it's associates, or if
Speaker 2: it's minor or super major or whatever else. Right, But
Speaker 2: like that's the not just the reasonable for, but the
Speaker 2: correct probabilistic inference from from something like that happening.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I think given how all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: you know, the total about face that we have from
Speaker 1: the administration, that's just like one eighty. And this administration
Speaker 1: pulls one eighties all the time right on very stupid things.
Speaker 1: So in and of itself, it's kind of meaningless, but
Speaker 1: there is a signal in there as well, because every
Speaker 1: time they pull a one eighty, it's for politically expedient purposes. Right,
Speaker 1: So when they pull one eighties on tariffs, when they
Speaker 1: pull one eighties on immigration or whatever it is, it's
Speaker 1: always because of some politically expedient reason. And so what
Speaker 1: the easiest explanation here is that there's another politically expedient
Speaker 1: reason why they all of a sudden say that there's
Speaker 1: no information, there's nothing to be had, there's nothing to
Speaker 1: be gained, and let's move on, and nobody cares about Epstein.
Speaker 1: So political expedience is always and what's good for Trump, right,
Speaker 1: what's good for number one is always the top reason.
Speaker 1: And we've seen that his entire administration is very happy
Speaker 1: to go along with whatever that is.
Speaker 2: There's a three percent chance that Jeffrey Epstein is found
Speaker 2: alive this year by deciding first coordinated polymarket Polymarke, are
Speaker 2: you taking me under or the over? I'm taking the
Speaker 2: under on that about a little one percent taking me
Speaker 2: under on that.
Speaker 1: Although I did just you know, I'm still in Vegas.
Speaker 1: I did just see Elvis on the streets.
Speaker 2: So okay, you know, so you never know, people come back.
Speaker 1: From the dad all the time.
Speaker 2: By the way, I'm a paid advisor to Polly Market,
Speaker 2: you know, like the where they mentioned like the health
Speaker 2: symptoms like really fast, Like I'm a Polly Market. It's
Speaker 2: just like compress that in. We should compress that in
Speaker 2: for all future episodes. But I do. I do, uh
Speaker 2: work with them and receive income for that. Who's the
Speaker 2: comedian who people say isn't dead. I don't remember Andy Kaufman.
Speaker 2: Andy Kaufen Yah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Andy Kaufman. Yeap, Yes, that is correct. There are
Speaker 1: lots of people, you know, Jimmy Hoffa might pop up
Speaker 1: at any moment, although I think Jimmy hoff is probably
Speaker 1: on the bottom of Lake Mead or in the desert somewhere.
Speaker 1: But yeah, there are lots of people who might come
Speaker 1: back to life, but conspiracy theories, you know, they're they're
Speaker 1: here to stay, were incredibly susceptible to them. In general,
Speaker 1: we hear on Risky Business, do not endorse conspiracy theory
Speaker 1: like thinking, but you need to learn how to separate
Speaker 1: things that you know are actual conspiracy theories from people
Speaker 1: voicing opinions that could be labeled conspiracy theories because someone
Speaker 1: thinks it's inconvenient and it's a nuanced distinction, and it's
Speaker 1: very difficult to make it accurately because some people would say, well,
Speaker 1: you know jfk assassination, people are incentivized against me. Well, no,
Speaker 1: like you, you really do need to look at the
Speaker 1: actual incentives and try to be a little bit more
Speaker 1: rational about that to try to make those determinations.
Speaker 2: People will use the phrase like no evidence, right, and
Speaker 2: that can be a loaded phrase.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: No evidence often means no proof. But in many of
Speaker 2: these mysteries, nothing is firmly proven, Like you know, on
Speaker 2: the COVID origins, nothing's been firmly proven for example, right,
Speaker 2: and so like, So take on different valances when it's
Speaker 2: a liberal or conservative cause. What can be frustrating with
Speaker 2: certain types of stories. It's like, you know, who do
Speaker 2: I really trust to report on like the Epstein case.
Speaker 2: I'm not quite I'm not quite sure. I'm not I'm
Speaker 2: not sure. If I devoided to vote a week, if
Speaker 2: I decide to like become semi obsessed with the Epstein case,
Speaker 2: I don't know what I conclude.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: It's one of those things that like you almost have
Speaker 2: to turn up the news coverage because it's like, Okay,
Speaker 2: do I want to go down a rabbit hole here
Speaker 2: and like whose claims are trustworthy? And who's a grifter
Speaker 2: and and who's not? And that can be that can
Speaker 2: be difficult. Let's take a quick break, and when we return,
Speaker 2: how will the Epstein rift affect Trump's coalition? Look, I
Speaker 2: think the political implications are interesting. It's maybe the closest
Speaker 2: we've gotten to like for the MAGA base where this
Speaker 2: is an issue where I mean Trump campaigned at various
Speaker 2: times on opening up the Epstein files, right, and like,
Speaker 2: so you actually see in the MAGA world, or at
Speaker 2: least according to these people who interact with it more
Speaker 2: than I do, you actually do see some descent. Trump
Speaker 2: got ratio that means a negative response on his own
Speaker 2: social media platform, like truth social and so it's interesting, right,
Speaker 2: It's interesting. It's a popcorn kind of sitting on the
Speaker 2: sideline story for me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I'm actually, I'm actually this is something that
Speaker 1: we haven't talked about yet. But I'm curious about your
Speaker 1: thoughts on potential since this is like a popcorn story.
Speaker 1: Do you think it's a popcorn story for Trump's base
Speaker 1: or do you think it might have some more lasting impact.
Speaker 1: So at the beginning, I kind of implied that a
Speaker 1: lot of Trump supporters are not happy right with this,
Speaker 1: about with this particular about face, right that they were
Speaker 1: promised that, you know, there'd be justice and the Epstein files,
Speaker 1: and now they're told no Epstein files, and they're like,
Speaker 1: what's going on? You know, we want these child sex
Speaker 1: criminals brought to justice. We've seen you know, a lot
Speaker 1: of quote unquote rifts in Trump's base that then disappear
Speaker 1: because then they're like, no, no, okay, fine, we love
Speaker 1: we love Donald Trump and everything's going to be fine.
Speaker 1: Do you think that this one has potential to be
Speaker 1: more lasting or do you think it's also going to
Speaker 1: be a blip and then all of the Trump supporters
Speaker 1: are going to recoalesce and forget all about it and
Speaker 1: move on. Because, as we've already talked about many many
Speaker 1: times on the show, memory short and people love Trump.
Speaker 2: One thing I not is like the incentives are a
Speaker 2: little bit different now that Trump no longer has anything
Speaker 2: to run for. This is, unless he's trying to violent
Speaker 2: the constitution. I guess could run for any non president office.
Speaker 2: It could become, you know, mayor of New York, mayor
Speaker 2: primaries or un or whatever. Right, I sh wouldn't be
Speaker 2: a primary, most.
Speaker 1: Likely mayor of New York.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, no, uh. It could be a win win, right,
Speaker 2: Maybe you get him out of the presidency. Maybe Bill
Speaker 2: Lackman's like, I know a guy, He's a smart businessman, right,
Speaker 2: politically moderate, you know, well known celebrity entrepreneur, right real
Speaker 2: estate magnate. Donald Trump writing campaign for mayor of New York. Sorry,
Speaker 2: what which question, Maria?
Speaker 1: No, look gonna how's this gonna work out for? Do
Speaker 1: we think that this is actually going to have any
Speaker 1: sort of lasting impact on the Trump based on his coalitionhow? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Looky?
Speaker 1: Is it gonna fizzle out? Again?
Speaker 2: I think it could be a little self for as
Speaker 2: Trump gets more unpopular and gets further removed from the
Speaker 2: election and does have another election. I think you could
Speaker 2: see like people on the right more willing to challenge
Speaker 2: him potentially, Right, they got their big beautiful bill pass,
Speaker 2: a lot of us being done through executive order. Otherwise,
Speaker 2: like not like there's that much good to go on
Speaker 2: through Congress if his siplitical standing is is damaged or
Speaker 2: I don't know, I'm not like one of these like
Speaker 2: right wing group check whisper types exactly. It seems just
Speaker 2: in the news coverage that like that you are seeing
Speaker 2: rifts that you haven't seen before.
Speaker 1: It does seem that way, And I'm actually I'm going
Speaker 1: to be very curious to watch this because one of
Speaker 1: the phenomena that we've talked about and that we've observed
Speaker 1: many times here is that so far there has been
Speaker 1: nothing lasting right. So far, there have been no rifts
Speaker 1: that have actually become rifts in that kind of maga
Speaker 1: core coalition. Right. We've seen we've seen moments where we're like, oh,
Speaker 1: like are people going to turn against Trump for this? Oh,
Speaker 1: are they going to turn against Trump for this? And
Speaker 1: it hasn't happened. Right, They've kind of forgotten and they've
Speaker 1: told the story in different ways cognitive dissonance dissonance reduction
Speaker 1: at its best. You know, the aliens are still coming.
Speaker 1: It's just the date has changed. But it does like
Speaker 1: right now, at least in this stage of the news cycle.
Speaker 1: And it's so you know, it's so tough to know
Speaker 1: how this will play out long term, but it does
Speaker 1: seem like this might be like it might be building
Speaker 1: up right, And maybe that's just wishful thinking. I have
Speaker 1: no idea, but I'm very, very curious to see how
Speaker 1: it will turn out and whether this is a breaking
Speaker 1: point or not. You know, I would I would probably
Speaker 1: take the or not side of that bet, just because
Speaker 1: that's the way that you know, historically it's it's played out.
Speaker 1: I think that you know, in a few weeks we'll
Speaker 1: look back at the segment and laugh and say, yeah,
Speaker 1: of course, everyone's forgotten all about it. But as of now,
Speaker 1: it seems like there is at least a non zero
Speaker 1: chance that this might have some lasting coalition changes, especially
Speaker 1: as other people might start rising up to try to
Speaker 1: not challenge Trump but establish themselves as people who might
Speaker 1: kind of be party leaders going forward. As we get
Speaker 1: deeper into the presidency, closer to the midterm elections closer
Speaker 1: to other incentives that might matter to the electorate.
Speaker 2: Right, I think I've thought enough about Jeffrey Episteine for
Speaker 2: your day. You want to call the show, Let's do it.
Speaker 1: Thanks everyone for following along. Good luck everyone.
Speaker 2: Like the world series of Poker of this podcast is ending,
Speaker 2: not permanently this episode, yes, just for the week, just
Speaker 2: for the week.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let us know what you think of the show.
Speaker 1: Reach out to us at Risky Business at pushkin dot fm.
Speaker 1: And by the way, if you're a Pushkin Plus subscriber,
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Speaker 1: Risky Business is hosted by me Maria Kannakova.
Speaker 2: And by me Nate Silver. The show is a co
Speaker 2: production of Pushkin Industries and iHeartMedia. This episode was produced
Speaker 2: by Isabelle Carter. Our associate producer is Sonia Gerwit. Sally
Speaker 2: Helm is our editor, and our executive producer is Jacob gold.
Speaker 2: Scene mixing by Sarah Bruguer.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for tuning in mm HM