Schrödinger’s Client List: why the Epstein conspiracy theory will not go away

In the popular telling of the puzzle of Schrödinger’s cat, a cat is in a box with three items: caesium, a radiation detector, and a vial of poison. The box is closed. At a certain point the caesium will either decay or not. If it does, the radiation detector will know this, it will smash the vial of poison, and the cat will die. If it does not, the vial of poison will remain intact, and the cat is alive. The point of this telling is that before the box is opened the cat exists in two states: alive and dead.

This isn’t Schrödinger’s actual experiment. He was writing that the statistical probability of the life of the cat is 50/50, not the actual probability. Before the box is opened it is equally likely that the cat is alive or dead, but only one of those states can be the correct one. The focus of the thought experiment is that, when you open the box, you collapse the probability of the cat being one of those two states. In the same way, quantum physics is about probabilities rather than actualities. A particle cannot be in two different states at the same time if it is just one particle.

Currently we have a similar situation with the “Epstein list”; it both exists and doesn’t exist, because we’ve been told that both states are true by the same people. Does the list exist or does it not? Well, as a skeptic, I have one question that will make some people very mad: what “list” are you talking about?

I ask, because there seem to be two lists.

One list is compiled from flight logs (and this is difficult because of the fake lists put out by Q-Anon conspiracy theorists), business contacts, legal proceedings, and social interactions. The last of which are photos, guest books, and correspondences that have all come to light since the death of Epstein.

The other list is an Area 51-like mysterious list that has everyone we despise doing illegal things on specific dates. The latter list very likely does not exist. The lack of existence, however, isn’t going to stop this “list” from doing a lot of damage.

A conspiracy theory, once we strip the details from it, is a story. It’s a narrative of what really happened underneath the official story. The actual details of the conspiracy theory do not matter compared to the satisfaction that one receives from believing in the story the conspiracy theory tells – no matter the motive for that belief.

What a conspiracy theory should never do, and what conspiracy theorists should never do, is make claims so specific that they could be accomplished. Conspiracy theorists have a lot of tools to pull from and one of them is goalpost shifting. They typically shift those posts so far away that the goal can never be realised. Flat Earthers do not ever expect to be able to go to Antarctica and those who do are quickly decried as traitors. Here, the administration hired people who set those goalposts in concrete and now have to figure out a way to pretend that they can’t see them.

One reason this Epstein story has not gone away and is now the petard upon which the US president has hoisted himself (if I’m interpreting that phrase correctly) is because his supporters and key members of his administration have used the Epstein case as a way to accuse leftists of… something. Exactly what is a little unclear, except that the Biden administration never released the documents related to the case. Part of the push for Trump’s re-election was that he would nominate people into positions so that we could finally get our hands on the Epstein documents and, most importantly, the list. This was a promise of the incoming administration. This was the mistake.

It was barely a month ago when some conspiracy theorist podcasters were invited to the White House to receive binders labelled “Epstein files release phase 1.” The White House itself had been feeding this beast since they took office. Attorney General Pam Bondi not only confirmed that there was a list, but also that the Democrats in New York had hidden documents and a “truck load” of them were being delivered to Kash Patel’s FBI for review. This was only a few months ago, but now they’ve opened the box and there’s no cat. The administration now claims that Epstein’s death was definitely the result of suicide and that there is no “Epstein list.” The case, as far as the US justice department is concerned, is closed.

What the president seems to not understand is that this is a story that can’t just be waved away, because it is his supporters keeping it going. Indeed, I doubt if anyone would have even heard of Jeffrey Epstein if it weren’t for them. People may have been aware upon his second arrest, but it was the Q people who kept this conspiracy theory going. Epstein always served as an example of a rich, powerful, connected elite, who was engaged in child sexual abuse trafficking, and was able to escape justice.

The question of the Epstein conspiracy theory has always been who he was connected to; Q-anon theorists and Trump supporters were always able to ignore the connections between Epstein and Trump as well as between Epstein and adjacent figures like Alan Dershowitz and Steven Pinker. The latter two, who worked on Epstein’s defence, could be thrown to the wolves no problem. Trump’s relationship was always assumed to be business related. However, his administration’s refusal to not only release the documents and “the list” makes that relationship seem much closer than it appeared to be.

Of course, we should not assume that a lack of evidence is evidence of anything. That’s a fallacy called “argument from ignorance”. This is the fallacy that powers the Area 51 conspiracy theories. The inflection point for this conspiracy theory, though, is that Epstein was so well connected that his crimes and misdeeds would never see the light of day. His connections, for whom the accusation is that he has plenty of video evidence of their misdeeds, would serve to keep quiet. When the president consistently tries to make the story go away, he’s only confirming the cover-up part of the story in the minds of his supporters.

Those individuals who view the Trump administration with nothing but contempt have been quick to seize on that connection, even if the connection appeared to be merely financial. The only difference is that now we have some considerable evidence that no matter what the relationship was, it was not merely a business relationship. We don’t, admittedly, have concrete evidence that the president knew about Epstein’s crimes but it is getting increasingly difficult to hold that position.

I get why people are latching on to the potential that “the list” holds, I really do, but we don’t need it. Are accusations of Trump’s involvement with Epstein, beyond what we already know, going to make any difference? Is there someone out there for whom more details are going to bend toward the side of justice? The answer to both questions is very likely “no”.

What is going to matter is not the content of “the list” but the act of not releasing it. Denizens of the conspiracy subreddit struggle with the realisation that Trump has never been on their side. The only service that pushing the “Epstein list” narrative does is force that realisation. Emotionally, this sense of betrayal might be the only thing that breaks the spell for them.