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Comment by johnwheeler | Hacker News Reader

I saw the email correspondence between him and Epstein. The sense that I got is he's pursuing some young girl half his age. And he actually thinks that she is attracted to him. Powerful, ugly men are so stupid sometimes.

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Men who don't pursue women don't get laid. This is an extremely important gendered asymmetry in heterosexual dating. Most men aren't attractive to most women, and if you want to be successful at dating as a heterosexual man you have to have to display a certain amount of boldness in pursuing women. Maybe the girl in question really does find Larry Summers old and ugly and wants nothing to do with him, but in general men who assume this is the case and don't even try, or who heed the words of outsiders that it is stupid to think that a girl might be attracted to you, are putting themselves at a systematic disadvantage in dating.

It was woman who was presenting her scientific work. Just to clarify the situation. I dont think these events are supposed to be about getting laid.

It was not the "fair play in bar" kind of situation at all.

Fully aware of the evolutionary forces that make men act stupid and think women more attractive than them want to jump their bones.

It doesn’t make it any less grotesque though. What I was really commenting on is the men in positions of power who think that that power is enough to get them laid. Nope. Turns out that women are attracted to... can you believe it? LOOKS!

But then you see them fumbling around like this doofus. He doesn't even know what the hell he’s doing. It’s sad.

He has no game.

That's a charitable take. It was them joking about how to leverage his power to pressure her into a relationship. Also the woman's dad is the founding president of some major Chinese bank (AIIB) that he was cozying up to.

Also a reminder, he was texting with Epstein up until the day before his arrest in 2019. Well past the point where Epstein was basically a meme for child abuse. Absolutely horrifying.

> "It was them joking about how to leverage his power to pressure her into a relationship"

Supporting background:

> "Summers went on to describe what he saw as his “best shot”: that the woman finds him “invaluable and interesting” and concludes “she can’t have it without romance / sex.”

> "Throughout June, Summers fed Epstein updates about the woman’s workload and continued contact. Epstein urged him to play the “long game” and keep her in what he called a “forced holding pattern.”"

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/11/17/summers-epstei...

Reading about the case, you get the sense that this is the general disposition from these abusers. They know what they're doing is wrong, and they understand the power imbalance, but they sort of excuse it and justify it by softly believing that the women actually want them. That they are actually sexy. And that they are helping the women, somehow.

It's quite disgusting, but also totally believable. Importantly, the soft explanations don't excuse the behavior.

She was attracted to his power, which is why she spent time with him. Don't pretend she was an innocent protege. She was a nepo child playing the same game of stays climbing.

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