Comment by slg | Hacker News Reader

Comment by slg | Hacker News Reader

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>she was a fraudster convicted of criminal fraud...

>a former celebrity with little self-awareness, who is incapable of seeing how absurd and ridiculous she appears now that she is no longer powerful...

As someone who has seen it, there's simply no way both of these descriptions of her are true. If you believe that she's guilty of everything she's accused of doing, she's incredibly self-aware and her entire participation in this movie is a desperate Hail Mary attempt to save face in the court of public opinion. At one point in the movie Fielder is having a conversation with another person and says something along the lines of "She's either innocent or maybe the most manipulative person in human history". The movie isn't as concerned with a true journalistic investigation of her guilt or innocence, there are better accounts of that elsewhere and plenty of people who can tell that story better than Fielder. What he seems to be most interested in is the absurd commitment to she has to her claimed innocence and how effective that is or isn't.

> If you believe that she's guilty of everything she's accused of doing, she's incredibly self-aware

There was a mountain of evidence against Holmes, and she was convicted in a criminal trial. So it seems like a safe assumption that she was guilty.

Does it follow then that, because she is almost certainly guilty, that she must be "incredibly self-aware"? Of course not. It's just as likely that she is totally lacking in self-awareness, and that she simply does not know when to shut her mouth because she has no idea how stupid she sounds.

>It's just as likely that she is totally lacking in self-awareness, and that she simply does not know when to shut her mouth because she has no idea how stupid she sounds.

No, because she doesn't sound "stupid" in the movie. The mountain of evidence against her is so extreme that being able to carve out any narrative in which her innocence has any plausibility requires such a calculated and well constructed plan that is shows a high level of social intelligence and self-control. Fielder literally lives with her 24/7 for weeks and her mask doesn't slip. You don't have to believe her story to recognize she's not a "stupid" person who "does not know when to shut her mouth".

or she's just delusional, smart people can be delusional

Delusional to what degree? Because fraud and manipulation typically require intent. If she has lost touch with reality to the degree that she believes her lies, she needs psychiatric help and I haven't seen a single person offer that defense including her legal team or the two successive men that served the joint role of her business and romantic partner. If she's that detached from reality, wouldn't it be more likely that she's the one being manipulated by the non-delusional folks around her? How could she be the ringleader of this fraud and manipulation if she's the delusional one and everyone else is sane? Those are some of the questions the movie explores.

I'm thinking it's some kind of delusion of grandeur, not a delusion of ignorance, she is on some secret mission from god

If she has delusions of grandeur, I think that makes it even more likely that she's self-aware. Once again, Fielder lived with her 24/7. If Fielder didn't see it over that time, it's likely because she was hiding it, and if she's hiding it, she's likely aware of it.

You're making this out to be a binary, where delusions are more of a spectrum. She can be aware of the fact that she's deceiving people, but the motivation can be delusional. Often such a unrelenting dedication to a series of deceptions is fueled by a core delusion.

Some people live like this their entire lives to the point that constantly deceiving themselves is part of the mindset. There is likely some deep mental illness at play here.

One wonders if Theranos had been a software company, would she be lauded instead for her bold moves? Would she be on her fourth company instead of in prison? Or would she need to be male? Just seeing how the AI companies are allowed to behave.

Epstein seems to have gotten away with defrauding a couple billionaires and becoming rich and super connected in the process.

You are talking about someone that spoke with a rather manipulated voice almost 24/7 for years. Of course she can act all day, every day. It's a big part of what her job was.

Maybe I wasn't clear. I'm not saying she's innocent. I'm saying this idea of her being guilty is incompatible with this view that she's just a stupid person with no self-awareness who doesn't know when to shut up. One of those two descriptions of her is wrong.

That's why I referenced that Fielder quote. Either she's innocent (unlikely) or she's an incredibly self-aware person with a remarkable degree of social intelligence. The image she's painting of herself is too expertly constructed for her to have gotten there accidentally, it's either the truth or a deftly orchestrated piece of fiction. You can't manipulate people to the level she has been accused of through nothing but dumb luck.

I don’t agree with this view towards two options. Humans are complex and reducing it to this narrative eliminates so many possible narratives where she could be incredibly self aware in one compartment and also completely delusional in another. Multiplied by 50 different dimensions.

Once again, I guess I'm not being clear. I agree with you generally, but we aren't talking about 50 different dimensions of her character. It's not like I'm not saying her behavior at Theranos indicates something about the type of mother she is to her kids. I'm saying if she's a manipulator she's a masterful and self-aware manipulator. That's just one compartment.

Trump is a manipulator. He is totally lacking in self-awareness in one aspect, and yet very aware of how to use his speaking and actions to promote himself in another.

It's never as simple as "they are very self-aware" or the opposite extreme.

It feels like people are trying their best to not understand me. I'm not saying every manipulator is self-aware. I'm saying Holmes is self-aware.

Maybe you all have to see the movie to understand what I'm saying. In many ways, the image she presents in the movie is nearly diametrically opposed from the image you have of Holmes going in. That shows she's very likely aware of the image she had previously. She's appears to be trying to counteract the narrative in such a specific way that it can't be accidental. It's more complicated than just her continuing to claim innocence, she's practically a different person in this movie. Someone like Trump could never transform themselves like that. And it is that transformation which makes me think she's self-aware.

This is exactly what sociopaths do. What would have been interesting is having someone who knows how to trigger one talk to her. For example the FBI have technical guides on interviewing sociopaths/psychopaths with techniques for getting them to drop the mask. Having this guy living with her for all that time made him the perfect patsy for her manipulation.

Journalist Ron Jonson had the same experience. He went into a prison to interview a convicted... serial killer I think, knowing that he was a psychopath and having read up on how psychopaths manipulate people, and still came out convinced he was a poor innocent guy wrongly convicted.

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