The related Epstein-academia connection which deserves scrutiny is with Martin Nowak at Harvard. Certainly far more money involved in terms of donations. And many articles referenced him visiting with Epstein extensively, including his island.
‘Around 2007 I attended a dinner at @Harvard during which someone told me about a professor who was flying to New York, and to some island, to visit a millionaire. With that millionaire, I was told, he was raping girls. "Everybody knows" they said..‘ https://twitter.com/lpachter/status/1163608101443928064?s=21
Again with the parallels to Harvey Weinstein. All the happy, smiling people photographed with him also scrambled to distance themselves once the allegations reached a critical mass, but they all knew all along what he was. And as long as it suited their interests they were perfectly willing to look the other way.
I'm asking sincerely, I've not deeply read into this (or the Epstein story). I just always suspected that rich and influential people would generally be able to keep secrets under wraps.
I guess I just think it's kind of odd to assume that everyone who ever posed on a photo with Weinstein knew he was a rapist. That's quite a far stretch of "guilty by association"
Oddly enough, this is largely the argument which was used from the 19th century through the 1990s to bar Communists and homosexuals from government and military service, and most privileged positions in business. It now seems to have hit the cis hetero community, hard.
There may need to be a widespread opening of books. Because if "they" have it -- where "they" is whatever adversarial power or authority you care to name might be, it's pretty certain that Home Team also have a strong idea of the same facts, though are less disposed to utilise them, generally.
This also raises an interesting characteristic of information and pervasive surveillance. It's already beyond bad for the ordinary public who can be scammed, harrassed, defrauded, or coerced through legal or business threats. There's little reason to think that anyone who is in a position power is immune, and very probable that they're even more subject to such surveillance, if not outright baiting.
And whilst I've my own theories over which political stripes are more involved in this, at least presently, I've got a very strong suspicion that none can claim to be fully comprised of innocents.
Which could explain numerous elements of both oddly cooperative behaviour and failure to respond.
Barbed wire is effective without being lethal, through knowledge of repeated pain.
It's depressing too to see how many people Epstein influenced and was associated with. It's impossible that none of them knew about his sex abuse "habit." I guess it's just like with Ponzi-like financial bubbles and cooked corporate finance (e.g. Enron and now apparently GE): when the money is flowing people go along and don't ask questions. It seems to be even deeper though. I wonder if humans have a cognitive bias where when we're getting money/resources from someone we "un-see" things that could damage that relationship?
There's a character I've read about over in the UK named Jimmy Saville that seemingly got away with serial sex abuse (of virtually all ages) for his entire life. Same explanation apparently: he raised and donated a lot of money and generally threw a lot of money around.
Don't assume it's merely about the money. Many people respond equally well to offerings of sex servants...
Money definitely influences peoples' perceptions and actions - if it didn't, we wouldn't have such societal institutions as salaries, bail, alimony, tax incentives, and campaign donations. People who don't play the reciprocity game ("if I give you something, I expect at least friendly relations") rapidly find themselves socially isolated.