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Comment by leftyted | Hacker News Reader

It strikes me as inappropriate to suggest that "Anyone seriously tainted by Epstein should step down". What does "tainted" mean? What does "seriously" mean?

If "seriously tainted" means "directly linked to Epstein's criminal activities," I'd be amenable to the suggestion. But I find it concerning that the writer feels no need to be specific (though he includes vague accusations that Ito visited Epstein's private residence). Frankly, the whole thing seems like a power play to me. Maybe I'm being cynical, but it seems to me that Ghiridaradas is exploiting the situation to raise his profile.

Epstein had social relationships with many people who likely visited his private residences. We can't throw them all out because most of them are innocent. The failure point with Epstein was the justice system. What happened? Why was he allowed to walk? I want answers, but I'm skeptical of a witch hunt aimed at anyone who knew him.

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> Epstein had social relationships with many people who likely visited his private residences. We can't throw them all out because most of them are innocent.

They all had to know that he had a vast criminal record involving prostitution and minors, and yet they continued to develop relationships with him.

Would you feel comfortable developing a relationship with someone involved in a high-profile sex crimes case that had tremendous amounts of damning evidence? Epstein, for some reason, seemed to have a pretty active social life even after his trial. And it's striking how many around him downplay their relationships with him now, or actively tried to conceal his role in various activities, as MIT Media Lab did.

> Peter Cohen, the M.I.T. Media Lab’s Director of Development and Strategy at the time, reiterated, “Jeffrey money, needs to be anonymous. Thanks.”

The head of the media lab knew Epstein's donations needed to remain anonymous.

> In October, 2014, the Media Lab received a two-million-dollar donation from Bill Gates; Ito wrote in an internal e-mail, “This is a $2M gift from Bill Gates directed by Jeffrey Epstein.” Cohen replied, “For gift recording purposes, we will not be mentioning Jeffrey’s name as the impetus for this gift.”

They actively took steps internally to make sure Epstein's name wasn't on anything involving donations he directed from people like Bill Gates. So why did Bill Gates deny Epstein was even part of it? That doesn't add up.

> Signe Swenson, a former development associate and alumni coordinator at the lab, told me that she resigned in 2016 in part because of her discomfort about the lab’s work with Epstein. She said that the lab’s leadership made it explicit, even in her earliest conversations with them, that Epstein’s donations had to be kept secret.

Staff members knew what was going on, and in some cases, resigned over it.

Peter Cohen clearly knew that Epstein was not be named anywhere in fundraising activities involving him, there was clearly culture at MIT Media Lab of obscuring his donation activities, and staff members resigned over it because they knew who he was.

Hiding contact with a wealthy sex criminal and then lying about it doesn't look very innocent.

>Hiding contact with a wealthy sex criminal and then lying about it doesn't look very innocent.

"Contact" is vague and allows people to fill in the blank with a more sinister narrative. They took gift money that Epstein was "directing" (i.e. not his money), and decided not to mention Epstein in the record of the donation. I don't see a problem here.

Please consider the possibility that Epstein rewarded (or promised future rewards in life) to the minors, who by now are adults, some of which are possibly studying, PhD-studying or working MIT Media Lab. This could be hush money through the Cloak of Charity. Check out one of my other comments where I link to my longer analysis. The "gifts" and "fundraisers" used in mainstream media are plausible deniability and downplaying of hush money and hide the "creative" cloak of charity construction...

Hiding that fact that a bad person donated the money or was involved in the donation doesn't seem like that big of a deal to me. Yeah, it would be nice if the Media Lab had taken the high road. It would have been even nicer if Epstein had been locked up instead of let off.

My point is that seven degrees of separation from Jeff Epstein seems like a distraction from the real issues here. I also think it's unreasonable to expect people whose job is begging for money (and whose continued employment is tied to their ability to get it) to be particularly stringent about whom they accept the money from.

Also consider that Epstein's plea deal probably gave people like Ito and Gates some source of comfort. If the feds let Epstein off, he probably didn't do anything that bad, right? If the system catches you and then lets you go, that's a sign that you're not that reprehensible, right? Clearly that was not the case here. So why did Epstein get a deal? To me, this is the real issue, and this article is a distraction.

Is this passage from the article not damning?

> According to Swenson, Ito had informed Cohen that Epstein “never goes into any room without his two female ‘assistants,’ ” whom he wanted to bring to the meeting at the Media Lab. Swenson objected to this, too, and it was decided that the assistants would be allowed to accompany Epstein but would wait outside the meeting room.

> On the day of the visit, Swenson’s distress deepened at the sight of the young women. “They were models. Eastern European, definitely,” she told me. Among the lab’s staff, she said, “all of us women made it a point to be super nice to them. We literally had a conversation about how, on the off chance that they’re not there by choice, we could maybe help them.”

They continued to work with someone whom they suspected of trafficking women. Not years prior, before his trial — right there in their own office. That’s beyond the pale. That’s what “tainted” means.

Yes, Epstein’s plea deal for 13 months of prison time with offsite work privileges was a monstrous miscarriage of justice. That’s also an issue we need to fix. But let’s not pretend that this is the first we’re learning of the justice system’s heavy tilt in favor of rich people. There is no way Ito and Gates were unaware of how someone’s wealth and connections could allow them to escape justice.

> They continued to work with someone whom they suspected of trafficking women. Not years prior, before his trial — right there in their own office. That’s beyond the pale. That’s what “tainted” means.

So anyone who interacted with Epstein while his assistants were present is tainted? Or is taint contingent upon suspicion? If you met Epstein and decided that the rumors were baseless, are you not tainted?

> Yes, Epstein’s plea deal for 13 months of prison time with offsite work privileges was a monstrous miscarriage of justice. That’s also an issue we need to fix. But let’s not pretend that this is the first we’re learning of the justice system’s heavy tilt in favor of rich people. There is no way Ito and Gates were unaware of how someone’s wealth and connections could allow them to escape justice.

I'm tired of hearing people say things like "we know the rich can abuse the justice system" and shrugging it off with "that's a problem we have to fix". Yes, those things are true, but it's the problem we have to fix. Choosing to spend your time and energy criticizing people who didn't vet their acquaintances to your high standards or accepted money from unclean sources is unproductive. Pardon my bluntness, but I simply don't care very much that various people lack the moral scruples required to avoid the Epsteins of the world. I think most people lack those scruples, it's just that most people never get an opportunity to interact with an Epstein in the first place. They are never tempted.

How exactly did Epstein's wealth and connections get him off? That's the crux of the issue. Everything else seems like a sideshow to me.

This may disappoint you, but I don’t have a clear objective definition of what qualifies as tainted. The Media Lab intern who got him coffee is fine. Continually working with him to secure millions of dollars in funding — again, while suspecting him of still being a sex trafficker — is not. Them’s the breaks.

You asked how Epstein’s wealth and connections got him off. Here’s how: he knew powerful people who were willing to minimize or ignore his transgressions. That’s it. It’s how he escaped with such a lenient sentence legally, and it’s how he was able to continue working with organizations like MIT Media Lab professionally. You’re acting like these are entirely separate issues, when really they’re just two sides of the same coin.

> You asked how Epstein’s wealth and connections got him off. Here’s how: he knew powerful people who were willing to minimize or ignore his transgressions. That’s it. It’s how he escaped with such a lenient sentence legally, and it’s how he was able to continue working with organizations like MIT Media Lab professionally. You’re acting like these are entirely separate issues, when really they’re just two sides of the same coin.

I am very interested in exactly how "knowing powerful people" translates into a plea deal. That process is what I would like to focus on, and I am not willing to take it on faith that this is the result of a general kind of apathy or a sense that Epstein was beyond punishment.

The state almost always wants to make a plea deal in criminal cases, since trials are really time-consuming and expensive. IIRC, upwards of 90 percent of US criminal convictions arise from guilty pleas for this reason. Typically, accused criminals are much less powerful than the prosecuting attorney’s office, so the state more or less gets to set the terms of the plea bargain. (This isn’t really a good thing!) But when the accused criminal has hundreds of millions of dollars, and access to high-powered lawyers like Dershowitz and Starr, then he has a lot more power to set the terms. No prosecuting attorney wants to be on the wrong side of an acquittal like OJ Simpson or Robert Durst.

The Daily Beast reported that Acosta told the Trump transition team that he had struck the plea deal because he "was told Epstein belonged to intelligence and he should lay off." While on some level I agree with you that this is the more fundamental and important source of rot and corruption that needs to be excised, it's also the case that many different institutions at all levels of society took part in creating Jeffrey Epstein and they should all be held to account.

Maybe people are just hungry for a "win" here and the MIT Media Lab is an easier/weaker target than the CIA or Mossad. I'd feel bad for them if their behavior in this saga hadn't been utterly reprehensible and telegraphed at so many points that they knew what they were doing was wrong.

Well then, aren't those powerful people the ones whose names we should be dragging through the mud? These are the ones that got him free. Shining the spotlight anywhere else before you shine it there, is just blindness. It should be more alarming how he got that lenient sentence because that's the justice system failing.

I think it's probably fair to say he blackmailed powerful people. Especially the lawyers of kirland under lefkowitz

Wow I was downvoted for hard speech again. Ohh hackernews

> wealth and connections could allow them to escape justice

Back in 2008 Epstein was officially convicted. Now Epstein is dead.

Do you mean that Epstein's wealth and connections allowed Epstein to escape justice by suicide?

The idea that none of these people were ever exposed to further evidence of what a piece of shit Epstein was is an utterly incredible notion. He would blurt out "what does that have to do with pussy?" in the middle of the discussion at the scientists' dinners he hosted. He showed a keen interest in eugenics. And more than a few of the MIT Media Lab went with him to the island which the locals had nicknamed "pedophile island."

There is no way that none of these people -- especially the ones with means, like Bill Gates or Reid Hoffman -- had any inkling of Epstein's real nature. They just calculated that his money outweighed the risk to themselves or their institution from taking it, not to mention the shame (if they indeed ever felt any whatsoever) of helping a convicted sex offender against children rehab his reputation.

> I also think it's unreasonable to expect people whose job is begging for money (and whose continued employment is tied to their ability to get it) to be particularly stringent about whom they accept the money from.

For one thing, it's absolutely a fundraiser's job to be stringent about who they accept money from. Non-profits and banks are subject to money-laundering and anti-terrorism-financing laws that explicitly dictate "know your customer" (or donor in this case). You should never ever, deal with people that you're not comfortable being publicly associated with.

> If the feds let Epstein off, he probably didn't do anything that bad, right?

That's the source of this entire controversy, and a point that I vehemently disagree with. The prosecutor who gave him that plea agreement had to resign from his Trump admin post because of the backlash from his decision. Epstein was accused of horrific crimes, which there were mountains of evidence attesting to, and yet he basically walked away and the investigation just stopped.

Epstein got a deal because he was friends with people like Bill Gates, Bill Clinton, Donald Trump and Prince Andrew, who certainly wouldn't want an investigation into the nature of their relationships. Based on what's available publicly, it's absurd to argue that the Feds didn't punish Epstein, ergo Epstein didn't really do anything "that bad".

Grooming and sexually abusing minors for decades certainly sounds "that bad."

> Non-profits and banks are subject to money-laundering and anti-terrorism-financing laws that explicitly dictate "know your customer" (or donor in this case). You should never ever, deal with people that you're not comfortable being publicly associated with.

Huh? KYC only requires you to check that the money is legal (on both ends - incoming (money laundering) and outgoing (financing terrorism)). Nothing else.

Personally, I'd prefer to take money from someone like Epstein. I'm 99.99% certain I can direct the money to a better goal than he can (I'm only about 40% certain about Gates' money and about 2% certain about Musk's money).

The criticism is that you are letting an Epstein character buy your organization's credibility and social capital, not that the financial capital isn't being put to its best and highest use.

Indeed, which is why you should keep his name off the donor list (and any buildings), and/or publicly disavow his (other) actions.

The problem isn’t “donating money”. The problem is “selling something” (be that influence and prestige in case of Epstein, or equity and future profits in case of Saudi money).

Rapists that donate are better than rapists that don’t donate. Disagreeing with that is a classical case of the ad hominem fallacy (“you’re bad therefore everything you say / do is bad”). In case of Epstein an additional problem was that he was a powerful rapist. But the proposition that his power came from donations is naive. Power and donations have a common cause - money.

> That's the source of this entire controversy, and a point that I vehemently disagree with. The prosecutor who gave him that plea agreement had to resign from his Trump admin post because of the backlash from his decision. Epstein was accused of horrific crimes, which there were mountains of evidence attesting to, and yet he basically walked away and the investigation just stopped.

You misunderstood my point completely. I'm not saying that the government's decision to give him a deal actually means he didn't do anything wrong. I'm saying that it likely appeared that way to many people.

> Epstein got a deal because he was friends with people like Bill Gates, Bill Clinton, Donald Trump and Prince Andrew, who certainly wouldn't want an investigation into the nature of their relationships.

Is that why he got a deal? Can you provide documentation of this? To me, this is the crux of the issue. If "knowing people" is enough to get a plea deal then we have a problem, a much bigger problem than "MIT accepted $ from bad person".

> Based on what's available publicly, it's absurd to argue that the Feds didn't punish Epstein, ergo Epstein didn't really do anything "that bad".

As mentioned above, I'm not making this argument. I'm arguing that it wasn't absurd to think this way before the Epstein thing went mainstream. There were all kinds of rumors swirling around Epstein and I don't think it would have been unreasonable at all to dismiss them as rumors based on the fact that the feds let him off with a deal.

> You misunderstood my point completely. I'm not saying that the government's decision to give him a deal actually means he didn't do anything wrong. I'm saying that it likely appeared that way to many people.

This naiveté is undermined by the fact that the fundraisers themselves had very serious discussions about what to do if the women he insisted accompany him anywhere were being trafficked and wanted a way out. They knew exactly who this guy was, the story makes it perfectly clear.

I really thought you were trolling with your posts and I am trying to see even a glimpse of your argument and agree but can’t. It is like the age old saying “if you lay with dogs you get fleas” and this is 2019 the entire world is connected and our actions and reputation now expand the globe. So maybe it is okay for your morals to associate with pimps and child rapists but MIT has other donors and associates that it is actually against their morals to associate with such people. MIT new this and tried to hide the fact. There are several types of lies and this feels like a lie by omission because they knew other donars likely would distance their money away from child rapists. Is there some law forcing them to disclose all their donars, no. But they knew that fact would upset others even going as far as telling their professors this is hush hush. So they risked it and got caught. Shame on them.

>"My point is that seven degrees of separation from Jeff Epstein seems like a distraction from the real issues here."

Except that its not seven degrees of separation its exactly one degree:

"Mr. Ito said during the meeting that he had visited Mr. Epstein’s Caribbean island twice to raise money, which he has pledged to return or donate to causes that support sex-trafficking victims."[1]

And just to be clear that Ito was in fact aware:

">Nicholas Negroponte, a prominent architect who helped found the lab in 1985, told the crowd that he had met Mr. Epstein at least once since Mr. Epstein’s 2008 guilty plea in Florida for soliciting a minor for prostitution, and had advised Mr. Ito about the donations. I told Joi to take the money,” he said, “and I would do it again.”

>"Also consider that Epstein's plea deal probably gave people like Ito and Gates some source of comfort."

Wait, what? Why should anyone consider that? What kind of people take comfort in a wealthy person using their connections to bargain down a federal sax trafficking charge down to two felony "prostitution with a minor" charges?

[1]]2]https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/05/business/media/mit-media-...

> Would you feel comfortable developing a relationship with someone involved in a high-profile sex crimes case that had tremendous amounts of damning evidence?

If that relationship consisted of them anonymously giving me money, and me giving them nothing in return, then maybe?

Maybe I’m missing something, but how did Epstein benefit from this anonymous relationship with the MIT Media Lab?

Lab tours, access to students (who are barely adults), interesting people to invite to his parties, access to other wealthy donors...

Theoretically, because his legacy gets linked to prestigious research rather than trafficking children and pedophilia. I'm not sure how you would weight that downside, but Rockerfeller isn't remembered for the Ludlow Massacre (usually).

But... the donations were anonymous, right?

The founder of MIT's AI lab Marvin Minsky is accused of having sex with a minor via Epstein, there are several photos of MIT/Harvard scientists with Epstein on his island.

There is nothing anonymous about this at all. Negroponte has admitted he knew about Epstein's conviction in 2012.

And I quote "We all knew he went to jail for soliciting underage prostitution,” said Negroponte. “But we thought he served his term and repented."

What a fucking joke.

We know about them, so I'm guessing that they weren't anonymous? I didn't read it all but the New Yorker article says he acted as an intermediary between MIT Media Lab and others, so he wasn't anonymous to either party there.

That’s called a “deal with the devil” and if you’re lucky the only price is having to look over your shoulder and the shoulders of the people close to you for the rest of your life.

If you’re unlucky, you’ll look over your shoulder one day and see something you can’t unsee.

> he had a vast criminal record

Are you implying that it is immoral to develop relationships with former criminal convicts?

Except Epstein wasn't former convict (unless you insist on rigid legal technicalities). As is mostly clear now, he never mended his ways.

Besides, he wasn't the kind of criminal who killed someone in a fit of rage or robbed a bank only once. He was way worse than that. God knows how many underage girls were his victims and for how long. And he wasn't even punished for his crime.

I for sure will stay from such people unless I'm sure that guy in question has actually mended his ways.

> he never mended his ways

Did Epstein continue to run prostitution business after being convicted?

Or did Epstein continue to have sex with girls younger than 18?

I tried to find any references to that, but only found older cases (2008 and earlier): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Epstein#Civil_cases

MIT Media Labs acted the way it did because they accurately assumed you guys would act the way you are.

Its the government's job to prosecute people and encumber assets.

If the assets were part of a crime, the government has all the tools in the world to freeze those assets even if I don't agree with that ability either. if the government does not have the capability of freezing the assets, they have the capability of flagging them via sanctioning of [foreign] individuals.

this is not the responsibility of recipients. it is disingenuous to pretend like it is.

MIT Media Labs acted the way it did because they accurately assumed you guys would act the way you did. Think about all the other anonymous donations that occurred over the last decade and even today. You have no idea who is doing what and it doesn't matter. You still want projects funded, you still want cancer cured. The transactions themselves really has nothing to do with people's "access" and behavior.

Focus on the good the money did. Focus on it being Bill Gates' money if it helps you sleep better. Focus on the money not being "discovered" to be proceeds of human trafficking.

It's disingenuous to argue that an entity like MIT should behave morally, because they're only looking out for themselves and not thinking about optics?

> If the assets were part of a crime, the government has all the tools in the world to freeze those assets even if I don't agree with that ability either.

I'm not arguing that the government was incapable of doing its job. I believe, like many others who watched the Alex Acosta scandal unfold, that the government intentionally gave him a lenient sentence, for reasons we don't fully understand. MIT knew this and actively worked to keep his relationship with the school private. Why would they keep the relationship private if they didn't think what they were doing was wrong? Or are you arguing that MIT Media Lab is only permitted to act only for its own interests, even if that means working with people who was charged and convicted of sex crimes? The public shouldn't care when a known sexual predator forms secret financial relationships with a high-profile university? The guy had his own private cabin at a prestigious music summer camp for kids in the '90s.[0] This dude was a predator, but you're essentially arguing that the public has no right to know who MIT, an entity that relies heavily on public funds[1], chooses to take money from? Taxpayer funds go to pay the people working with the predators, how on earth is that not the public's business?

0: https://www.thedailybeast.com/jeffrey-epstein-had-his-own-lo...

1: http://president.mit.edu/speeches-writing/federal-funding-pr...

> even if that means working with people who was charged and convicted of sex crimes?

The person who was charged and convicted of sex crimes paid their debt to society by doing what the government told them to do. That's how it works. Criticizing that outcome is done in isolation.

I'm not arguing anything more nuanced than that.

I'm not arguing anything about donor disclosure, or the predictable consequences thereof. I'm not arguing anything about who is acting in whose interest.

It is a tragedy that our society makes a prior conviction and a sex offender designation affect people without assets by isolating them from employment opportunities and living arrangements. It is a privilege that a prior conviction and sex offender designation doesn’t affect people with liquid assets as they do not require employment to be a productive member of society. But now people are trying to extend this tragedy to the flow of assets? Silly. Uncouth.

I gather people are looking at the specific scenario and wanting to agree with the “well I wouldn’t want a sex offender to give me money either” idea, and not really considering the broader perspective of how debt is repaid to society by the government and not by the private persons.

To me, it seems that people are arguing for the societal freezing of $500M+ in assets, and that doesn't make any sense to me since money doesn't work that way and will easily route around that whether it is simply writing anonymous on the donor form, or simply forming a new LLC to obfuscate the origin. You direct the money to your causes intended to help a greater good, a simple utilitarian perspective. More benign sources of money do all those things already. It is pure hubris to think you would even have known about the origin of a donation for the privilege of judging.

“Seriously tainted” is implied to mean “if you knew about his past and continued to do business with him anyway”. Taking part in his crimes a level of evil that doesn’t even need to be mentioned — if you turned a blind eye to Epstein’s dark history while taking his money, than you are tainted, of course.

I tend to agree with your pov. Most of us will have some dodgy people in their wider acquaintances circle. Going the extreme "guilty by association" seems a bit harsh to me. It is not like you have a clear cut info all the time on everyone you happen to meet.

This is not to say that in the Ito case the info seems to be pretty damning, as at least from the way it is presented in the article there seems to be explicit collusion, but I would hesitate to broaden this to everyone who met Epstein or did business with him in some regard.

Peter, if you think "most people" have some convicted child rapists in their circle, you have a very warped view of the world.

Are you deliberately misrepresenting my comment? To what end?

If a donor is on your institution’s fundraising blacklist and you covertly conspire to raise money from that person anyway it is clear that you are at a minimum tainted by association with that person.

The people involved are executives responsible for the safety and development of minors.

Bringing a known child predator in those spaces, and socializing with him in order to fund the institution is not ok.

People at MIT, most notably Ito, have defended those decisions as innocent mistakes.

You seem to agree, and you and anyone else who feels that way should enjoy MIT. There’s a lot there to enjoy.

But the rest of us are saying, the institution has revealed itself as unfit to care for minors.

And anyone who takes that mission seriously is right to resign.

There are other schools which do take these concerns seriously.

Knowingly taking his money after 2008, with full knowledge he'd pled guilty to soliciting a minor for sex, and was credibly accused of a lot worse?

This doesn't seem that complicated.

> What does "tainted" mean? What does "seriously" mean?

Did you read TFA? I think it's quite clear what "tainted" and "seriously" mean.

Yeah, well, I don't think it's clear (but please share if you do). I see people in this thread attacking Bill Gates for his relationship with Epstein. I've seen people attacking Steven Pinker for the same reason.

To me it seems that certain people are using Epstein as a cudgel in order to remove obstacles from their path. I don't think it's reasonable to expect billionaires, public intellectuals, and the MIT Media Lab to prevent the rich, charismatic, and utterly amoral Epsteins of the world from getting around town. That's the justice system's job. They had him and they let him go. Blaming people who "enabled him" is post-hoc nonsense.

I want to know:

1. Did Epstein (as some people have been murmuring) have a relationship with some nation's intelligence agency?

2. Why did the Justice Dept. let him go?

3. Did he blackmail someone? If so, who and how?

4. Did he throw his money around to get off? If so, in what ways exactly.

5. Did two cameras actually "malfunction"? Why was he taken off suicide watch?

Of course those are all important questions, but you are clearly presenting a false dichotomy.

How about investigating the corruption that let him off the hook and shunning those with power and influence who minimized Epstein’s crimes by choosing to associate with him socially and professionally after the extent of his immorality was common knowledge? Can we not walk and chew gum at the same time?

None of these people would have acted similarly if the person in question was someone like OJ Simpson or Bernie Madoff who had been disgraced for more ‘conventional’ reasons. So why did Epstein get a pass? Is it because many of these people secretly believe that what he did wasn’t so bad? That is, unfortunately, what their behavior appears to communicate.

> Of course those are all important questions, but you are clearly presenting a false dichotomy.

I don't think it's a false dichotomy. I think every ounce of moral outrage spent condemning those who associated with Epstein (and, in some cases, stripping them of their positions) is an ounce less to spend on uncovering how Epstein got off in the first place.

Anyway, I suspect we'll be fairly successful at the former and not so successful at the latter.

It's a textbook false dichotomy. And you have it exactly backwards. A culture that can't even summon the moral courage to point out and disapprove of influential people who minimized his crimes is less likely to deeply probe all the corruption linked to Epstein, not more. Apathy begets more apathy.

Name-dropping the term "false dichotomy" is not a real argument. By using that term, you are claiming that there is no connection between the "moral outrage against Epstein associates" part and the "actually getting to the bottom of how Epstein got off" part. I disagree; I think those things are clearly connected and the former is distracting from the latter. Just because you can imagine that those things are unrelated doesn't make it so. Of course, that goes equally for me: just because I can imagine that they are connected doesn't make it so. But, either way, the term "false dichotomy" adds absolutely nothing to this discussion.

Anyway, I think you have it exactly backwards. People are not angels and the idea that "we can become a more moral society by calling out the bad people" seems incredibly suspect to me. We have systems in place to deal with transgressors. In this case, those systems failed. I want to understand exactly why and how they failed. Now, perhaps the systems really did fail because "people are apathetic" or "people don't care about crimes against women" and we can fix the problem by shaming people who were apathetic. But I'd prefer a more detailed analysis. It's not at all clear to me that Epstein got off because people were apathetic.

> I think every ounce of moral outrage spent condemning those who associated with Epstein (and, in some cases, stripping them of their positions) is an ounce less to spend on uncovering how Epstein got off in the first place.

You've provided exactly zero evidence backing up this claim. Intuitively, looking into Epstein's associates would help uncover examples of his judicial malfeasance. Why is this not the case?

> Just because you can imagine that those things are unrelated doesn't make it so. Of course, that goes equally for me: just because I can imagine that they are connected doesn't make it so.

This is not a real argument. The burden of proof is on you, since you are the one claiming there is some sort of tradeoff.

> By using that term, you are claiming that there is no connection between the "moral outrage against Epstein associates" part and the "actually getting to the bottom of how Epstein got off" part.

This is not what "false dichotomy" means. "Dichotomy" implies that there is inherent tension, not that two things aren't connected.

>I've seen people attacking Steven Pinker for the same reason.

Steven Pinker literally helped out with Epstein’s defense...

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/07/17/steven-pinker...

And there's a description in a book from one of Epstein's rape victims that sounds an awful lot like she was 'highly encouraged' to have sex with someone who sounds an awful lot like Pinker (the name is redacted but the text describes someone who matches his appearance and scientific positions to a T).

If it was indeed him, he visited Epstein's island and accepted a massage and sex from a girl ~40 years his junior when he knew the man who procured her had already been convicted of underage sex crimes....

You're being downvoted because your comment breaks this guideline:

> Please don't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that."

Can you share what these words mean to you, or your impression of what they meant to the author?

The article discusses at length a systemic cover-up of Epstein's involvement with the Media Lab. Multiple high-level people knew about it, knew that MIT had deemed that donations from him were not welcome, and tried to keep his involvement hidden. In other words, they knew they were doing something wrong, and they did it anyway.

From this, it is clear that some people were "seriously tainted" by Epstein's involvement.

Is there a question of where to draw the line? Sure. We don't have have all of the information, so clearly we can't draw a line. But when OP says

It strikes me as inappropriate to suggest that "Anyone seriously tainted by Epstein should step down". What does "tainted" mean? What does "seriously" mean?

the clear argument is that, because drawing a line is hard, we shouldn't call for any action against those who have stepped over it. That's an insult to his many, many victims and provides cover for his enablers. Honestly it's an affront to women everywhere.

> the clear argument is that, because drawing a line is hard, we shouldn't call for any action against those who have stepped over it.

I think you're putting words in his mouth. He doesn't want to see no consequences whatsoever for those who were involved with Epstein, GP argues that people are drawing arbitrary boundaries with no clear repeatable definition and then taking action on them. He wants to understand what precisely being "tainted" entails and why a particular definition is deserving of the consequences such a label entails. In other words, he rejects arbitrary and subjective persecution for an objective approach to justice.

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