Comment by leftyted | Hacker News Reader

Comment by leftyted | Hacker News Reader

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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....

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