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Comment by danenania | Hacker News Reader

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.

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> 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.

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