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Comment by eecc | Hacker News Reader

No, I'm literally saying what you're advocating: if one has to expunge the research of an individual on the basis of their morals... well take these two examples and good luck with any progress in these fields while keeping them "canceled".

What you're suggesting is quite simple and has been done for as long as humans have been around and it has taken many names like Iconoclasm or Damnatio Memoriae.

The cynical in me suspects it's just a form of group-sycophantry, extreme conformism and virtue signaling.

Sorry mate, you can despise the person without disqualifying their speech a-priory, it's the definition of prejudice.

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> No, I'm literally saying what you're advocating: if one has to expunge the research of an individual on the basis of their morals... well take these two examples and good luck with any progress in these fields while keeping them "canceled".

No, you’re not saying what I’m saying. I don’t even know how you can have that take given my 3rd and 5th paragraphs. (My 4th could’ve been clearer even if it was trying to make the same point).

It’s the willingness of someone to violate their social norms which I regard as a problem for quality research, not the fact my moral code is being violated.

Unless you want to suggest that Gentzen and von Braun were violating the social norms of the literal Third Reich by enthusiastically supporting the government of the country they lived in which was also The Third Reich, your claim is totally different to mine.

(That said, I really wish you’d chosen a less emotive example than figures from the Third Reich, as I don’t want to even implicitly compare this situation to that one).

Next morning reflection:

I’ve just looked up the phase “Damnatio Memoriae”: that’s way beyond what I had been thinking of even the worst case scenario — the worst punishment even for literal fraud should never be worse than that which happened to Mr Andrew Wakefield. For violating social norms all I’m advocating is more scrutiny and less trust-by-default, in proportion to the nature of the violation.

I agree with your points, except your reluctance to compare this on any level with the Third Reich.

While of course the nature and the extent of the crimes committed differ drastically from one another, there is still an interesting comparison worth drawing between how the legal process was corrupted in both cases in order to facilitate their respective misdeeds.

Howso? One was a government.

At the heart of the Epstein matter is the corruption of the legal process to subjugate a class of persons who is viewed as "less worthy" by denying them basic human rights.

In the case of the Third Reich, it was jews, gypsies, etc.

In the case of "Epstein and his Jewish Enablers" (see the article linked in OP) it was underage white female "trailer park trash," as Ghislaine Maxwell herself liked to call them.

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