> Basically, Milner is a crook, and if there was any justice in the world he and Usmanov would be in jail for what they have done. But there isn't, and there are people in the Valley who are willing to overlook ethics if you have enough money. The fact that Milner is now working with YC is a sad testament to that fact.
PG: VCs are not so high minded that they're offended by who his LPs are, believe me.
> Actually, it would seem to be just as simple as he implies. VCs in the valley care only about money and don't give a hoot about morality. You haven't debated the fact that Milner is linked to the looting of state resources; you've simply said that anyone else would also take his money if they could.
PG: even if Yuri's money was tainted in some way, it was being used as a counterweight to another bad thing.
This is the ultimate problem and it has nothing to do with US-Russia relations but rather with dealing with known seedy characters
Welcome to HN, where a 55 year old man having sex with a 16 year old girl is "not a great look".
Throw in the power and money imbalance, and still "not a great look".
Throw in that the child was having sex for money, at a time when she should've been concerned with getting good grades in high school, but it really should be a choice for high schoolers to engage in dangerous and - as it is - damaging acts like prostitution, so yup, "not a great look". A "red flag" perhaps.
We don't let 16 year olds drive cars (without restriction), buy cigarettes and alcohol, skip school (in some jurisdictions), or, hell, work full time or at hazardous occupations (in CA at least) for good reasons, but it somehow should be a choice to engage in prostitution, because the letter of the law in Alabama permits 16 year olds to have sex.
No, I don't think it's fine to feel that way, and I don't think the parent's opinion is "controversial". A rich 55-year-old paying for sex with an 11th graderis very much un-controversially a bad thing no matter how you wrap it, and no matter what the laws are in Alabama, medieval Europe, or Mars.
Please don't be an apologist for child abuse. It's not a great look.
> there are people in the Valley who are willing to overlook ethics if you have enough money.
Seems very little has changed.
While that's true of the substance of his sweetheart plea deal, there was a lot more involved than that, which was also widely reported on.
Legally, they can in much of the United States.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_the_Unite...
And if they could, the laws would need to be rewritten, because that would make child rape legal.
Repeat after me: a 16 year old having sex with a 55 year old for money is child abuse.
No one can legally consent to prostitution, except where prostitution is legal.
A 16-year-old can legally consent to sex in much of the USA, which makes the act prostitution, not “child rape”.
> Repeat after me: a 16 year old having sex with a 55 year old for money is child abuse.
Whether that's legally true depends on the state. Whether it's morally true depends on the 16-year-old (the reason for variation in age of consent laws is that there isn't a simple, clear, consistent chronological point where a bit flips from a person being incapable of mature consent to sex to capable of it), and a lot of other factors (including, potentially, the state: legality alone does not control morality but it's not completely irrelevant, either.)
I'll just note that on HN, a 16 year old girl having sex with a rich 55 year old man for money is a morally ambiguous situation, whose morality depends on "a lot of other factors" (presumably, ones not including age, wealth, and power of the 55 year old in question).
When I was 16, I was having sex with a woman who was - let's just say old enough to be prosecuted in California. It was great. If the right 55 year old came around, why the hell not?
I guess you'll claim that I'm an abused child. That's bollocks.
Or maybe you think that only girls need to be protected/infantilized?
Nobody is arguing for a world where teenagers turn tricks for a living. And sure this situation brings up all sorts of questions, and isn't "fine". But 16-18 is definitely in the grey zone of adulthood, and the majority of US states grant them a lot of sexual agency already. There's a big gap between "just fine" and "hang 'em!"
My moral judgement basically comes down to: How did the 16yo feel about it? It's really their interest we're advocating for, right?
It keeps getting better!
I'll just note that on HN people think there's a question about how a 16 year old girl feels about having sex for money with a 55 year old known child abuser (old enough to be her grandfather).
Do I need to underline every word of the above sentence for people here to stop pretending this situation is something else?
This forum is full of programmers. Here, let me try logic:
IF ((girl.age == 16)
AND (girl.had_sex == TRUE)
AND (partner.age == 55)
AND (partner.is_rich_and_powerful == TRUE)
AND (girl.is_rich) == FALSE
AND (partner.paid_for_sex == TRUE)
)
THEN
girl.has_been_abused = TRUE
girl.has_not_been_abused.probability = MACHINE_EPSILON
Perhaps, but then there's all there more reason to do so. And thanks for lending your voice! Perhaps someone reading this will feel a bit better.
I think you may have glossed over this part of the comment you're responding to
He ran an interstate recruitment ring of underage girls not just for himself but for other men. There's no justifying anything with this man.
You’ll note Ito never claims he wasn’t aware of the allegations or the guilty plea, he simply says he didn’t ever see any evidence of that behavior.
Plenty of people would pause before accepting money from someone like Epstein and plenty of people, as we’ve seen, did not.
Those that did aren’t responsible for any of Epstein’s crimes, but it’s more than fair that they answer questions about why they took money from someone like him — even if the answers are uncomfortable.