Look at Ethan Zuckerman's post on leaving MIT where you can see he urged Joi Ito to not get involved with Epstein because it was already well known that he was abusing underage girls:
http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2019/08/20/on-me-and-the-...
What about hiring people who are ex felons who served time?
Who should decide what ex-cons we can and can't associate with? I'd like to know ahead of time, because I want to give the right people a second chance, but also avoid having my career ruined for giving the wrong person a second chance. Which twitter mob will enumerate this for me?
Perhaps in this case the problem is that corruption resulted in Epstein getting far too light of a sentence. I think it did. Is it the fault of normal civilians for not realizing and compensating for judicial corruption? Should we ruin their careers for the failure of our elected officials to prevent corruption?
Optically it's bad, morally it's bad. There's also more to this than just "work" as well. If someone was a convicted child rapist, would you invite them and a bunch of young women to your parties and take pictures like this?
If we think our laws aren't working, so we need Twitter vigilante shame justice, i would prefer we rework our laws
I don't think there is any claim that these scientists attended his under-age orgies, and were thus granted funding.
Doesn't that apply to all crimes that include victims? If I understand it correctly, that's the question there: do we treat a convicted sex offender differently than, say, a murderer or ponzi scheme operator? Critique regarding his deal and the punishment aside, do they get a clean slate after they've "paid their debt to society" or not?
However, in this particular case, insofar as events have even made it to a court decision, it seems at no point this person changed their ways, and simply used his wealth to fund the legal details of continuing his behavior. I'm not sure what methods exists or what methods could be invented to account for such misuse of wealth, but it is clear this person was afforded too many second chances: he seems to have never intended to correct his behavior. It seems to me that in that space it is valid to exercise your personal right to not associate with a lastingly suspect character.
1) His "punishment" was an illegally arranged joke.
2) There's a vast chasm between shaming someone convicted of a crime and Epstein's welcomed return to polite society. He should've been working a wage-slave job like the rest of us.
> Should we reasonably expect all persons to notice when justice isn't served due to corruption, and then ruin their career as a result?
For a well-documented monster? YES!
Don't worry there are thousands of scientists ready to take the place of people like Pinker and the other "fallen heroes".
The answer to these questions is: It's totally up to you who you associate with.
I think “of interest by association” is more what is going on,and appropriately so.
> Is this what journalism is ? - Naming and Shaming people where there is no crime or unethical act committed.
“investigating and reporting facts related to matters of public interest even before it is clear what the import of those facts are, in part because that both provokes people to come forward with related information and enables additional parties to do their own related inquiries” would be more accurate than your loaded language, but, yes, reporting on matters that provide context to matters already in the public eye (which, in this case, do involve both crimes and other unethical acts) that are not themselves clearly criminal or unethical is an important part of journalism.
I think it's especially obvious with churches. When a bunch of people get together to fund and empower a guy, they share responsibility for what is done with that power. If that power is used to harm, a factual accounting of who did what seems entirely fair, as does asking them what they have to say for themselves.
Your analogy isn't very good, though, because all of the people mentioned in this article are public figures. They sought out prominent roles in society. They receive significant benefits from the public, either directly or indirectly.
These are the same activists posing as journalists that label someone like Joe Rogan "alt-right adjacent" because he's willing to have a conversation with people right of center.
It's fine to bag politicians and 'other tycoons' who associated with him. There are legitimate concerns about influence and, you know, who else is a pedo, in those cases.
But I think if I had been a scientist in need of funding, I'd gladly have taken his money, even knowing about the convictions. In fact, I'd have tried to to take as much as I possibly could, and then tell him to FO once I'd done my breakthrough study.
It's different if the scientists were 'bending' their results to his benefit, but I don't think that's the case here.
And I absolutely think it matter where the money comes from, because not all money is equal. Funding agencies, grants, and other sources of money all have their own conditions, terms, and obligations. If you think Epstein's was without, then I think that is naïve.
If it's just money from a bad guy that happens to be interested in AI, medicine, or whatever, and I really suspect he justified himself by funding such 'good causes' - take it all! Ruin him!
Epstein was some kind of confidence man and hustler in addition to using underage girls for sex. It's interesting to see how wide his network was. He was able to buy or wiggle into the life of these people using his money and connections.
If you met him after his first brush with the law (and that's putting it very delicately) yes, you are guilty of association. I don't think it should be taken lightly.
The article itself doesn't make any accusations outside of the association.
Guilty of which crime ?
Is this what journalism is ? - Naming and Shaming people where there is no crime or unethical act committed.