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....

You're being downvoted because your comment breaks this guideline:

> Please don't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that."

Can you share what these words mean to you, or your impression of what they meant to the author?

The article discusses at length a systemic cover-up of Epstein's involvement with the Media Lab. Multiple high-level people knew about it, knew that MIT had deemed that donations from him were not welcome, and tried to keep his involvement hidden. In other words, they knew they were doing something wrong, and they did it anyway.

From this, it is clear that some people were "seriously tainted" by Epstein's involvement.

Is there a question of where to draw the line? Sure. We don't have have all of the information, so clearly we can't draw a line. But when OP says

It strikes me as inappropriate to suggest that "Anyone seriously tainted by Epstein should step down". What does "tainted" mean? What does "seriously" mean?

the clear argument is that, because drawing a line is hard, we shouldn't call for any action against those who have stepped over it. That's an insult to his many, many victims and provides cover for his enablers. Honestly it's an affront to women everywhere.

> the clear argument is that, because drawing a line is hard, we shouldn't call for any action against those who have stepped over it.

I think you're putting words in his mouth. He doesn't want to see no consequences whatsoever for those who were involved with Epstein, GP argues that people are drawing arbitrary boundaries with no clear repeatable definition and then taking action on them. He wants to understand what precisely being "tainted" entails and why a particular definition is deserving of the consequences such a label entails. In other words, he rejects arbitrary and subjective persecution for an objective approach to justice.