Strange arguments from people with weak hamming distances to my first name.

And really, this isn't a point I particularly care about. But message boards let you focus on parts of a conversation and address them independently of the rest. This isn't something I'd try to defend to the death, or would even feel the need to rebut in actual conversation. But as long as threaded messages exist, I don't see a problem with talking about these details.

The law is the law. Seems easier to comply than to transgress.

Or do you object to young women (and otherwise beautiful men and women) acting in movies and things like Victoria’s Secret shows as well (well, you could object on the “encouraging body image problems” angle but that’s orthogonal).

And anyway, if it were some kind of "fair exchange", WTF is going through his mind to bring that "entourage" to a place like the media lab. It sounds like a script to a Sacha Baron Cohen film.

Also it is highly unusual for somebody to show up at an academic event with even a trophy wife in tow.

As for the VS fashion show you do know that Epstein had some kind of hold on the CEO of their parent company, he harassed women under the pretense he was a talent scout for them and plausibly could have abused the models.

We should strive to ameliorate the conditions in the world that make this happen, so that young women can aspire to being scientists or doctors or businesswomen, instead of some corrupt asshole’s decorative servants.

Has it occurred to you that there's nothing wrong with that? It doesn't have to be a "power imbalance". When I buy an orange at the grocery store is that a power imbalance? Should that grocer find a better job by your estimation? Should he have been a doctor? Does he need your "saving"?

If a young woman wants to follow a man to meetings, live in his mansion, have sex, and look beautiful at all times, and in exchange gets what she considers fair compensation, then what exactly is the problem? It's an exchange of goods and services on the open market. It does not imply a "power imbalance".

The problem is that many people in many places are stuck with a choice of either working themselves to death at a job they hate for shit pay and no benefits (or maybe just starving on the street) or else selling themselves to a very wealthy asshole. When that happens, it indicates a profound structural failing of the society. Prostitution or feudal servitude shouldn’t be anyone’s only shot at a comfortable life.

In theory there’s nothing wrong with a career in private security. But it’s messed up to be an enforcer for the dictator family who who rule Equatorial Guinea and live lavishly while keeping the rest of the country in miserable squalor.

In theory there’s nothing wrong with being an actress. But it’s messed up if getting a leading part depends on giving blowjobs to the studio executives.

Etc.

> It does not imply a "power imbalance".

If the young women in such relationships had all the money and power and the old men had none, how many of those couples would still be sleeping together?

I don't think the 'happy hooker' is just a theoretical thing. I think it exists, and it happens all the time. The fact that there is prostitution doesn't imply there is a power imbalance. Maybe if prostitution wasn't so stigmatized, it would be even more common.

Having said that, in this context there is obviously a power imbalance. Somebody says they're scared to leave because of the threat of violence. I'm sure this also happens in way too many cases around the world. I share your view that possibly a significant chunk of this misery can be done away with by getting rid of poverty. However, let's not forget the contribution to said misery by the mere psychopathy that drives people like Epstein.

There’s nothing wrong with individual people making this choice (I have many friends in those fields). It’s just evidence of large structural problems in the society.

(Of course, not all “tech” is zero-sum or harmful.)

As far as I can tell, much of this “value” consists of inserting oneself into existing money flows and diverting a tiny part into one’s own pocket, at the expense of everyone else in the society.

Wages in the broader society have been stagnant for decades despite steep increases in labor productivity. Healthcare, housing, and education costs keep skyrocketing without commensurate improvements in quality.

In the USA, life expectancy is going down, infrastructure is aging without replacement, worker and consumer protections have eroded, children’s lives are increasingly regimented and controlled, 40% of adults are obese, loneliness is rampant, young people are deeply indebted, almost nobody has enough savings to comfortably retire, many ecosystems are facing collapse and many species are facing extinction, ...

Fortunately, because we are free people, we have proposed a mechanism. You make something valuable to me and you get a sort of exchangeable vote from me that you can use to get someone (perhaps even me) to make something valuable for you. This is a nice mechanism because that way useful people can be rewarded for their usefulness by letting them choose the next thing for labour to be allocated to.

This system is distributed, everyone trusts the vote, and you can't make me do something against my will. This system of free and fair collaboration and competition has produced the current allocation as the current consolidated view of what people want. It's not what you want, true. It's not even what I want. But it's what we (all of us) want as independent agents collaborating and competing with each other.

And the differences between the countries are not a local power imbalance problem, it's just the amount of benefits (=money) you get for spreading your legs. In a rich 1st world country, the "sponsor" has to earn a lot to make it worth it... but in a poor country, even a freelance coder working for foreign companies can earn enough to sponsor a girl like that, and also have a new-ish BMW (so her friends see her in it) and so on.

But when we get to higher class people, especially older, you suddenly stop calling the rich guy a scummy elite, but call her a trophy wife, especially if the guy is really really old and close to death.

Unfortunately we're talking here about the MIT Media Lab!

In many of your comments you discuss your girlfriend. Should we assume that you're talking about an underage girl?

If you're going to engage in this sort of weird pedantry you should be careful lest you paint yourself a pederast.

You're intentionally misinterpreting things.

[1] https://www.insidenu.com/2017/8/30/16200774/northwestern-foo...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boys_from_the_Blackstuff

'American Red Cross – Our boys need SOX' :

https://propagandaposterstore.com/product/american-red-cross...

'Old boy' :

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/old-boy

edit - could also just go straight to the entry for 'boy' :

'a male child or, more generally, a male of any age'

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/boy

> this is a weird horse to hitch your wagon to.

I'm not hitching my wagon to anything. This is basically arguing that as long as someone was bad enough, you can just make up or assume anything also bad about them, including the extent of their crimes. Did you know Hitler was a pedophile and necrophiliac? Now, don't you go trying to defend Hitler by saying there's no evidence of this!

The Hitler thing is a straw man; Hitler was not known for pedophilia or necrophilia. Epstein was already known for soliciting prostitution from underage girls who matched the profile of the ones he brought to the MIT Media Lab offices.

I see a lot of shit when I go outside, but old geezers with entourages of very young eastern european women is not something I can claim to have witnessed.

If that is common in those locations, I'll be avoiding them.

It’s pretty common to see old dudes with young women. I’ve rarely been able to actually find the answer.

The few times I’ve gone to fancy resorts or expensive areas, I’ve always seen couples like this. Only a few times did I see more than one woman.

I worked for a ceo once who always had a much younger (25 vs 65) assistant in the building.

I don’t think I would change my behavior if some rich guy had two models in tow for business meetings. I might assume they are prostitutes, but as long as they aren’t children I don’t know what action I would take.

In the particular game of “prostitute or daughter” (also sometimes prostitute or son, although much less common) we try to pick apart clues that might inform the guess. Places we’ve seen them. Actions toward each other. Actions when apart. Etc etc.

The assumptions about the dichotomy in the potential roles of women underlying the game are literally a textbook example of misogynist gender images.

It’s also worth noting that these aren’t absolute characterizations but probabilistic. In no part of the game am I making some belief that the young women must be one or the other. But sadly/comically usually old rich dudes with young women who aren’t their daughter and they are acting romantically, it’s usually a prostitute, hopefully a consenting one.

It’s quite possible that I’m wrong in that maybe they’re married without rings or whatnot, but there’s no harm as they don’t know I’m going through this thought exercise, and I’ll rarely know if I guess right.

Sure you do, and while it is not particularly plausible that those would be the most probable—even from the categories of “family members” and “people doing their job by being there”—it is a perfect example of the Virgin-Whore mindset.