Having young girl-friends is not the same as sex trafficking, though, or is it? I thought sex trafficking would be luring girls out of their country with false promises, then burning their passports so that they can't flee.

I wouldn't consider it overly weird if rich guys have young girl-friends. Maybe it is just because Hollywood has groomed me to expect it, I don't know.

>Having young girl-friends is not the same as sex trafficking, though, or is it? I thought sex trafficking would be luring girls out of their country with false promises, then burning their passports so that they can't flee

Well, that pretty much sums up what Epstein did.

You don't even need to burn passports, you can psychologically manipulate, threaten, beat up, hook on drugs, pass to friends, parade your powerful connections (event to the law), explain how they have no alternatives, and so on.

Especially if you're a ultra-rich mogul with personal guards and powerful friends, and they're some teenage girl from some poor eastern european family that you promise money or to get "exposure", and so on...

"psychologically manipulate" - isn't that just a loaded way of saying "convince"? Did he actually do all those other things, beatings, threatening? Or is it such a stereotype that it is just assumed that it must have been this way?

>"psychologically manipulate" - isn't that just a loaded way of saying "convince"?

"(...) The girls he allegedly abused were largely from troubled backgrounds, either in the foster care system, from broken families, or below the poverty line".

-- and as young as 14 year old, at that. Does "convince" really apply?

>Did he actually do all those other things, beatings, threatening?

(...) Multiple women say they attempted to refuse Epstein, but to no avail.

“I was terrified and I was telling him to stop,” said Araoz, recounting one visit during which Epstein raped her.

“If I left Epstein … he could have had me killed or abducted, and I always knew he was capable of that if I did not obey him,” another alleged victim, Virginia Roberts, said during a hearing.

Picking vulnerable girls - OK, manipulative.

14 year olds, too - but those "assistants" presumably were older.

Threats - threats are threats, going beyond "manipulation".

Why are you going out on such limbs and repeatedly defending Epstein and his child sexual abuse in this thread?

I'm struggling to understand your motivations. This should be a clear and obvious case of someone who was really fucked up, did fucked up things, and deserves nobody in polite society defending him.

And yet here we are having this discussion, somehow.

I'm in no way defending Epstein in any way. It is horrifying how many people in this thread seem to be unable to understand that. I hope nobody of you works in the legal system. You have a prejudice, and you can only see what confirms your prejudice, despite nothing of it being there. You think I defend Epstein, but I never did.

I asked a question about a paragraph describing a scene of a guy visiting MIT Media Lab with young assistants (not teens, they were described s young women), and Media lab staff being concerned.

I did not have the context of Epstein already being convicted as a sex offender.

There was nothing in that paragraph about Epstein having sex with teens, and I didn't mention that, either.

I am merely of the opinion that in general, young women from Eastern Europe should also be allowed to work as assistants for old men. That doesn't imply I endorse older men taking advantage of teens.

The context is very relevant though. Epstein already was a known, convicted sex offender by the point he was visiting MIT Media Lab with his young ladies of questionable status in tow. It's not relevant to the matters at hand that you, a random person who wasn't there, was not aware of the context.

You can't remove this question from its context. The people at MIT Media Lab who were worried about it certainly were aware of the context, and they were worried, but ultimately forced to go along with it because their boss wanted the money too badly.

Also, enough with the "just asking questions". Instead of asking lots of questions, just go read the relevant articles and learn the truths directly, rather than requiring people to spoonfeed you through HN comments.

nf8nnfufuu asks questions -- in order to better understand what did actually happen.

Epstein had sex with girls younger than 18. But was is against their will?

Epstein is dead, so he does not care if anybody defends him. But if we want to understand how Epstein operated, we should question the accusations.

While I think in general it is also important to understand how such things work - how young girls are being exploited.

However, here I didn't even talk about his sex exploits. I only asked about a paragraph about perceiving a man with young assistants.

Sure, "convince". Lots of predators convince kids into the abuse through pretty normal persuasive techniques, and the same to keep them quiete. It's not all knife to the throat kind of stuff. In fact, the vast majority of abuse is that soft sell long term grooming "convince" approach.

What persuasive techniques did Epstein use to convince kids into abuse?

There are degrees to this. The burning their passport thing is certainly in the black side, but there are plenty or dark shades of gray before you get there.

I live in Iowa and was an Eagle Scout and can figure out what the point of the anecdote was just fine, thanks.

Yeah, sorry about that. Couldn't you figure out that I was talking about the proverbial Iowa and boy scout (e.g. "not a worldly type"), and not necessarily the actual one?

Yeah maybe it's your description that needs some work and not our interpretation

> "I live in the gritty real world. Now let me tell you about my international experiences with the ultra wealthy, you hick."

How do you tell the difference between the sex-trafficked, forced-into-servitude eastern european model-assistants, and the eastern european models who see an opportunity to make a lot of money and a lot of connections, and take it?

I strongly disagree with the notion that this is something you need to personally witness to recognize. The dynamics involved in an old rich man surrounding himself with very young women are not something that requires much life experience at all to pick up on.

The people who are blind to it are probably willfully blind, not naive. (Excepting young children of course.)

In general, old rich men have no special powers over young women. It seems conceivable that usually, they choose to be around him of their own free will.

Otherwise, please explain what special powers old rich men would have over young women.

>Otherwise, please explain what special powers old rich men would have over young women.

The power that comes from being rich, well connected, parading powerful friends (even judges, politicians, financiers, and so on), aides, bodyguards, the means to have them beaten or killed if you want to, and so on? The power to get them fired from their jobs? The powerful to do "Eyes Wide Shut" level shit to them and them knowing it?

Or you expected some magical power that applies to every old rich person in any situation between them and a young woman?

So you assume every time young women are staying with an old rich man, they have been extorted to do so?

Sorry, that seems extremely unlikely. I find it shocking that you think that way.

Just because somebody is rich also doesn't mean they can simply destroy other people's lives at will.

Btw I have personally witnessed for example young women courting old professors, who certainly didn't have any power to destroy their life. They did have some power to further their career, though.

Expect: yes, I think in most cases it is simply that the young women expect some advantage from the rich guy. Maybe just material things, or maybe just more fun. Maybe they enjoy riding on yachts more than riding on skateboards, or whatever.

Yeah, this all seems strange to think that young women are only coerced into relationships with old men.

I have seen many young women court older men for various reasons.

The term sugar daddy comes to mind.

One can question the basis of such relationships, but I think it's a huge stretch to suggest they always arise out of force or coercion.

When the subject of discussion is a man known to be involved in human trafficking, being so trusting and naive does not a lick of good.

You seem to be repeatedly ignoring the context of Epstein's criminal conviction.

No, this wasn't about Epstein, but about the general claim of rich old men having power over women.

This whole thread is in the context of the actual trafficking and sexual abuse of minors. You can’t get away from that context. No matter how much you try, it’s the place your in here, in this discussion and I think it’s worth taking that into account.

Inadvertently I’m sure, your and some other people’s posts here come across as normalising the outward behaviour of Epstein and people like him. But the behaviour of Epstein in particular is not normalisable. The women concerned about the status of the girls Epstein took with him weren’t faced with ‘a rich guy with some young girls’. They were faced with this rich guy with these young girls, face to face, with all the emotional context of actual direct human interaction.

I can image he a situation in which I meet an older guy with some young girls and it’s all fine. I can also imagine ones where I would be deeply uncomfortable and queasy about the interpersonal dynamics going on.

The women at the lab weren’t in a hypothetical situation, they were in a specific real life situation, and the way it made them feel was clearly very, very uncomfortable to the point of deep distress.

So I can see why you think talking about hypotheticals is all fine and you don’t understand why it upsets people. But a lot of wealthy powerful people have spent a lot of effort trying to normalise, justify, write off and cover for Epstein’s behaviour. Those efforts created a context where Epstein was able, again, to traffic and sexually abuse children. So any direction of the discussion towards a context that even inadvertently appears to be normalising any aspect of his behaviour, well, I’d say this thread at this time on this topic isn’t the time or place.

Critical thinking can extend beyond the ability to find the most efficient API to solve a problem.

I have to assume you meant to reply to someone else in some other thread, because otherwise this is just a massive non-sequitur.

He basically says that one can use critical thinking to "tell the difference" between the two categories, which is hardly a non-sequitur.

Is the critical thinking "Epstein did bad things. Therefore, everything Epstein did was bad"?

Critical thinking can tell you there is a higher chance the women were sex trafficked considering the employer and his immoral proclivities. It can't tell you if they actually were or not.

No, the critical thinking mentioned, is:

1) If a powerful man who has been accused of sex trafficking

2) shows up with two girls less than half his age,

3) who are from eastern europe (while he is an American, not exactly where he'd get girlfriends or assistants),

4) he passes them of like his "assistants",

5) while they look like models,

6) and they make everybody uncomfortable to the point of telling them to signal whether they're there against their will

then critical thinking says he's more probably than not indeed sex trafficking, and there's something really shady in his relationship with the two girls...

Not, "they're surely just his assistants, nothing to see here, why would anybody consider anything else going on without some written testimony, a full confession and perhaps lab evidence?"

This thread is amazing. Epstein could have confessed to personally trafficking children from the former Yugoslavia (an actual thing that Blackwater was involved in, btw), and if he showed up 5 years later with a couple of barely legal Eastern Europeans in tow, there'd be commenters ready to insist you never can tell for sure!

The amazing thing to me is and yet at the time nobody actually did anything. That is why he got away with it for so long, he could repeat the same thing that already got him convicted once with such impunity because everybody was willing to look away when confronted with the specifics.

Each and every one of those people underneath Ito who suspected something might be up had the opportunity to do something about it, including going to the board, and given their suspicions they should have. And yet, nobody did.

My thoughts exactly. My jawing is dropping at the lengths people are going to defend this situation.

What do you think the motivations are behind someone defending a dead pedophile?

His associate who was convicted was indeed from former Yugoslavia

So you say "no", but then explain how critical thinking leads to "then critical thinking says he's more probably than not indeed sex trafficking". How is that different from the statement "Critical thinking can tell you there is a higher chance the women were sex trafficked considering the employer and his immoral proclivities" except putting that higher chance at >50%?

Sorry, but 1) is really the only valid indicator here (and it wasn't mentioned in the story). Otherwise you are denying attractive young women from Eastern Europe the ability to get work in the US.

I reckon it's a comment on your unwillingness to consider the context in this conversation. Epstein was a sex offender who had been convicted of raping children and he comes in flanked by young women, possibly children. Isn't that suspicious?

>How do you tell the difference between the sex-trafficked, forced-into-servitude eastern european model-assistants, and the eastern european models who see an opportunity to make a lot of money and a lot of connections, and take it?

There's not much difference between the two camps, especially if the "models" are just teenage girls from some Eastern European village or pre-adult girls (as low as 14) from broken poor families as he lured in the US, forced into it for the money or lured with promises of exposure, and often given drugs, beaten and passed around to "friends", and not professional models with actual (even if small) careers that saw an opportunity to make more money...

You might not know all this from mere looking, but you can see a lot of dynamics in direct play, especially if you know more stories about the same person...

(Also, I'd paraphrase the "summary" you did, more like "These things might not be obvious to some people without such exposure, but they do happen all the time in certain circles/countries/etc, and many people can tell when such shit goes on". Oh, and it doesn't have to be "ultra wealthy" at the Epstein-level, you can meet lower rent versions of such types at all scales, down to your friendly local scam rich from e.g. real estate, or construction, or political affiliations, or some state-given monopoly, etc).

Some of the things you mention are different from the others (drugs, maybe lies). But overall, in my opinion you are taking away too much agency from the women. It is too easy to blame somebody's actions on "manipulation". That would be a wildcard to accuse anybody of anything you want.

Some of the "women" (including some who testified) were 14 year old at the time, and a majority below 18.

He once jocked for a 17 year old that "she is getting too old for me".

The girls were scouted and selected by a group of trusted aides "from troubled backgrounds, either in the foster care system, from broken families, or below the poverty line"...

Not sure how much 'agency' we should give them.

These are not really women going with some boyfriend or merely a young girl with a much older guy. E.g. I'm OK with Louis CK asking to masturbate, and then doing it when the women said yes (I don't consider their "yes" to be any kind of manipulation, rich or not, powerful or not, they could always say no).