Is this what journalism is ? - Naming and Shaming people where there is no crime or unethical act committed.
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?
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.
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.
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.
According to friends, Epstein showed up at a TED conference circa 1999 with 6 plus-ones, all listed as "Mrs Jeffery Epstein". (The tickets were something like $5k in 2019 dollars.) They don't recall them as being under-age, but it definitely seemed sleazy. Their recollection is that Epstein used them to meet people; the women would go chat somebody up and bring them back to Epstein.
Abusers are well known for grooming victims, but they also groom allies. So it's not surprising that among this list we find people who are either hopelessly naive or of dubious character themselves. In retrospect it doesn't seem like a coincidence that around the same time Bill Clinton and Kevin Spacey were zooming around on Epstein's plane.
Let that be a lesson to all of us. If we suddenly experience an overwhelming amount of positive attention, it's worth asking ourselves whether it's the love-bombing [1] common to narcissistic manipulators.
Following that, we can take a look at the harm done by Epstein and do some comparisons.
No conspiracy theories please. We have enough assaults on truth as it is.
When the most important prisoner of the century so far suffers an untimely death in a facility which hasn't had a successful suicide for forty years, after a cascade of serious institutional failures, and that prisoner has had continuous access to extremely gifted scientists and medical practitioners for decades...
I think it's likely that he's dead, but the alternatives are within the realm of reality. It may be a conspiracy theory, but you know... sometimes people conspire don't they?
People theorize about all sorts of other things on this platform; things far more unimaginable than this.
It looks like he started with the current attorney general’s father, who hired him to teach at a school despite him not having any relevant credentials, then managed to get to one of the kids parents who brought him to Wall Street.
I know Mossad has a reputation of being a law unto itself unbound by outside authority, but it is not actually a distinct state—if you want to say Israel, just say Israel.
She's been doing an amazing job digging into Epstein's relationships with the science and tech community (some of it first hand).
For example: https://twitter.com/xeni/status/1165266579560521728
> "John Brockman knew. Here he is with one of Jeffrey Epstein’s rape victims on one side, and alleged abuse coordinator"
Being photographed with someone isn't the same as knowing that they're being raped. Is there more to that?
http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2019/08/20/on-me-and-the-...
The problem isn't that scientists went to him for his wealth, but that he had wealth after the first set of convictions. This should be our focus.
Looks like someone was able to read Epstein from afar and keep the distance.
Edit: I do think that Harvard, et al singing praises to him knowing he was a pedophile is wrong. But the article is really confusing as to what is trying to say (and it wouldn't be the first time science and human rights abuses or crimes are associated).
