
Jeffrey Epstein and MIT: FAQs - danso
http://news.mit.edu/2020/faq-fact-finding-report-jeffrey-epstein-0110
======
RcouF1uZ4gsC
From the report

[http://factfindingjan2020.mit.edu/files/MIT-
report.pdf](http://factfindingjan2020.mit.edu/files/MIT-report.pdf)

Professor Lloyd's dealings look very, very shady:

> Professor Lloyd remained friends with Epstein after his conviction in 2008.
> He visited Epstein at his office in Florida during the period of Epstein’s
> criminal sentence. Professor Lloyd also visited Epstein’s private island,
> though for only a few hours for lunch, and he has acknowledged Epstein in
> his academic publications. While Professor Lloyd clearly valued Epstein as a
> source of potential funding, he also told us he believed that, by continuing
> to engage with Epstein post-conviction, he could be part of Epstein’s
> rehabilitation. Professor Lloyd told us that, in 2005 or 2006 (before
> Epstein’s conviction), Epstein gave him a personal $60,000 gift to support
> his MIT research that Professor Lloyd did not submit through MIT. In
> possible violation of MIT policies and certainly in violation of MIT norms,
> Professor Lloyd deposited the gift into a personal bank account and did not
> report it to MIT.

> Eventually, in July 2016, Professor Lloyd affirmatively contacted Epstein by
> email to ask for funding to support his upcoming sabbatical. On June 1,
> 2017, Epstein emailed his accountant and Professor Lloyd: “send 125 k to mit
> for seth lloyd from gratitude.”

~~~
ergothus
> Professor Lloyd also visited Epstein’s private island, though for only a few
> hours for lunch,

I live a fairly privileged life as a U.S. West Coast techie...and stopping at
a private island for a few hours sounds crazy. Do non-billionaire people
(active academics at that) really lead lives like this? `

~~~
perennate
It is typical for academics to visit both potential and current sponsors to
discuss research funding and collaborations. It is not typical for sponsors to
own private islands, and I think visiting for a day is common but a few hours
sounds short (but for a one-day visit, the discussions themselves would only
be a few hours). These visits are generally paid for by the sponsor (flights,
hotels).

~~~
dnautics
That's pretty interesting, my only experience of the sort was the sponsor
(DARPA) visiting the academic's ocean-overlooking mansion (with two teslas in
the garage) with very nice hors d'ouvres. Of course this academic was very
well known for owning a yacht and doing "experiments" on the yacht (to be fair
the project I was on used the results of one of those experiments).

To be fair, my entire life story has been rather topsy turvy in many ways
(went to an undergrad with more grad students, went to a grad school with no
undergrads).

------
malvosenior
The report itself is rather interesting:

[http://factfindingjan2020.mit.edu/files/MIT-
report.pdf](http://factfindingjan2020.mit.edu/files/MIT-report.pdf)

> After meeting Epstein in February 2013, Ito conducted what he described as
> “due diligence” into Epstein. Ito told us that he performed a Google search
> of Epstein and also spoke with certain individuals to learn more. According
> to Ito, the “influential” people with whom he spoke included Nicholas
> Negroponte, Media Lab co-founder and Professor Post-Tenure of Media Arts and
> Sciences; members of the Media Lab Advisory Council; tech billionaires,
> including a former LinkedIn senior executive and co-founder; and a well-
> known Harvard Law School professor. Ito also met other influential
> individuals at meetings with Epstein, including Woody Allen, a senior
> executive at the Hyatt Corporation, and a former prime minister of Israel.
> Ito explained that these meetings and discussions influenced his view of
> Epstein.

~~~
empath75
> and a well-known Harvard Law School professor.

almost certainly Alan Dershowitz, who is up to his eyeballs in epstein dirt.

~~~
malvosenior
Yes, and the LinkedIn co-founder is obviously Reid Hoffman. Here's a series of
Tweets from Aanand Giridharadas talking about discovering some of this
information and how they reacted to it:

[https://twitter.com/AnandWrites/status/1169947031806365696](https://twitter.com/AnandWrites/status/1169947031806365696)

~~~
bronson
That was a great and horrifying read. They're circling the wagons.

> Why are the people not connected to Epstein leaving this orbit, while people
> connected to Epstein remain?

> Shouldn't it be the other way around?

------
sxcurry
1) Negroponte responded: “I know him quite well. The person who is his closest
friend is Marvin Minsky, who even visited him in jail. I would take
Berlusconi’s money, so why not Jeff.” (By March 2013, Berlusconi, the former
Prime Minister of Italy, had been accused of hiring underaged prostitutes and
dating underaged girls.)

2)“I’ve also talked to Nicholas [Negroponte] as well who had met him and he
also agrees that we should treat Jeffrey with respect.”

3)Negroponte pushed back on concealing Epstein’s attendance, responding (in
part) “Of course he can come and would be welcome …. I would make absolutely
no fuss over his coming and welcome home [sic] 100%.”

Wow, just wow, are there no depths too low?

~~~
gumby
I'm really surprise Marvin visited him in jail. It's not out of character of
him (he was really a kind human) but I'm surprised he had that close a
relationship.

I like Nicholas a lot but some of his remarks do surprise me.

~~~
malvosenior
Marvin Minsky was accused of assaulting Virgina Guiffre. Virginia had been
trafficked by Epstein starting when she was 15.

[https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/08/new-details-in-
unsea...](https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/08/new-details-in-unsealed-
jeffrey-epstein-documents)

> Giuffre also alleges Epstein and Maxwell told her to have sex with former
> New Mexico governor Bill Richardson; former Democratic Senate Majority
> Leader George Mitchell; the late MIT computer scientist Marvin Minsky; and
> MC2 model agency cofounder Jean Luc Brunel, as well as an unnamed “prince,”
> “foreign president,” and owner of “a French hotel chain.” Giuffre previously
> alleged she had been forced by Epstein and Maxwell to have sex with lawyer
> Alan Dershowitz and Britain’s Prince Andrew.

~~~
gumby
I know several people who were at that island and have discussed this event;
one even told me that he remembered it because Marvin came over to him and
said "this woman just offered to have sex with me." Also Gloria, his wife, was
there, though I haven't asked her about it (and wouldn't). This seems
believable to me.

OTOH I did read Giuffre's deposition and she says not just that she was told
by Epstein to proposition various people _but that it happened_. I find that
very hard to believe having known him so long, but she made that statement
under oath. Also I'm not sure Marvin was famous enough to be worth making up a
story about (as opposed to, say, a famous heir to a throne).

~~~
cjbprime
I don't think it's correct that the deposition says that sex happened -- I'd
greatly appreciate a reference to that if you have one.

The deposition contains questions like "Where were you and where was Ms.
Maxwell when she directed you to go have sex with Marvin Minsky?", which seem
to focus entirely on Maxwell's behavior rather than telling us what Minsky's
response was.

(For the record I think Minsky's conduct -- in continuing to associate with
Epstein after being offered sex by a young woman on Epstein's private island
and then continuing to host conferences there after Epstein's conviction -- is
terrible either way, but agreeing on which facts are actually known seems
important.)

~~~
gumby
Deposition page 204 line 13 (marginally ambiguous).

My point about Marvin not being super famous is if I were making something up
I'd make it up about famous people.

[https://drive.google.com/file/d/14ZOEKwoBnDKUFI1hLbFJH5nsUFx...](https://drive.google.com/file/d/14ZOEKwoBnDKUFI1hLbFJH5nsUFxrmNhs/view)

~~~
cjbprime
Could you check the page? Neither 204 of the PDF nor 204 in red at the top
seems to be a deposition text page.

I'm not imagining that Giuffre made anything up. I'm just trying to work out
whether, after she propositioned Minsky as she was directed to by Maxwell
(from the deposition, as well as Minsky's own account to other attendees), he
accepted.

~~~
gumby
Page labeled in black in its footer

~~~
cjbprime
Thanks, that looks like the one I was quoting. I'm surprised you say "she says
not just that she was told by Epstein to proposition various people but that
it happened" from that text, unless maybe by "it" you just mean the
proposition..?

I'd agree that Minsky agreeing to the proposition would be implied by those
sentences in normal conversation, but depositions have carefully constructed
and precise questions and answers, so that leaves me unsure.

(Again, I'm not trying to offer a strong defense of Minsky here or claim that
any part of the deposition isn't true.)

------
nabnob
I've seen some articles written by former MIT Media Lab employees, and they
made it seem like Epstein's involvement and history was basically an open
secret that they weren't allowed to mention in emails or documents.

There was a Medium article that said Epstein brought young Eastern European
women (likely trafficked) with him to campus. (If I can find it I will edit
this comment) I think it says a lot about their culture, that people working
there are encouraged to look the other way when a billionaire is involved.

Also, looking at the report, it is obvious that Ito was completely aware of
Epstein's history, and the risks of associating with him, but continued to
invite him to MIT's campus.

------
scarejunba
You know, I was thinking to myself what it would take to take Epstein money.
How much would count? And the truth is that no amount really works. Most of us
middle-class folk would probably say no pretty fast if offered the choice
because the best way to stay safe from the mob is to not let it turn its Eye
of Sauron on you. The instinct that keeps me far is less morality than self-
preservation. Epstein himself had billions and he died in a jail cell. I'd
take the deal if I were destitute, though.

Interestingly, lots of these people weren't destitute. But these people (more
intelligent than I am) fell for a trick I would have fallen for a hundred
times faster: the slow drip. "Come visit my island. I'll fly you there". Of
course I say "yes". Then when I'm there, everyone is busy having sex with
kids. I'm standing there like gawking like an idiot. I have no sex with kids.
I'm the only one who will say that. I'm already screwed. Well played, mob,
well played. If I whistle blow the kid-screwing then they'll get in front of
me. I'll commit suicide because apparently I had this secret paedophilia. The
Internet will say "Well, junba wasn't a trustworthy guy ultimately. They found
child porn on his computer". I'm not saying that some of the guys were
innocent. I'm saying that given the existence of adversaries bent on
information manipulation, no one external can determine if you're innocent or
not. Better to stay far from the Eye of Sauron.

------
rdtsc
> At the end of the discussion, there was a consensus, reached by Morgan,
> Ruiz, and Newton, to keep Epstein’s $100,000 donation to the Media Lab and
> to accept further donations from him so long as: (1) each donation would be
> recorded as anonymous, and Epstein could not publicize it; (2) the donations
> would be relatively small; and (3) the donations would be unrestricted.

Right, they thought really hard about it and their moral compass told them to
sweep it under the carpet.

Then the emails from Ito to Newton and the others at Resource Development are
interesting. Here is one, Ito tries hard convince others to let him keep the
money.

> I’m actively developing the relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and I’d like
> to know your thinking on this. More important than this $100K is what
> happens if he is interested in a much larger gift. My previous understanding
> was that if it was not accounted or named—or if the gift might be given
> anonymously—it was likely to be OK.

He is dangling future bags of money in front of them. "Just think of all the
funding we could be getting. And look, we've already hid it as anonymous
before, surely we can do it again".

That's some very effective tactics. Epstein did that too, he started giving
smaller amounts of money first to see how it goes. Those processed, people
made excuses. Once that happened they were hooked into the scheme and ready to
be roped in even more. Ito was using the same tactics.

~~~
rantwasp
this whole thread bothers me, but not for the usual reasons.

1) everyone is up on their high horses pretending that they somehow have an
absolute moral compass that would prevent them from doing any wrong. To me it
looks like people over at MIT are trying to do the right thing (with this
external investigation) and maybe there will be some lessons learned from this
whole episode.

2) everyone is outraged (rightfully) at what this guy/monster did but I
believe we are missing a bigger point here: people abuse power every damn day.
people fuck over people in a weak position - that cannot defend themselves -
every damn day. It sounds like some lives are more important than other when
it comes to capturing the moral highground. What about minimum wage workers
living in poverty, people that deperately need health care or civilians in war
zones? Nobody gives a damn about what has become the new normal, but we're
outraged that some guy had assistants in their 20s and basically ran a
prostitution ring on his island.

3) a subset of the same people that probably visited the island have decided
to silence the guy because he probably knew too much. The same people that had
no problem having sex with underage, sexually exploited girls, decided to
abuse their power once more. And we're outraged that a bunch of MIT professors
took donations to pursuit their research.

Honestly at this point I would just let law enforcement do their thing and
would focus on preventing/exposing situations such of this vs being
revisionists about what should have been done.

~~~
gurkendoktor
I agree with 2), but the Epstein case was closely related to the HN bubble, so
it's only natural that people get worked up about it.

> Honestly at this point I would just let law enforcement do their thing

I don't think this will happen. Look at the phenomenal outcome of this
underage prostitution case, which (from what we know) sounds pretty boring in
comparison:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Dutroux#Deaths_of_potenti...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Dutroux#Deaths_of_potential_witnesses)

Something about sex trafficking seems to bring out the hitmen really quick.

------
selfishgene
The MIT-affiliated Draper Laboratory conducted research for the CIA in support
of its post-9/11 enhanced interrogation program. Stephen Kosslyn, formerly
affiliated with the Harvard psychology department, helped Draper win this
contract and served as an academic advisor to the program for the CIA.

Kosslyn was also responsible for creating a position for Jeffrey Epstein at
Harvard in the psychology department, according to a recent report published
by Harvard's president Lawrence Bacow.

Given Epstein's alleged connection to CIA, one wonders what role it played in
helping land this disgraceful $20 million program in Draper's lap?

------
thrwn_frthr_awy
> In September, in response to revelations about engagements between MIT and
> Jeffrey Epstein...

This isn't true, right? MIT knew about those engagements from as far back as
2013. This is the first sentence in the first answer to the first question and
it just isn't correct. What _actually_ happened in September is a bunch of
fucking terrible press for MIT. This whole thing is just so sad and at the end
of all this is a bunch of human beings who were treated so poorly by some, and
in some ways almost worse, treated indifferently by so many others.

~~~
gumby
The point is revelation _outside_ MIT. The report is pretty clear that
Epstein's presence was discussed frequently internally -- and okayed.

The amount of money he donated is infinitesimal by MIT's standards. They must
have been convinced there was tons more to come.

~~~
thrwn_frthr_awy
I'm not denying the report is clear, as that wasn't written by MIT, but an
independent 3rd party. The FAQ is written by MIT and I believe the first
sentence is not clear to someone who isn't familiar with the history. The FAQ
should stand on its own without the report or else what good is it.

------
ezekg
Anybody else remember the death of Reddit co-founder Aaron Swartz? And what
role MIT played in it? And the “conspiracy theories” surrounding his death? It
may be a good time to look at that again.

~~~
selfishgene
Also don't forget that Rafael Reif was responsible for orchestrating the
massive coverup of fraud at MIT Lincoln Laboratory regarding Ted Postol's
allegations of fraudulent missile defense tests:

[https://www.technologyreview.com/s/401412/postol-vs-the-
pent...](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/401412/postol-vs-the-pentagon/)

If the Department of Defense had not punted on the investigation, then provost
Rafael Reif and his supervisor president Susan Hockfield would be serving time
in a federal penitentiary with former dean of MIT Sloan School of Management
Gabriel Bitran

[https://money.cnn.com/2014/08/12/investing/mit-professor-
sca...](https://money.cnn.com/2014/08/12/investing/mit-professor-
scam/index.html)

instead of sending thank-you notes to one of the most depraved child molesters
of the 20th century.

Shame on Reif and Hockfield!

------
freestylerr
What appears surprising to me is how easy the funded researchers apparently
got away with it.

\- Profs Lloyd and Oxman, still in service

\- Joscha Bach, who is the VP of research at the AI foundation
([https://aifoundation.com/about/](https://aifoundation.com/about/)), and
declined to comment. I don’t know whether someone with such track record
should be educating on the future of AI?

------
trentnix
_The report is the product of considerable work involving 73 interviews of 59
people and more than 610,000 documents and emails._

That's 10,000 documents and emails per person interviewed. How is that even
possible?

~~~
irjustin
Likely - not all 610k documents are authored by those 59 people.

59 people are interesting to look at. 610k documents are related to the
investigation probably by search/graph.

Realistically, not all 610k are read manually.

~~~
ehsankia
Also, the interactions span over 15 years.

------
avalys
Can someone explain to me what harm was caused by MIT accepting anonymous
donations from Jeffrey Epstein? As an MIT alum I don't understand what the
problem is.

~~~
eesmith
They weren't really anonymous. Those who needed to know, knew. The details
were just hidden from the general public.

"Really anonymous" might be to set up a trust, interact through a lawyer,
where MIT receives no information about the person behind the scenes.

But people at MIT knew, and it helped him make connections with other people.

In addition, the donations were reciprocated. One example (going from memory,
so might have details wrong) was that one of the labs was asked to make a gift
for Epstein.

------
gumby
Apparently Reif's job was on the line too. I was surprised he survived

------
eesmith
"Releasing bad news or documents on a Friday afternoon in an attempt to avoid
media scrutiny is often called a “Friday news dump” by members of the media."
\- [https://politicaldictionary.com/words/friday-news-
dump/](https://politicaldictionary.com/words/friday-news-dump/)

------
baybal2
Why they hired a law firm to begin with?

~~~
mikeyouse
Often times outside law firms handle investigations like this. MIT clearly had
some failed policies where they were laundering the reputation of a despicable
person for donations, which shouldn't happen. An internal investigation would
be strongly biased to find no wrong-doing. Ostensibly, an outside
investigation is more neutral (even though MIT is still paying for it so
they're clearly biased to be soft too...)

~~~
shadowgovt
I found noteworthy that MIT recognized the risk of bias and attempted to
control for it by retaining a second law firm (that had no history of working
with MIT, whereas the first firm they retained has been used by MIT for
previous tasks).

------
jacquesm
After the report on Aaron Swartz I have very low expectations, in fact I
expect another MIT whitewash. I'll read it to see if that's the case.

------
selfishgene
There is a good reason why Rafael Reif only appears in public these days
flanked on all sides by brutes from the MIT police department.

During the Vietnam War, Dean Epps was placed under citizen's arrest by the
students of Harvard University (as he famously yelled back at them: "Unhand
me, you mother-fuckers!") for that organization's complicity in what the UN
has now ruled a war crime:

[https://www.salon.com/2011/11/11/occupy_harvard_gets_the_old...](https://www.salon.com/2011/11/11/occupy_harvard_gets_the_old_college_jeer/)

Got to wish protesters today the best of luck getting anywhere near that close
to Rafael Reif, with the police detail that he needs to hide behind in order
to protect his filthier-than-dirt, self-rationalizing ass from those who might
attempt to hold him publicly accountable.

------
pledess
> Epstein was joined by one or two female assistants who appeared to be in
> their twenties, which made some people uncomfortable ... A Media Lab staff
> member told us that she was "grossed out" during of one Epstein's visits to
> the Media Lab, both because ... and because Epstein brought female
> assistants in their twenties with him.

Is anyone interpreting this as "At MIT, it's reasonable to be prejudiced
against young women who claim to have a job in the philanthropy field. Anyone
actually qualified for such a job would have a different age or a different
gender."? If I'm a professor elsewhere and visit MIT to talk about my
research, can my female graduate student (who did most of the work) safely
visit at the same time, or will she run into the same prejudice? Does the
answer depend on her physical appearance?

~~~
pvg
People are, quite sensibly, prejudiced against someone convicted of sex crimes
involving the exploitation of young women traveling with young women. The
prejudice is against him, not the women. The incident and the reactions of the
staff involved has been documented in greater detail elsewhere, you can just
google it up.

~~~
gowld
To avoid the appearance of impropriety, should people avoid hiring female
assistants? I hope not.

~~~
pvg
To avoid the appearance and reality of impropriety, people should avoid sex
trafficking and other crimes. I don’t understand what the relationship to
‘employing women assistants’ is supposed to be.

------
awb
> we now see that the donations totaled $850,000

Why would Epstein donate $850k to MIT?

------
0x262d
Our ruling class is chock full of pedophiles and rapists (Trump, Bill Clinton,
Epstein, etc) and because they have all the power and wealth, it gradually
filters down to other institutions that depend on sponsorship like MIT. This
is what is sometimes called bourgeois decadence.

~~~
0x262d
Epstein was convicted of sex trafficking an underage girl in 2008, by the way,
long before many of MIT’s dealings with him. literally convicted, which is
surprising! he got a 13 month sentence and spent most of it on “work release”
because that is how justice works for billionaires as long as they don’t
threaten other billionaires.

------
totalZero
Reif should resign.

------
ericfrenkiel
Epstein didn't kill himself.

Video footage "accidentally" deleted and the backup footage also lost due to
"technical errors."

His death and a cleanup so slovenly and brazenly done in front of the public
eye is a mockery of America as a nation of "liberty and justice for all."

~~~
onlyrealcuzzo
This happens MUCH less today than at any time in the past. Only 2 generations
ago, stuff like this was happening on a daily basis everywhere in the world.
This was basically what justice used to be.

The world is not fair. There is little justice. But it's more fair and just
than it's ever been before, by far. Maybe we've taken a step back in the last
10 years. It's hard to say. But compared to even 50 years ago, we are so far
ahead it's unbelievable. 100 years, and it's basically a different world.

~~~
Ohn0
"America" is different than "everywhere in the world"

~~~
dmix
There’s plenty of data showing that conditions have improved around the world.

There were way more socialist and right wing dictators in the 1970s. Even in
the early 90s than today.

Extrajudicial killings, independent courts, poverty via failed economic
ideologies or resistance to adopting modern industry/markets, etc has all
significantly declined and conditions have improved.

The world will always need constant maintenance and good things stagnant and
need reforming. History has a habit of repeating itself but rarely to the same
degree of failure as lessons do get learned and quality of life always
increases.

------
aneutron
This is besides the point of the article, but the link is in HTTP (no TLS but
available with a correct certificate), and the report site which has the
information linked in the article is also in HTTP (but has a bad TLS
certificate).

~~~
shadowgovt
Why is this an issue?

~~~
djsumdog
For an institution that claims to be an engineering leader, there's no real
excuse for not having TLS everywhere with proper redirects today. It can
prevent ISPs from seeing what you get or injecting their own code into
webpages.

~~~
shadowgovt
Are either of those a risk that's practically worth guarding against for this
information?

Engineering leaders generally have the skill of choosing the right solution
for the problem at hand.

~~~
alias_neo
The problem is a matter of trust.

The information therein is potentially bad for their reputation, and not
"signing on the dotted line" leaves scope for them to come out in the future
and say "that's not actually what we said, must have been MitMd" (for
example).

An institution of this calibre should be considered viable to pull off
something this obtuse to your average person, and thus should not be given the
benefit of the doubt. This is just one of many possible effects including SEO
penelties amongst others.

~~~
shadowgovt
That risk doesn't make any sense when they can also just edit the page content
on their end. Are we taking seriously the risk MIT would try and blame editing
their own page on some kind of MITM that successfully masked true page content
a) consistently b) for 100% of readers c) applied at an attack location in the
network that someone had access to that isn't the same someone as controls the
TLS-verified content hosting? This smells like rhinoceros-repellent levels of
paranoia.

~~~
alias_neo
I'm not seriously suggesting this is likely, im just presenting a hypothetical
scenario, and it doesn't need to be plausible in order for it to be used as a
narrative. Do it properly, remove any doubt, secure your (one's) website so
people _know_ the information came from you.

------
throwaway91138
I find the whole Epstein thing to be full fledged Puritan Rage Culture.

Start with the crimes of the man himself. He had young women and girls around
and gave them money in exchange for sexual acts. This is something society
doesn't like to think about explicitly, but might these young females have
actually chosen/wanted this? The typical answer is: They were underage and
vulnerable therefor anything they did doesn't imply consent. That is a very
condescending view. The age of legal consent in the US is 16 in many states
and as low as 11 under some circumstances! In the charges against him it says:

"Once minor victims were recruited, EPSTEIN or his employees or associates
would contact victims to schedule appointments for “massages.” As a result,
many victims were abused by EPSTEIN on multiple subsequent occasions."

"To further enable him to abuse underage girls, EPSTEIN asked and enticed
certain of his victims to recruit additional minor girls to perform “massages”
and similarly engage in sex acts with EPSTEIN. When a victim would recruit
another underage girl for EPSTEIN, he paid both the victim-recruiter and the
new victim hundreds of dollars in cash. Through these victim-recruiters,
EPSTEIN maintained a steady supply of new victims to exploit, and gained
access to dozens of additional underage girls to abuse."

[https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/jeffrey-epstein-
charged...](https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/jeffrey-epstein-charged-
manhattan-federal-court-sex-trafficking-minors)

These account make it clear to me, that these girls were not helpless victims
suffering at the hands of an abuser. That just doesn't scale. 100s of girls
agreeing to be scheduled again and again (without use of force threat or
violence), and to recruit other girls means that it wasn't that bad. I know
this is something "you can't say" hence the throwaway.

I'm not saying that there wasn't any foul play, or that Epstein was a great
guy. Far from it. But that he is _very_ different from someone who physically
abuses a helpless prepubescent child with violence. In a way treating both
these cases as "pedophilic sex offences" is offensive to victims of the
latter. My point is that society needs to re-embrace Proportionality.

We wrote this man off as pure Evil, so anything he touches must be Evil too.
We don't allow any positive attribution to his actions. Any money he gives is
tainted money only used to launder his reputation. Any person that has ever
come into contact with him, let alone had any positive thought about him, is
also Evil. Why is accepting donations from him frame the person or
organization as endorsing child abuse? Why is having a photo with him, or
being at a dinner party with him mark you as suspect? Why shouldn't have MIT
accept donations from him? Should Apple (or your startup) not sell to "known
sex offenders" or other convicted criminals?

------
DayDollar
The best shield for the devious are the innocent and idealists. If you murder
someone and burry them in your back yard - invite the police over for a bbq.

------
jdoliner
Sadly, this doesn't answer the most frequently asked question: Did Epstein
kill himself?

~~~
fgonzag
Why do you believe MIT would have this information?

~~~
jdoliner
I don't, it's just the most frequently asked question.

~~~
jessaustin
It's not such an interesting question, since most people (even at MIT) think
the answer is obviously "no". GP is right to doubt that MIT has any particular
insight, however.

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3fe9a03ccd14ca5
I trust Barr with regards to Epstein’s death being a suicide. The scandal
there would be _who allowed him to kill himself_ not necessarily who killed
him.

What boggles my mind is why they’re being so tight lipped about the
investigation. The island was swarming with FBI, including scuba divers. Why
not a single statement? Nothing!

