6 ms·

Epstein’s Links to Scientists Are More Extensive Than Previously Thought

76 points by msghacq 7y ago

thefounder 7y ago
It looks that after all he did something good with the money. If more people would donate to science before to go to jail(or commit suicide) the world would be a better place.
alwaysanagenda 7y ago
One pedo ring to rule them all, and in the darkness, blackmail them.
spoovy 7y ago
This kind of guilt-by-association witch hunt disgusts me. Buzzfeed is a disgrace.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
msghacq 7y ago
A lot of this information came out last week on Xeni's Twitter account: https://twitter.com/xeni https://twitter.com/xeni 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 https://twitter.com/xeni/status/1165266579560521728
- ebg13 7y ago
  The digging is skilled, but the assumptions that go with them don't appear to be supported? > "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?
  - msghacq 7y ago
    He was already covered extensively in the media for raping under age girls. Brockman brought him to that party and then proceeded to take pictures with a bunch of young women that Epstein brought along.
    - ebg13 7y ago
      > He was already covered extensively in the media for raping under age girls When? The caption on the photo says "early 2000s". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Epstein https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Epstein says that the accusation leading to his first criminal case didn't happen until 2005. His conviction didn't happen until 2008. So how does that fit into the "early 2000s" timeline?
  - larrywright 7y ago
    You wouldn’t find it odd that someone who had no children of his own was constantly surrounded by teenage girls? I sure would. Yes, that’s not the same as knowing that they’re being raped, but I’d sure want to distance myself from someone who was behaving like that.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - ebg13 7y ago
      Being odd is not a crime. What any one person would do is often not a strong indicator of what is right. A lot of people also like to distance themselves from black people. Them being black is not the same as knowing that they're violent criminals, but... The kind of thought process that you're suggesting has very toxic tendrils.
      - larrywright 7y ago
        Let me put it this way: a middle-aged man, with no children of his own, regularly hanging out with underaged girls is more than odd - it’s a warning sign. There really aren’t many (if any) non-sleazy explanations for that behavior. He didn’t even have a credible cover story, like working with disadvantaged young women. Comparing this to avoiding black people based solely on the color of their skin (and not that there are warning signs) is not remotely the same.
microcolonel 7y ago
On this side, it seems to be largely related to Epstein's weird narcissistic eugenic breeding program, where he looked (or looks, if he is alive) to notably increase the proportion of the world population descended from himself.
- tyre 7y ago
  > (or looks, if he is alive) No conspiracy theories please. We have enough assaults on truth as it is.
  - jessaustin 7y ago
    Yeah I remember when there was a conspiracy theory about a bunch of politicians and important people being associated with a pedophile pervert sex ring... amazing what people will believe!
  - microcolonel 7y ago
    I know it sounds crazy, but so does the truth so far. You don't know what's true, I don't know what's true, none of us do. 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.
  - SuoDuanDao 7y ago
    Well, the likeliest explanations are that he successfully committed suicide, was successfully murdered, or was placed into witness protection. None of those seem very likely, but none of those seem significantly less likely than the others either.
- akhilcacharya 7y ago
  In a way it reminds me of the later funding patterns of the Pioneer Fund. I wonder if there's any overlap..
nautilus12 7y ago
Wait a second, is the implication that anyone associated with him was also somehow tied to his illegal sexual activities? That seems like a stretch, and this seems like an attempt to smear anyone even remotely attached to him. Its entirely possible and likely he gave money to scientists and they had no further connection to him beyond that. Buzzfeed is such garbage, how is it reaching the front page of hacker news?
- msghacq 7y ago
  Many of these people traveled on Epstein's jets and visited his houses repeatedly. There's a lot more here than accepting money from a sex offender (which in itself is really awful).
  - spoovy 7y ago
    "accepting money from a sex offender (which in itself is really awful)" No it isn't. Not if you didn't know he was a sex offender at the time. How do you know you have never accepted a grant, a paycheck, a contract, whatever, from a sex offender? You can't possibly know if you have or not. And if you did find out one day that if fact you have, do you owe a grovelling fake apology to every gutter press "journalist" that spams your inbox for ever more?
- nscalf 7y ago
  Exactly this, we seem to have a lot of "guilty by association" going on in society lately, but I think it will pass. There have been a few waves of extreme responses to limited real things that pass after a year or two lately.
qazpot 7y ago
So everyone who ever worked or met Epstein is guilty by association ? Is this what journalism is ? - Naming and Shaming people where there is no crime or unethical act committed.
- msghacq 7y ago
  These people also socialized with him and when they accepted money from him it was after he was a convicted sex offender. 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-media-lab/ http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2019/08/20/on-me-and-the-...
  - natalyarostova 7y ago
    Should we shame and refuse association with people who have already been tried and convicted and served their punishment? And should we then shame those who do work with people who went through the justice system? 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?
    - msghacq 7y ago
      Yes, it's not a good idea for high profile people (or anyone really) to work with convicted sex offenders. It was well known at the time that he got off very easy for his crimes. There was a lot of media coverage. Optically it's bad, morally it's bad. There's also more to this than just "work" as well. If someone was a convicted child rapist, would you invite them and a bunch of young women to your parties and take pictures like this? https://twitter.com/xeni/status/1165266579560521728 https://twitter.com/xeni/status/1165266579560521728
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
turk73 7y ago
I think he probably had multiple goals in mind but it mainly looks to me like someone who wanted to make money by getting in good with the people doing fundamental research so that he could have an inside track on new technologies and new products that would be reaching the market. It's what I would do (not the pedo shit, that is beyond perverse).
wickerman 7y ago
I read this entire thing and don't understand what's the issue - is it that Epstein is trying to fund people who might give a scientific "excuse" for his criminal behaviour or it's just "scientist took money from bad man, bad scientist", because if it's the latter we might as well shut down NASA and the space program since it was funded by Nazis, etc etc. 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).
petschge 7y ago
It is now accepted that all politicians are scumbags. So when they meet with Epstein, fly on his jets, visit his house, party with him, it is "only" as bad as expected. That does not rile up reads and doesn't produce clicks. So now the media has to go over associates where the internet expects better - scientists (and to some extend the tech crowd).
jug 7y ago
That particular aspect of his persona may be somewhat interesting, but I dislike how they need to list names of scientists and walk them through. It makes it uncomfortably transparent why Buzzfeed is doing this and I disagree with them. If anything, pedophilia can be expected to be a very privately held and guarded part of oneself and none of these persons can be expected to have known. Acting on pedophilia is one of those crimes that really, REALLY need to have a smoking gun for associations not the least because it can be so damaging to others being falsely accused.
- msghacq 7y ago
  There was nothing private about it. There was a ton of media coverage at the time about Epstein molesting young girls. Ethan Zuckerman urged Joi Ito not to get involved with him but was ignored: http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2019/08/20/on-me-and-the-media-lab/ http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2019/08/20/on-me-and-the-...
moosey 7y ago
Money is power, and that power is necessary for continued scientific development. The problem isn't that scientists came to him for that money, it's the fact that the system is built in such a way that bad actors get to retain power. 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.
empath75 7y ago
No on has ever explained where he got all his money from. It seems like he blackmailed a bunch of extremely wealthy people into giving him money to ‘manage’ and then used that money to ensnare more and wealthier and influential people. He probably contacted and funded far more people than he managed to compromise. 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.
- larrywright 7y ago
  I hope these details come out (despite the attempts of powerful people to prevent that). This story is likely to get even weirder as it all unfolds.
- svd4anything 7y ago
  I suspect each and every “customer” he had was compromised/blackmailed. Additionally there are subtle indications that he has intelligence connections and was perhaps even state sponsored. Now which state ... well of course I’ll be flagged and downvoting to suggest this but most logical is Mossad. Interesting he had a fake Saudi passport and diamonds, among many many other hints there is an intelligence angle to this story.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    > Now which state ... well of course I’ll be flagged and downvoting to suggest this but most logical is Mossad. 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.
    - svd4anything 7y ago
      Ok sure but how can I say it without being accused of being anti-semitic, I was thinking using the intelligence agency name is more appropriate than an entire country! I am NOT ever anti-semitic, but maybe Mossad gets away with crazy stuff exactly because any westerner who complains is immediately branded as such. Note: the entire post is flagged now and removed from HN front page.
raverbashing 7y ago
> Morozov declined the offer of an introduction. Looks like someone was able to read Epstein from afar and keep the distance.
wpietri 7y ago
That is one hell of a list. 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. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_bombing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_bombing
- rjf72 7y ago
  A scientist believes he can potentially meaningfully improve the world and nature of mankind with his research, but he's having trouble obtaining funding. He's offered funding by the worst human imaginable with no strings attached other than said patron being seen as the patron. Is it more moral to accept the money, or to reject it?
  - merpnderp 7y ago
    As long as Epstein didn't gain materially in the exchange, who cares where the money came from?
    - wpietri 7y ago
      Does Epstein seem like a guy who did a lot of things just to make the world better? Of course he gained in the exchange. He was an astute buyer of prestige, of legitimacy. Look at the scientists who went to bat for him after he had already been indicted, even convicted.
  - shademaan 7y ago

76 points by msghacq 7y ago

It looks that after all he did something good with the money. If more people would donate to science before to go to jail(or commit suicide) the world would be a better place.

alwaysanagenda 7y ago

One pedo ring to rule them all, and in the darkness, blackmail them.

spoovy 7y ago

This kind of guilt-by-association witch hunt disgusts me. Buzzfeed is a disgrace.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

msghacq 7y ago

A lot of this information came out last week on Xeni's Twitter account: https://twitter.com/xeni https://twitter.com/xeni 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 https://twitter.com/xeni/status/1165266579560521728

ebg13 7y ago
The digging is skilled, but the assumptions that go with them don't appear to be supported? > "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?
- msghacq 7y ago
  He was already covered extensively in the media for raping under age girls. Brockman brought him to that party and then proceeded to take pictures with a bunch of young women that Epstein brought along.
  - ebg13 7y ago
    > He was already covered extensively in the media for raping under age girls When? The caption on the photo says "early 2000s". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Epstein https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Epstein says that the accusation leading to his first criminal case didn't happen until 2005. His conviction didn't happen until 2008. So how does that fit into the "early 2000s" timeline?
- larrywright 7y ago
  You wouldn’t find it odd that someone who had no children of his own was constantly surrounded by teenage girls? I sure would. Yes, that’s not the same as knowing that they’re being raped, but I’d sure want to distance myself from someone who was behaving like that.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - ebg13 7y ago
    Being odd is not a crime. What any one person would do is often not a strong indicator of what is right. A lot of people also like to distance themselves from black people. Them being black is not the same as knowing that they're violent criminals, but... The kind of thought process that you're suggesting has very toxic tendrils.
    - larrywright 7y ago
      Let me put it this way: a middle-aged man, with no children of his own, regularly hanging out with underaged girls is more than odd - it’s a warning sign. There really aren’t many (if any) non-sleazy explanations for that behavior. He didn’t even have a credible cover story, like working with disadvantaged young women. Comparing this to avoiding black people based solely on the color of their skin (and not that there are warning signs) is not remotely the same.

microcolonel 7y ago

On this side, it seems to be largely related to Epstein's weird narcissistic eugenic breeding program, where he looked (or looks, if he is alive) to notably increase the proportion of the world population descended from himself.

tyre 7y ago
> (or looks, if he is alive) No conspiracy theories please. We have enough assaults on truth as it is.
- jessaustin 7y ago
  Yeah I remember when there was a conspiracy theory about a bunch of politicians and important people being associated with a pedophile pervert sex ring... amazing what people will believe!
- microcolonel 7y ago
  I know it sounds crazy, but so does the truth so far. You don't know what's true, I don't know what's true, none of us do. 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.
- SuoDuanDao 7y ago
  Well, the likeliest explanations are that he successfully committed suicide, was successfully murdered, or was placed into witness protection. None of those seem very likely, but none of those seem significantly less likely than the others either.
akhilcacharya 7y ago
In a way it reminds me of the later funding patterns of the Pioneer Fund. I wonder if there's any overlap..

nautilus12 7y ago

Wait a second, is the implication that anyone associated with him was also somehow tied to his illegal sexual activities? That seems like a stretch, and this seems like an attempt to smear anyone even remotely attached to him. Its entirely possible and likely he gave money to scientists and they had no further connection to him beyond that. Buzzfeed is such garbage, how is it reaching the front page of hacker news?

msghacq 7y ago
Many of these people traveled on Epstein's jets and visited his houses repeatedly. There's a lot more here than accepting money from a sex offender (which in itself is really awful).
- spoovy 7y ago
  "accepting money from a sex offender (which in itself is really awful)" No it isn't. Not if you didn't know he was a sex offender at the time. How do you know you have never accepted a grant, a paycheck, a contract, whatever, from a sex offender? You can't possibly know if you have or not. And if you did find out one day that if fact you have, do you owe a grovelling fake apology to every gutter press "journalist" that spams your inbox for ever more?
nscalf 7y ago
Exactly this, we seem to have a lot of "guilty by association" going on in society lately, but I think it will pass. There have been a few waves of extreme responses to limited real things that pass after a year or two lately.

qazpot 7y ago

So everyone who ever worked or met Epstein is guilty by association ? Is this what journalism is ? - Naming and Shaming people where there is no crime or unethical act committed.

msghacq 7y ago
These people also socialized with him and when they accepted money from him it was after he was a convicted sex offender. 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-media-lab/ http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2019/08/20/on-me-and-the-...
- natalyarostova 7y ago
  Should we shame and refuse association with people who have already been tried and convicted and served their punishment? And should we then shame those who do work with people who went through the justice system? 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?
  - msghacq 7y ago
    Yes, it's not a good idea for high profile people (or anyone really) to work with convicted sex offenders. It was well known at the time that he got off very easy for his crimes. There was a lot of media coverage. Optically it's bad, morally it's bad. There's also more to this than just "work" as well. If someone was a convicted child rapist, would you invite them and a bunch of young women to your parties and take pictures like this? https://twitter.com/xeni/status/1165266579560521728 https://twitter.com/xeni/status/1165266579560521728

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

turk73 7y ago

I think he probably had multiple goals in mind but it mainly looks to me like someone who wanted to make money by getting in good with the people doing fundamental research so that he could have an inside track on new technologies and new products that would be reaching the market. It's what I would do (not the pedo shit, that is beyond perverse).

wickerman 7y ago

I read this entire thing and don't understand what's the issue - is it that Epstein is trying to fund people who might give a scientific "excuse" for his criminal behaviour or it's just "scientist took money from bad man, bad scientist", because if it's the latter we might as well shut down NASA and the space program since it was funded by Nazis, etc etc. 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).

petschge 7y ago

It is now accepted that all politicians are scumbags. So when they meet with Epstein, fly on his jets, visit his house, party with him, it is "only" as bad as expected. That does not rile up reads and doesn't produce clicks. So now the media has to go over associates where the internet expects better - scientists (and to some extend the tech crowd).

jug 7y ago

That particular aspect of his persona may be somewhat interesting, but I dislike how they need to list names of scientists and walk them through. It makes it uncomfortably transparent why Buzzfeed is doing this and I disagree with them. If anything, pedophilia can be expected to be a very privately held and guarded part of oneself and none of these persons can be expected to have known. Acting on pedophilia is one of those crimes that really, REALLY need to have a smoking gun for associations not the least because it can be so damaging to others being falsely accused.

msghacq 7y ago
There was nothing private about it. There was a ton of media coverage at the time about Epstein molesting young girls. Ethan Zuckerman urged Joi Ito not to get involved with him but was ignored: http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2019/08/20/on-me-and-the-media-lab/ http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2019/08/20/on-me-and-the-...

moosey 7y ago

Money is power, and that power is necessary for continued scientific development. The problem isn't that scientists came to him for that money, it's the fact that the system is built in such a way that bad actors get to retain power. 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.

empath75 7y ago

No on has ever explained where he got all his money from. It seems like he blackmailed a bunch of extremely wealthy people into giving him money to ‘manage’ and then used that money to ensnare more and wealthier and influential people. He probably contacted and funded far more people than he managed to compromise. 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.

larrywright 7y ago
I hope these details come out (despite the attempts of powerful people to prevent that). This story is likely to get even weirder as it all unfolds.
svd4anything 7y ago
I suspect each and every “customer” he had was compromised/blackmailed. Additionally there are subtle indications that he has intelligence connections and was perhaps even state sponsored. Now which state ... well of course I’ll be flagged and downvoting to suggest this but most logical is Mossad. Interesting he had a fake Saudi passport and diamonds, among many many other hints there is an intelligence angle to this story.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > Now which state ... well of course I’ll be flagged and downvoting to suggest this but most logical is Mossad. 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.
  - svd4anything 7y ago
    Ok sure but how can I say it without being accused of being anti-semitic, I was thinking using the intelligence agency name is more appropriate than an entire country! I am NOT ever anti-semitic, but maybe Mossad gets away with crazy stuff exactly because any westerner who complains is immediately branded as such. Note: the entire post is flagged now and removed from HN front page.

raverbashing 7y ago

> Morozov declined the offer of an introduction. Looks like someone was able to read Epstein from afar and keep the distance.

wpietri 7y ago

That is one hell of a list. 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. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_bombing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_bombing

rjf72 7y ago
A scientist believes he can potentially meaningfully improve the world and nature of mankind with his research, but he's having trouble obtaining funding. He's offered funding by the worst human imaginable with no strings attached other than said patron being seen as the patron. Is it more moral to accept the money, or to reject it?
- merpnderp 7y ago
  As long as Epstein didn't gain materially in the exchange, who cares where the money came from?
  - wpietri 7y ago
    Does Epstein seem like a guy who did a lot of things just to make the world better? Of course he gained in the exchange. He was an astute buyer of prestige, of legitimacy. Look at the scientists who went to bat for him after he had already been indicted, even convicted.
- shademaan 7y ago