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In the other thread, people were saying "I'd take Epstein's dirty money and do good with it." But the problem is that doing so normalizes the behavior. Everyb

In the other thread, people were saying "I'd take Epstein's dirty money and do good with it." But the problem is that doing so normalizes the behavior. Everybody who has doubts about working with the creep looks around the room, and when they don't see anyone else objecting, ends up thinking "I guess we're all ok with this behavior" and goes along to get along.

krapp 7y ago
> Everybody who has doubts about working with the creep looks around the room, and when they don't see anyone else objecting, ends up thinking "I guess we're all ok with this behavior" and gets along to go along. Let's be honest - a lot of people in the tech community and related subcultures (particularly genre fandoms) are either ok with, or are ambivalent towards, this behavior, or have a lack of empathy which leads them to view things in purely game-theoretical terms.
- liability 7y ago
  It's a trait that I've heard derisively referred to as "engineer autism" in some circles, though I doubt the literal truth of that description. But whatever it's called or ascribed to, there seems to be a genuine underlying trend of some sort. It's a topic I'd like to see defined and addressed; as tech becomes more important to society the pathologies of engineer types become more and more socially relevant as people with those traits acquire more power and status.
  - daseiner1 7y ago
    the probably correlation between technical interests in childhood and adolescence and reduced socialization is an obvious factor imo
    - liability 7y ago
      I suspect that's at least a large component of it. It might also be reversed; kids who have trouble socializing pick up tech hobbies that are more conducive to a low-social lifestyle. It might be one or the other depending on the individual, or it may be that one exacerbates the other.
  - TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
    It's not tech. It's business. Ito is far more of a businessman than he is an engineer. When it appears in tech, it's usually relatively harmless. When it appears in business, it can literally be lethal.
- goatinaboat 7y ago
  have a lack of empathy which leads them to view things in purely game-theoretical terms The same can be observed in adtech, Facebook etc employees
- jacquesm 7y ago
  > Let's be honest - a lot of people in the tech community and related subcultures (particularly genre fandoms) are either ok with, or are ambivalent towards, this behavior, or have a lack of empathy which leads them to view things in purely game-theoretical terms. The number of YC based start-ups that took dirty money is rather large. You may be on to something there. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/05/world/yuri-milner-facebook-twitter-russia.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/05/world/yuri-milner-faceboo...
matz1 7y ago
Normalize the taking money? Maybe, but not the child trafficking part.
- nemothekid 7y ago
  If you take the money you have to turn a blind eye to the child trafficking part.
  - matz1 7y ago
    I don't just assume where the money comes from.
    - rosser 7y ago
      There is precisely zero need for assumption here. The only way Epstein's behavior could have been more in the open is if he were advertising screenings of the "home movies" he made with these girls. When you continue to associate with that guy, you're saying, "People who do that are okay with us." That's normalization. Especially when, say, your day job is as the head of a pretty damned prestigious institution like Joichi-san. There is, in principle, no difference between this situation and all of the museums and whatever distancing themselves from the Sackler family and their opioid money. You don't get to white-wash killing tens of thousands of people for profit by having a new museum wing bear your name, just like you don't get to wash your hands of trafficking children for sex, just because you funded some AI research.
      - davrosthedalek 7y ago
        I don't get this. If it was so clearly obvious that he was breaking the law, why was he not in jail? Isn't that a bigger scandal?
        liability 7y ago
        > Isn't that a bigger scandal? It was/is. That angle of the story has received a great deal of attention.
cjbprime 7y ago
That doesn't sound quite right. If everyone did it, there would be no correlation between funding and reputation and power, and there just wouldn't be much reputation for someone to try to launder in this way. But everyone doesn't do it, and so we have this norm about how if someone X is an investor of Y, then some of Y's reputation transfers to X -- we assume Y did due diligence on X for us. The problem exists because accepting morally tainted money isn't a norm. (I'm not arguing that it should be!)
- okintheory 7y ago
  It's not the norm, but that is not the same as it being rare. When your money is dirty, you have to pay to launder it.

krapp 7y ago

> Everybody who has doubts about working with the creep looks around the room, and when they don't see anyone else objecting, ends up thinking "I guess we're all ok with this behavior" and gets along to go along. Let's be honest - a lot of people in the tech community and related subcultures (particularly genre fandoms) are either ok with, or are ambivalent towards, this behavior, or have a lack of empathy which leads them to view things in purely game-theoretical terms.

liability 7y ago
It's a trait that I've heard derisively referred to as "engineer autism" in some circles, though I doubt the literal truth of that description. But whatever it's called or ascribed to, there seems to be a genuine underlying trend of some sort. It's a topic I'd like to see defined and addressed; as tech becomes more important to society the pathologies of engineer types become more and more socially relevant as people with those traits acquire more power and status.
- daseiner1 7y ago
  the probably correlation between technical interests in childhood and adolescence and reduced socialization is an obvious factor imo
  - liability 7y ago
    I suspect that's at least a large component of it. It might also be reversed; kids who have trouble socializing pick up tech hobbies that are more conducive to a low-social lifestyle. It might be one or the other depending on the individual, or it may be that one exacerbates the other.
- TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
  It's not tech. It's business. Ito is far more of a businessman than he is an engineer. When it appears in tech, it's usually relatively harmless. When it appears in business, it can literally be lethal.
goatinaboat 7y ago
have a lack of empathy which leads them to view things in purely game-theoretical terms The same can be observed in adtech, Facebook etc employees
jacquesm 7y ago
> Let's be honest - a lot of people in the tech community and related subcultures (particularly genre fandoms) are either ok with, or are ambivalent towards, this behavior, or have a lack of empathy which leads them to view things in purely game-theoretical terms. The number of YC based start-ups that took dirty money is rather large. You may be on to something there. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/05/world/yuri-milner-facebook-twitter-russia.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/05/world/yuri-milner-faceboo...

matz1 7y ago

Normalize the taking money? Maybe, but not the child trafficking part.

nemothekid 7y ago
If you take the money you have to turn a blind eye to the child trafficking part.
- matz1 7y ago
  I don't just assume where the money comes from.
  - rosser 7y ago
    There is precisely zero need for assumption here. The only way Epstein's behavior could have been more in the open is if he were advertising screenings of the "home movies" he made with these girls. When you continue to associate with that guy, you're saying, "People who do that are okay with us." That's normalization. Especially when, say, your day job is as the head of a pretty damned prestigious institution like Joichi-san. There is, in principle, no difference between this situation and all of the museums and whatever distancing themselves from the Sackler family and their opioid money. You don't get to white-wash killing tens of thousands of people for profit by having a new museum wing bear your name, just like you don't get to wash your hands of trafficking children for sex, just because you funded some AI research.
    - davrosthedalek 7y ago
      I don't get this. If it was so clearly obvious that he was breaking the law, why was he not in jail? Isn't that a bigger scandal?
      - liability 7y ago
        > Isn't that a bigger scandal? It was/is. That angle of the story has received a great deal of attention.

cjbprime 7y ago

That doesn't sound quite right. If everyone did it, there would be no correlation between funding and reputation and power, and there just wouldn't be much reputation for someone to try to launder in this way. But everyone doesn't do it, and so we have this norm about how if someone X is an investor of Y, then some of Y's reputation transfers to X -- we assume Y did due diligence on X for us. The problem exists because accepting morally tainted money isn't a norm. (I'm not arguing that it should be!)

okintheory 7y ago
It's not the norm, but that is not the same as it being rare. When your money is dirty, you have to pay to launder it.