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Think about what both sides get in this transaction. Wealthy elites are using universities for prestige and to wash their reputations of past transgressions. Un
by tempsy 7y ago
Think about what both sides get in this transaction. Wealthy elites are using universities for prestige and to wash their reputations of past transgressions. Universities, in turn, get easy money from the rich.
- rowanG077 7y agoYou think Epstein funding some research washes him of his past transgressions? I have never heard anyone say that. Nor do I think we should stop people that have done wrong from doing right afterwards because it could "wash their reputations from past transgressions". We have something called the law that should bring justice to people.
- tempsy 7y agoI think you are more naive than you think. Think for a second. The most egregious example of this is the Sackler family's ( Purdue Pharma/Opioids) massive donations to the arts/museums. They should not receive the glory and praise for their generosity to the arts for triggering the deaths of so many Americans in the pursuit of drug profits.
- rowanG077 7y agoWhy not? They did both. We should recognize them for both. Why do you feel the need to portray them in such a one dimensional way?
- bradly 7y agoYou'd like to recognize a rapist for their charitable givings? edit: This was a poor comment. I shouldn't have phrased my point in such a crass way when I do not actually believe rowanG077 thinks what I wrote above. Sorry for my tone, rowanG077. It wasn't helpful to the conversation.
- rowanG077 7y agoDepends on what you mean by recognize. I certainly don't think we should hide it. I also don't think we should "forget" the person is a rapist. But the main point I am making is that we shouldn't stop the rapist from making charitable givings. Nor should we punish institutions for taking that money.
- bradly 7y agoMany people believe the charitable givings were what gave Epstein his credibility, allowing him to continue what he was doing. Accepting the donations was enabling Epstein.
- rowanG077 7y agoIs there actual proof of the government knowing about Epsteins actions and looking the other way because of his donations? I find that really hard to believe...
- bradly 7y agoI do not know about the U.S. government, but at M.I.T. he had been already been banned from charitable giving, so Joichi was having to lie about the source of the money.
- rowanG077 7y agoYes and that is indeed a problem. Joichi was willfully going behind M.I.T.s back to get those donations. And that should be a reason to fire Joichi. However that is completely separate from believing that blacklist to be valid. I don't think such a blacklist should exist at all. But it's not the call of the researcher itself to bypass it. That has nothing to do with your original point which said that his donations allowed him to work as a sex trafficker.
- marcinzm 7y agoWhere is the line? If you stole something at 16 does that mean you're to be shunned from society forever? Is the line rape? Is it murder? Sexual assault? Being a nazi? Being a conservative? Being a liberal? Associating with someone in the shunned group? And what aren't we allowed to do with these people? Accept their money? Talk to them? Have dinner with them? Be in the same room as them? Same building? Be friends with friends of theirs?
- AYBABTME 7y agoI think the naive approach is to think that things are black and white, absolutely good or absolutely bad, and so on by mere association. Scientifically useful results from scientists that are awful humans are still useful results on their own. A donation to a University (assuming no strings attached) doesn't make the University wrong by association, despite a donator who's an awful entity. Governments collect taxes from good and bad people and no one blinks an eye thinking the governments should lift their nose and walk away from money coming from criminals.
- anigbrowl 7y agoIt does when you know the donor is awful and you conceal the origin of the donation.
- AYBABTME 7y agoHow so? I think concealing the origin is the right thing especially if you know the person is awful and you don't want to reward them with reputation points. Bottom line, I think a donation, an idea, a contribution is useful even if it comes from an awful source, but the problem lies in whether you reward/enable the source's awfulness. I think that's the argument to make, as opposed to just focusing on whether the source of funds was a morally acceptable person.
- anigbrowl 7y agoThe right thing to do is not taking the money. There are plenty of other places you can get money from. The recipient may not get formal 'reputation points' but you are overlooking informal social networks in which such things are widely known but not talked about. If you have a bad reputation, financial inducements to silence people can be just as valuable if not more so as positive public remarks are to a person of ordinarily decent reputation. As I said on another thread, if you really want to donate anonymously to a good cause, you just call a lawyer and pay a small fee to have them to submit it on your behalf.
- 7y ago
- darawk 7y agoYou are neglecting base rates, IMO. The base rate of wealthy people contributing to charitable causes is very high. There is no reason to think that their charitable donations had anything to do with their opioid manufacturing or any sort of guilt about that. I'm sure they internalized all that stuff in a way that made them blameless anyway.
- skybrian 7y agoHow did Epstein benefit from making anonymous donations? It seems like there's something about this that we still don't understand.
- bb88 7y agoIsn't that the way the world works? Someone does something bad, gets caught, and all of a sudden gives an endowment to some university or pediatric research agency? I mean, isn't that the way billionaire's revamp their image?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- tempsy 7y agoWhat’s your point? If elite child prostitution rings are “the way the world works” why should we continuing normalizing that as a society?
- bb88 7y agoOh no, not at all. GP said he'd never heard of that in society before. Just trying to point out his ignorance.
- rowanG077 7y agoNot really. Someone doing something really bad will always have their image tainted. That doesn't mean we should stop them from doing good. Look at Bill Gates for instance. People still give him a lot of shit for what he did 20 to 30 years back even though he objectively has done a lot more good now then bad. Bill Gates did both of those things. We shouldn't forget either.
- darawk 7y agoDoes that actually launder anyone's reputation? Epstein was doing this sort of stuff before he was ever arrested. He seems to have been legitimately interested in funding science research. Unfortunately the world is actually complicated and people aren't simply one-dimensional villains. The guy did some genuinely good things, in a seemingly honest way. That doesn't in any way absolve him of the horrible things he did. But it's not at all clear that the purpose of his donations was some sort of reputation laundering.
- 7y ago
- human20190310 7y ago> You think Epstein funding some research washes him of his past transgressions? No, but it helps him maintain his social standing, which was a key factor in the lenient sentence he got for his conviction. Connections were a form of insurance for Epstein.
- rowanG077 7y agoIs there any proof to your claim?
- human20190310 7y agoThe Washington Post did a piece on the unusual handling of Epstein's case, e.g. having his case reviewed at the highest level of the Justice Department in an attempt to overrule the Miami prosecutors: https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/the-pressure-on-a-prosecutor-how-epsteins-wealth-and-power-steered-acosta-toward-lenient-deal/2019/07/12/2a7bdd08-a421-11e9-bd56-eac6bb02d01d_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/the-pressure-o...
- rowanG077 7y agoI can't view this for some reason. Is there an alternative where I can read this article?