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This amounts to “sometimes the ends justify the means, also, oops, mea culpa!” My respect for Lessig diminished significantly after reading this.

natalyarostova 7y ago
Is your respect for people correlated with how much you agree with them? If so, are you able to have deep respect for people you disagree with? What if you're wrong?
- kelnos 7y ago
  That's a bit of a straw man you're attacking there. To me, the parent's comment reads as "I'm disappointed he's defending something I consider morally reprehensible", not "I disagree with him".
- fatbird 7y ago
  I lost some respect for Lessig on reading it, and it has nothing to do with disagreeing with him. It's that his essay presents itself as a tortured apologia for his support of Ito, but is an implausible, badly-reasoned rationalization. His arguments are terrible. He's supposed to be brilliant, and then shovels twaddle like this on a topic on which he could be an authoritative voice. He fails to note that Ito's apology was incredibly selective and self-serving and was basically a lie of omission in furtherance of the longtime covering up of the conspiracy to take Epstein's money. He accepts as self-evident that Epstein's money was not morally tainted itself by dismissing the most implausible explanation for it (i.e., blackmail). He ignores Ito's personally profiting from facilitating Epstein by also taking Epstein's money for his own ventures. Lessig tells a story of a "sweet soul" taking dirty money at the institution's direction and failing to consider the possible future damage of the revelation of same, and then castigates the rest of us because now when someone commits a comparably innocent error, they'll have no motive to confess, apologize and repair. Everything we've seen so far screams that this is a dark, corrupt, wide-ranging affair full of venal people using each other for mutual benefit, and what we get from Lessig is a puff piece on par with Ito's apology.

natalyarostova 7y ago

Is your respect for people correlated with how much you agree with them? If so, are you able to have deep respect for people you disagree with? What if you're wrong?

kelnos 7y ago
That's a bit of a straw man you're attacking there. To me, the parent's comment reads as "I'm disappointed he's defending something I consider morally reprehensible", not "I disagree with him".
fatbird 7y ago
I lost some respect for Lessig on reading it, and it has nothing to do with disagreeing with him. It's that his essay presents itself as a tortured apologia for his support of Ito, but is an implausible, badly-reasoned rationalization. His arguments are terrible. He's supposed to be brilliant, and then shovels twaddle like this on a topic on which he could be an authoritative voice. He fails to note that Ito's apology was incredibly selective and self-serving and was basically a lie of omission in furtherance of the longtime covering up of the conspiracy to take Epstein's money. He accepts as self-evident that Epstein's money was not morally tainted itself by dismissing the most implausible explanation for it (i.e., blackmail). He ignores Ito's personally profiting from facilitating Epstein by also taking Epstein's money for his own ventures. Lessig tells a story of a "sweet soul" taking dirty money at the institution's direction and failing to consider the possible future damage of the revelation of same, and then castigates the rest of us because now when someone commits a comparably innocent error, they'll have no motive to confess, apologize and repair. Everything we've seen so far screams that this is a dark, corrupt, wide-ranging affair full of venal people using each other for mutual benefit, and what we get from Lessig is a puff piece on par with Ito's apology.