[natalyarostova]

Of all the people to take Epstein's money or endorse him with their reputation, of all the slimy people, of all the career politicians, we've decided to mainly just fixate and ruin the life of one well-intentioned nerd who wanted to use the money for research.

I hope everyone feels fuzzy and warm with their self-righteousness. Evil is defeated once more -- and you all helped -- with your brave internet shaming and directed anger. Truly, we live in marvelous times, where we can all gather together online and use the decentralized social networks to conspire and destroy.

Of course, no one here could hope to destroy those who are truly powerful and deserving, so instead every once in a while perhaps we can pick off one of the weaker ones.

But he deserved it! And that's why we write and focus on it, right? What else do people deserve? What else could we have done with this time and energy? Anything greater? If so, why didn't we? Perhaps it's because destroying people feels good -- it's fun.

[malvosenior]

What makes you think he was well-intentioned? He deliberately hid his actions. They sent Epstein a Disobedience Prize orb!

What makes you think he was powerless? He was on the board of the MIT Media Lab, The New York Times, The MacArthur Foundation, The Knight Foundation among other things.

He's exactly the kind of person who should be held accountable for their actions.

[vernie]

You get to deflect and vilify academics, it's a twofer!

[bbanyc]

When Ito turns out to have covered for some of Epstein's "customers", or to have been one himself, will you stop defending him?

[natalyarostova]

Respond to this comment if that happens, and I'll stop defending him and admit everyone was right, and I was totally wrong. I feel like there is only about a 5% chance that's the case, but who knows.

[erikpukinskis]

He took money from this guy after going to prison for rape, attended multiple events where underage prostitutes almost certainly were present... where do you get 95% confidence that his intentions were good?

Here’s a question: if we had a list of everyone who ever attended one of those parties, would you estimate 95% of them had good intentions?

[natalyarostova]

I think this is some special pleading though, since you could make similar statements about any of the many many high-profile people who commingled with Epstein. Is it all one large conspiracy? Or were they all just chumps?

[erikpukinskis]

I feel quite certain there is a large conspiracy? Do you have some doubt that he was at the center of a large conspiracy?