I’m also just sick of hearing about how old nerds just don’t know any better even when people are literally telling them to stop. That the topic is a bad idea. That they will make themselves look bad.
And it’s deeply unfair to people who have issues to simply blame gross behavior in being “neuro-atypical”.
Tact and decorum are how ideas are presented. No amount of tact or decorum would make it possible to defend somebody for sleeping with an underage girl.
He's attempting to find some remotely plausible scenario where the actions of his friend are morally acceptable.
No amount of tact makes that okay, and complete lack of tact just makes it worse.
Except for the part where he got taken to a remote island by a billionaire and was presented with a very young woman who immediately wanted to have sex with him.
You mean the island that Epstein regularly invited numerous people to in order to discuss assorted legitimate things, like supporting their charities or their research?
Epstein's island wasn't some stereotypical villain lair where anyone who steps foot on it must be up to no good. It was a place that he conducted the normal business that any entirely legitimate billionaire would conduct, in addition to the villain stuff.
Based on the girl's deposition, it looks like she was there on the record to provide massages to guests, and off the record was forced to make those erotic massages including sex. It is not clear which, if any, recipients of those massages plus sex knew that the sex was something she was forced into. There are no details given on her sex with Minsky other than it happened.
Minsky was included in a list of people that Epstein's assistant asked one of his victims to have sex with (the deposition didn't ask if sex actually occurred). In the deposition the victim couldn't remember the date they received that request, but a third party reported that they saw the victim approach Minsky in 2002 and that he turned her down and complained about it ( https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/339725/ ).
It may be the case that the witnessed event and the content of the deposition were unrelated and at different times, but if not-- the victim was also 18 at the time...
But no one really cares about the facts, this is almost entirely a ceremonial battle over who has the sickest imagination. Because there are essentially no clear details, not even a concrete allegation, everyone is essentially making things up in order to fight over them.
> Epstein’s former neighbor, the psychologist and computer scientist Roger Schank, describes another such event that he attended: a meeting of artificial-intelligence experts, organized by Marvin Minsky and held on Epstein’s island in April 2002. “Epstein walks into the conference with two girls on his arm,” said Schank. The scientists were holding their discussions in a small room, and as they talked, “[Epstein] was in the back, on a couch, hugging and kissing these girls.”
Hindsight is 20/20, scrutinizing our understanding of past events instead of making grandios assumptions is the key to realising justice. Misinterpretting the words of a man because you don't like the way they think is an injustice.
It was taken directly as the girl being “willing” when what he actually said was that she may have been coerced by Epstein into appearing to be “willing” to Minsky.
It doesn’t help that he has a documented history of fucked up comments in this general area.
Should news outlets and social media personalities who do purposefully take this comments out of context (and I think there can be little doubt that it is done on purpose [1]) be punished?
Clearly. This is a false accusation that damaged his work and reputation. At the very least, these news outlets and media personalities must be compelled to apologize publicly.
Would that somehow absolve Minsky? A "willing" obviously young girl seems to want to have sex with somebody she doesnt know.
If Minsky suddenly find himself in the plot to a porno, and just went along with it, then trying to defend his moral culpability is probably a lot out of the bounds of acceptability.
And it’s deeply unfair to people who have issues to simply blame gross behavior in being “neuro-atypical”.