Mason  🏃‍♂️ ✂️

take of the day is that I think it's weird to prefer a world where monstrous people presumably buy more yachts or whatever and absolutely no public research, even anonymously

Seems like a disingenuous take. People aren’t upset that Bill Gates and company gave anonymously to MIT. They’re upset that they did it through a guy who sexually trafficked underage girls.

I'm talking about Epstein's money, not Gates'. It seems extremely sensible to be concerned about the *many* prominent people who had a relationship with Epstein, what they knew and what they may have participated in

But wouldn’t those prominent people include the people at MIT who were willing to collaborate with/take money from Epstein despite his horrible crimes?

Sure, if there's any indication that they withheld information from e.g. the feds or participated in crime. But we're not asking these questions about people who sold him luxury properties or products — I guess that's kosher?

I don’t think there’s any concern that they withheld information from the feds or participated in a crime. The concern is that they gave social standing to a horrible guy. That seems like a reasonable concern to me.

But — at least in some cases — they actively chose not to do that? And now we're calling that a "cover up" rather than "a refusal to give social standing." Presumably the people who sold him fancy boats or homes provided him considerably more access to the social elite

I think there’s a fairly big difference between selling someone a house or a boat and actively working with him over an extended period of time.