HereAndGone2
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User ID: 4074
HereAndGone2
3hr ago
By all accounts he seems to have been genuinely charming and personable. So much of his career depended on lucky breaks where he convinced someone with influence or even just "I can get your foot in the door" access to back him, simply because the person liked him, thought he was smart, thought he was wasted wherever he currently was, and wanted to help him along. He also seems to have had incredible luck, or at the least the ability to discern when it was time to get free of the sinking ship well before it sank.
His real golden goose was Leslie Wexner. An incredibly rich, incredibly socially awkward (and probably closeted gay) fellow Jew who much preferred being at home in Ohio but perforce had to be in New York for business and networking reasons, and who was delighted to meet a personable, charming, socially skilled guy who was both able to help him navigate the social scene and manage his wealth for him. This enabled Epstein to jump into a circle of really rich, really influential people and he worked that for all it was worth, making contacts and establishing himself as the guy who knew all the right people and threw all the best parties.
Why is it an invalid opinion that Epstein didn't know the girl was under 18?
(1) Because of course if the guy is guilty, the first thing the defence will try is "Your honour, my client had no idea this girl was not [quick, what's the legal age of consent here?] 16/18/21"
(2) Epstein liked them 14 or so. He liked them 18 as well, but he had track record of being inappropriate with younger girls, from his time at the Dalton school (where he also made his first contacts with parents who could get him referrals to finance jobs*). A guy who can pay for 'em young and is interested in 'em young will damn well know the difference between 14 and 18, even just to complain to the pimp or procuress "you tried to pawn off that older girl on me last time, don't try it this time, I'm paying for 15 so I want 15".
Now, there can be reasonable mistakes as to age. Girls can dress and act and use makeup to make themselves look older. Ages of consent vary within countries and between countries. But Epstein had too many encounters of that kind to brush it off as "he genuinely thought she was 18 and not 14".
Ms. Kitziger said she became close to Mr. Epstein at a time when she was struggling at home with her parents’ divorce. She confided in him, and remembered him as caring and attentive.
“He listened,” Ms. Kitziger recalled. “I was a 14-year-old and he helped me through a time when there wasn’t anybody else to talk to. I felt like he really cared that I was having a rough go.”
She stressed that Mr. Epstein was always professional with her.
But other students, including Millicent Young, a graduate of the school’s 1976 class, saw things differently. Ms. Young never had Mr. Epstein as a teacher, but the school was small enough that she would spend time around him. She recalled observing Mr. Epstein flirting with the girls at the school, which drew her attention because it was so different from how other teachers behaved.
“There was a real clarity of the inappropriateness of the behavior — that this isn’t how adult male teachers conduct themselves,” Ms. Young said.
Epstein was 21 to 23 years of age while he taught at the Dalton school. Now, maybe a 22 year old male teacher really is interested in being a big brother to a 14 year old girl student. Or maybe his interest was less benign. We don't know, since the girl says nothing happened, but he was certainly getting a reputation for hanging around the students. He was of course young himself, not very much older than the oldest students, but 'attending parties where there is underage drinking' is not professional behaviour, even in the sense of protecting yourself from being involved in any complaints should the parents find out the kids are boozing and partying:
Another student, who also requested anonymity, fearing reprisals from Mr. Epstein, recalled seeing Mr. Epstein at a high school party in an apartment on the Upper East Side where students were drinking and socializing. Mr. Epstein was the only teacher there, which raised eyebrows among the students.
“It was weird,” said another former student, Paul Grossman, a 1978 graduate who did not attend the party but remembered hearing about it. “Everyone talked about it,” he said.
*In early 1976, Epstein attended an art event where he met a Dalton father who worked on Wall Street. The man thought Epstein was "wasting his time" at Dalton, given his knowledge of mathematics, and rang Alan Greenberg – a senior executive at Bear Stearns – to recommend a potential hire. The timing was suitable, as Epstein was soon dismissed from Dalton due to poor performance.
HereAndGone2
1d ago
that something is just more misery
Well, that's Miéville for you. If we're talking about pure prose style, he's a very good writer, but he's unrelentingly grim (deeply imbued with socialist politics hence everything is oppression and only class consciousness can save us now). Good writing can only save so much of a world view that is unrelentingly ugly.
HereAndGone2
3d ago
More Chefs On The Piss!
HereAndGone2
3d ago
Sure looks like a slope. Sure looks like it's trending downhill. Sure looks like heading downhill is accelerating.
But no, don't believe your lying eyes, that's not slippery and it's not a slope!
HereAndGone2
3d ago
I don't see how this is possible without the mother and the doctor both being sociopaths.
Oh, honey. This is going back years and years, and of course I don't have the link, but in one of those media pieces about the Brave and Stunning Abortion Providers, there was an article by an ob/gyn doing her abortion rounds while 16 weeks pregnant, feeling her baby kicking, performing abortions on women at that same stage of pregnancy, and because of course her brain was awash in pregnancy hormones she started crying.
But that was only an emotional, hormonal reaction and she soon reasoned herself back into "abortion is good and necessary and it's not a baby yet" etc. etc. etc.
HereAndGone2
3d ago
How do you get a doctor to kill a baby that's days from coming out and is clearly already a human?
That's easy. It's only a baby if the mother wants it and is not medically terminologically classified as a "baby" rather than a "foetus" until after live birth and total separation from the mother. Pre-delivery foetus has no standing of legal personhood. That includes up to moving into the vaginal tract for delivery:
A fetus is not a legal person and only gains legal personhood at birth, when it is alive and has been delivered completely separated from the pregnant person’s body. A fetus, thus, cannot have a legal parent as it is not a legally recognised entity capable of being the subject of ‘parenthood’. By virtue of not being a legal person, a fetus neither has legal rights nor legal standing. No legal claims can be made by others on its behalf; for example, to protect its welfare. Legal parenthood cannot apply to it; no one can be its parent. However, significantly, the mater est principle as codified in the statute regulating ART specifies that a woman who ‘is carrying or has carried a child… is to be treated as the mother’.
Or after a failed abortion.
Several clinical studies have examined the medical circumstances under which live births can occur following attempted abortion, particularly in the second and third trimesters when the fetus has approached or is approaching viability (typically around 20 to 24 weeks of gestation). Additionally, though extremely rare, a few first trimester failed abortion attempts have resulted in live births later on in pregnancy. Live birth outcomes are most likely to occur with the labor induction abortion method and when feticidal measures, such as intracardiac injection to stop the fetal heartbeat, are unsuccessful or omitted. In the context of abortion, feticide refers to the intentional killing of an embryo or fetus prior to expulsion from the uterus.
One of the most comprehensive studies on this phenomenon is a 2024 retrospective cohort study published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. Reviewing over 13,000 second-trimester abortions (15–29 weeks gestation) in a cohort indicated for fetal anomaly, maternal emergency, or other causes performed in Quebec, Canada, the study found that 11.2% of these procedures resulted in live births. This risk was especially pronounced at 20–24 weeks, where the likelihood of live birth was nearly five times higher compared to abortions performed at 15–19 weeks. Significantly, the use of feticidal injections, specifically intracardiac or intrathoracic administration, reduced this relative likelihood by 57%.
But don't worry! The unwanted products of conception will usually die on their own if there is no medical intervention, unless those spoilsport pro-lifers managed to get laws passed about not just putting the thing on a shelf and leaving it to die. That was an entire controversy back in 2002.
These findings are supported by other clinical studies and observations as well. A 2018 study published in Obstetrics & Gynecology, which focused specifically on second-trimester abortions performed without feticide for fetal anomalies or genetic abnormalities between 20 and 24 weeks gestation, found that 50.6% of fetuses were born alive. The median survival time in these cases was 32 minutes. Live birth following the attempted abortions was more likely in cases involving higher gestational age and the absence of severe anomalies. A smaller study, published in 2016 via The Journal of Reproductive Medicine, found that 15% of labor induction abortions performed between 16 and 22 weeks gestation resulted in unintended live births. Most of these infants exhibited cardiac activity for less than two hours. Consistent with most other research, the probability of live birth increased with gestational age. The study also found that attempted terminations due to prenatal diagnoses of Down syndrome (trisomy 21) were associated with a higher likelihood of live birth.
HereAndGone2
3d ago
But that is the exact problem: the Track 1 cases are being used as the stalking horse for Track 2. While Track 2 might be confined for now to Alzheimer's etc. there's nothing saying it will remain confined to such cases. March 2027 is the first permissible time to start trying to expand Track 2 to mental health disorders.
And while it's only 4.4% now, what will it be in future? Will it creep up as it becomes more acceptable and more available and people become more aware they can avail of it? Will mental health disorders like chronic depression be included in the name of compassion?
If MAID was only "people terminally ill who are going to die soon and painfully", there would be less concern. But it's not, and has not been from the start, and once the camel gets its nose into the tent, at what point do you tell the camel to stop moving it? It's only the head now. It's only the neck now.
95% oldies today. What about tomorrow?
How many users of artificial contraception today are married couples with a kid or two just using it to space out their family so they will end up with three, four, or five children over a sensible period? But that's how it started, and that was the exact same argument: oh don't try and scare me, the numbers don't bear it out.
I've had an interest in tracking this particular issue through the Anglican Communion and I think it's instructive as to how acceptance changes social attitudes, then social attitudes further soften on acceptance, in a circle. "The Lambeth Conference is a decennial international gathering of bishops from the Anglican Communion, convened by the Archbishop of Canterbury"; basically it's where they gather to thrash out pastoral questions and applications of theology to the practice of the churches.
1920 Lambeth Conference: no-no to contraception, it is wrong and sinful
Resolution 70
Problems of Marriage and Sexual Morality
The Conference urges the importance of enlisting the help of all high-principled men and women, whatever be their religious beliefs, in co-operation with or, if necessary, in bringing pressure to bear upon, authorities both national and local, for removing such incentives to vice as indecent literature, suggestive plays and films, the open or secret sale of contraceptives, and the continued existence of brothels.
1930 Lambeth Conference: well okay but only for married couples in cases of necessity
Resolution 15
The Life and Witness of the Christian Community - Marriage and Sex
Where there is clearly felt moral obligation to limit or avoid parenthood, the method must be decided on Christian principles. The primary and obvious method is complete abstinence from intercourse (as far as may be necessary) in a life of discipline and self-control lived in the power of the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless in those cases where there is such a clearly felt moral obligation to limit or avoid parenthood, and where there is a morally sound reason for avoiding complete abstinence, the Conference agrees that other methods may be used, provided that this is done in the light of the same Christian principles. The Conference records its strong condemnation of the use of any methods of conception control from motives of selfishness, luxury, or mere convenience.Resolution 17
The Life and Witness of the Christian Community - Marriage and Sex
While the Conference admits that economic conditions are a serious factor in the situation, it condemns the propaganda which treats conception control as a way of meeting those unsatisfactory social and economic conditions which ought to be changed by the influence of Christian public opinion.Resolution 18
The Life and Witness of the Christian Community - Marriage and Sex
Sexual intercourse between persons who are not legally married is a grievous sin. The use of contraceptives does not remove the sin. In view of the widespread and increasing use of contraceptives among the unmarried and the extention of irregular unions owing to the diminution of any fear of consequences, the Conference presses for legislation forbidding the exposure for sale and the unrestricted advertisement of contraceptives, and placing definite restrictions upon their purchase.
1948 Lambeth Conference - nothing about contraception, they were much more worried about divorce becoming widespread and easily available, and divorced people wanting to remarry in the Church. And warning against marrying Roman Catholics.
1958 Lambeth Conference - God wants you to use contraception! (but only if you're married):
Resolution 115 The Family in Contemporary Society - Marriage
The Conference believes that the responsibility for deciding upon the number and frequency of children has been laid by God upon the consciences of parents everywhere; that this planning, in such ways as are mutually acceptable to husband and wife in Christian conscience, is a right and important factor in Christian family life and should be the result of positive choice before God. Such responsible parenthood, built on obedience to all the duties of marriage, requires a wise stewardship of the resources and abilities of the family as well as a thoughtful consideration of the varying population needs and problems of society and the claims of future generations.
1968 Lambeth Conference - the Catholics are wrong in "Humanae Vitae", technically you should only be contracepting if you're married and planning to have kids eventually but eh, we all know how society is going:
Resolution 22 Responsible Parenthood
This Conference has taken note of the papal encyclical letter "Humanae vitae" recently issued by His Holiness Pope Paul VI. The Conference records its appreciation of the Pope's deep concern for the institution of marriage and the integrity of married life.Nevertheless, the Conference finds itself unable to agree with the Pope's conclusion that all methods of conception control other than abstinence from sexual intercourse or its confinement to periods of infecundity are contrary to the "order established by God." It reaffirms the findings of the Lambeth Conference of 1958 contained in Resolutions 112, 113, and 115 which are as follows:
The Conference records its profound conviction that the idea of the human family is rooted in the Godhead and that consequently all problems of sex relations, the procreation of children, and the organisation of family life must be related, consciously and directly, to the creative, redemptive, and sanctifying power of God.
The Conference affirms that marriage is a vocation to holiness, through which men and women may share in the love and creative purpose of God. The sins of self-indulgence and sensuality, born of selfishness and a refusal to accept marriage as a divine vocation, destroy its true nature and depth, and the right fullness and balance of the relationship between men and women. Christians need always to remember that sexual love is not an end in itself nor a means to self-gratification, and that self-discipline and restraint are essential conditions of the responsible freedom of marriage and family planning.
The Conference believes that the responsibility for deciding upon the number and frequency of children has been laid by God upon the consciences of parents everywhere; that this planning, in such ways as are mutually acceptable to husband and wife in Christian conscience, is a right and important factor in Christian family life and should be the result of positive choice before God. Such responsible parenthood, built on obedience to all the duties of marriage, requires a wise stewardship of the resources and abilities of the family as well as a thoughtful consideration of the varying population needs and problems of society and the claims of future generations.
The Conference commends the Report of Committee 5 of the Lambeth Conference 1958, together with the study entitled "The Family in Contemporary Society" which formed the basis of the work of that Committee, to the attention of all men of good will for further study in the light of the continuing sociological and scientific developments of the past decades.
1978 Lambeth Conference - contraception? birth control? Nah, we've moved on to the gays now.
So it took just 48 years to move from "the only permissible form of birth control is abstinence" to "that's wrong, dumb Romans! (let's not mention that used to be our position too)" and then another 10 years to capitulate on social acceptance and increasingly widespread sex outside of marriage and use of contraception.
60 years from "this is wrong and sinful" to "this is your duty, God says".
Things move a lot faster today. Don't presume that "95% oldies" now is going to remain "95% oldies" in future.
HereAndGone2
3d ago
Though your "cheaper than welfare theory" suffers a bit
Not if we believe some of the claims around MAID; "sorry, we can't get you a wheelchair, but here's a pamphlet on assisted dying!"
I think the concerns are that there are two tracks:
person whose natural death is reasonably foreseeable (Track 1)
a person whose natural death is not reasonably foreseeable taking into account all of their medical circumstances (Track 2)
The fears are around Track 2 and that this is getting expanded/misused. Even the "it's all disinformation, here are the facts" website can only say "nah, you can't get MAID for mental problems right now, you have to wait till next March till that's legal!"
Is MAiD available for mental health disorders right now? No. Health Canada's most recent annual report confirms that MAiD for mental disorders remains excluded until at least March 2027.
That's not a solid "this will never happen" guarantee there. "You have to be over 18"? There's a push for mature minors to be able to avail of MAID. And what exactly is a "mature minor"? Well that depends on content and context, you see:
The term mature minor is a legal construct referring to persons under the age of 18 who are sufficiently mature to “understand information relevant to a treatment decision and to appreciate the reasonably foreseeable consequences of a decision or lack of decision.” The mature minor status can either be formally conferred through a legal process or can be informally granted by a healthcare practitioner, and the specific process and definitions depend on the provincial/territorial statute. For instance, in Ontario, essentially no consideration is given to age, with the ability to consent to medical treatment based entirely on capacity and competence. In Quebec, on the other hand, minors may generally consent to medical treatment at the age of 14, though exceptions will be made depending on the risk associated with care or the length of a hospital stay. Practically speaking, this means that minors under 14 cannot provide their own consent in Quebec. Moreover, the designation of “mature minor” can vary from one time point to another and from one decision to another—meaning it is context and content dependent.
"Vulnerable populations are protected by stringent safeguards"? How stringent, and how long will they continue to be safeguards, given the "well not yet just wait another year" that we see with the mental disorders requirement?
HereAndGone2
3d ago
Williams was good in the part, he pulled off Calrissian's character who was from the same dodgy background as Han, was caught between a rock and a hard place, and was charming but slightly unreliable, while not being a one-note villain. You understood why he did what he did, while still condemning it, and then he does the right thing in the end.
HereAndGone2
3d ago
It's hard for his parents, who have lost a child, and his children, who have lost a father. That's as much sympathy as I can extend to Arday and his choices. His family will suffer through no fault of their own.
HereAndGone2
3d ago
I agree that he probably had been relying on fixers all during his career, and this time the heat was too much so they advised him to step back and lie low until it blew over. But his vanity and ego couldn't take it that for once, the magic get-out-of-jail-free card didn't work.
If it was suicide, I am leaning towards "not really intentional", he would have hoped to be found in time and then recover in hospital so then the story would have been "brave black academic hounded towards suicide by racists" and he could have spun that into getting the accusations softened or dropped. Unhappily for him, it worked.
HereAndGone2
3d ago
The initial police report is "unexpected but not suspicious" so that would seem to mean "not treated as suicide". He might have been genuinely ill despite all the fakery, or it could have been an accident. We won't know for sure until more information is released.
HereAndGone2
3d ago
It's hard to know how smart Arday was, because he obfuscated so much: claims of autism and developmental delay, claims of non-verbal, claims of illiteracy, claims of epilepsy after an assault, testicular cancer in his proposal for the memoir peddled to Simon and Schuster which then morphed into brain tumour(s), etc.
I think he was clever, but not outstanding, and lazy/dishonest enough that he saw how society was holding out claims of disability and racism to him as a shortcut to getting where he wanted to be, rather than relying on native intelligence and hard work, so he took the easy path. And this worked for him, so he kept looking for short cuts even when that involved increasingly baroque levels of confabulation. Eventually he would have been found out, and he was, and this is the end result.
HereAndGone2
3d ago
Is this how he will be remembered? Not as a cheat and a fabulist, but as a martyr for the noble cause of DEI?
Odds are very good that's how it will be. Remember the recent "Woke is dead, even AOC denies Woke 1.0" stuff? Yeah, woke is going nowhere and this will be the British George Floyd moment UK activists were craving.
HereAndGone2
3d ago
Ah, I didn't see your comment before I posted. Let me move mine down here:
No news yet on cause of death, so it may be he was indeed as ill as he claimed to be, or he killed himself. If I'm really being cynical and horrible, this could have been a 'cry for help' (divert attention from the charges and make him into a victim) attempt that worked too well and he wasn't found in time to be saved*.
Either way, his death will be treated as the martyrdom of a scholar who was hounded and persecuted just for being black. All the plagiarism and other fantastic claims will be swept under the carpet, and it will be Professor Arday Died For Your Sins, Systemic Racism.
Arday faked so much in his life and about his life, it's hard to know what the truth of his death is, until we get more information. But it will divide into two camps: "see, he was innocent all along and racists killed him" versus "this is sad but he did do the things he was accused of doing" and camp A will be heard more, and disseminated more, than camp B.
*In case you think I'm simply being awful for the sake of awfulness, I have a family member who likes rewriting history so they were the victim of general abusiveness growing up, including fake accusations of inappropriate sexual contact by another family member **, and whose stock response to any mild 'here's how to get out of the situation you are in' advice that required them to do something other than wallow in self-pity was to turn on the waterworks and whimper about 'yes I know I'm a nuisance and a bother and you're right to hate me and want me dead'. They did two 'cry for help' attempts that were carefully calibrated not to be fatal and are now getting their 'I am a martyr and a victim' badge burnished.
** I know it's fake because I was on the premises at the alleged times this happened and unless it was done in another dimension to the one we inhabit, it didn't happen. I know this is often a claim for such accusations: "oh the accused could never have done it" but it was completely not in character for the accused person and, as I said, I was around while alleged events happened and would have seen or heard what they claimed, and I didn't see or hear it.
HereAndGone2
3d ago
To me it feels demeaning because it implies that if I use ai, that the content produced using it does not belong to me.
Well, it doesn't, anymore than if you asked a work colleague to write that report for you. Unless it's the case of a speechwriter or a ghostwriter producing work for hire, then someone (or something) else producing the output is not you.
But I WANT to use ai for everything
What does "everything" mean? "Hey Claude, should I wipe my arse after taking a shit"? If you're on that level of dependence, you are not creating anything, the machine has replaced your brain.
increasingly the ai-using person becomes like a vessel to the model
Do you understand what you just said there? The human is the vessel for the model, not the other way round?
HereAndGone2
3d ago
Oh I have plenty of conservative principles and I'm holding tight to them. Helps to be Catholic, because even though Western Catholicism amongst the laity (and the late Boomer/Gen X generation of post-Vatican II clergy and religious) is loosey-goosey, the official positions of the Church still hold even amongst all the "now let's just be sensible and modern and accommodating and relevant to the needs of today" persuasion going on, and those are backed up by quoted principles.
You may disagree with those principles, but it can't be denied that they are principles and not just "well I kinda feel this is the way it should be".
Haggling over whoring leads to "sex work is real work" and OnlyFans and the plaints (many and numerous) on here about "why no date for I? why no wife and kiddies? why women not reply on dating apps?"
HereAndGone2
4d ago
"We've already established that you're a whore, now we're just haggling over the price".
Give in on "well okay some lives are not worth living" and you have no defence when the inch becomes a foot, then a yard, then a mile, each time the argument for extension is "but you already agreed we could do this, we just need a teeny little bit more".
HereAndGone2
4d ago
In cases where it's not clear, e.g. Grampa has not previously expressed a wish for euthanasia, I do think relatives can be influenced into "just be compassionate" by trusting the doctors and medical authority. And sometimes that medical authority is motivated by "we need to strip the parts before the carcass gets too stale" and not so much compassion.
The problems around the Liverpool Care Pathway demonstrate that; some medical staff are a little too eager to play God and assist the shuffling off of the mortal coil before the would-be deceased is ready for it. It was meant to be a protocol for hospices and somehow it got turned into "general hospitals decide off their own bat not to give Granny food or water once she turns up with pneumonia and is a certain age":
Particular concern was raised in the Review about reports of patients being denied oral fluids, contrary to the legal requirement to provide basic care:
‘The offer of food and drink by mouth ... must always be offered to patients who are able to swallow without serious risk of choking or aspiration.’
In fact, the LCP guidance was explicit that:
‘... the patient should be supported to take food and fluid by mouth for as long as tolerated.’
The Review also identified reports of withdrawal of nutrition and hydration by drip or tube, without explanation or consultation. Decisions concerning these medical interventions are ‘not clear cut in end-of-life care’. The LCP was clear that ‘a blanket policy of no clinically assisted (artificial) hydration is ethically indefensible’, and that while ‘for many patients clinically assisted nutrition and hydration will not be required, the plan of care should be explained to the patient where appropriate and to the relative or carer.’
HereAndGone2
4d ago
I don't think it's evil so much as a combination of 'having seen a lot of dragged-out deaths' and sincerely wanting to be compassionate, plus eventually the stresses over "look, get Grampa out of that bed he's blocking" encourage them towards "let nature take its course".
The really evil ones are the medical ethicists.
HereAndGone2
4d ago
Okay, exact quote, bolding mine:
To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.”
HereAndGone2
4d ago
relying on outraged Christian pro-life gesticulating and "slippery slope" blanket denial
Well friend, as soon as people step up to fight for better medical care, then we outraged Christians won't be carrying it all on our own and the particular level of moral purity you want for the cause will be better calibrated to your needs and preferences.
I haven't been able to read much of his work since the unrelenting grim ugliness just turns me off, but it's funny that often the worldbuilding gets away from him and the story demonstrates that The People's Communist Socialist Collective Of True Comrades Democratically And Representatively Deciding Shit isn't really much use to anyone and would be pretty ineffectual if it ever took power.
And meanwhile the cryptids, as you say 😁
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