The Epstein story bothers me. A lot. Though in some ways Ghislaine Maxwell bothers me even more. So I figured I'd write a post about it, but I feel the need to go into some of my own personal heuristics before doing that.
But first, a bit of story.
In college I had a job as a cashier and grocery bagger, a typical low-paying job to help pay the bills while I went to school. I sometimes was responsible for bringing back the shopping carts, and, well...
People are lazy. They leave them all over the parking lot, and not always in the cart corral like they're supposed to. I was sitting outside once, on break, and noticed a customer taking the time to clean up some of them... and sort of realized that even though the constant mess can give you a pretty negative view of human nature, there are often other people - good people - who do more than their share to try and clean it up.
So messes, well... it's more about how many people choose to leave a mess, how many decide just to take care of their own stuff, and how many people do that little bit extra to help. More people being lazy? Lots of carts not in the right place. (tbf, someone once said that there are reasons, sometimes good reasons, for leaving the carts where they shouldn't be. Mostly to do with disabilities or somesuch... though if that were the case I'd expect more of the carts by handicapped parking, so I'm pretty sure not ALL of the mess is for legit reasons.)
Leaving that, for the moment, some heuristics.
Things are always more complicated than you think, and issues are very rarely black and white. (Though just to add to the confusion, sometimes they are.)
People generally like to think they're good people, so they will rationalize whatever it is they're doing. If you want to know "how can they think that's acceptable!?!?" it helps to consider what sorts of things would make you think it's acceptable. You generally won't be that far off.
Ummm. And most people, well, tend to go into auto-mode and forget they have things like free will, so they'll do what 'everyone' does, and accept the norms of the people around them, without necessarily questioning it or deliberately choosing to create the systems/structures they live in. (Not an excuse, per se, but it frames the issue a certain way, and encourages thinking of systemic solutions instead of rather superficial and ineffective ones.)
So. Epstein, right?
In some ways, he's the perfect caricature of everything we hate about the wealthy. A criminal - yes, a criminal - who seemed to think his wealth and status protected him from the consequences of his bad behavior... and who seemed to be right about that. After all, how many people knew or suspected what he was doing and just... looked the other way? Deciding to ignore it, and continued to allow him into their social circles, or take his political money, or whatever?
This is where (if the article is true) Ghislaine, in some ways, bothers me more. A criminal is a criminal, after all. But the person willing to overlook all that? Who decides he really is somehow better or should be allowed to get away with it? Who thinks the young girls he's screwing are 'trash', and thinks nothing of it? Those are the ones that make their assessment true... that wealth and power can make up for a lot of sins.
But let me add another little bit to this. I've seen my fair share of anger at the wealthy, people pointing out just how outsized their influence is. There was one meme going around talking about the one percent, and it made some comment about how "it's 12 people".
This seems to me to be an exaggeration. I mean, we talk about the 1% a lot, but one of those fancy income graphs pointed out we're really talking about the .5% (the rest are more likely to be doctors or lawyers who are affluent, yes, but not at the ridiculous levels that really get people mad. And, well... .5% is more than 12 people. In a nation of 327.2 million, you're really talking about 1,636,000 people.
Still a ridiculously small portion of the population, but a heckuva lot more than 12. Enough for their own social norms, their own ways of thinking. And given (as I think seems obvious) that most of them hang out with each other, they have a good chance of living in their own little bubbles where they only take seriously others like them, and develop their own norms and whatnot. You know... since they've got enough wealth to avoid all the peons, they generally aren't flying economy on airplanes, or waiting in lines at amusement parks, or grocery shopping for themselves. (Hence all the stories about presidential candidates who don't know the price of milk, or have any sense at all of what it's like for the vast majority of us.) Some of this is speculation, of course. It's not like I have any great access to that sort of life.
Anyways. I figure like any reasonable large population of people, and over a million is large enough for that, you've got the same sort of mix I described with the grocery carts. You've got some who do bad things, you've got others that wouldn't cross that line but are mostly just minding their own business, and still others who are doing really great things. (My hair dresser gets some rather wealthy clients, and she says they're some of the nicest people... and I can believe that.)
The problem is that, collectively, what proportion is there of each?
Right now it feels like the world is, to continue with this grocery cart analogy, just full of carts left all over the place.
Yes, I know there are some amazing philanthropists out there, and they're doing fantastic things.
But we still have people dying because they can't afford insulin. We still have people working two or three low-paying jobs while the rich keep getting richer, and there is story after story of people who have more money than sense doing stupid things that keep making the world a worse place.
It's not just the Epsteins and Maxwells, either. I'm having the darndest time finding the quote, but I believe I heard a major figure in media tell his people that the only black person he wanted shown in the news was one in cuffs. (Maybe that's an exaggeration? I can't seem to find a source, though there are plenty of sources for media bias in general, like the classic one where white survivors of a catastrophe are 'finding' things whereas black ones are looting. Little things like that which shape perceptions with an unfair double standard. Also consider how the Stanford rapist was shown with a rather nice school pic, whereas the pics using for black men tended to be arrest photos or other negative pics. I'm sad to say that I generally didn't notice that sort of thing until it was pointed out to me, but it's definitely there. Also sad to say that in this hyper-politicized times people would rather claim Snopes isn't reliable than address this sort of thing.)
I do wonder how the people in positions of power and influence on these matters can honestly like what they see in the mirror, but whatevs.
Seems too many of those in the .05% are either so busy with their own lives that they aren't doing anything about it, or are just willing to look the other way.
Still, they'd have to be living in a rather serious bubble not to realize how much anger and resentment there is at them, for exactly that sort of reason. Like, you're in a position to do things we can only dream of, and yet you'd rather ignore the Epstein's among you, look the other way, and when you hear stories about people dying because they can't afford insulin just shrug and say 'not my problem'.
It's almost the same problem for other things - like trash and whatnot. So long as you can send it elsewhere (like a third world country), and don't have to deal with massive piles of waste in your own backyard, it's all out of sight and out of mind... and not your problem.
Push the consequences on those less fortunate, and go about your lives thinking you're somehow better than everyone else.
Bah. I sort of want to hear some stories of the good ones, just to restore my faith in humanity, and think that we're not entirely doomed.
But first, a bit of story.
In college I had a job as a cashier and grocery bagger, a typical low-paying job to help pay the bills while I went to school. I sometimes was responsible for bringing back the shopping carts, and, well...
People are lazy. They leave them all over the parking lot, and not always in the cart corral like they're supposed to. I was sitting outside once, on break, and noticed a customer taking the time to clean up some of them... and sort of realized that even though the constant mess can give you a pretty negative view of human nature, there are often other people - good people - who do more than their share to try and clean it up.
So messes, well... it's more about how many people choose to leave a mess, how many decide just to take care of their own stuff, and how many people do that little bit extra to help. More people being lazy? Lots of carts not in the right place. (tbf, someone once said that there are reasons, sometimes good reasons, for leaving the carts where they shouldn't be. Mostly to do with disabilities or somesuch... though if that were the case I'd expect more of the carts by handicapped parking, so I'm pretty sure not ALL of the mess is for legit reasons.)
Leaving that, for the moment, some heuristics.
Things are always more complicated than you think, and issues are very rarely black and white. (Though just to add to the confusion, sometimes they are.)
People generally like to think they're good people, so they will rationalize whatever it is they're doing. If you want to know "how can they think that's acceptable!?!?" it helps to consider what sorts of things would make you think it's acceptable. You generally won't be that far off.
Ummm. And most people, well, tend to go into auto-mode and forget they have things like free will, so they'll do what 'everyone' does, and accept the norms of the people around them, without necessarily questioning it or deliberately choosing to create the systems/structures they live in. (Not an excuse, per se, but it frames the issue a certain way, and encourages thinking of systemic solutions instead of rather superficial and ineffective ones.)
So. Epstein, right?
In some ways, he's the perfect caricature of everything we hate about the wealthy. A criminal - yes, a criminal - who seemed to think his wealth and status protected him from the consequences of his bad behavior... and who seemed to be right about that. After all, how many people knew or suspected what he was doing and just... looked the other way? Deciding to ignore it, and continued to allow him into their social circles, or take his political money, or whatever?
This is where (if the article is true) Ghislaine, in some ways, bothers me more. A criminal is a criminal, after all. But the person willing to overlook all that? Who decides he really is somehow better or should be allowed to get away with it? Who thinks the young girls he's screwing are 'trash', and thinks nothing of it? Those are the ones that make their assessment true... that wealth and power can make up for a lot of sins.
But let me add another little bit to this. I've seen my fair share of anger at the wealthy, people pointing out just how outsized their influence is. There was one meme going around talking about the one percent, and it made some comment about how "it's 12 people".
This seems to me to be an exaggeration. I mean, we talk about the 1% a lot, but one of those fancy income graphs pointed out we're really talking about the .5% (the rest are more likely to be doctors or lawyers who are affluent, yes, but not at the ridiculous levels that really get people mad. And, well... .5% is more than 12 people. In a nation of 327.2 million, you're really talking about 1,636,000 people.
Still a ridiculously small portion of the population, but a heckuva lot more than 12. Enough for their own social norms, their own ways of thinking. And given (as I think seems obvious) that most of them hang out with each other, they have a good chance of living in their own little bubbles where they only take seriously others like them, and develop their own norms and whatnot. You know... since they've got enough wealth to avoid all the peons, they generally aren't flying economy on airplanes, or waiting in lines at amusement parks, or grocery shopping for themselves. (Hence all the stories about presidential candidates who don't know the price of milk, or have any sense at all of what it's like for the vast majority of us.) Some of this is speculation, of course. It's not like I have any great access to that sort of life.
Anyways. I figure like any reasonable large population of people, and over a million is large enough for that, you've got the same sort of mix I described with the grocery carts. You've got some who do bad things, you've got others that wouldn't cross that line but are mostly just minding their own business, and still others who are doing really great things. (My hair dresser gets some rather wealthy clients, and she says they're some of the nicest people... and I can believe that.)
The problem is that, collectively, what proportion is there of each?
Right now it feels like the world is, to continue with this grocery cart analogy, just full of carts left all over the place.
Yes, I know there are some amazing philanthropists out there, and they're doing fantastic things.
But we still have people dying because they can't afford insulin. We still have people working two or three low-paying jobs while the rich keep getting richer, and there is story after story of people who have more money than sense doing stupid things that keep making the world a worse place.
It's not just the Epsteins and Maxwells, either. I'm having the darndest time finding the quote, but I believe I heard a major figure in media tell his people that the only black person he wanted shown in the news was one in cuffs. (Maybe that's an exaggeration? I can't seem to find a source, though there are plenty of sources for media bias in general, like the classic one where white survivors of a catastrophe are 'finding' things whereas black ones are looting. Little things like that which shape perceptions with an unfair double standard. Also consider how the Stanford rapist was shown with a rather nice school pic, whereas the pics using for black men tended to be arrest photos or other negative pics. I'm sad to say that I generally didn't notice that sort of thing until it was pointed out to me, but it's definitely there. Also sad to say that in this hyper-politicized times people would rather claim Snopes isn't reliable than address this sort of thing.)
I do wonder how the people in positions of power and influence on these matters can honestly like what they see in the mirror, but whatevs.
Seems too many of those in the .05% are either so busy with their own lives that they aren't doing anything about it, or are just willing to look the other way.
Still, they'd have to be living in a rather serious bubble not to realize how much anger and resentment there is at them, for exactly that sort of reason. Like, you're in a position to do things we can only dream of, and yet you'd rather ignore the Epstein's among you, look the other way, and when you hear stories about people dying because they can't afford insulin just shrug and say 'not my problem'.
It's almost the same problem for other things - like trash and whatnot. So long as you can send it elsewhere (like a third world country), and don't have to deal with massive piles of waste in your own backyard, it's all out of sight and out of mind... and not your problem.
Push the consequences on those less fortunate, and go about your lives thinking you're somehow better than everyone else.
Bah. I sort of want to hear some stories of the good ones, just to restore my faith in humanity, and think that we're not entirely doomed.
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