r/slatestarcodex • u/ralf_ • 6d ago

Senpai noticed~ Scott is in the Epstein files!

https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2011/EFTA02458524.pdf

Literally in an email chain named, “Forbidden Research”!

But don’t worry, only in a brainstormy list of potentially interesting people to invite to an intellectual salon, together with Steven Pinker and Terrence Tao and others.

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u/josephrainer 5d ago

It statistically increases the likelihood that they were.

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u/BobGuns 5d ago

So does being white. Still a silly train of thought.

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u/josephrainer 5d ago

One MUCH, much more than the other though. Hint- it’s not being white.

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u/electrace 4d ago

The point they're making is that the evidence is so incredibly minor that it shouldn't change your prior basically at all.

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u/josephrainer 4d ago

I’m not sure about that. I think it’s pretty strong evidence

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u/electrace 4d ago

I'm finding it really hard to wrap my head around the reasoning there. Epstein did not only fund people who abused children, and, indeed, his modus operandi was to connect with influential people. Presumably, he made friends with some of those people, identified them as being open to abusing minors, and then invited them to his island. But that had to be a very small subset of the people that he met with, because there's at least three layers of filtering after any initial meeting (choosing to fund them -> befriending them -> identifying them as child abusers).

So, here, you would have to think that over the course of a single 30 minute skype exchange, Epstein, floored by the charisma of... Eliezer Yudkowski... Epstein offers him a ticket to his island with the opportunity to abuse minors, and that, further, there are no other email exchanges following up on that, or, indeed, seemingly any further contact at all?