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Context matters. Otherwise we’re just being clowns.
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I mean being a known fraudster, requesting money from Epstein, and asking about some girl he met through Epstein is context too which is not a good look.

He may be innocent, but he certainly has a large stain and stink about him.

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This. Significant portions of the Epstein files are random noise. Though even for a popularish author it'd be strange to be in enough 1990-2018 news snippets to reach that many EF hits. In any case "is in the Epstein files" should in general be replaced with "is in the Epstein files, including this email to/from them I found"
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The most interesting section from the large paragraph on Wikipedia: “One of the documents is an image of an email from Ariely to Epstein, in which he requests the name and email of a "redhead" that Epstein had previously introduced to him”
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That still doesn't mean anything. Sure we know Epstein did evil, but not everything he did was evil. One should assume at least a few people he interacted with had no reason to suspect his evil actions.
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Go read the article instead of nitpicking people doing the citations for you.

If you ask a known pedophile for funding and introductions while accepting favors, you can rightly be accused of bad judgment - at best.

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Go read it yourself. There isn't enough information to draw concussions. Everything is consistent with contact with a major funder who you can't cut off just because of evil in a part of life you knew nothing about.

You can read the article with a bias and ignore his counter claims. However that is drawing a conclusion not warranted.

Now perhaps someone has read the letters and seen other evidence and can draw conclusions. However at this point I can't say who knew what.

Both people are of course evil, but they may or may not have an evil in common.

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I guess that's why the same passage says Ariely maintained the relationship long after the Epstein's pedophile convictions. Not definitive either, but pretty suggestive.
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> The messages revealed that his friendship with Epstein lasted for nine years, including well after Epstein was initially charged with soliciting sex from a minor.[52] Ariely also suggested that Epstein use learnings from his research to help rehabilitate his public image

what's clownish is defending anybody who would associate with a billionaire pedophile sex trafficker

anybody in the files who helped him rehab his image should rightly be consigned to the dustbin of history

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>what's clownish is defending anybody who would associate with a billionaire pedophile sex trafficker

>anybody in the files who helped him rehab his image should rightly be consigned to the dustbin of history

It's possible to denounce someone, but still push back on false claims. Otherwise you're just condoning misinformation just because it aligns with your beliefs . eg.

"Did you know Donald Trump literally eats babies?"

"Wtf are you talking about? There's no evidence of that."

"Wow, I can't believe you're defending a convicted felon, sex offender, and authoritarian! Anyone who's trying to rehab his image should be consigned to the dustbin of history."

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Ask yourself who benefits from equating "being mentioned in a file" and "having evidence this person is a pedophile"
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The answer appears to be "people who spend more time on offense than defense".

Not to say that tilting things in their direction is a good idea, but that's a pretty wide class of beneficiaries.

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iirc Epstein funded the media lab and had an office there
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