brendan halpin

I actually don’t enjoy writing about this stuff. You know what I enjoy writing about? Professional wrestling!

And speaking of professional wrestling, I saw a piece today about a wrestler who is having a hard time getting booked because they are a domestic abuser. They haven’t been convicted of anything—their former partner has just detailed the abuse, and people have been like, “this person is a piece of shit. I’m not booking them.” Plenty of pieces of shit continue to get booked in pro wrestling, so I’m not suggesting it’s some sort of piece-of-shit-free utopia. But it did strike me that this person has faced more consequences for their actions than most of the people who were friends with Jeffrey Epstein.

Indeed, while a lot of wrestlers who are pieces of shit are still working, most of them have lost their jobs at the promotions that offer the most money.

Sadly, this is not the case for Epstein’s pals. A LOT of them have faced absolutely no professional consequences for their association with him. (Though if you want a grim laugh, check out this post by former MIT researcher Joscha Boch about how very hard it was for him to have his association with Epstein exposed. The poor guy!)

Indeed, for many of these people, if you don’t search their name with Epstein’s, you won’t find any evidence that they ever knew him.

The press has tiptoed around this stuff—I don’t know their reasons, but they are timid about even saying people were associated with Epstein. Perhaps this is because they’re afraid of being accused of libel because of course just associating with Epstein doesn’t mean you broke any laws.

What it does mean, though, is that you’re a piece of shit. The good news about declaring someone a piece of shit is that there’s no legal standard. There’s no burden of proof. You just look at what you know about someone and go, “yeah, fuck that guy. He’s a piece of shit.” No legal proceedings!

We’ve done this before: even before his association with Epstein came out, we all pretty much agreed that Woody Allen was a piece of shit. Indeed, he’s such a piece of shit that his name was one of the least surprising ones to come up in the Epstein files.

Now, look, I don’t have time to comb through the Epstein files looking for everyone who ever met with him. But I did have time to search for Boston and Cambridge and see whose name came up.

There were a lot of familiar names whose association with Epstein has already been written about in the mainstream media and whose Wikipedia pages mention their association: Larry Summers, Joi Ito, Marvin Minsky, etc.

But Epstein met and corresponded with a WHOLE LOT of people in Boston and Cambridge, and most of them haven’t been written about. So let’s take a look, shall we?

There’s old pal Danny Hillis, my former employer, and professional smart guy currently affiliated with The Long Now Foundation and Applied Invention. I’m still the only person writing about his association with Epstein.

Psychologist Dan Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness and still employed by Harvard University.

Geneticist George Church, also still employed at Harvard.

Mathematician and Geneticist Eric Lander, still employed by both MIT and Harvard.

Neuroscientist Ed Boyden, still employed at MIT

Tech Writer Linda Stone

Former MIT Media Lab researcher Caleb Harper, already disgraced for faking research results but not yet disgraced for his association with Epstein.

Tech bro Greg Wyler

Harvard Medical professor Ted Kaptchuk

Statistician Don Rubin, professor emeritus at Harvard.

General tech guy and Wolfram Alpha founder Stephen Wolfram.

I’m not saying these people should necessarily be fired. I’m saying that insofar as they are known for other things, they should also be known for being pieces of shit.

Again, you don’t need any kind of legal proceeding to decide for yourself, as I have, that these people are pieces of shit. Please do!

So shines a good deed in a weary world: seemingly alone out of anyone Epstein reached out to in Boston or Cambridge, Palm and Handspring founder Jeff Hawkins rebuffed Epstein’s efforts to meet up thusly: I will pass. Our research is published. If Jeffrey has read it and wants to discuss it then we can start with an email conversation. Jeff.

You know who else could have cut this wealthy perv off with a cold blooded email just like Jeff Hawkins? Literally every single person on this list.