Comment by LogicFailsMe

> a horrible person, ya know, just like Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov.

> Can we move on?

Indeed, I'd like to propose we collectively meta 'move on' from always being required to restate the well-known moral, ethical, political, legal or inter-personal lapses of every notable artist, athlete, entertainer, scientist, writer, etc anytime they are mentioned, even in passing. Crazy... I know.

As you note, history is chock full of shitheads. If one looks carefully, it's certainly the vast majority of anyone very notable. So it would be far more efficient to assume they're all shitheads and instead only make special note of celebrating the rare outliers who weren't awful. If we all just assume the probable awfulness and take it as given, that would make it possible to mention whatever thing someone may have done that one year, in that one narrow professional domain, that may have been notable or slightly good - without evoking all the stupidest, worst mistakes and personal failures of their entire lives. Most humans have, at their worst moments, done some awful stupid shit they regret. But most of us are lucky enough to not also do something notable enough to have our lives and characters examined by the Internet.d

There is only ONE notable person who was a very well-known celebrity for many decades who actually WAS as close to a perfect fucking human as it gets: Mr. Fred Rogers. Please, please do not take this as a challenge to go digging through his high school yearbooks to find some stupidly offensive joke he made. I still need just ONE truly good person.

So let's all just agree that, aside from Fred Rogers, >90% of everyone else we've ever heard of was probably awful, stupid or terrible, at least at some points, on some things, to some people - even Mother Theresa (who didn't quite live long enough to avoid it). Some of their misdeeds became known in their own time (or they were lucky enough to die early, like JKF who escaped his Weinstein-esque treatment of Marylin and other women), and others were 'recontextualized' post mortem. For every other notable person still in the 'unaccused' column, it's a race between whether they are outed or forgotten first.

I believe the remains of Asimov's literary legacy are probably managed by his daughter along with an agent. Presumably most of the money goes to her too, but I have no idea. In any case she always seemed nice enough.

Those don't seem like the best links, especially that Asimov one. Link inside the Asimov link tells a much better story, with consistent behavior.

  > Maybe you have to still be alive to matter?

This is certainly part of the equation. I mean there's a Michael Jackson movie now.

But another part is that someone's work is distinct from their other actions. It's definitely a tough situation and confusing line to draw. Michael Jackson without a doubt made great music. But that doesn't make up for his Epstein-esk escapades. Being dead at least creates some distance as he's not directly benefiting from the revenue streams, which is part of what empowered and even encouraged that behavior (power seems to do more than just corrupt).

  > What exactly are the rules here?

There aren't any. We're all just trying to figure it out. But if we didn't create some distinctions then the reality is that there would be no heroes. It's hard to find a notable man or woman from the past who can be considered blameless by today's standards. Though there are plenty who stood above the standards of their day. Maybe the best thing we can do is to remember that we're all human. We're more than our environments, but they do shape us. I think you can think of people as great in one domain but terrible in others. But this is much easier to do with people dead than those alive.

We're all confused. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. It gets us to talk and figure it out. I certainly don't know what to do, but I'll at least recognize it isn't trivial. And I'll at least recognize that we're talking about men, not gods

Ejaculate you say

If you have a monsters hunger you produce a angels worth of work to be "tolerated" by society that rightfully despises you?