Haven't been following PZ, but this case was brought to my attention, then Myers' opening response ...

remember when I learned that the skeptic/atheist movement was full of harassing jerks — I was shocked. And then these people started getting exposed in every discipline, from literature and philosophy to physics, and it started to sink in that the entire world is a playground for assholes, which might have been a relief (whew, it’s not just my communities!) but is incredibly depressing instead.

Now add astronomy to the list. One of their most prominent representatives, Geoff Marcy, has been revealed to be a serial sexual harasser, someone who has wrecked women’s careers in astronomy. And it’s a familiar story: the women in that community all knew of his reputation, and it was an open secret.

..seems to have evoked the same deadly aka depressing overview of what--in 2015--seems more than just a Murican epidemic of real Creeps now found within just about every position of Power over others.

{Duh} might be an auto-response (as in PZ's "realization") ... (but We Knew This) only: there are IMO too-fucking-Many such revelations to chalk it up to techno "better reporting": after all, these modrin perps also REALIZE that there is a super-abundance of weasels now being outed, yet expect still, "not me".
(I'd like to see some correlation factoids (or not..) with events beginning with the USSC massacree that got us the Shogunate, despite the tenuous nature of looking for auto-confirmation of hunches.)

Anyway, put this here, where the topic is almost certainly about primitive religio-inculcations by people wielding Power over others, much as academe has its equivalent re this creepy astronomer honcho. Then happenstance put On the Waterfront on PBS tube this PM: the young *Brando, Rod Steiger, Karl Malden et al chronicling the Mob's horrors as they corrupted n-Unions [these were 1953 pre-Muricans' then. tolerating for years: 100% corruption, like. now.]

* Original use of phrase before the later boxing flics: I coulda been a Contender!


Common denominator I posit: the ethics-free Default State of vulture capitalism, now--the case can be made--has resulted in planetary jeopardy ..while the Usual Suspects persist in heinous propaganda as might have shamed a Nazi; that it's all a hoax. Today's Corrupt Murica just might win the world-lifetime sweepstakes for most pervasive corruption evah. It is unsurprising that depression appears to vie for near top-honors as a common side-effect [ of.. Something.. ]

I can easily conclude that not a few of the deceased-formerly-just 'depressed' had written-off the entire species as: quite apparently incapable of facing the human disaster that playing the lifelong Moloch Game has proven to be. Gehabt Kindern was never uttered on such a Scale as now. I wot.

PS: this just in:

SPECIAL REPORT [N.Y.T.]
Just 158 families gave nearly half the early money in the presidential race. We reveal who they are.
Saturday, October 10, 2015 11:02 AM EDT

N.Y.T. It's their shiny/shiny new graphics presentation, too.