Putting people beyond the pale creates isolation, public shaming, loss of income, loss of profession, and sometimes loss of personal identity and psychological worth. The most insidious problem of all is the indeterminate length of the "sentence".

For wealthy people like Harvey Weinstein, Matt Lauer, and Kevin Spacey, they're heavily insulated by the fact that at least they've got amassed wealth which mitigates some of these issues. In these cases the decades of extracting wealth through privilege gives them an unfair advantage.

There are now apparently enough cases of this happening, it would be interesting to watch the long term psychological effects of this group to see if these situations statistically effects their longevity or if there are multi-generational knock on effects as have been seen in Holocaust survivors or those freed from slavery.

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Zhou, X., Nguyen-Feng, V. N., Wamser-Nanney, R., & Lotzin, A. (2021). Racism, Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms, and Racial Disparity in the U.S. COVID-19 Syndemic [Preprint]. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/rc2ns

Imperial News. “Staff ‘need Clearer Guidance’ as COVID Overwhelms ICUs | Imperial News | Imperial College London.” Accessed February 19, 2021. https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/212833/staff-need-clearer-guidance-covid-overwhelms/.

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