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Joi Ito Resigns from M.I.T. Media Lab After Outcry over Jeffrey Epstein Ties

nytimes.com

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Re: Joi Ito Resigns from M.I.T. Media Lab After Outcry over Jeffrey Epstein Ties

#181

Post by nemothekid »

davrosthedalek wrote: post #115
rosser wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is precisely zero need for assumption here. The only way Epstein's behavior could have been more in the open is if he were advertising screenings of the "home movies" he made with these girls. When you continue to associate with that guy, you're saying, "People who do that are okay with us." That's normalization. Especially when, say, your day job is as the head of a pretty damned prestigious institution like J…

I don't get this. If it was so clearly obvious that he was breaking the law, why was he not in jail? Isn't that a bigger scandal?

>If it was so clearly obvious that he was breaking the law, why was he not in jail?

The Harvey Weinstein shitshow happened in 2018, just last year. People openly knew what he was doing back in 2005.

Re: Joi Ito Resigns from M.I.T. Media Lab After Outcry over Jeffrey Epstein Ties

#182

Post by solidsnack9000 »

CalChris wrote: post #95
FireBeyond wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's reaching, a whole lot. Ito knew who Epstein was, as did everyone else - Epstein's conviction wasn't a secret. That harms Ito through his poor decision making, but other people were just as capable of knowing who Epstein was. Who suffered an actual loss as a result of these donations? Civil fraud is grasping, some.

(1) a purposeful misrepresentation of a fact (2) with knowledge that it is false (3) to a victim who justifiably relies on the misrepresentation (4) who suffers actual loss as a result. (1) If I lie to you (2) knowingly, and (3) you are convinced by my lies (4) to part ways with your money, then I have defrauded you. That you nobly donated to MIT doesn't matter.

With regards to (3) and (4), who are you describing? Epstein gave the money to the Media Lab, or brokered the delivery of the money to the Media Lab from people who knew who he was.

Re: Joi Ito Resigns from M.I.T. Media Lab After Outcry over Jeffrey Epstein Ties

#183

Post by coldtea »

oh_sigh wrote: post #167
coldtea wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sorry, I don't get it. Somebody having assistants who look like models and are from Eastern Europe is suspicious of trafficking women? How? Why? In that it's extremely common. In the gritty real world, people know of such guys and what they do. Many have personality men such gentlemen and their entourages (of course most not at the level of Epstein, but frequent some circles in Eastern Europe, Russia, Paris, London…

> "I live in the gritty real world. Now let me tell you about my international experiences with the ultra wealthy, you hick." How do you tell the difference between the sex-trafficked, forced-into-servitude eastern european model-assistants, and the eastern european models who see an opportunity to make a lot of money and a lot of connections, and take it?

>How do you tell the difference between the sex-trafficked, forced-into-servitude eastern european model-assistants, and the eastern european models who see an opportunity to make a lot of money and a lot of connections, and take it?

There's not much difference between the two camps, especially if the "models" are just teenage girls from some Eastern European village or pre-adult girls (as low as 14) from broken poor families as he lured in the US, forced into it for the money or lured with promises of exposure, and often given drugs, beaten and passed around to "friends", and not professional models with actual (even if small) careers that saw an opportunity to make more money...

You might not know all this from mere looking, but you can see a lot of dynamics in direct play, especially if you know more stories about the same person...

(Also, I'd paraphrase the "summary" you did, more like "These things might not be obvious to some people without such exposure, but they do happen all the time in certain circles/countries/etc, and many people can tell when such shit goes on". Oh, and it doesn't have to be "ultra wealthy" at the Epstein-level, you can meet lower rent versions of such types at all scales, down to your friendly local scam rich from e.g. real estate, or construction, or political affiliations, or some state-given monopoly, etc).

Re: Joi Ito Resigns from M.I.T. Media Lab After Outcry over Jeffrey Epstein Ties

#184

Post by oh_sigh »

mulmen wrote: post #171
oh_sigh wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "I live in the gritty real world. Now let me tell you about my international experiences with the ultra wealthy, you hick." How do you tell the difference between the sex-trafficked, forced-into-servitude eastern european model-assistants, and the eastern european models who see an opportunity to make a lot of money and a lot of connections, and take it?

Critical thinking can extend beyond the ability to find the most efficient API to solve a problem.

I have to assume you meant to reply to someone else in some other thread, because otherwise this is just a massive non-sequitur.

Re: Joi Ito Resigns from M.I.T. Media Lab After Outcry over Jeffrey Epstein Ties

#185

Post by ethank »

nf8nnfufuu wrote: post #15
jakelazaroff wrote: post #3

Good. Here’s a particularly damning passage from Ronan Farrow’s New Yorker article [1]: > According to Swenson, Ito had informed Cohen that Epstein “never goes into any room without his two female ‘assistants,’ ” whom he wanted to bring to the meeting at the Media Lab. Swenson objected to this, too, and it was decided that the assistants would be allowed to accompany Epstein but would wait outside the meeting room. >…

Sorry, I don't get it. Somebody having assistants who look like models and are from Eastern Europe is suspicious of trafficking women? How? Why? I have heard about Epstein, obviously with hindsight all sorts of things he did can be seen in a new light. I just don't understand what is so damning about the passage above. Would somebody who is trafficking women really take them everywhere he goes? I thought it would be…

By the time he was in their office, he was a convicted felon for .... solicitation of minors.

Re: Joi Ito Resigns from M.I.T. Media Lab After Outcry over Jeffrey Epstein Ties

#186

Post by lifeisstillgood »

More and more problems seem to be linked to provenance of money. Money Laundering of dirty cash is one major obvious example (see impact on everything from London house prices to international banking) and yet just being able to trace / label money coming out of Epstein and into MIT lab would have raised this issue a decade ago

Imagine somehow being able to tag bitcoin address / transactions with "this money came from a man convicted of sex trafficking"

Then having that tag appear on the accounts sheet at NIT

Would that help?

Re: Joi Ito Resigns from M.I.T. Media Lab After Outcry over Jeffrey Epstein Ties

#187

Post by [deleted] »

oh_sigh wrote: post #184
mulmen wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Critical thinking can extend beyond the ability to find the most efficient API to solve a problem.

I have to assume you meant to reply to someone else in some other thread, because otherwise this is just a massive non-sequitur.

[deleted]

Re: Joi Ito Resigns from M.I.T. Media Lab After Outcry over Jeffrey Epstein Ties

#188

Post by coldtea »

oh_sigh wrote: post #184
mulmen wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Critical thinking can extend beyond the ability to find the most efficient API to solve a problem.

I have to assume you meant to reply to someone else in some other thread, because otherwise this is just a massive non-sequitur.

He basically says that one can use critical thinking to "tell the difference" between the two categories, which is hardly a non-sequitur.

Re: Joi Ito Resigns from M.I.T. Media Lab After Outcry over Jeffrey Epstein Ties

#189

Post by spraak »

floatingatoll wrote: post #112
CalChris wrote: post #37

Good. These were in no way innocent ties. He knew who Epstein was and misled people. Ito could be on the hook for civil fraud. The elements of fraud are: a purposeful misrepresentation of a fact with knowledge that it is false to a victim who justifiably relies on the misrepresentation who suffers actual loss as a result.

Please don’t use code preformatting for quotes. https://i.imgur.com/R9S4Hmr.jpg

[retracted]

Re: Joi Ito Resigns from M.I.T. Media Lab After Outcry over Jeffrey Epstein Ties

#190

Post by nf8nnfufuu »

tptacek wrote: post #110
nf8nnfufuu wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I don't get it. Somebody having assistants who look like models and are from Eastern Europe is suspicious of trafficking women? How? Why? I have heard about Epstein, obviously with hindsight all sorts of things he did can be seen in a new light. I just don't understand what is so damning about the passage above. Would somebody who is trafficking women really take them everywhere he goes? I thought it would be…

That Epstein was problematic --- something that in essentially no doubt at this point after his indictment, imprisonment, and subsequent suicide --- was so well-understood to the Media Lab team at the time that they were considering intervening to help Epstein's escorts, on the off chance that they had been trafficked. That is not a position most people's bosses ever put them in, but it's what Ito did to staff at the…

I was specifically referring to the "most damning paragraph" claim, not an assessment of the situation in general.

I guess it could be seen as damning that his staff thought that way, implying some unhealthy context - as you said, if I understood correctly.

Or in other words, the damning part was not the young assistants, the damning part was MIT staff worrying about young assistants.

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