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

nytimes.com

291–300 of 770 posts

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

#291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, in places where there is an extreme power imbalance, with few employment opportunities for the disadvantaged, and no morals or accountability among elites, all manner of scummy things happen. We should strive to ameliorate the conditions in the world that make this happen, so that young women can aspire to being scientists or doctors or businesswomen, instead of some corrupt asshole’s decorative servants.

It's this type of attitude that makes most on the right cringe at the left. The notion that if someone isn't living their life in a way that you deem to be of value, then there must be a "power imbalance" that needs to be corrected. Has it occurred to you that not everyone wants to be a doctor, or "businesswoman". And that many young women actually like sex and furthermore like using their sexuality to get things in…

Who said anyone’s life lacked value? There’s nothing wrong with being a market clerk, or a restaurant server, or a farm laborer, or a fashion model, or an administrative assistant, or a factory worker, or a janitor, or a soldier, or a mail carrier, or a taxi driver, or a stay-at-home parent, ....

The problem is that many people in many places are stuck with a choice of either working themselves to death at a job they hate for shit pay and no benefits (or maybe just starving on the street) or else selling themselves to a very wealthy asshole. When that happens, it indicates a profound structural failing of the society. Prostitution or feudal servitude shouldn’t be anyone’s only shot at a comfortable life.

In theory there’s nothing wrong with a career in private security. But it’s messed up to be an enforcer for the dictator family who who rule Equatorial Guinea and live lavishly while keeping the rest of the country in miserable squalor.

In theory there’s nothing wrong with being an actress. But it’s messed up if getting a leading part depends on giving blowjobs to the studio executives.

Etc.

> It does not imply a "power imbalance".

If the young women in such relationships had all the money and power and the old men had none, how many of those couples would still be sleeping together?

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

#292
post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> when you take that job†, I think you also undertake an ethical obligation to leave that post as soon as it becomes reasonable to say that your continued presence is a distraction or disruption from the mission of the organization While that's all well and good when it's an issue you agree with, would you be willing to apply that standard in the other direction? If Joi Ito had created a controversy by standing on pr…

I think people who accept high-profile positions don't have a moral right to retain those positions. It may not always be the case that they have a moral obligation to abandon them at the first sign of trouble; the analysis will always be fact-specific. Here, I don't think there's much doubt. Ito should have left weeks ago. He had to know this was going to happen; the last few weeks of drama have come entirely at the…

> I think people who accept high-profile positions don't have a moral right to retain those positions.

I'm not really sure what this even means. Everyone has some moral right to the position they're in. The question is how much.

> He had to know this was going to happen; the last few weeks of drama have come entirely at the Lab's expense, seemingly as a long-shot gamble that Ito might weather the storm.

This is sort of the crux of my point, though. Your original argument which you seem to be backing off of is that controversy alone is a distraction, and therefore he ought to step down because he caused controversy. And the fact that he caused controversy is certainly unequivocal.

What is equivocal is whether or not he did something wrong. And that is the true issue on which the rectitude of his resignation turns. It seems to me that he probably believed he didn't do anything wrong, and as such had a moral right to retain his position because he believed he did nothing wrong. Not that anyone in a position of power should resign as soon as they cause a stir.

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

#293
post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> when you take that job†, I think you also undertake an ethical obligation to leave that post as soon as it becomes reasonable to say that your continued presence is a distraction or disruption from the mission of the organization While that's all well and good when it's an issue you agree with, would you be willing to apply that standard in the other direction? If Joi Ito had created a controversy by standing on pr…

I think people who accept high-profile positions don't have a moral right to retain those positions. It may not always be the case that they have a moral obligation to abandon them at the first sign of trouble; the analysis will always be fact-specific. Here, I don't think there's much doubt. Ito should have left weeks ago. He had to know this was going to happen; the last few weeks of drama have come entirely at the…

This is, essentially, control fraud. Ito was spending the Media Lab's attention, focus, reputation and researchers.

I'd like to think that this would harm Ito's reputation, but fully expect him to be installed somewhere cushy soon enough. This likely makes him more attractive to a certain type of employer.

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

#294

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…

“suicide”

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

#295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the critical thinking "Epstein did bad things. Therefore, everything Epstein did was bad"? Critical thinking can tell you there is a higher chance the women were sex trafficked considering the employer and his immoral proclivities. It can't tell you if they actually were or not.

No, the critical thinking mentioned, is: 1) If a powerful man who has been accused of sex trafficking 2) shows up with two girls less than half his age, 3) who are from eastern europe (while he is an American, not exactly where he'd get girlfriends or assistants), 4) he passes them of like his "assistants", 5) while they look like models, 6) and they make everybody uncomfortable to the point of telling them to signal…

Sorry, but 1) is really the only valid indicator here (and it wasn't mentioned in the story). Otherwise you are denying attractive young women from Eastern Europe the ability to get work in the US.

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

#296
post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And took donations after Epstein was disqualified as a funder (after his 2008 conviction), and deliberately manipulated things to make them anonymous. It's blatant, done with full understanding, and (stupidly) with an email trail of evidence. 'In September, 2014, Ito wrote to Epstein soliciting a cash infusion to fund a certain researcher, asking, “Could you re-up/top-off with another $100K so we can extend his contr…

> And took donations after Epstein was disqualified as a funder (after his 2008 conviction) Can you point me to where it's described exactly when Epstein was blacklisted by MIT and why? If it's in the newyorker article, I'm missing it. It points out that Epstein's donations were anonymous and that he was blacklisted but doesn't appear to order the events. It looks like Epstein was anonymously donating back around 200…

It’s in the New Yorker article linked from the nytimes article. But correct there is no timeline. But the references to emails that show leadership trying to hide the source of donations sounds bad.

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

#298
There are definitely participants in these discussions with a very specific agenda. Some accounts, like nf8nnfufuu, are going really far out of their way to defend Epstein. Just search for how many responses they've written throughout this thread to see what I mean.

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

#299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because my comment was about the cited paragraph, not about Epstein. I had no reason to assume Epstein was already known as a sex trafficker when he visited MIT. It would be a very weird assumption - why would the head of MIT Media Lab meet with a convicted sex trafficker?

Indeed, why would he? It seems incredulous, and yet he did. That's why he's been forced out of his position.

I have no issues with him being forced out of his position. I have an issue, in this sub sub thread, with people mandating that I should have considered that head of Media Lab would openly meet a convicted sex trafficker.

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

#300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sorry, but a 60-something "finance" guy with an entourage of teen models doesn't add up. The only problematic thing here is the age of those models. Otherwise, rich people like that are often surrounded with girls of questionable morals and intentions, who do stuff and in return get stuff (some would call it prostitution, some would imply that prostitution had an agreement done in advance...). In some poorer countr…

Yes, in places where there is an extreme power imbalance, with few employment opportunities for the disadvantaged, and no morals or accountability among elites, all manner of scummy things happen. We should strive to ameliorate the conditions in the world that make this happen, so that young women can aspire to being scientists or doctors or businesswomen, instead of some corrupt asshole’s decorative servants.

So, "most of the world"?
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