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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

#311

Post by ryacko »

oh_sigh wrote: post #146
crispyambulance wrote: post #41

> I don't get it. This is one of those things where somebody noticed that things just didn't seem right and the proper response to that is to raise concern and ask questions. Sorry, but a 60-something "finance" guy with an entourage of teen models doesn't add up. Sure some of these people have trophy wives half their age, and it raises eyebrows, but this is far beyond that and totally unacceptable once somebody looks…

"teen" is a big range. If they were 14 - then that is a problem. If they're 19 then I don't really see why I or anyone else should care. In fact, it seems like one would be attempting to remove autonomy from these women if you tried to prevent an adult from serving as an assistant "for their own good" because you're creeped out by the employer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mann_Act

The law is the law. Seems easier to comply than to transgress.

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

#312

Post by sytelus »

peter303 wrote: post #276

The Media Lab was near the top of the heap of university-industrial consortia in terms of both glamour and income. There really wasnt a need for all this back-channel stuff.

This is what surprises me. MIT is very well endowed, has an extra-ordinarily wealthy alumni network and overall Media Lab is perhaps better positioned financially than any other lab. In emails, the lab director is begging for $100K from a billionaire doner so he can extend one contract. I don't understand.

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

#313

Post by xenihn »

jacobolus wrote: post #125
testis321 wrote: post #64

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.

Have you seen how much scientists get paid nowadays? Don't even get me started on how most people who follow that career path just end up as lab techs at best, who earn even less. Everyone I know who majored in bio, chem, or physics has ended up in tech. For the money. And why should they have done otherwise?

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

#314

Post by roenxi »

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…

That sort of rests on whether the women were 'trafficked' in any meaningful sense. If they were not then the media lab team were being judgemental and unpleasant even though they did turn out to be right about his character. If they were then everyone involved is potentially at moral fault, irrespective of who was accepting what.

The greater story of this scandal has parts that should never have happened and parts that were fine. Giving money to MIT and visiting with a bevy of attractive women is eccentric - crass even - but not troubling. The scandal isn't Epstein's giving it is that he was running a child prostitution ring.

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

#315

Post by pasquinelli »

nf8nnfufuu wrote: post #200
empath75 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not a theoretical question as to whether he was trafficking women. He had already been convicted of it! And was charged with it again.

Why was he running around free then? Had he already passed his time in jail?

He mostly served his sentence outside of jail actually

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

#316

Post by [deleted] »

darawk wrote: post #222
tptacek wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm an Epstein Absolutist and feel Ito should have resigned way before Ronan Farrow's article was published, so yes, I think this is all very shady. I don't generally think people have a moral right to hold on to prominent directorships like the MIT Media Lab --- 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 pre…

> 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…

[deleted]

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

#317

Post by wolco »

tptacek wrote: post #172
DSingularity wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doubt? Care to elaborate and substantiate?

How about we not, since it has nothing to do with this thread?

It has a lot to do with the timing of this thread. If he left a year ago I would agree but questions around his death put this story in the spotlight.

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

#318

Post by grandmczeb »

rayiner wrote: post #268
ryanlol wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And why would that exclude girls? Would “girls’ night out” be an unusual expression where you’re from?

So is “boys night out” but you wouldn’t refer to grown men as boys.

I don’t know if this is a cultural thing, but at least in California I hear the word “boys” used to refer to grown men pretty frequently.

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

#320

Post by gojomo »

anigbrowl wrote: post #218
gojomo wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, 'neoteny' doesn't "usually" mean "animals with childlike features", but rather "the retention of juvenile features into adulthood". It's conjectured that a lot of humanity's advanced intelligence & culture has been achieved with the help of our species' extended retention of juvenile learning-capacity & neural plasticity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoteny_in_humans

Et tu, gojomo?

What do you mean? (If you're alleging some rhetorical misconduct or hypocrisy on my part, could you be more specific?)
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