Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

321–330 of 770 posts

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

#321

Post by jacobolus »

xenihn wrote: post #313
jacobolus wrote: post #125

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.

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?

It is a huge waste of talent and misallocation of resources that a large proportion of the smartest and best-trained scientists and engineers in the world get sucked into working in finance, business consulting, advertising/surveillance, etc.

There’s nothing wrong with individual people making this choice (I have many friends in those fields). It’s just evidence of large structural problems in the society.

(Of course, not all “tech” is zero-sum or harmful.)

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

#322

Post by currymj »

rayuela wrote: post #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.

that account in particular eventually admits to not having read much about the case.

i honestly am pretty sure the vast majority of the contrarians really are just not familiar with the whole Epstein story, and may only be hearing about it as it intersects with the tech world.

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

#323

Post by tanderson92 »

ctab wrote: post #144
floatingatoll wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about that paragraph leads you to believe it should be higher or lower in the story, relative to its current position?

The connection between the subject of the story and the publisher of the story really ought to have been higher. However, news is currently breaking that Ito has since resigned from The NY Times Co. board as well.

Probably this as well is worth noting: https://twitter.com/xeni/status/1170352857952002048

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

#324

Post by cg46 »

currymj wrote: post #237

the HN comments on all the recent Epstein stories have been very strange. I have to assume at least some of the more contrarian views are coming from people who haven't been following the full story in the US news, and so don't quite grasp the nature of the allegations. The case is far from just "some rich guy turned out to be an abuser". If you can't understand why the reaction is so strong against those who maintai…

I think it's reasonable to agree that Epstein is a despicable person who should be maligned, ostracized, and punished for his misdeeds… while simultaneously believing that it's possible for there to exist a situation in which the good done by "maintaining ties" with this person could outweigh the bad.

Of course, this depends on the nature of those ties: How much good are they doing, versus how much bad? If it's possible to do that cost-benefit analysis, we might as well do it, because why not?

In this particular case, I have no idea how much additional good the Media Lab was doing as a result of this money. Thus, it actually is impossible for me to do the cost-benefit analysis, because I don't know the benefit side of the equation. But I can enumerate some of the costs:

- It contributed to Epstein being able to feel that he's accepted by society and can shameless appear at meetings and such, in public, with reputable people, despite engaging in despicable behavior. Alternatively, ostracizing him would've sent a strong message and perhaps contributed to a change in his behavior.

- It signaled to people at large that Epstein is a good guy who donates to charitable causes. (This was somewhat mitigated by keeping the donations anonymous.)

- It signaled to people at large that it's okay and normal to work with people who do despicable things. (This was also somewhat mitigated by keeping the donations anonymous.)

- It risked to the Media Lab's reputation if discovered, thus hindering the organization's ability to do more good in the future.

- Other things I'm leaving out?

So clearly a ton of bad. And I'd guess the bad outweighed whatever good was done, given that many people who were working within the Media Lab were opposed to accepting the donations.

But I don't know if it's as simple as "if the guy is bad then always say no full stop." That seems like an oversimplification, and not necessarily the best way to analyze it.

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

#325

Post by ritchiea »

roenxi wrote: post #314
tptacek wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

Why are there inevitably people who want to do the mental gymnastics of assuming innocence for a man convicted of sex trafficking?

I understand assuming innocence the first time someone is accused of anything unsavory because mistakes happen. But once you are convicted, serve jail time and are suspiciously behaving in the same manner...

Who are we serving by assuming innocence?

And let me remind you that in society we have different standards than a court of law. A court of law has to assume innocence, in public we might be doing another human being who is a potential victim great good by expressing concern about the nature their relationship with a known felon & abuser.

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

#326

Post by nf8nnfufuu »

tw04 wrote: post #244
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…

Because it's weird for a 60 year old dude to be traveling with unrelated women who are under the age of 18? Why are you so incredulous that people would assume the worst when the guy had a reputation and the girls looked way too young to be traveling the world with the sleazeball?

Paragraph said nothing about the girls being under 18. It says "young women". Also didn't say anything about his reputation (at the time the story took place).

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

#327

Post by nscalf »

roenxi wrote: post #314
tptacek wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

Not to be nit picky, I'm genuinely not well versed in "moral fault" and I am interested in learning more. So if they ended up being trafficked, the staff members who tried to figure that out and offered assistance if they were would be at moral fault as well? Could you elaborate a bit on that?

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

#328

Post by fortran77 »

point78 wrote: post #258
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…

A 60 year old American financier who's uglier than a frog has 2 teenage eastern european models as "assistants"....does that add up to you?

Why are we judging people by their looks? Is that what the righteous thought-leaders of Y Combinator and Hacker News do?

Why are young women who look like "models" not credible at MIT Media Lab?

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

#329

Post by dbcurtis »

scandox wrote: post #297

I'm curious about Media Lab. They setup a branch in Dublin way back and it was such obvious and painful BS. But overall have they produced interesting work? At all?

> But overall have they produced interesting work? At all?

Yes, quite a lot. (In the American sense of 'quite', not the British...)

Just look at what has come out of the Life-Long Kindergarden lab, and see how many things you recognize. Historically the Media Lab has done a lot of very creative things. A person could spend a happy lifetime doing nothing but following up on ideas that started there.

This is a bad episode for the Media Lab, for sure. But don't paint all of the researches within with a scarlet letter because of it.

-- Edit: Translate English to English

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

#330

Post by rayuela »

currymj wrote: post #322
rayuela wrote: post #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.

that account in particular eventually admits to not having read much about the case. i honestly am pretty sure the vast majority of the contrarians really are just not familiar with the whole Epstein story, and may only be hearing about it as it intersects with the tech world.

Yeah, because writing a dozen replies defending Epstein was definitely much less effort than a quick google search of the guy...
Post reply on HN