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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

#341

Post by AndrewBissell »

mrosett wrote: post #25
danso wrote: post #8

Someone who was asked by Ito to be on the MIT Disobedience Award jury wrote a long tweet thread yesterday calling out Reid Hoffman for his defense of Ito: https://twitter.com/anandwrites/status/1169952673988300800

I don't think that thread shows that Hoffman defended Ito, despite the author's claims. I'm basically willing to take Hoffman's responses at face value. Clearly there was an ongoing investigation, as demonstrated by Ito's resignation today. When news broke about Ito and Epstein last month, Giriharadas was pretty far down on the list of people who Ito needed to answer to (since he was just part of what I imagine to be…

This isn't the only dodgy behavior that's been reported about Hoffman in regards to Epstein. It's also been reported that he hosted a well attended party in Silicon Valley where Elon Musk introduced Epstein to Mark Zuckerberg. We will probably not see much more on this thanks to the plutocratic wagon circling that baron_harkonnen talks about, but it's naive to take Hoffman's statements at face value here.

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

#342

Post by jakelazaroff »

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…

> 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.

That is an odd position to take. We have the benefit of hindsight. Even if these particular women weren’t being trafficked, the staff’s general suspicions about Epstein were borne out.

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

#343

Post by scarejunba »

jacobolus wrote: post #321
xenihn wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

No, it is a pretty good allocation and a great use of that talent. That talent is producing value at a scale unprecedented in human civilisation. The human race has spoken, and this is what it wants. And I, for one, love it.

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

#344

Post by wiggles_md »

bonoboTP wrote: post #337
rayiner wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

There is no female equivalent to "guy", so "girl" is used instead. You're intentionally misinterpreting things.

Isn’t “gal” the equivalent?

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

#345

Post by dragonwriter »

prepend wrote: post #235
nf8nnfufuu wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have rarely been able to actually find the answer, why do you assume prostitute? Sounds rather misogynist to me.

I’m not sure how it’s misogynist. It’s a people watching activity that’s just a pastime. Similar to trying to tell narratives about people sitting near us in a cafe. Just because I’ll never know if someone really is a traveling archaeologist smuggling artifacts doesn’t mean I don’t derive pleasure in thinking through the thought. In the particular game of “prostitute or daughter” (also sometimes prostitute or son, al…

> I’m not sure how it’s misogynist.

The assumptions about the dichotomy in the potential roles of women underlying the game are literally a textbook example of misogynist gender images.

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

#346

Post by AndrewBissell »

tempsy wrote: post #19

Why would Bill Gates need Epstein to be the middle man for his $2 mil donation? Why didn't he just donate to the Media Lab directly? And given his insistence that the donation be made anonymously, it seems like he was well aware the optics would be bad if the public knew there was a connection between the two, and yet he chose to make the donation through Epstein anyway.

The involvement of people like Gates and Hoffman, for whom Epstein's money was effectively chump change, certainly does pose the question of what else he was bringing to the table for people with that level of wealth.

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

#347

Post by jacobolus »

scarejunba wrote: post #343
jacobolus wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

No, it is a pretty good allocation and a great use of that talent. That talent is producing value at a scale unprecedented in human civilisation. The human race has spoken, and this is what it wants. And I, for one, love it.

> talent is producing value at a scale unprecedented

As far as I can tell, much of this “value” consists of inserting oneself into existing money flows and diverting a tiny part into one’s own pocket, at the expense of everyone else in the society.

Wages in the broader society have been stagnant for decades despite steep increases in labor productivity. Healthcare, housing, and education costs keep skyrocketing without commensurate improvements in quality.

In the USA, life expectancy is going down, infrastructure is aging without replacement, worker and consumer protections have eroded, children’s lives are increasingly regimented and controlled, 40% of adults are obese, loneliness is rampant, young people are deeply indebted, almost nobody has enough savings to comfortably retire, many ecosystems are facing collapse and many species are facing extinction, ...

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

#348

Post by [deleted] »

ritchiea wrote: post #325
roenxi wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 w…

[deleted]

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

#349

Post by nf8nnfufuu »

ritchiea wrote: post #325
roenxi wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 w…

That's not what it is about. It is about the story at a certain point of time in the past. Nobody is assuming Epsteins innocence today.

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

#350

Post by docker_up »

I don't understand the outrage.

He was convicted of a crime, and he served his time. In hindsight, the sentence was too light, but as regular people are we really supposed to understand all the details? If I met someone who went to jail, should she be exiled forever after serving her sentence? I just don't understand. And people get lenient sentences all the time, am I as a non-lawyer supposed to understand this and then give my own sentence on top of that? Or should some people who commit crimes should never, ever be allowed to interact with other humans again?

As far as I can tell, from the perspective of those around him in 2014, Epstein was convicted of a crime, and served his time. By 2014, he had committed no further crimes from what people knew at the time, so why exactly is this an outrage. Obviously in 2019, we know that he committed further crimes and he rightly went to jail, and it's sad that he won't face justice. But in 2014, did anyone know this and should they be treated so harshly if they didn't?

The only real problem was covering up the donation, which Ito definitely should have been fired for, but I don't understand why Epstein at that time should have been considered a persona non grata.

The biggest question is: should criminals never ever be forgiven for their crimes? And should anyone who decides to forgive them and associate with them also be considered despicable as well? Or is it just some criminals depending on their crime? Who judges which crimes should never be forgiven and which should?

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