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

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

#481

Post by TaylorAlexander » Sun, Sep 08, 2019, 5:15 AM UTC

anon2947 wrote: post #472

pryce wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Xeni Jardin's claim below is true, Joi Ito needs to resign from more than just MIT: "I told the @nytimes everything. So did whistleblowers I was in touch with inside @MIT and @Edge. They printed none of the most damning truths. @joi is on the board of the NYT. THANK GOD FOR @RonanFarrow" EDIT: NYTimes is now indicating that Ito has resigned from NYT Co board, effective immediately [2]. [1] https://twitter.com/xeni…

I read a few more of Xeni's tweets, and wanted to get HN's honest opinion on them. It seems (to me) like a lot of people on Twitter (and HN?) are over-reacting. For example, Xeni's pinned tweet references this other tweet ( https://twitter.com/xeni/status/1165266579560521728 ), which implies that anybody who was ever at a dinner with Epstein should be considered complicit in Epstein's crimes. Take this quote, for exa…

I think what’s interesting is the question of how powerful people may be knowingly covering for one another. We can’t say from them being at the gathering that they for sure aided in Epstein’s crimes, but it might warrant further investigation.

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

#482

Post by curiousgal » Sun, Sep 08, 2019, 5:15 AM UTC

jdkee wrote: post #450

It is now apparent that Joi Ito was an opportunistic scumbag who elevated personal gain above ethics. Good riddance to him. And good riddance to the reputation of Nicolas Negroponte as well.

Personal gain? He didn't pocket the money as far I know.

Ethics is also a touchy subject, people can't fully agree on whether taking a criminal's money to do good with it is ethical or not. So it's not as cut and dried.

He did however violate MIT policy so that's a valid reason for his resignation or even firing in my opinion.

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

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Post by mayankkaizen » Sun, Sep 08, 2019, 5:16 AM UTC

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…

If you are walking around with 2 girls who look like models and are from eastern europe (there must be some impression about being model from eastern europe which I'm unaware of), what do you think people gonna think?

You are reading stuffs. People have seen this. If they were uneasy at this sight, they must have felt/observed something more than that, so much so that they thought that these girls might not have been there by choice.

People do get suspicious of fishy people and if you ask them why they are suspicious of some people, they would say, "he was behaving a bit different, something was off about him". And people like you will dismiss it.

Even in real life, I see people walking around with girls. Most of the times I feel or suspect nothing but sometimes I do feel something is off or fishy about it but yet I can't describe it fully.

Now you know a lot more about Epstein, what do you think why he brought "2 models (possibly quite young, given the reputation of Epstein) who are possibly from eastern europe" in MIT lab?

Now we know a lot more about Epstein, people must have felt something much more about those 2 girls which you can't imagine.

Personally, I feel like you are arguing for the sake of arguing. I was shocked at your line of thinking.

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

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Post by x0x0 » Sun, Sep 08, 2019, 5:34 AM UTC

scarejunba wrote: post #335

ritchiea wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I get part of the impulse. The concept that attractive Eastern European women spending their time with a billionaire means that they were trafficked somewhat strips them of agency. Like "you wouldn't do this of your own accord". Maybe they would. Of course, in this case, the fellow turned out to be a monster. But Sir Richard Branson is on the level AFAIK and he hangs out with attractive women. Presumably they enjoy t…

There's plenty of actions that, while not illegal, decent people can find distasteful enough to shun people who engage in them. Using your money -- whether directly enough to be considered prostitution, or a little more indirectly -- to surround yourself with women who are 18 years and 10 minutes old is legal but more than a little gross. And extremely gross if they had a choice in the matter roughly equivalent to the Anatole France quote: "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread."

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

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Post by adrian_mrd » Sun, Sep 08, 2019, 5:35 AM UTC

tzs wrote: post #302

liability wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely Bill Gates hires big burly men who can enforce his personal space. I find it hard to believe that Bill Gates could earnestly be the victim of such hounding for more than a brief moment.

Gates is sometimes surprisingly accessible. Some lawyers I know were in Seattle to take depositions for a big lawsuit they were on. They went to dinner at a restaurant, and then went out to get a cab back to their hotel. A bunch of other people were leaving at the same time, and people going in the same direction were agreeing to share cabs so people would not have to wait as long. They were about to get in to the ca…

Not sure if that illustrates that Gates was accessible or that it further illustrates the point that the super-rich (including their entourage of lawyers) travel in small, connected circles.

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

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Post by adrian_mrd » Sun, Sep 08, 2019, 5:35 AM UTC

nashashmi wrote: post #109

adrian_mrd wrote: post #92

Adjacent: that’s well-written PR spin from the Gates’ camp: > “Epstein was introduced to Bill Gates as someone who was interested in helping grow philanthropy. Although Epstein pursued Bill Gates aggressively, any account of a business partnership or personal relationship between the two is simply not true. And any claim that Epstein directed any programmatic or personal grant making for Bill Gates is completely fals…

> Why does it matter if Epstein was aggressive or not if Gates wrote the check? To respond to concerns that the two were spotted together frequently. This is an answer to a question. Figure out the question and you will understand.

Sure but Gates still wrote the check via Epstein, right?

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

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Post by darawk » Sun, Sep 08, 2019, 5:47 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #467

darawk wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I think two things: * Ito's position at MIT was so compromised that, for the good of the organization, he needed to quit. He had an obligation to do so; MIT didn't owe him his role, but rather he had joined to serve MIT. He was doing so no longer. * One reason he was so compromised, in my estimation of the available information, is that he repeatedly did something egregiously wrong. Once again: I've never even heard…

> * Ito's position at MIT was so compromised that, for the good of the organization, he needed to quit. He had an obligation to do so; MIT didn't owe him his role, but rather he had joined to serve MIT. He was doing so no longer.

Of course MIT has the right to fire him. I don't really understand what you're trying to argue. The question is whether they should have fired him, which in my view is entirely determined by the badness of his actions.

I really cannot see you pursuing this line of argument with the moral tables turned. If the CFO of Chik-fil-a got forced out because it turned out they were supporters of gay marriage and Chikfila's customers didn't like that, would you be making the same point? That that CFO had no moral right to their position?

> * One reason he was so compromised, in my estimation of the available information, is that he repeatedly did something egregiously wrong. Once again: I've never even heard of a boss anywhere else in technology putting their employees in a position where they felt they may have had to intervene --- at the workplace --- to thwart sex trafficking by an invited VIP guest.

I think that's a very unfair framing of the issue. He invited Epstein over. Epstein brought his 'assistants'. It's still a question mark whether they were even prostitutes, let alone prostitutes operating in any sort of non-consensual capacity. What we have here is simply that someone at MIT speculated whether they were being trafficked. There is no evidence at all that their presence was anything other than consensual.

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

#488

Post by jakeogh » Sun, Sep 08, 2019, 5:47 AM UTC

hackermang wrote: post #461

krapp wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I don't even wait. And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything." -- future President of the United States, Donald Trump.

Could you dig up some Bill Clinton quotes for us? Didn’t he frequently fly on Epstein’s jet?

And he lied about the #. In other news, -totally unrelated I'm sure- Skippy's email is worth reading.

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

#489

Post by bryanrasmussen » Sun, Sep 08, 2019, 5:51 AM UTC

CrazyStat wrote: post #4

This seemed inevitable after the New Yorker article yesterday detailing how Ito and his team hid Epstein's involvement from the university, which had disqualified Epstein as a donor. Taking money from a dirty source is one thing; hiding it from the university because they've blacklisted that person in particular is about as unforgivable a crime as you'll find in academia

The thing I don't understand is why, if you've been blacklisted as a donor, you would want to donate? Can you still declare it on your taxes?

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

#490

Post by nickpinkston » Sun, Sep 08, 2019, 5:52 AM UTC

gojomo wrote: post #169

nickpinkston wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See parent, but it was a theme of Epstein's projects to be named with innuendos.

I don't think it's appropriate to imply, without evidence, that Ito's 'Neoteny Ventures', founded in 1999, was in any way an "Epstein project". (Of course, if there's evidence Epstein was involved at its founding, I'd change my mind about this.)

I'm not claiming anything, just that it's interesting.

I'm not going to feed the troll anymore.