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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

#531

Post by dennisgorelik »

ineedasername wrote: post #447
nf8nnfufuu wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't looked into his case. What was his method - what did he do, so that the girls couldn't call for help? I think classically they are made to be illegal (no passport, have perhaps committed crime of prostitution, so they think they can not go to the police). Is that also what Epstein did?

You seem to think that if people aren't under lock and key, they aren't being coerced. Which rather misses the wider spectrum of coercion. It could, for example, simply be a guilt trip about how poor their family is, how the extra money he was giving them would help. They wouldn't want to make their family starve, would they? Or not. There's no end to the possibilities.

> guilt trip about how poor their family is

Coercion is the practice of persuading someone to do something by using force or threats.

"guilt trip about how poor their family is" does not qualify as "force or threats".

Watering down term "coercion" makes real coercion less noticeable.

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

#532

Post by darawk »

yawaramin wrote: post #515
darawk wrote: post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> * 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 question is whether they should have fired him, which in my view is entirely determined by the badness of his actions. Are you arguing that he did nothing wrong? In that case why did he hide his actions from MIT, after it had explicitly blacklisted Epstein as a donor? > someone at MIT speculated ... There is no evidence at all that their presence was anything other than consensual. Maybe so, but they had good r…

> Are you arguing that he did nothing wrong? In that case why did he hide his actions from MIT, after it had explicitly blacklisted Epstein as a donor?

Yes i'm arguing that Joi (not Epstein, obviously) did nothing wrong. I don't believe he did hide what he was doing from MIT - he hid it from the public, by not listing Epstein as a donor.

> Maybe so, but they had good reason to. Epstein by that point had already been convicted on the sex offender charge. And then he was going around accompanied by young European women, and there's nothing suspicious about that? Come on.

If these European women were underage, sure. If they were adults, what's the problem here? If they were underage, or the other employees of the media lab suspected they were underage, that would have been made explicit in the article. But it wasn't, therefore they weren't. Which means the only explanation for the term 'trafficking' in this context would be that Epstein was holding them against their will, something I don't think he's ever actually been accused of.

Which is all a long-winded way of saying that the notion that the employees at the media lab were worried these European women were "trafficked" is bullshit. What they were actually made uncomfortable by was that these women were essentially prostitutes, and that I understand. That'd make me uncomfortable too. But it's not the same as bringing non-consensual slaves to your MIT meetings as implied by the phrasing of the article.

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

#533

Post by tomp »

ALittleLight wrote: post #338
DSingularity wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doubt? Care to elaborate and substantiate?

Epstein was connected to many high profile, wealthy, and politically connected people. If he went to trial, his connections to these people may be exposed, and they may face legal liability. There are a number of suspicious circumstances regarding Epstein's alleged suicide. In no particular order: * Multiple bones in Epstein's neck were broken. This is possible in a suicide, but broken bones are more consistent with…

thanks for this extensively sourced summary!

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

#534

Post by tomp »

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?

Your unhelpful reply makes just as much noise as a helpful reply answering the question by ALittleLight

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

#535

Post by dennisgorelik »

sgt101 wrote: post #521
nf8nnfufuu wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even young East European models have to work somewhere (at least some of them). (Paragraph called them "young women", not "teens", btw). Should young women only be allowed to work for poor people, if they are attractive? Or maybe only for other young people? I don't think that would be a good rule. I don't think it would be enough for an accusation. Of course with the background that Epstein was already known as a se…

Why two beautiful young women though - that seems not to be likely due to chance and surely enough to make any rational person wonder what they hell is going on? The thing is to make everyone who you meet a bit complicit. Two young women at the meeting is not quite enough to make anyone at the meeting intervene, but it is enough that there is then a lever - "you were at the october meet, you met Siri and Alexa... you…

> "... so I called mental health services" suddenly find that colleagues are talking about how socially inept they are

What is the right behavior then?

Should have Joi Ito recognize that "two beautiful young women" bait and cancelled all potential business with Epstein?

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

#536

Post by DanBC »

ALittleLight wrote: post #338
DSingularity wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doubt? Care to elaborate and substantiate?

Epstein was connected to many high profile, wealthy, and politically connected people. If he went to trial, his connections to these people may be exposed, and they may face legal liability. There are a number of suspicious circumstances regarding Epstein's alleged suicide. In no particular order: * Multiple bones in Epstein's neck were broken. This is possible in a suicide, but broken bones are more consistent with…

> This is possible in a suicide

You don't know much about ligaturing, do you?

> Epstein's guards, who were supposed to be regularly checking on him did not. They were "asleep" before, during, and after Epstein's death. They later falsified records about this fact.

This is worryingly common in prison and mental health hospitals.

> Yet, that's at odds with the fact that there was only one other suicide in the past 40 years at the MCC [4].

Do you know what they're counting and how they count it? How do they define "suicide" and "at the MCC"?

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

#537

Post by sergioj97 »

dclowd9901 wrote: post #523
nullc wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are you aware that a woman has claimed that she was forced to have sex with Marvin Minsky by Epstein on his island? Yet the her deposition does not actually make that claim, but rather that she was directed to approach Minsky for sex. A third party witness reports that that he turned her down and was apparently complaining about the incident. https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/339725/ If you were not aware of these th…

I’m not worried about the privileged. They have every benefit and fortune at their backs. You should use the limited resources of your worry toward those more deserving and needful.

If privileged people go down like this even without enough proof or contradictory claims (I don't think this is the case, but the user you are replying to seems to believe that), then you certainly should worry about it. It may well happen to anyone else, privileged or not. It's not only a problem for the privileged.

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

#538

Post by aarongreenblatt »

cattlefarmer wrote: post #517

> This is well-known now. Please avoid this. Let me preface this by saying that I have no idea who Epstein is except that he's some rich, white guy that got caught up in some kind of sex scandal, was arrested and is now dead. I'm not belittling his acts nor ignoring his accusers, I'm saying that I did not know . Now let me explain why. Over the past couple of years, there have been non-stop stories of one powerful wh…

> he's some rich, white guy

Please avoid this.

He's some rich, Jewish guy that got caught up in some kind of sex scandal, was arrested and is now dead.

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

#539

Post by Udik »

cattlefarmer wrote: post #517

> This is well-known now. Please avoid this. Let me preface this by saying that I have no idea who Epstein is except that he's some rich, white guy that got caught up in some kind of sex scandal, was arrested and is now dead. I'm not belittling his acts nor ignoring his accusers, I'm saying that I did not know . Now let me explain why. Over the past couple of years, there have been non-stop stories of one powerful wh…

> some rich, white guy > non-stop stories of one powerful white man after another

I didn't know that Morgan Freeman, Bill Cosby, Aziz Ansari, to name a few, are white. Nor I did know that Asia Argento, Frankie Shaw, or Allison Mack are men. We could even discuss the "powerful", as it's pretty obvious that the stories that reach the news are only about those famous people.

And finally, if we really have to make it a matter of race, Epstein wasn't exactly white, he was Jewish.

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

#540

Post by philwelch »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #489
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?

People are complicated. It’s entirely possible that Epstein was simultaneously involved in child sex trafficking and also genuinely wanted to donate to research initiatives he considered important. People can be pretty horrible on aggregate and still have a few good intentions left.
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