591–600 of 770 posts
Two things stand out from this fiasco. 1: Even very powerful and successful people are dazzled by money. 2: The ability of an individual or a family to accumulate massive private wealth inevitably leads to a lot of messed up behaviour.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How can we expect the republic to survive if some of the most capable people try so actively to not pay attention to what's going on outside their bubble?
Because they’re too busy counting their money. We’re the lackeys of the mighty and powerful and when the “common people” sometime try to react to the visible power imbalances some of us feel the need to obey and defend our masters. Source: me, a desilusioned programmer approaching my 40s
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why are you going out on such limbs and repeatedly defending Epstein and his child sexual abuse in this thread? I'm struggling to understand your motivations. This should be a clear and obvious case of someone who was really fucked up, did fucked up things, and deserves nobody in polite society defending him. And yet here we are having this discussion, somehow.
I'm in no way defending Epstein in any way. It is horrifying how many people in this thread seem to be unable to understand that. I hope nobody of you works in the legal system. You have a prejudice, and you can only see what confirms your prejudice, despite nothing of it being there. You think I defend Epstein, but I never did. I asked a question about a paragraph describing a scene of a guy visiting MIT Media Lab w…
You can't remove this question from its context. The people at MIT Media Lab who were worried about it certainly were aware of the context, and they were worried, but ultimately forced to go along with it because their boss wanted the money too badly.
Also, enough with the "just asking questions". Instead of asking lots of questions, just go read the relevant articles and learn the truths directly, rather than requiring people to spoonfeed you through HN comments.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
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 38 and afaik nobody has ever sent me underage women for me to have sex with them, that way I could have boasted to an external third party that “I refused”. When you’re 88 years old (so when biologically sex is one of the last things you should be thinking about) and when one of your close friends “sends” you an under-age woman that only means that that close friend of yours knew what you liked and what you were…
PS: Morocco, not the USofA.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
> Steven Pinker, Marvin Minsky It just sounds like you haven't been paying attention at all. Are you aware that a woman has claimed that she was forced to have sex with Marvin Minsky by Epstein on his island? https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/9/20798900/marvin-minsky-jef... Are you aware that Pinker has flown on the "Lolita Express" and helped with Epstein's legal defense, a legal defense that led to him avoiding a pri…
Helping someone prepare a legal defense is not a crime.
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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Marvin Minsky was directly named by one of the victims in documents that were published a couple of days before Epatein’s convenient death, and those documents were mentioning that Minsky had directly sexually profited from an under-age woman. In other words he was a paedophile. I submitted an article detailing all this stuff on the day of Epstein’s death, it had reached the top links of HN in less than an hour but t…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
so why would a smart person like Gates voluntarily pay someone else's hush money? why are we holding Gates (sponsoring his behaviour) to a lower standard than Ito (passing on hush money) if my hypothesis is correct?
The official version in the media makes no sense to me: why would Gates finance Epsteins prestige through this so-called prestige-for-cash scheme? Why would Ito accept the money if the only way Epstein can enjoy the prestige is if everyone finds out about Ito? You can't publically associate while not publically associating with each other...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
But in these cases, how do you know?
In this case you know because Epstein already had a criminal conviction and MIT had already blacklisted him as a donor.