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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

#681

Post by morelisp »

csallen wrote: post #645
cjbprime wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> Are you aware that Pinker has flown on the "Lolita Express" (1) This happened in 2002, (2) Pinker didn't know Epstein personally at the time and the ticket was booked by his literary agent, (3) the flight was to a science-related event in California and included other scientists who were also booked by the same literary agent. Simply saying, "Pinker has flown on the Lolita Express" and leaving it at that is an inte…

> the flight was to a science-related event in California and included other scientists who were also booked by the same literary agent.

That literary agent being John Brockman, who seems to be in as deep as anyone - he pitched "science-related events" to his writers by saying Epstein would be bringing girls!

https://newrepublic.com/article/154826/jeffrey-epsteins-inte...

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

#682

Post by cjbprime »

morelisp wrote: post #676
nullc wrote: post #661

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why should we believe Benford? You could start with because the claim Minsky went along with it was never offered by the accuser in the first place! There is something to debate about how far you should believe accusations without investigation or evidence ... but this isn't that, this is jumping to hysterical ends without even an accusation being made, assuming the worst about someone whom-- as far as I know-- no…

> I don't know how to see that as anything but a straight up witchhunt where no one targeted could ever be found innocent. Perhaps literally no one partying with the (confessed, convicted) pedophile and his suddenly definitely-consenting-and-of-legal-age entourage was innocent.

Specifically, the most charitable Minsky interpretation which we're being persuaded to take here seems to go something like:

* in 2002, Minsky asks Epstein to host an AI conference for him on his island

* while there, is apparently angry to discover that Epstein is prostituting girls

* later in the 2000s, presumably discovers that Epstein has now been convicted of prostituting girls

* in 2011, Minsky asks Epstein to host an AI conference for him on his island, again

...

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

#683

Post by mcguire »

rhizome wrote: post #400
freyr wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ito reminds me of Epstein in that I have no idea how either got their money. Wikipedia must be skipping over some important details, but it describes him as a two-time college dropout, a nightclub manager in Japan, (EDIT: nevermind, mystery solved! His MIT bio says he was the founder of Japan's Digital Garage and CEO of its first ISP [1]), then he's the president of MIT Media Lab, visiting Harvard Law School professo…

Beyond the business stuff, he was basically Japan's first Western-style (Wired, Mondo 2000, etc.) New Media personality. Back in the early 90s he also took form as an action sports impresario, techno culture maven, and theorizing gadabout.

So he fit right in with the Media Lab?

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

#684

Post by zentiggr »

darawk wrote: post #665
jakelazaroff wrote: post #579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Of course i've heard of that happening. People speculate all the time that older men out with younger, attractive women are being "trafficked" in the sense meant here. That is not the question. Has your boss at your tech job ever invited an important guest to your workplace , who brought associates whom you reasonably thought might be there against their will? > The entire point under discussion however turns on th…

> That is not the question. Has your boss at your tech job ever invited an important guest to your workplace, who brought associates whom you reasonably thought might be there against their will? No, and neither did Epstein. They had no reasonable basis to assume these women were there against their will. > No, the discussion is about whether Ito should have known at the time to not work with Epstein. tptacek is also…

A conviction years before on exactly the relevant charges certainly should have cast suspicion on him showing up with young girls in tow, especially when they would be arguably unnecessary in that meeting context.

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

#685

Post by mcguire »

dbcurtis wrote: post #329
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 epis…

But I don't actually know anyone who has used Scratch.

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

#686

Post by fatbird »

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

Lawrence Lessig just asserted on Medium [0] (without specific evidence) that the anonymization of Epstein's donations was done at the direction of MIT. If true, that loops the Institute generally into the whole scandal, where previously they had an almost bulletproof defense.

[0] https://medium.com/@lessig/on-joi-and-mit-3cb422fe5ae7

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

#687

Post by mirimir »

Merad wrote: post #619
mirimir wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Epstein was clearly a pedophile. Even at the time in question, it was already quite clear that he was a pedophile. So that's what's so damning. Trafficking of young women from the former Soviet Union is a complicated issue. During the collapse, and well into the 90s and mid 00s, many people were desperate. Literally starving, with ~no public services. And many criminals took advantage of that, recruiting young women…

> Epstein was clearly a pedophile. Even at the time in question, it was already quite clear that he was a pedophile. He wasn't a pedophile, at least from what I've read. Pedophilia specifically refers to an attraction to prepubescent children - Epstein was interested in adolescent girls, which would make him a hebephile. If Epstein was going around with an entourage of 10 year old girls it would've been extremely obv…

OK, so is there a huge distinction between prosecutions and judgments for pedophiles and hebephiles?

I haven't followed his case well enough to know the age range for his young friends. But yes, I don't recall that he was grooming ten year olds. But probably 13 year olds, I think.

And yes, it's hard to tell about preteen people. Looking back at old pictures of close friends and myself, the most obvious changes were later, at maybe about 19-20. Mainly a loss of gangliness, I think. Puberty is not uncommon now before ten, so secondary sexual characteristics alone are unreliable indicators.

Way back in the hippie days, when I was about 18-20, I had a few 13-16 year old girlfriends. And I don't recall that they were all that obviously distinguishable by age. But of course, in old pictures, we all look like children.

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

#688

Post by dang »

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…

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20908317.

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

#689

Post by nullc »

cjbprime wrote: post #682
morelisp wrote: post #676

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't know how to see that as anything but a straight up witchhunt where no one targeted could ever be found innocent. Perhaps literally no one partying with the (confessed, convicted) pedophile and his suddenly definitely-consenting-and-of-legal-age entourage was innocent.

Specifically, the most charitable Minsky interpretation which we're being persuaded to take here seems to go something like: * in 2002, Minsky asks Epstein to host an AI conference for him on his island * while there, is apparently angry to discover that Epstein is prostituting girls * later in the 2000s, presumably discovers that Epstein has now been convicted of prostituting girls * in 2011, Minsky asks Epstein to…

Where are you getting the idea that Minsky knew any of it was at Epstein's direction or that she was underage?

The description by Benford was that at Epstein's event a young woman explicitly propositioned Minsky, he rejected her advance and was put off by the experience enough to remark to Benford about it.

It might well be that there were additional details-- that the offer was "Hi, I'm 17 and my boss says I need to have sex with you", or what not, and I'd agree with you if that were the case-- but no one there has suggested this yet.

Nothing obligates you to take the most charitable interpretation, but if you're going to claim you are doing so you ought to actually try.

I'll grant you that it sounds like it should have been inescapable to Minsky that Epstein surrounded himself with women where there were huge age and power imbalances, to the point of it being obviously creepy. But the same could be said about, say, Richard Branson or Donald Trump. It's a big jump to go from your original allegation of Minsky engaging in statutory rape and prostitution to 'he had to know that this guy running events for him was at least a bit of a creep'.

Maybe once investigations happen and disclosures are made it turns out that Minsky really did partake in those awful things but at this point they haven't even been factually alleged, much less persuasively demonstrated.

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

#690

Post by shrimpx »

baron_harkonnen wrote: post #73
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.

Even though we won't find out more, this Epstein issue has given us a tiny glimpse to the mechanics of the plutocracy we really do live in. It's pretty clear that for certain individuals higher up in the social hierarchy than most of us will ever see, Epstein offered a very exclusive service. And was part of a world of that we mostly think of as fiction. Similar to when the Snowden leaks happened we all saw that "yes…

What was this "very exclusive service" that Epstein was providing to people like Bill Gates?
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