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Jeffrey Epstein and MIT: FAQs

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Re: Jeffrey Epstein and MIT: FAQs

#171
> Epstein was joined by one or two female assistants who appeared to be in their twenties, which made some people uncomfortable ... A Media Lab staff member told us that she was "grossed out" during of one Epstein's visits to the Media Lab, both because ... and because Epstein brought female assistants in their twenties with him.

Is anyone interpreting this as "At MIT, it's reasonable to be prejudiced against young women who claim to have a job in the philanthropy field. Anyone actually qualified for such a job would have a different age or a different gender."? If I'm a professor elsewhere and visit MIT to talk about my research, can my female graduate student (who did most of the work) safely visit at the same time, or will she run into the same prejudice? Does the answer depend on her physical appearance?

Re: Jeffrey Epstein and MIT: FAQs

#172
post #26

The report itself is rather interesting: http://factfindingjan2020.mit.edu/files/MIT-report.pdf > After meeting Epstein in February 2013, Ito conducted what he described as “due diligence” into Epstein. Ito told us that he performed a Google search of Epstein and also spoke with certain individuals to learn more. According to Ito, the “influential” people with whom he spoke included Nicholas Negroponte, Media Lab co-…

Makes one think twice about the value of social proof. Epstein was like a landing page with customer logos from LinkedIn, Microsoft, MIT, and Harvard.

I replied "this is an excellent analogy" and it was voted down. On the assumption that I was too brief, I'll try again.

From the early 40s through the early 90s MIT was essentially entirely (> 80%) funded by various organs of the US government (I used to read the budget when I was a student, and nowadays the development office sends me the budget). With the end of the Cold War that era came to an end. Interestingly Nicholas Negroponte was one of the few who really recognized this and he set up the media lab on a different structure.*

MIT really struggled to make a transition, which it has only partially made progress on. And what I like about this analogy is that it is trading on someone else's judgement and reputation. The landing page and pitch deck that uses other peoples' logos (typically without permission which I think, in the pitch deck case at least, is just fine, as long as the usage is true). "Trust us! Our B2B solution is trusted by Coca-Cola, Airbus and Lyft!"

A lot of schools name buildings and courses after people. One thing I liked about the old MIT is that they didn't really: Building 2 actually has a name but who really knows it? There were a few exceptions, but they were few. One element of the "new" MIT is that they essentially sell their own credibility ("Steven Schwartzman school of computing is merely the most notorious" and also try to trade it in reverse "Steven Schwarzmann may be a scumbag but he thought we were worth giving money to". Harvard (from its very name) Stanford, etc have all been in on this game for decades and centuries; MIT is just trying to catch up.

* I have mixed feelings about his by that's an unrelated matter

Re: Jeffrey Epstein and MIT: FAQs

#173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The chances of this happening on a high profile case are infinitesimally small Even if they are ([citation needed] on the claim that the high profile nature of the case decreases the odds of mechanical accident), infinitesimally small events can still happen once. The fact they happened at a time most inconvenient for holding a wealthy man accountable doesn't change the nature of probability.

Sure it’s perfectly possible, just really improbable, that he happened to kill himself when the video happened to be deleted.

I've heard it happens far more often in the US prison system than it should, regardless of profile.

Re: Jeffrey Epstein and MIT: FAQs

#174

> Epstein was joined by one or two female assistants who appeared to be in their twenties, which made some people uncomfortable ... A Media Lab staff member told us that she was "grossed out" during of one Epstein's visits to the Media Lab, both because ... and because Epstein brought female assistants in their twenties with him. Is anyone interpreting this as "At MIT, it's reasonable to be prejudiced against young w…

Most everyone else is interpreting this in the context of Epstein trafficking young women from eastern europe, because that's what he did.

If you interpret it as you describe instead, I also desperately hope you are not a professor and don't visit MIT.

Re: Jeffrey Epstein and MIT: FAQs

#175
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really surprise Marvin visited him in jail. It's not out of character of him (he was really a kind human) but I'm surprised he had that close a relationship. I like Nicholas a lot but some of his remarks do surprise me.

Marvin Minsky was accused of assaulting Virgina Guiffre. Virginia had been trafficked by Epstein starting when she was 15. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/08/new-details-in-unsea... > Giuffre also alleges Epstein and Maxwell told her to have sex with former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson; former Democratic Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell; the late MIT computer scientist Marvin Minsky; and MC2 model a…

I know several people who were at that island and have discussed this event; one even told me that he remembered it because Marvin came over to him and said "this woman just offered to have sex with me." Also Gloria, his wife, was there, though I haven't asked her about it (and wouldn't). This seems believable to me.

OTOH I did read Giuffre's deposition and she says not just that she was told by Epstein to proposition various people but that it happened. I find that very hard to believe having known him so long, but she made that statement under oath. Also I'm not sure Marvin was famous enough to be worth making up a story about (as opposed to, say, a famous heir to a throne).

Re: Jeffrey Epstein and MIT: FAQs

#176

The report itself is rather interesting: http://factfindingjan2020.mit.edu/files/MIT-report.pdf > After meeting Epstein in February 2013, Ito conducted what he described as “due diligence” into Epstein. Ito told us that he performed a Google search of Epstein and also spoke with certain individuals to learn more. According to Ito, the “influential” people with whom he spoke included Nicholas Negroponte, Media Lab co-…

Haven't seen this being discussed anywhere:

>In addition to his own donations, Epstein claimed to have arranged for donations to MIT from other wealthy individuals. In 2014, Epstein claimed to have arranged for Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates to provide an anonymous $2 million donation to the Media Lab.

From the PDF linked above: http://factfindingjan2020.mit.edu/files/MIT-report.pdf

Re: Jeffrey Epstein and MIT: FAQs

#177
post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where? Germany today definitely seems better than Nazi Germany -- copy that for almost all of Europe. Japan today is definitely better than Tojo. Russia today is probably better than Soviet Russia. Maybe it's worse. It's still bad. Copy that for China, but I can't imagine it's worse than Mao. South East Asia seems a lot better off without the Khmer Rogue running around. Isis is fucking up the middle east and MBS is t…

> Germany today definitely seems better than Nazi Germany Meanwhile we had to drop a lawsuit against the NPD because the most vocal and hateful all turned out to be law enforcement. Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy, especially with the AFD reaching a nice 14% support. > Copy that for China, but I can't imagine it's worse than Mao. Blindly killing and starving your population for a rebuild from "scratch" vs. systemat…

Sodomy is still illegal today in most of the world.

There's a difference between what is law and what's enforced.

I.E. it was illegal to mistreat your wife in Germany 300 years ago, but how often did the women win against the man compared to today? How often did they even bring up a case vs today? We don't know. But I'm skeptical it was even close to as fair as today.

Re: Jeffrey Epstein and MIT: FAQs

#178
post #176

The report itself is rather interesting: http://factfindingjan2020.mit.edu/files/MIT-report.pdf > After meeting Epstein in February 2013, Ito conducted what he described as “due diligence” into Epstein. Ito told us that he performed a Google search of Epstein and also spoke with certain individuals to learn more. According to Ito, the “influential” people with whom he spoke included Nicholas Negroponte, Media Lab co-…

Haven't seen this being discussed anywhere: > In addition to his own donations, Epstein claimed to have arranged for donations to MIT from other wealthy individuals. In 2014, Epstein claimed to have arranged for Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates to provide an anonymous $2 million donation to the Media Lab. From the PDF linked above: http://factfindingjan2020.mit.edu/files/MIT-report.pdf

Gates had close ties to Epstein:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/12/business/jeffrey-epstein-...

In fact, Epstein left his entire estate to Boris Nikolic (guy on the far right on that NYT picture). Nikolic worked for Gates for many years.

This is Gates emailing co-workers after visiting Epstein:

> After the meeting, Epstein emailed friends and associates to boast, writing "Bill's great" in one email reviewed by The Times. In an email Gates sent to his own colleagues the next day, he wrote, "A very attractive Swedish woman and her daughter dropped by and I ended up staying there quite late."

The revelations about Epstein directing the $2M Gates donation to MIT first came out in Ronan Farrow The New Yorker piece on Joi Ito and MIT. Gates has denied it but given all the facts it seems very believable that Epstein did have something to do with that donation.

Re: Jeffrey Epstein and MIT: FAQs

#179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cctv footage existed, it has now been ‘accidentally deleted’. The chances of this happening on a high profile case are infinitesimally small. So on the contrary the great claim requiring evidence is that this was a completely normal suicide in prison. Where is the evidence this video was deleted by mistake? https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2020/01/10/us/09reuters-peop...

I hear you. But the absence of evidence is not evidence of a crime. You've got your reasoning inverted. "Show me the evidence that there isn't a giant space walrus on the far side of Neptune. Otherwise we must conclude there is one. " I'd like links to sensible aggregate sources and discussion. I don't want to have the discussion here.

Just for the record, absence of evidence can be evidence of a crime: evidence-tampering. And anyway, an absence of evidence isn't exactly exonerative either, especially if a plausible narrative exists to explain the absence. And there are several here.

It's a matter of probabilities. Surveillance video was prematurely destroyed, twice in a month, in separate incidents and in different ways. Oh and both of those incidents involved the same subject. That is statistically improbable, similar in category if not in actual magnitude, to getting struck by lightning twice. At the very least that should justify and support an investigation kicking into overdrive mode to find direct evidence. And if no such evidence is found, it may nonetheless end up being used as part of a prosecution. Interesting coincidences are always pretty persuasive.

Re: Jeffrey Epstein and MIT: FAQs

#180
post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Marvin Minsky was accused of assaulting Virgina Guiffre. Virginia had been trafficked by Epstein starting when she was 15. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/08/new-details-in-unsea... > Giuffre also alleges Epstein and Maxwell told her to have sex with former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson; former Democratic Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell; the late MIT computer scientist Marvin Minsky; and MC2 model a…

I know several people who were at that island and have discussed this event; one even told me that he remembered it because Marvin came over to him and said "this woman just offered to have sex with me." Also Gloria, his wife, was there, though I haven't asked her about it (and wouldn't). This seems believable to me. OTOH I did read Giuffre's deposition and she says not just that she was told by Epstein to propositio…

Did any of the people you know regret going there? I know I would be able to do it. Even if they didn't participate, I would think being in an environment like that would make most people really uncomfortable.
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