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Jeffrey Epstein and MIT: FAQs

news.mit.edu

251–260 of 353 posts

Re: Jeffrey Epstein and MIT: FAQs

#251
post #244

Can someone explain to me what harm was caused by MIT accepting anonymous donations from Jeffrey Epstein? As an MIT alum I don't understand what the problem is.

It allowed Epstein to launder his reputation as a sexual predator and trafficker. Even with his donations recorded as "anonymous", he remained a conduit and effective networker for the Media Lab. Bill Gates donated $2,000,000, IIRC, to the Media Lab through Epstein. As part of his continued networking as a big dollar donor, Epstein continued using his private island to abuse and traffic underage women.

Basically, once his reputation was in tatters following his conviction, the Media Lab and various individuals found it profitable to rent their reputations (and MIT's) to Epstein.

Re: Jeffrey Epstein and MIT: FAQs

#252
post #201
post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are, quite sensibly, prejudiced against someone convicted of sex crimes involving the exploitation of young women traveling with young women. The prejudice is against him, not the women. The incident and the reactions of the staff involved has been documented in greater detail elsewhere, you can just google it up.

To avoid the appearance of impropriety, should people avoid hiring female assistants? I hope not.

Once you've been convicted of sex trafficking, yes.

Re: Jeffrey Epstein and MIT: FAQs

#253
post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Building 2 actually has a name but who really knows it? It helps that rooms are numbered with the building number up front (e.g., 2-351 is building 2 floor 3 room 51), so the number is much more informative than the name. Also, it's only been the Simons building for 4-5 years or so; before that it was just building 2.

Although the building number (mostly) doesn’t tell you much about the location except approximately.

Not too approximately: Even numbered buildings are to the east of the central grassy plaza (Killian Court), and odd numbered buildings to the west; the numbers tend to increase moving away from the river.

Additionally, buildings outside the main cluster have a cardinal direction prefix (W/NW/N/NE/E) that helps locate them.

" rel="nofollow">http://whereis.mit.edu>

(I know you know all that; I'm adding context for the readers.)

Re: Jeffrey Epstein and MIT: FAQs

#255
post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's correct that the deposition says that sex happened -- I'd greatly appreciate a reference to that if you have one. The deposition contains questions like "Where were you and where was Ms. Maxwell when she directed you to go have sex with Marvin Minsky?", which seem to focus entirely on Maxwell's behavior rather than telling us what Minsky's response was. (For the record I think Minsky's conduct -- i…

Deposition page 204 line 13 (marginally ambiguous). My point about Marvin not being super famous is if I were making something up I'd make it up about famous people. https://drive.google.com/file/d/14ZOEKwoBnDKUFI1hLbFJH5nsUFx...

Could you check the page? Neither 204 of the PDF nor 204 in red at the top seems to be a deposition text page.

I'm not imagining that Giuffre made anything up. I'm just trying to work out whether, after she propositioned Minsky as she was directed to by Maxwell (from the deposition, as well as Minsky's own account to other attendees), he accepted.

Re: Jeffrey Epstein and MIT: FAQs

#256

From the report http://factfindingjan2020.mit.edu/files/MIT-report.pdf Professor Lloyd's dealings look very, very shady: > Professor Lloyd remained friends with Epstein after his conviction in 2008. He visited Epstein at his office in Florida during the period of Epstein’s criminal sentence. Professor Lloyd also visited Epstein’s private island, though for only a few hours for lunch, and he has acknowledged Epstein i…

Wow. Seth Lloyd is a very well-known name in Quantum Computing. It's pretty shady that he's depositing $50,000 gifts from known sex offenders directly into his personal bank account...

Can't these people just go to facebook and get like a 300k salary for a few years?

Re: Jeffrey Epstein and MIT: FAQs

#257
post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can you name something concrete that the place has actually done? F MIT graduates, faculty and staff have earned quite a few Nobel and Turing prizes; half a dozen graduates have walked on the moon; the lead professor in my Unified class left to become secretary of the Air Force; she was replaced by the former head of NASA. Almost every or every department has contributed in fundamental ways to its respective field.…

None of these are achievements of MIT media labs. Everyone knows that MIT the school, as opposed to Negroponte's pedo-blackmailer funded wank fest, has historically done some important things. If you were originally saying MIT the school is a net positive for humanity, that's not what I am asking for clarification on at all.

Sorry, “the institute” is MIT slang for MIT. The media lab is called the media lab and indeed many people at the institute view it with scorn and/or envy. The document under discussion was about the institute.

Several interesting things came out of the media lab including mindstorms OTOH. Not in proportion perhaps to the amount of press, but the media lab was not funded from government grants by and large.

Media lab emphasized demos, true, but in some ways I admired it, as the rest of the institute (a part from Architecture, wher the ML sits) but you know, everywhere else was good at burying things or assuming the technical detail was all that mattered.

Re: Jeffrey Epstein and MIT: FAQs

#258
post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ll admit that doppler radar, noise canceling headphones, RSA cryptography and GPS might all be “trendy”, but they’re only a few of the many, many inventions that came out of MIT, mostly bankrolled by military funding.

None of these are achievements of MIT media labs. Please respond to what I wrote.

You'll have to give Gumby the courtesy of responding to what he wrote, first. He is clearly talking about "the institute". In the sentence you quoted, "I think it's been and continues to be a net positive for the planet", the pronoun "it" refers to "the institute (i.e. the faculty and staff)" in the previous sentence, consistent with "The Institute doesn't deserve your love" in the parent posting and "I love the institute" in the grandparent posting. It's 100% unambiguous that "the institute" he's talking about is "MIT" (that's what the middle "I" stands for: "institute"), not Media Lab, which didn't even exist when he joined MIT in 1982.

Re: Jeffrey Epstein and MIT: FAQs

#259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still don't understand. They knew in 2013. What exactly does "in response to revelations" mean then? What was the revelation? They've known. That sentences is bullshit and misleading at best.

MIT is not one person. The report details exactly who knew what, when. According to the report, the President of the institute (Reif) did not know until the reporting linking MIT with Epstein.

Wasn’t one of the early findings of the investigation that Reif had signed a thank you note to Epstein for his donations, and had sat in the meeting where the institute decided faculty could take Epstein’s money as long as he donated anonymously?

Re: Jeffrey Epstein and MIT: FAQs

#260
post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> I know I would be able to do it.

Freudian slip?

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