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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

#631

Post by liability »

chirau wrote: post #374
liability wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this sort of scenario seems normal to you, maybe you live in the wrong neighborhood. I see a lot of shit when I go outside, but old geezers with entourages of very young eastern european women is not something I can claim to have witnessed.

You probably have not spent time in Midtown, UES, UWS, Chelsea, West Village, SoHo and TriBeCa in Manhattan, or Vegas, or LA, or Miami. I live in Manhattan and see this at every upscale establishment I go to. The old dude-young lady combos are everywhere in these places, part of the normal.

Old dude with a single young lady (possibly daughter or grand daughter) is something I've certainly seen. But a veritable entourage of young women? That's something I can't say I've seen.

If that is common in those locations, I'll be avoiding them.

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

#632

Post by JabavuAdams »

lopmotr wrote: post #507
asveikau wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember similar stories about people who took money from Harvey Weinstein, for example there was an AIDS nonprofit he gave millions to. It all highlights the difficult job facing people tasked with taking money from donors in this way. They won't always have 20/20 hindsight. They may learn about sketchiness after they already took the money. They may be so blinded by what they see as generosity and good will that…

What's wrong with a charity accepting donations from someone naughty? It doesn't make them complicit in their offences. Criminals often donate money to charities and victims in an effort to get reduced sentences, at least in my country.

Let's say I'm some really prestigious organization. By donating to me, a bad actor is in part increasing their own prestige by using my brand. By allowing them to do this I make it more likely that this bad actor can continue to be accepted by polite society and continue their crimes.

There are red lines beyond which a person should be considered socially radioactive and ostracized.

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

#633

Post by sharpneli »

GuiA wrote: post #529
blub wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A model from Eastern Europe is someone that does fashion modeling and is from that area. Euphemistically it could be someone from EE that has sex for money, but you don't want to beat around the bush when describing child sex abuse. So they should either clearly say underage-looking girls or remove that paragraph because it's irrelevant and confusing. I mean this is a story about child abuse and the author didn't thi…

> This guy was raping underage teens and possibly pre-teens FTFY. An adult can’t “have sex” with a pre-teen.

Legal definitions of this differ per country.

As an example pedophilia in Finland is defined in criminal code as having sex with a person under 16. Rape is a different crime.

Sure you can also define it using rape and defining that a minor cannot give consent.

In the end these are just semantics. End result is the same.

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

#634

Post by dualboot »

burtonator wrote: post #615
areoform wrote: post #364

This is gossip, but it’s well founded gossip as I am one or two hops away from him. Epstein was very upfront with the people he worked what that he liked “young woman” while giving them money and invited them to his parties etc. I think it was his way to enmesh them and make them unwitting partners in his systemic abuse. Most people just went along, and were eventually given a massage from a child at his behest to fu…

I thought you were going to mention that comment about Trump saying that Epstein liked "his girls on the younger side". I think what's interesting is the ethical dilemma here. You have 1000s of people around you. No one is saying anything. Then they offer you money. Do you take it? Everyone else is? Then the counter to this is that of the 1000s of people that come crashing down why is it just Joi Ito and a few others…

The sad reality is that the only folks who actually "suffer" from shame are those that have the capacity to see the world from a perspective other than their own.

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

#635

Post by kinkrtyavimoodh »

paganel wrote: post #563
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 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…

Please forgive me for presupposing that your life is nothing close to the lives of the people we are discussing here and your intuition is not a useful model for figuring out what is normal and what isn't.

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

#636

Post by nickpinkston »

kragen wrote: post #525
nickpinkston wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not claiming anything, just that it's interesting. I'm not going to feed the troll anymore.

I've flagged your comment as a completely unprovoked personal attack on Gojomo. It's not okay to call people names because they point out your misconduct.

Ha - fine. I guess you take my criticism of the "well actually" behaviors are more of a threat to a good community than those behaviors themselves. Thanks for your concern.

Edit: Interestingly, it looks like you guys are friends, so this is just favoritism on your part. So much for your concern... haha.

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

#637

Post by asveikau »

JabavuAdams wrote: post #632
lopmotr wrote: post #507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with a charity accepting donations from someone naughty? It doesn't make them complicit in their offences. Criminals often donate money to charities and victims in an effort to get reduced sentences, at least in my country.

Let's say I'm some really prestigious organization. By donating to me, a bad actor is in part increasing their own prestige by using my brand. By allowing them to do this I make it more likely that this bad actor can continue to be accepted by polite society and continue their crimes. There are red lines beyond which a person should be considered socially radioactive and ostracized.

Not to mention the prestigious organization could be doing worthy work and gets tainted by the bad actor, especially if the organization has been seen as knowing about it or concealing it.

In my example of Weinstein, it remains a worthy cause to help people with AIDS, to prevent new infections, fund research, etc. But now maybe people hesitate to donate because of how they dealt with Weinstein.

In the case of media lab, obviously there are people making their career there who have nothing to do with this Epstein controversy. Now they may experience a sense that they are also tainted.

When such an organization turns a blind eye to this problem, they risk harm towards their stated goals and they do a disservice to employees, other donors, those who believe in them, etc.

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

#638

Post by paggle »

It was tactically smart to initially refuse to resign... it shifted the Overton window so that now he’s seen as defeated simply by stopping being the Media Lab director, instead of needing to make any attempt at restitution for the damage he has caused to Epstein’s victims and to MIT.

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

#639

Post by turk73 »

dennisgorelik wrote: post #613
sgt101 wrote: post #602

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What is the right behavior then? To contact mental health/wellbeing officers in your institution, and to be on record as having done it. There will be short term costs, but in the long term the costs of not doing so could be catastrophic. >Should have Joi Ito recognize that "two beautiful young women" bait and cancelled all potential business with Epstein? I don't know because I wasn't there and I don't know the cir…

> contact mental health/wellbeing officers That may terminate the career of donations receiving officer. In addition to losing that particular donor, other donors may start worrying if they will end up being investigated after attempting to donate. > it shouldn't be a single person or a narrow group making these decisions Big bureaucracy is expensive and may consume a significant part of donation money. > a deal with…

We never should have made that deal, Stalin was actually worse than the whole Nazi regime of murderous scum. At least the Germans had style and before you accuse me of being some kind of 88er, I will remind you that the big shots in the US loved Hitler in the 1930s, the adored what he was doing for Germany because it was so technologically progressive and forward looking.

Plenty of American businesses made money off of the Nazi regime. IBM. The Bush family, and many others. It wasn't until the horrific crimes committed during the war that everyone here quickly distanced themselves from Germany and pretended that they never liked them and were never anti-semitic.

As far as Epstein goes, I don't think we're even asking the right questions. The underage girls, despite being underage, all knew what was going to happen when they went to that island or to meet up with Epstein or his compatriots. What is more important is, how did the blackmail operation run and who received the photos and videos?

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

#640

Post by GuiA »

sharpneli wrote: post #633
GuiA wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This guy was raping underage teens and possibly pre-teens FTFY. An adult can’t “have sex” with a pre-teen.

Legal definitions of this differ per country. As an example pedophilia in Finland is defined in criminal code as having sex with a person under 16. Rape is a different crime. Sure you can also define it using rape and defining that a minor cannot give consent. In the end these are just semantics. End result is the same.

There are no situations where an 11 year old having sex with a grown adult man isn’t rape.

Sure, some cultures or religions might say otherwise, but at the end of the day it’s just basic ethics.

It is just semantics, but everything in our life is semantics, so words are important. “Having sex” makes it sound casual and like relationship of equals, which it is not.

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