
M.I.T. Media Lab concealed its relationship with Jeffrey Epstein - donohoe
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/how-an-elite-university-research-center-concealed-its-relationship-with-jeffrey-epstein
======
heymijo
Pair this New Yorker article with Anand Ghiridaradas' thread from today about
his experience with the Media Lab. [0]

Ghiridaradas is author of Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the
World [1]. He was also on the panel for MIT Media Labs' Disobedience Award. It
was their answer to the MacArthur Foundations' "Genius Grants". Reid Hoffman,
of LinkedIn, Greylock, and Blitzscaling fame is the donor who sponsors the
Disobedience Award. He comes out looking...not good.

[0]
[https://twitter.com/AnandWrites/status/1169947031806365696?s...](https://twitter.com/AnandWrites/status/1169947031806365696?s=20)
[1] [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37506348-winners-take-
al...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37506348-winners-take-all)

~~~
DoctorOetker
Anand is not seeing the bigger picture: it's about hush money and the cloak of
charity, not prestige-for-cash which does not make sense if you think about
it.

I had a long comment explaining my interpretation backed by quotes, but it's
too long for HN apparently so here is the link, at a text storage site (I
couldn't get past pastebin's "SPAM filter" captcha)

[https://textuploader.com/192lt](https://textuploader.com/192lt)

EDIT: I am not on twitter, so if anyone could mention this to Anand I would
appreciate.

~~~
amsilprotag
From your text: _Then Anand shares the thoughtful and profound email he sent
to Ito & Co and others at MIT Media Lab, from which it is crystal clear Anand
is unambiguously trying to do the right thing._

You're giving Giridharadas way too much credit. His e-mail resignation is an
implicit ultimatum (if you don't fire him, I will go public), to which Hoffman
counters by saying how he will try to frame Giridharadas as trying to
personally gain from this scandal (which, clearly he will).

By publicly stating Hoffman's weak threat, while reserving the future threat
of revealing their correspondence, Giridharadas makes it harder for Hoffman to
follow through on the threat without public backlash.

So Giridharadas targets this tweetstorm to inflict maximum damage to Ito
supporters and MIT admins. The hush money line is harder to prove and channels
frustration towards the hushers more than the facilitators. The cash for
prestige line places all the blame on Epstein and Ito. Then he publicly shares
the list of Ito supporters [0] and creates public knowledge of their thinning
numbers. When the firing eventually occurs, Giridharadas will have collected
the spoils of a successful cancellation, the public knowledge that he can make
very credible threats.

If you are correct, we should expect Giridharadas to place more emphasis on
the hushers for the sake of justice. If I am, we should expect him to put all
effort into bringing down Ito.

[0]
[https://twitter.com/AnandWrites/status/1170025167063605250](https://twitter.com/AnandWrites/status/1170025167063605250)

~~~
AndrewBissell
Yes, surely the villain here is the guy trying to hold people to account for
knowingly associating with and taking money from a convicted child predator,
and shining a light on all the ass covering they are now engaged in, and not
the people who did all this heinous stuff in the first place. Truly a case of
cancel culture run amok.

~~~
wutbrodo
I can't imagine how confusing the world must be when one only sees things in
the world such childish black-and-white terms, where the existence of evil
automatically means that anyone in opposition is a morally-unimpeachable
angel.

To be clear, there's no comparison between the parent comment's model of
Ghiridaradas's actions and those of Ito et al, and AG's telling of their
actions is pretty damning regardless of his motivations.

But responding to someone trying to flesh out a better understanding of the
situation by mentioning his motivations (without excusing one iota the far-
worse actions of others) with "NO THERE CAN ONLY EVER BE ONE SIDE DOING BAD
THINGS" is about as simple-minded a take as I can imagine.

~~~
DoctorOetker
could you clarify Anand's supposed ulterior motives? He resigns and he
proposes Joi Ito cede his position to one of the women in the group?

If one does not want to be associated with the scandal, because he has nothing
to do with it, surely he should have the liberty to distance himself without
having to also play the secret keeper for others? He never signed up to be
their secret keeper. He tries to give the benefit of the doubt, and _begs_ for
explanations of their silence, for explanations of their decisions. So when
none are provided, surely his right to free speech permits him to speak about
whatever he witnessed from his perspective?

Sometimes the only identifiable "ulterior motive" is the freedom one has
maintained by not becoming complicit...

------
leftyted
It strikes me as inappropriate to suggest that "Anyone seriously tainted by
Epstein should step down". What does "tainted" mean? What does "seriously"
mean?

If "seriously tainted" means "directly linked to Epstein's criminal
activities," I'd be amenable to the suggestion. But I find it concerning that
the writer feels no need to be specific (though he includes vague accusations
that Ito visited Epstein's private residence). Frankly, the whole thing seems
like a power play to me. Maybe I'm being cynical, but it seems to me that
Ghiridaradas is exploiting the situation to raise his profile.

Epstein had social relationships with many people who likely visited his
private residences. We can't throw them all out because most of them are
innocent. The failure point with Epstein was the justice system. What
happened? Why was he allowed to walk? I want answers, but I'm skeptical of a
witch hunt aimed at anyone who knew him.

~~~
save_ferris
> Epstein had social relationships with many people who likely visited his
> private residences. We can't throw them all out because most of them are
> innocent.

They all had to know that he had a vast criminal record involving prostitution
and minors, and yet they continued to develop relationships with him.

Would you feel comfortable developing a relationship with someone involved in
a high-profile sex crimes case that had tremendous amounts of damning
evidence? Epstein, for some reason, seemed to have a pretty active social life
even after his trial. And it's striking how many around him downplay their
relationships with him now, or actively tried to conceal his role in various
activities, as MIT Media Lab did.

> Peter Cohen, the M.I.T. Media Lab’s Director of Development and Strategy at
> the time, reiterated, “Jeffrey money, needs to be anonymous. Thanks.”

The head of the media lab knew Epstein's donations needed to remain anonymous.

> In October, 2014, the Media Lab received a two-million-dollar donation from
> Bill Gates; Ito wrote in an internal e-mail, “This is a $2M gift from Bill
> Gates directed by Jeffrey Epstein.” Cohen replied, “For gift recording
> purposes, we will not be mentioning Jeffrey’s name as the impetus for this
> gift.”

They actively took steps internally to make sure Epstein's name wasn't on
anything involving donations he directed from people like Bill Gates. So why
did Bill Gates deny Epstein was even part of it? That doesn't add up.

> Signe Swenson, a former development associate and alumni coordinator at the
> lab, told me that she resigned in 2016 in part because of her discomfort
> about the lab’s work with Epstein. She said that the lab’s leadership made
> it explicit, even in her earliest conversations with them, that Epstein’s
> donations had to be kept secret.

Staff members knew what was going on, and in some cases, resigned over it.

Peter Cohen clearly knew that Epstein was not be named anywhere in fundraising
activities involving him, there was clearly culture at MIT Media Lab of
obscuring his donation activities, and staff members resigned over it because
they knew who he was.

Hiding contact with a wealthy sex criminal and then lying about it doesn't
look very innocent.

~~~
leftyted
Hiding that fact that a bad person donated the money or was involved in the
donation doesn't seem like that big of a deal to me. Yeah, it would be nice if
the Media Lab had taken the high road. It would have been even nicer if
Epstein had been locked up instead of let off.

My point is that seven degrees of separation from Jeff Epstein seems like a
distraction from the real issues here. I also think it's unreasonable to
expect people whose job is begging for money (and whose continued employment
is tied to their ability to get it) to be particularly stringent about whom
they accept the money from.

Also consider that Epstein's plea deal probably gave people like Ito and Gates
some source of comfort. If the feds let Epstein off, he probably didn't do
anything that bad, right? If the system catches you and then lets you go,
that's a sign that you're not _that_ reprehensible, right? Clearly that was
not the case here. So why did Epstein get a deal? To me, this is the real
issue, and this article is a distraction.

~~~
jakelazaroff
Is this passage from the article not damning?

 _> According to Swenson, Ito had informed Cohen that Epstein “never goes into
any room without his two female ‘assistants,’ ” whom he wanted to bring to the
meeting at the Media Lab. Swenson objected to this, too, and it was decided
that the assistants would be allowed to accompany Epstein but would wait
outside the meeting room._

 _> On the day of the visit, Swenson’s distress deepened at the sight of the
young women. “They were models. Eastern European, definitely,” she told me.
Among the lab’s staff, she said, “all of us women made it a point to be super
nice to them. We literally had a conversation about how, on the off chance
that they’re not there by choice, we could maybe help them.”_

They continued to work with someone whom they suspected of trafficking women.
Not years prior, before his trial — _right there in their own office_. That’s
beyond the pale. That’s what “tainted” means.

Yes, Epstein’s plea deal for 13 months of prison time with offsite work
privileges was a monstrous miscarriage of justice. That’s also an issue we
need to fix. But let’s not pretend that this is the first we’re learning of
the justice system’s heavy tilt in favor of rich people. There is no way Ito
and Gates were unaware of how someone’s wealth and connections could allow
them to escape justice.

~~~
leftyted
> They continued to work with someone whom they suspected of trafficking
> women. Not years prior, before his trial — right there in their own office.
> That’s beyond the pale. That’s what “tainted” means.

So anyone who interacted with Epstein while his assistants were present is
tainted? Or is taint contingent upon suspicion? If you met Epstein and decided
that the rumors were baseless, are you not tainted?

> Yes, Epstein’s plea deal for 13 months of prison time with offsite work
> privileges was a monstrous miscarriage of justice. That’s also an issue we
> need to fix. But let’s not pretend that this is the first we’re learning of
> the justice system’s heavy tilt in favor of rich people. There is no way Ito
> and Gates were unaware of how someone’s wealth and connections could allow
> them to escape justice.

I'm tired of hearing people say things like "we know the rich can abuse the
justice system" and shrugging it off with "that's a problem we have to fix".
Yes, those things are true, but it's _the_ problem we have to fix. Choosing to
spend your time and energy criticizing people who didn't vet their
acquaintances to your high standards or accepted money from unclean sources is
unproductive. Pardon my bluntness, but I simply don't care very much that
various people lack the moral scruples required to avoid the Epsteins of the
world. I think _most people_ lack those scruples, it's just that _most people_
never get an opportunity to interact with an Epstein in the first place. They
are never tempted.

 _How exactly_ did Epstein's wealth and connections get him off? That's the
crux of the issue. Everything else seems like a sideshow to me.

~~~
jakelazaroff
This may disappoint you, but I don’t have a clear objective definition of what
qualifies as tainted. The Media Lab intern who got him coffee is fine.
Continually working with him to secure millions of dollars in funding — again,
_while suspecting him of still being a sex trafficker_ — is not. Them’s the
breaks.

You asked how Epstein’s wealth and connections got him off. Here’s how: he
knew powerful people who were willing to minimize or ignore his
transgressions. That’s it. It’s how he escaped with such a lenient sentence
legally, and it’s how he was able to continue working with organizations like
MIT Media Lab professionally. You’re acting like these are entirely separate
issues, when really they’re just two sides of the same coin.

~~~
leftyted
> You asked how Epstein’s wealth and connections got him off. Here’s how: he
> knew powerful people who were willing to minimize or ignore his
> transgressions. That’s it. It’s how he escaped with such a lenient sentence
> legally, and it’s how he was able to continue working with organizations
> like MIT Media Lab professionally. You’re acting like these are entirely
> separate issues, when really they’re just two sides of the same coin.

I am very interested in exactly how "knowing powerful people" translates into
a plea deal. That process is what I would like to focus on, and I am not
willing to take it on faith that this is the result of a general kind of
apathy or a sense that Epstein was beyond punishment.

~~~
intuitionist
The state almost always wants to make a plea deal in criminal cases, since
trials are really time-consuming and expensive. IIRC, upwards of 90 percent of
US criminal convictions arise from guilty pleas for this reason. Typically,
accused criminals are much less powerful than the prosecuting attorney’s
office, so the state more or less gets to set the terms of the plea bargain.
(This isn’t really a good thing!) But when the accused criminal has hundreds
of millions of dollars, and access to high-powered lawyers like Dershowitz and
Starr, then he has a lot more power to set the terms. No prosecuting attorney
wants to be on the wrong side of an acquittal like OJ Simpson or Robert Durst.

------
Jun8
Negroponte also defends taking the money in a meeting at MIT on Wednesday
([https://www.technologyreview.com/s/614264/mit-media-lab-
jeff...](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/614264/mit-media-lab-jeffrey-
epstein-joi-ito-nicholas-negroponte-funding-sex-abuse/)):

"Throughout, the meeting had proceeded calmly. But as one of the organizers
began to wrap things up, Negroponte stood up, unprompted, and began to speak.
He discussed his privilege as a “rich white man” and how he had used that
privilege to break into the social circles of billionaires. It was these
connections, he said, that had allowed the Media Lab to be the only place at
MIT that could afford to charge no tuition, pay people full salaries, and
allow researchers to keep their intellectual property. "

~~~
tamizhar
> Negroponte also defends taking the money > his privilege as a “rich white
> man”

Negroponte also goes around demanding people refer to him as the father of the
netbook. This is not the first time Negroponte has destroyed institutions.
Media Lab Asia was a disaster.
[https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/71fe/5e987a89dfb7a6e7dbb3dd...](https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/71fe/5e987a89dfb7a6e7dbb3dd152ef6959d1ecd.pdf)

OLPC was an unmitigated disaster, not just for Negroponte but also for the
world. The level of wastage of money at all levels. Just incredible.

~~~
heymijo
OLPC is One Laptop Per Child for those unaware

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Laptop_per_Child#Criticism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Laptop_per_Child#Criticism)

------
BurningFrog
> _“with hindsight, we recognize with shame and distress that we allowed MIT
> to contribute to the elevation of his reputation, which in turn served to
> distract from his horrifying acts_

This confuses me. If Epstein's involvement was kept secret, how did it elevate
his reputation?

It sounds like he spent a lot of money and got nothing in return. What am I
missing?

~~~
heymijo
Epstein created a virtuous cycle of social capital for himself by MIT
accepting his donation. While it was anonymous to outsiders, the insiders all
knew.

For the tech crowd here familiar with venture capital, it would be like one of
the top branded VC's being the first money in to your startup. It's a strong
positive signal to others.

This NYTimes article has plenty of detail:

[https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/13/nyregion/jeffrey-
epstein-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/13/nyregion/jeffrey-epstein-new-
york-elite.html)

~~~
pmart123
Funnily enough, I had a visceral reaction when I went from capital markets to
startup land, and the startup world was praising Point72. Equally shocking was
how candid the Point72 team was on funding startups with the potential to have
valuable “fire hose” data from retail trading patterns. Given the past history
of the firm, I would have thought they would be a little more discreet about
their intent.

------
tempsy
Bill Gates really needs to say more than just refusing to answer questions
about his involvement here. I don't understand how that quells any rumors if
it's to be believed his relationship with Epstein is being exaggerated as he
is claiming through a spokesperson.

~~~
simplicio
The Gates angle is weird. Surely MIT has people in his orbit to go ask for
donations without having to rely on a convicted sex-offender that they're too
embarrassed to even take money from directly.

~~~
pm90
I think it makes more sense if you look at the specific institution within MIT
(the media lab) which has this particular problem.

So while MIT itself may have ample funding from non shady sources, Perhaps
this institution doesn’t. Or perhaps it does and the people working there just
want to prove their worth by securing funding (which is what most university
administrators are incentivized to do).

~~~
orbifold
Yeah I mean most of the research at MIT is funded by the military and
department of energy. Those guys are not shady at all.

~~~
rocha
[citation needed]

~~~
tibbon
I don’t have a citation, but MIT and the defense/energy industry are
definitely intertwined and everyone on campus knows it.

Most universities don’t have something like Lincoln Labs, which is literally a
DoD research center:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_Lincoln_Laboratory](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_Lincoln_Laboratory)

------
shademaan
Jesus. I do have to wonder why exactly Harvard is not getting lashed by the
press too? They were even more entangled with Epstein from the sounds of it.

~~~
diydsp
Society preys on those who show weakness. Harvard asserted immediately they
would give no money back, while Joi apologized. Negroponte, a more old-school
elite, stepped in to play the same move as Harvard but it was too late.

------
wickrom
Looks like Joi Ito saw this coming and pre-emptively put up that post where he
claimed he didn't know of Epstein's wrongdoings while happily accepting his
money. Well..cat's out of the bag now.

~~~
curiousgal
> cat's out of the bag

Perhaps I am too naive but what is wrong with accepting a donation from a
person you didn't know was a criminal?

~~~
cjbprime
It sounds like you haven't read the article, which is about covering up
donations from someone you knew was a disqualified donor because he was a
pedophile, because your own staff kept telling you he was and that you should
stop talking to him.

~~~
azernik
And also apparently personally profited from it.

------
iambateman
This certainly looks bad for Ito, who apparently went to great lengths to
conceal the relationship with a known abuser. We should expect better.

But I think we should take care not to transfer blame to everyone who ever ate
dinner with Epstein, went to his house, or took his phone call. Especially
someone like Bill Gates, who deserves the benefit of the doubt in my opinion.

Once, I was on a frisbee team with a man who is now serving 4 consecutive
lifetime sentences for child abuse. The great quandary of abusers is their
ability to seem upstanding and normal. Epstein fooled a lot of people and it
doesn’t mean they were complicit in or suspicious of his sins.

~~~
eugeniub
You are comparing your experience with someone who you had no idea was an
abuser until later, to someone who had an extensive relationship with a serial
child rapist _after_ this became very publicly known, and _after_ he spent
time in jail for it.[1]

The details of the sex ring, the Lolita Express, the witness intimidation,
even the shape of Epstein’s thing were extremely well known publicly in 2010,
but Bill Gates didn’t care.

[1]:
[https://twitter.com/jordanuhl/status/1170170356965007362?s=2...](https://twitter.com/jordanuhl/status/1170170356965007362?s=21)

~~~
CalChris
To be fair to Gates, he flatly denies having been directed by Epstein. From
the article:

 _A spokesperson for Gates said that “any claim that Epstein directed any
programmatic or personal grantmaking for Bill Gates is completely false.” A
source close to Gates said that the entrepreneur has a long-standing
relationship with the lab, and that anonymous donations from him or his
foundation are not atypical. Gates has previously denied receiving financial
advisory services from Epstein; in August, CNBC reported that he he met with
Epstein in New York in 2013, to discuss “ways to increase philanthropic
spending.”_

------
snappy173
Negroponte's brother was Bush II's DNI, and there is a ton of speculation
about Epstein's involvement in foreign intelligence ...

~~~
karlp
Negroponte was DNI when Epstein was on trial, it makes no sense.

~~~
dls2016
What trial? You mean when Acosta cut a deal because Epstein “belonged to
intelligence”?

------
api
When the money is flowing, people look the other way. It's how someone like
Epstein (or Jimmy Saville in the UK for another example) can function for so
long. They throw money around.

A similar money induced blindness drives financial bubbles, Ponzi schemes, and
dodgy corporate accounting. It's hard for people to see that something's wrong
when they're being paid to be blind.

~~~
harry8
Charles Windsor's friend Jimmy Saville and Andrew Windsor's friend Epstein.

Not just money induced this blindness. Snobbery is real.

------
condercet
Certainly, as a future applicant to grad school, these revelations make me
dramatically less likely to consider the Media Lab.

~~~
awat
I’d have to agree to put it lightly it certainly influences my view on MIT. I
won’t go as far as assuming people knew but I’d have to imagine anonymous
donations with this many 0s where asked about outside of the media lab.

~~~
stallmanite
Their treatment of this guy is what made me lose respect.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz)

~~~
enriquto
this is arguably much, much worse than the Epstein donation stuff.

Accepting these donations is morally shady. Their treatment of Swartz is
downright evil.

------
DonHopkins
Joi Ito just resigned!

[https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/07/business/mit-media-lab-
je...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/07/business/mit-media-lab-jeffrey-
epstein-joichi-ito.html)

~~~
DoctorOetker
In my opinion, Anand should now publicly praise Ito's decision to resign.

Check out my comment at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20904781](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20904781)
to understand why.

------
qwerty456127
I feel genuine scientific curiosity about what makes people like Mr. Epstein
and his friends so interested in sex (with inappropriate subjects in
particular) that they would risk reputation, fortunes and life for it. Indeed
sex is pleasurable but definitely not worth risking anything or making the
partner unhappy. Is there some sort of neurochemical pathology or what's
actually so wrong with them anyway?

BTW if one insists on receiving a forbidden pleasure, some controlled
substances can offer mind-blowing sensations, by orders of magnitude more
pleasurable than sex can offer and the society is hardly going to be so angry
of a drug addict as it usually is about sex offenders.

~~~
alexnewman
I think the fact that many don't real that this was an elaborate blackmail
operation often clouds people's ability to understand what happened. The fact
that abused his resources just shows he was exactly the only type of person
who can run such blackmail operation.

~~~
TillE
That's a piece of it, but if it were _just_ blackmail Epstein wouldn't have a
fraction of the connections he actually did.

The whole thing makes more sense if you assume Epstein wasn't truly in charge
of anything. He was the manager, not the owner. It's a pretty safe bet that
few if any of the blackmail tapes will ever surface, partly because of this.

~~~
qwerty456127
What did he actually manage then? Taking the risks associated with joining
such an operation just to fuck teen girls or anybody smells bullshit.

~~~
AndrewBissell
He was handed hundreds of millions of dollars in personal wealth (probably
either blackmailed or proceeds from money laundering or both) and decades of
legal impunity to indulge his predatory urges. Up until the end he probably
thought he was untouchable, or he wouldn't have flown back from Paris to be
arrested at Teterboro airport in the first place. It's not hard to understand
why he took this "bargain." I'm sure the intelligence agencies who helped set
it up even put some twisted "it's your patriotic duty" spin on it.

------
PeterStuer
Having consulted for the financial sector I know they screen for reputation
damage using services such as [1]. Do institutes such as M.I.T. have a
donation due-diligence process incorporating similar data-sourcing/services
for vetting donations or do they just wing it?

[1] [http://solutions.refinitiv.com/world-check-kyc-
screening](http://solutions.refinitiv.com/world-check-kyc-screening)

~~~
CrazyStat
According to the Twitter thread, MIT had Epstein flagged so they wouldn't take
any money from him. Ito and his team got around this by marking all Epstein's
donations as anonymous and carefully hiding him from the University.

I don't have a dog in this race but it seems to me that Ito has to go. Poor
judgement in accepting donations from Epstein is one thing, but hiding it from
the University and lying about it cannot be acceptable.

~~~
PeterStuer
Interesting and thanks for the clarification. Now if the donations were so
successfully anonymized as to fool the MIT administration, wouldn't that also
neutralize Epstein's reputation gains from the donations?

(I'm not trying to excuse the people involved, just trying to understand the
dynamics more)

------
brown9-2
An aspect of this that seems under-reported is that the head of an academic
institution, where one of the main job responsibilities is fundraising, was
also soliciting investments in his personal investment funds from the same
donors.

How is that not a giant conflict of interest?

------
save_ferris
It’s really hard to argue that MIT didn’t have a guilty conscience about being
close to this guy.

Their choice of his internal nickname, “Voldemort” was amazingly Freudian.

That is, unless I misunderstood 7 books and Voldemort was actually a good
guy...

------
reifwithfraud
Folks should remember that Rafael Reif was the provost under Susan Hockfield
who orchestrated the whitewashing of research misconduct allegations that MIT
Professor Ted Postol launched against MIT Lincoln Laboratory for using
fabricated data to report results of a critical ballistic missile defense test
to the Pentagon. MIT was found "guiltless" by Provost Reif after an "internal
investigation" was conducted over the course of almost a decade. Steve Weiner
(a highly respected former director of ballistic defense research at Lincoln
for almost 20 years) has since accused MIT of engaging in a "kickback scheme"
whereby Lincoln would tell the MDA whatever it needed to hear about the
viability of a Starwars-inspired missile defense shield in order for
executives at Raytheon to receive multi-billion dollar contracts to build it.
The phony missile defense tests that Postol challenged intensely for almost a
decade were one small but critical piece of the massive fraud that MIT has
perpetrated against the United States taxpayer here. President Reif needs to
be incarcerated, not just fired!

------
wopwops
Where, specifically, was the money going at MIT?

~~~
heymijo
The Media Lab that Joi Ito is in charge of.

Ethan Zuckerman is another name people might know around here who was at the
Media Lab. He resigned.

Zuckerman by all accounts was totally clean in all of this. Ito, looks dirtier
by the day, and is digging in.

------
wkearney99
Let's be real here folks, this is about guys egos (and likely more) being
stroked and the subsequent social dynamic of how a predator 'works' them.
Someone flys you to an island with girls hanging around the pool. Now what?
Are you noble enough to be asking how they got there? Or are you going to give
in and go along with the experience? And afterward, then what?

~~~
ryacko
What kind of small talk doesn’t involve asking basic questions like recent
life experiences?

It seems impossible for anyone to not notice any wrongdoing, these are people,
not stolen artworks.

------
anonu
The salient points for me are mentioned at the bottom of the article: espouse
good values and ethics and stay true to them. Money can blind you to that
sometimes. Don't let it

------
DonHopkins
"Dance for me, Corporate America! I'm SHIT-HOT!" -Hunter S. Negroponte

(Via Philip "Tenth Rule" Greenspun [1], originally published in March '95 Voo
Doo Magazine [2], The MIT Journal of Humour since 1919 [3])

Generation of Bits

Tales of shame and degradation in the Big Idea Lab

by Hunter S. Negroponte

Too Many Bits

The other day I was thanking my good friend Former President Bush (or "George"
as I call him) for pulling some strings to get my brother out of that Iran-
Contra mess, and he asked me if I knew any hot technologies he could sink his
Presidential Pension into. In my opinion, the smart money is on filters. It's
getting so you can't read Usenet without seeing that "Dave Jordan" Ponzi
letter followed by forty replies from dickless wannabes threatening to mail-
bomb the poster's sysadmin for the "innapropriate post." Of course, I
personally have my staff of Elegant British Women pre-edit my .newsrc for me
(God how I envy the British), but that option is not open to the unwired
masses outside the Media Lab.

One way to eliminate the blather while keeping the First Amendment intact is
to create active "Filter Agents," as I like to call them, that presort my
Netnews articles and eliminate the tiresome pseudo-commercial posts. Can you
imagine what the net's raw content will look like when all the half-literate
morons in the U.S. can publish any text that their tiny minds ooze? The very
thought makes me want to refill my glass with the '56 Chateau Lafite.
America's Intelligentsia will need some serious Digital Butlers guarding our
Offramp on the Digital Highway's Mailing Lists (damn metaphors) when this
comes to pass.

The Big Lie Media Lab critics (there have been a few) have occasionally
questioned the practical application of our work. Well, have you heard about
the Holographic Television? No longer a device found only in the back of comic
books, we've actually made this sucker work. An honest-to-god motion-picture
hologram, produced in the Media Lab basement on a 2000 pound holography table
by computers, lasers and mirrors spinning at 30,000 RPM. It's real! It works!
Life Magazine even came in to photograph it in action (of course, they had to
fill the room with smoke so the lasers would show up on film). Practical
application? Sure, it requires a 2000 pound air-suspended rock table and a
Connection Machine II to run, but hell, everyone knows the price of computing
power and 2000 pound rock tables is cut in half every year. My point, however,
is more mundane: we have created a demo literally from smoke and mirrors, and
the Corporate World bought it. Even my good friend Penn (or "Penn," as I call
him) Jillette would be proud.

In fact, I'm a few points up on Penn. You may have heard of the Interactive
Narrative work that is proceeding in the lab. Folks, I'll be honest with you
for a moment. I know as well as you do that it's a stinking load of horseshit.
Roger Ebert said "Six thousand years ago sitting around a campfire a
storyteller could have stopped at any time and asked his audience how they
wanted the story to come out. But he didn't because that would have ruined the
story." You think Hollywood would have learned this lesson from the monster
"success" that Clue, the Movie enjoyed several years ago. But no! I've
repackaged the "Choose your own Adventure" novels of childhood as Digital
Information SuperHighway Yadda Yadda crap, and again, they bought it! Sony
right this minute is building an interactive movie theater, with buttons the
audience can push to amuse themselves as the story progresses. Dance for me,
Corporate America! I'm SHIT-HOT!

Why, just the other day I listened to a member of my staff explain to
potential sponsors that we had spent \$US 4,000,000 of Japanese sponsor
dollars to construct a widescreen version of "I Love Lucy" from the original
source. And HE SAID IT WITH A STRAIGHT FACE! CAN YOU FUCKING BELIEVE THAT?
Boy, I bet those Nips wish they had their money back now! Earthquake? No, we
can't do much to rebuild your city, but we SURE AS HELL can give you a 1.66:1
cut of Lucy to fit all those busted HDTVs of yours! HA HA HA!

A Sucker Born

Last week I was off the coast of Greece on my yacht "Nippo-bux" (I put the
"raft" in "graft," as I always say) with my close personal friend Al ("Al")
Gore. He asked me "Nick--er, Hunter, how do you do it? You maintain a research
staff of, in the words of Albert Meyer [an underfunded Course VI professor],
`Science Fiction Charlatans,' yet you never fail to rake in monster sponsor
bucks? I could fund Hillary's socialized medicine boondoggle in an instant if
I had that kind of fiscal pull."

I told him that it's merely a matter of understanding our sponsor's needs. Our
sponsors are represented by middle-aged middle-managers who need three things:
Booze, good hotels, and hookers. Keep 'em busy with free trips and the slick
dog and pony shows, provide them with pre-written notes for their upper-
managment, and the money will keep rolling in.

Do I worry that one day some sponsor will wake up and say "Wait a minute--what
the hell did I do last night? Did I shell out a million bucks to fund a LEGO
Chair in the Media Lab? Tequila!" Over the years I've learned not to care. I
could pull the cigar out of W.C. Field's mouth and sell it back to him at a
profit. And he'd thank me for the deal. I'm that goddamn good.

Obligatory Plug

By the way, if you enjoyed this article, you can read it again in my upcoming
book: Being Gonzo -- Life on the Digital Information SuperHighway Fast Lane.
Buy one now.

[1] [https://philip.greenspun.com/humor/media-
lab](https://philip.greenspun.com/humor/media-lab)

[2]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20000823222608/http://www.mit.ed...](https://web.archive.org/web/20000823222608/http://www.mit.edu:8001/activities/voodoo/is764/toc.html)

[3]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20000928224954/http://www.mit.ed...](https://web.archive.org/web/20000928224954/http://www.mit.edu:8001/activities/voodoo/is764/negroponte.html)

------
samirillian
I don't know what I find more disturbing: the eloquence of desire or the
accent on top of "elite."

~~~
mjklin
Wait till you see how they spell “coordinate” at _The New Yorker_

~~~
aaronax
Some history about their punctuation tendencies (was new to me today):
[https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-curse-
of-...](https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-curse-of-the-
diaeresis)

------
RichardHeart
Which is better? 1. Evil people keep all their money. 2. Evil people
anonymously donate to good causes.

~~~
CalChris
Epstein wasn't donating anonymously. Ito was marking Epstein's donations as
anonymous. These are not the same.

------
qazpot
I don't think this current trend demonizing everybody who ever associated with
Epstein is good. All it is achieving showing everyone that do not associate
with felons. Don't hire felons. Don't even shake hands with them in a social
gathering.

~~~
hos234
It's hard to say whether its good or bad right now. Give it a few years.

Social norms are changing very quickly these days in ways no one expected.
Look at the polls on acceptance of gay marriage prior to 2000 and today. There
is a big shift, not just in the US. Hard to believe such shifts can happen in
such time scales, if you read old sociology text books.

What is different today is how connected society is and how fast social
pressure can build up. And thats having effects people haven't seen before -
good and bad.

~~~
im3w1l
Before, social pressure could build up in many different ways. Today we have
an enlightened elite deciding which pressures are glorious activism and which
pressures are despicable harassment. Strengthening some movements and crushing
others.

They have done good things. They have also done bad things. If I said what bad
things, I would have a target on my back, so I wont. But suffice to say that
there are upsides and downsides.

People are more controlled than they have ever been and thats why rapid shifts
in opinion can be effected.

------
garfieldnate
Wikipedia says he died today.

------
joshypants
I hope everyone is thinking twice about what it means to be an Èlite
institution.

~~~
akhilcacharya
As an outsider looking in it’s becoming clear these elite circles are rotten
to the core. My alma mater never solicited funds from someone like Epstein.

I don’t know what can be done but we should begin to reevaluate their undue
influence on society.

------
o10449366
Where did this go on the front page? It was holding the #2 position and 30
seconds later it's #32. Is it because people are spam flagging the story? I
don't understand how the gravity of this story can increase so quickly. The
lack of transparency around things like this is my least favorite part of HN.

~~~
olalonde
FWIW, I am one of the flaggers. I don't find this story intellectually
stimulating.

~~~
sumedh
Topics like these are not intellectually stimulating but they still need to be
read.

~~~
olalonde
I don't disagree with that and I do visit other sites that cover those news.

~~~
DonHopkins
It needs to be both read and discussed. Just covering the news is completely
different than actually discussing the news with this particular community of
people.

------
patientplatypus
So...

M.I.T. Media Lab, part of a college with young people, accepted money from a
known sexual predator with vast wealth and power.

Anyone who concealed this should be put in prison.

EDIT: I should clarify as I don't think it's necessarily clear why I think so
from my post. Say Epstein donates $50M or some other large figure regularly
every n-years. Now suppose that one of the people at the school accuses him of
rape. So...now he doesn't have to threaten anything, after all _not giving
money_ isn't the same thing as a bribe right? So that girl will be silenced by
the school, which will threaten to expel her or worse. Accepting money from a
known pedophile WHEN YOU WORK AT A SCHOOL WITH MINORS is tantamount to
condoning sexual violence and anyone who does so is a rabid animal and should
be put in prison forever and a day.

EDIT EDIT: So...I can't find statistics on the number of students, but I know
that MIT has a reputation for sometimes having prodigies who are under 18
attend campus. Maybe Epstein picked MIT specifically because of that (as heart
wrenching as that is) - every one of those kids probably needs to be checked
that they didn't get taken advantage of during the time period when this
occurred.

------
miguelrochefort
The same thing is happening with the Transhumanist Party:

"If any member of the US Transhumanist Party says there is a connection
between Epstein and transhumanism, they will be expelled from the party."

[https://www.reddit.com/r/Transhuman/comments/d0jprh/if_any_m...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Transhuman/comments/d0jprh/if_any_member_of_the_us_transhumanist_party_says/)

~~~
defen
Epstein also donated 50k to another staple of the “rationalist” community,
MIRI (Machine Intelligence Research Institute, then known as Singularity
Institute of Artificial Intelligence) in 2009, after his conviction

[https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6346750-COUQ-2009-99...](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6346750-COUQ-2009-990.html#document/p18/a520891)

------
ykevinator
Dirty money is not bad. Not that MIT is a charity, I wish he had put the money
to better use, but it's fine. This is a non story and just part of our woke
outrage contest.

~~~
whymauri
The Director of a huge research institution lying to their parent university
(and to the lab they direct) about their direct involvement with a child
sexual predator is not a non-story.

------
michalu
This is getting ridiculous. Everyone has multiple facets to their personality
and some private one.

You may be dealing with a nice person or a business partner but don't know
what they do in private.

Epstein got medialized and media are having an ad money feast on this. Up
until this point (or rather 2005) he was a physics teacher and a reputable
financier.

2005 he served a sentence. The premise of how justice in society is that you
pay your debt. How could anyone who dealt with him be accused unless they took
part in the sex offences?

Also, let's not forget presumption of innocence (until convicted) which is key
concept our justice is built on and a fundamental human right.

Media absolutely disregard it on every monetizable occasion. All you need is
an accusation and you're already painted as guilty. When that's cleared nobody
cares. Someone should hold them accountable.

Of course, I don't defend Epstien's acts, if they are proven which seems very
likely, everyone involved in the actual crime must be held accountable.

But 1. leave the others alone, 2. who's will hold media accountable for every
case they treat a suspect as an actual convict and create social consequences
for her before a lawful trial took place?

~~~
wkearney99
This naively ignores how the 'financier' connived to burnish that
'reputation'. This all goes way back to sucking up to the head of Victoria's
Secret. There's a much longer train of abuse than just what came to light in
2005.

------
DoctorOetker
>Gates has previously denied receiving financial advisory services from
Epstein; in August, CNBC reported that he met with Epstein in New York in
2013, to discuss “ways to increase philanthropic spending.”

ah, so where are these "rational altruism" people now?

the problem is not so much a lack of "rational altruism" but rather "provable
altruism"

