Jeffrey Epstein’s Donations Create a Schism at M.I.T.’s Media Lab
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
>“I told Joi to take the money,” he said, “and I would do it again.”
Was that supposed to....help?
Did the Media Lab help Mr. Epstein rape more children in any way by taking the money? Probably not. Evil people can do good things. The world is complicated.
If people really want to start tracking the provenance of funding, perhaps we should start with investigating larger sums. No one in Silicon Valley seems to have any trouble taking money from Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund.
In 2008, Epstein should have been put in a cage and poked with sticks. The fact that so many of the great and the good were willing to continue to cooperate with him was disgusting.
Also: I agree with you about the Saudis, but whataboutery doesn't excuse the fact that taking Epstein's money was morally imbecilic.
I wish we lived in a world where all of Epstein's assets were seized and allocated to victims (both specific and general), educational institutions and whatever else seemed appropriate. I wish the Media Lab took Epstein's money in this way.
Honestly, it's really a philosophical question. It's the classic debate between consequentialism and deontology. I'd argue that the consequences of taking his money were positive. I'd assume you'd say the action is inherently immoral.
We could go back and forth, talking about the trolly problem among many other contrived examples. Tt's a tricky subject.
There's a lot of these situations out there like this Nazi anatomy book we still use: https://www.bbc.com/news/health-49294861.
Ultimately, I think we could agree that there are worse people out there, deserving grave punishment, involved with Epstein. I'd rather see this energy be prioritized to identifying and convicting the worst people first. After, I think debating the Media Lab's funding less than 0.3% of its budget morally condemns it.
By accepting his money and continuing to work with him, you're basically telling Epstein that he's free to continue raping children — that as long as he can wriggle out of the legal stuff, he won't suffer any real professional or social consequences. And instead of helping to deter other would-be Epsteins, you're sending them a message that no matter how many children they rape, they'll still be greeted warmly.
I do think you hit a certain line with donations. Many of the charities and hospitals he also donated to probably don't have the luxury of deciding who their money comes from.
It's a tricky situation but I think you make a solid point.
We can trace all these things back in retrospect now, but it's a different situation than accepting money from someone in the moment without knowing what will happen to them in the future. Who knows what kind of person someone could turn into over time. For example, some world leader could donate a bunch of money to education at MIT and then commit genocide 10 years down the line. What happens then at the 10 years when the money is spent already?
Yes it did. Epstein’s empire was built on high society connections which he established through his connections to influential and publicly visible leaders in science. Epstein’s support of the media lab allowed him to attract high profile pedophiles (royalty, presidents, more that we will probably never know) to his island parties where he developed the connections that protected him and kept him above the law.
That sounds ridiculous and needs explaining. "Oh, hi, fellow super rich pedophile, I wouldn't have contacted you, but then I saw you donated to the media lab... let's get together on your private island". No.
Totally coincidentally, the Koch Cancer Research Center was wrapping up construction around the same time (https://ki.mit.edu/).
It turns out MIT isn't a morally guided institution (well maybe the professors and students are). It's run by a bunch of former investment bankers trying to maximize returns on a $16.5B endowment. There's a corporation and a university.
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php%3fterm=Boof&=t...
edit/ Read an article about the yearbook. I don't know how I missed that when all of that was going down. Thanks for pointing that out!
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/614264/mit-media-lab-jeff...
He went to Choate, the prep school. "There is no door in this entire country that cannot be opened by a Choate graduate" - John Lupton, director of development at Choate.
Source: I used to work for Nicholas and in fact lived in one of his houses for a while.
The only thing to watch out for is to make sure you are not rehabilitating an evil person's reputation. But if it donation is made anonymously or quietly, it should be okay.
I'm not sure his income was as you described it.
Not just you, but a lot of people ITT are saying similar things suggesting his wealth is legitimate, despite now knowing that he is a child sex trafficker. Once someone stoops that low, all bets are off. From that point forward, claiming "he got his money from a hedge fund" is the far more extraordinary claim.
>a man that was convicted of earning money from sexually exploiting children
That is a pretty specific thing. I don't think it is a"benefit of the doubt" to say that no such conviction exists.
There have been accusations that he got his start by embezzling from Wexner, but as far as anyone can tell so far, the bulk of Epstein's wealth is "legitimate".
It's just a bit too "made for TV movie". This story is under a microscope. If there was a conspiracy that elaborate, it would have come out by now.
I could be proven wrong, but I'm betting on "rich creep who thinks he can buy everything" rather than secret-society mastermind pulling puppet-strings.
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/07/hedge-funders-have-so...
That article can be summarized as: "We don't know where he got his money from, therefore let's speculate". It's good entertainment, but reality is usually pretty mundane. It's easier to believe Hoffenberg's claim that Epstein made off with the proceeds of the Tower Financial ponzi scheme. But that too seems heavily investigated already.
OK, how did he earn it? He didn't invest anywhere despite his claims to be running a hedge fund. Most of his assets were transfers from Wexler, or donations from leveraged associates laundered through charities. I've not seen any path through which he had any legitimate income or earnings at all.
It'd be an even worse look if MIT was directly using money earned from child abuse.
And he wasn't just a convicted sex offender, as in "streaked the incoming freshman class." He was a world class scumbug who (seemingly) got a sweetheart deal for ratting out some top brass at Bear Stearns. If he was little people, he'd be away for life and destroyed by inmates.
And in retrospect it appears he was even not a reformed offender.
That was precisely the point. Epstein gave the money and bought legitimacy with it. Everyone in the room knew they were having dinner with a pervert and slaveholder, but he was a philanthropic slaveholder.
There is a long history of science being involved in stuff that was considered morally reprehensible and it turned out really well for generations of people. Medicine has a history of grave robbers, Chemistry has some real monsters in the closet, the Physicists may as well have blood on their hands for what they worked to enable and why not throw in Turing? He is unusual in that the standards changed so history remembers him kindly. Lucky man.
I don't see why the standard should change with Epstein and suddenly moral outrage trumps enabling academics. Let the law handle it, and let the universities take in money.
Slightly off topic but do you have a source for that? Not because I don't believe you, but just because I hadn't heard that little detail before and it sounds interesting.
https://nypost.com/2018/11/28/pedophile-millionaire-dodged-h...
I wonder if Minksky just thought it was a run of the mill escort service?
Look no further than George Mason University. It used to be an also-ran commuter college, now with a steady stream of income from the Koch family it's actually fairly respectable. You have to watch what you say, though, when you are on the faculty.
Epstein's influence was fairly confined, but the Koch sponsorship of unfettered capitalism and global warming denial continues to affect the planet. They are ultimately the greater evil.
The Kochs also recently funded with Soros a think tank in washington dc to help promote the idea of peace and stop the endless wars the US is involved in.
As far as I know David Koch didn't deny global warming, but strongly disagreed with the conventional ideas of how to combat it and the risks that it poses. There are many people who think that there are better ways to address it. For instance, addressing 3rd world poverty and increases the wealth of the world will increase the rate of climate change, but it will also benefit those suffering substantially and enable thier children (who are richer) to better handle it. I don't necessarily endorse or agree with his views, but I feel they're often mistated for political reasons.
Yes, there were those indiscretions and terrible rumors, but surely you should encourage the good in this man!
A little leaven leavens the whole lump.
Source? I tend to agree with OP that MIT is fine in taking the money. But if they went on and defended him later then obviously that's beyond the pale.
For instance, eventually the donor will come to town and want a tour of the lab he donated to, or dinner with the dean at the faculty club. You started out with money, and now you have a relationship. From all accounts, Epstein in particular was a master at this.
It also creates a link (which is bi-directional) between the prestigious institution and the donor. This association, after all, is part of the reason people give to institutions like MIT and not to their local community college. Some of the prestige "rubs off".
It's just the pattern that I've seen play out again and again, and which I can only assume happened here at least to some extent.
Humans are world-class justifiers.
People here on HN largely recognize the tribalism effect, and once you've taken money, that will start to take hold. You've linked yourself to him and you will inevitably begin to identify with him as a result.
Note that if Epstein had genuinely been stricken by remorse, changed his ways, done his best to make amends to his victims, and was looking for a way to do good with his fortune, then I think taking the money makes perfect sense.
That obviously wasn't true here, though.
Should they give it back? Should they set it aside? Throw it into a temple? Something else? Was it even really his (Epstein's) to begin with?
Genuinely curious, here.
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
― C. S. Lewis
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EDIT: Realized I should point out - the dig at pedophile witch hunts isn't meant as a commentary on this article, it's just a generic example.
Mass emotional behavior (arguably well-intentioned, for some definition of good we might not share) can last an extremely long time and do enormous damage- down to persecution, massacres and pogroms. And this is valid for every people, any country and any time, and any degree of damage.
You have no such experience unless you happen to be a researcher on this very specific subject. And if you were, you wouldn't be saying stuff like
> Genuine psychopaths, on the other hand, are incurable predators.
OK, what do you want to do with the rest of the money? Develop an app that tells you not to pal around with pedophiles? Maybe we'll make a green laptop with an OLED screen and give it to children so we know who not to let the pedophile near? Seriously, what needs to be researched here? The gap is not a lack of research, it's a lack of moral resolve to do what everyone knows the right thing is.
These efforts / organisations know and could likely use some help: https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/justice-policy-center/p...
Nice phrasing. It gets the message across, but allows polite consideration. I hope we see more writing of this kind (again).
It's worse that they changed someone's quote. If they didn't want to print "asshole" they should have either found a way to "bleep" it, or just not used that quote. Changing what someone said shouldn't even be considered.
Edit: I did check the tweet. I was trying to point out that it's not clear what the "earthier" term is, in disagreement with the parent post.
Personally, I hate this Bowdlerization from the Times. It changes the meaning of the tweet, and it's not even the worst case where I've seen their desire for propriety interfere with their core mission of informing their readers about the world.
If their readers are uncomfortable with words like asshole, maybe a source like Time for Kids would be more appropriate for them.
Yes, Epstein was a scumbag. Did Ito know he was a scumbag when he took the money? And even if he did, would taking the money put him, the Media Lab, or anyone who worked there in a compromised or awkward position in the future? Was the money itself tainted in some way, derived from scumbag activities? If not (I couldn't really glean whether or not this was the case from the article), then... so what? Money is money, and it's hard enough already to raise money for "out there" research, even with MIT's reputation. At the very least, you could know that a scumbag's money was being used to do something actually good.
>“I told Joi to take the money,” he said, “and I would do it again.”
That statement implies he doesn’t care at all. There are other ways to handle it, like he does care, but there’s nothing he can do about it, or have an excuse that Epstein had no control over the use of the funds (if true), but to say something like “Yeah, big deal, I’d do business with the guy again” is tactless.
Not necessarily, he might care and weigh options and consequences and come to a different conclusion than you, me or most people. If he still comes to that conclusion today, "I would do it again" is the obvious answer.
Negroponte took an action that proves he is unsuited for his position of authority, by making the worst possible statement and also by rejecting everyone’s opinion on the matter.
> would taking the money put him, the Media Lab, or anyone who worked there in a compromised or awkward position in the future?
Many researchers don’t want their paycheck to come from a child prostitution kingpin who made a career blackmailing rich pedophiles who had raped his child sex slaves.