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This is dumb. If Charles Manson wants to give your institution money, take it and do something positive with it.

If the transaction stopped at receiving the money, that would be one thing. However, ML donors visit the lab twice a year for sponsor weeks. It meant putting other sponsors, faculty, and researcher assistants in the same room as a convicted sex offender for several weeks of the year.

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.

It meant putting other sponsors, faculty, and researcher assistants in the same room as a convicted sex offender for several weeks of the year.

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.

'He's not a criminal he wears nice suits and has soft hands'

The number of people harmed was very small, the number of people who benefit from money -> research is very large, and the people accepting the money have no connection to what he did.

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.

Why is Turing lucky?

> 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

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.

if you were to google "jeffrey epstein bear stearns" you would relatively quickly arrive at this page http://miamiherald.com/news/local/article220097825.html but they don't link a specific source and all other results just repeat this information

I dunno if it's true; the Epstein story seems to be a bottomless pit of corruption:

https://nypost.com/2018/11/28/pedophile-millionaire-dodged-h...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Hoffenberg

Yeah money always comes with strings attached.

Epstein would use his connection to these institutions as cover with peers, and as a way to find clients. There's evidence this includes Marvin Minsky.

He died in 2016 at 87 years of age. Epstein's peak years of operation were in the late 90s? That makes Minsky around 69/70 when he would have been using Epstein's girls.

I wonder if Minksky just thought it was a run of the mill escort service?

That's all well and good, but one day such a person will make a request and you will have to decide whether to now forgo their money, money that may now be supporting your good works. Imho if you are going to take money from such people you shouldn't do anything substantial with it. Buy everyone fancy hats. Get new furniture in all the student lounges. Don't spend it on anything that you will miss, anything that will cloud your judgement when the inevitable request comes.

but one day such a person will make a request and you will have to decide whether to now forgo their money, money that may now be supporting your good works

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.

I think you should actually look at what the Koch's actually believe and what they fund. They've been on the right side of history for a long time, and in fact the much hated David Koch took a stand and ran as VP of the libertarian party in the early 80s with key planks of his platform being drug legalization and the legalization of gay marriage.

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.

That's a bad comparison to make. Epstein, by all accounts, actually hurt, abused, and enslaved real people. That is always worse than political activism, even if you find the politics highly objectionable, and even if the activism reached very far due to money.

And then three years later find yourself defending his character sincerely, because after all, he's given so much to help the great causes you have undertaken.

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.

> And then three years later find yourself defending his character sincerely, because after all, he's given so much to help the great causes you have undertaken.

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.

Taking the money will create a desire to defend the donor. In some idealized world, this doesn't have to happen, but in the real world, it will.

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 wasn't meant literally.

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.

Donate it to the opposite of Epstein, to a women’s shelter. Under no circumstances should MIT keep any of the money or use it in any way. Negroponte is completely wrong and moreover MIT doesn’t need the money. Indeed, they should double it before the donation.

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