Ex-MIT professor told friends he ‘robbed the bank’ | Hacker News Reader

Ex-MIT professor told friends he ‘robbed the bank’

nypost.com

39 pointsdnetesn15 comments

Gibbons' actions are extremely selfish in my opinion. I know someone who used to work behind the cash registers of gas stations in North Houston. He has been robbed and held at gun point multiple times. According to him, the experience is traumatic and made him fearful and stressed out at work. To put someone through that for no reason other than your own curiosity is intolerably inconsiderate.

Instead, Gibbons could have picked up a copy of Crime and Punishment or some other work of art if he wanted to acquire a sense of the desperation felt by "the disenfranchised of society." It is not a stretch to imagine that it probably sucks.

Great art can teach us about life without the burden of living through the worst it has to offer. Trying to force traumatic experiences on yourself at the expense of others is not art but stupidity.

It feels like the classic "but, officer: it was only a joke!"

Not that it matters to the bank robbery, but: he is not quite an ex-MIT professor. (http://act.mit.edu/people/lecturers/joe-gibbons/)

Getting tenure is almost like winning the lottery, except more folks have PhDs than buy tickets it seems. (Double-edged sword of university pension commitment cheapness and oversupply of labor to grind out papers.)

This is the most interesting part of what I just read:

>“I left a message with my girlfriend’s sister and I told her, ‘Yeah, I’ve got into the city, I’ve got myself a room at The Bowery Hotel, I filed for Social Security, I robbed the bank and I went to the drugstore,’” the 61-year-old told The Post in an exclusive interview at the Manhattan Detention Complex on Sunday. “I told them, but they just didn’t pay any attention to the ‘robbed the bank’ part.”

Next time you need to break some bad news how about it! "I left a message with my investors saying, "Yeah we have another two hires, we've just gotten a small TC story, filed for a provisional patent, I closed a down round, and I went to meet with that guy who you introduced me to last week."

"I told them, but they just didn't pay attention to the 'I closed a down round' part."

can't say you didn't mention it!

The former visual arts and film professor, whose contract was not renewed by MIT in 2011, said he had no regrets and wasn’t afraid he would do hard time. “This latest project is akin to ‘bank robbing for dummies,’ ” he said, noting that he expects to get probation.

Rather than probation, I think he's more likely to get locked up in a psych ward. There's definitely something going wrong in this guy's head.

He wasn't violent so I don't think he'd need to be locked up in a psych ward, just maybe required to see a psychologist a few times a week.

[Bank] robberies work because they imply violence will occur if their demands are not met, hence the bit about the obvious fear from the first teller.

Judges & juries really, really hate reasoning like that.

Definitely playing Russian roulette with a loaded justice system. May skate on the (arguable) basis of "white male privilege" and possible lack of prior convictions.

IANAL, but I would play on empathy for an retiring, unaccomplished non-professor risking ignominy for ignescence... Dude was just deperate for attention. (Making an example of him wouldn't necessarily deter folks because they would throw their lives away anyhow... Making an example rarely does anything other than rationalize malicious sentencing.)

Check out this excerpt from his 2001 semi-autobiographical film, "Confessions of a Sociopath":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-tHqOz5zTo

More information on the film:

http://creative-capital.org/projects/view/154

Is the low quality intentional? We made better looking, sounding, and edited videos in high school AV class.

One would think surveillance audio/video should be sufficiently high resolution to remove reasonable doubt as to identity and circumstances. Then again, it might be that surveillance systems are considered a "bothersome cost of doing business" so the cheapest system that checks boxes is used and rarely, if ever, upgraded... Until there is an incident.

I wonder if they'll cut all ties with him, ban him from campus, revoke his emeritus status and remove his online courses from the OpenCourseWare site...

Not the way to rob a bank anymore.

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