Why Media Lab thought it was doing right by secretly accepting Epstein’s money

70 点作者 anjakefala超过 5 年前

13 条评论

tlb超过 5 年前

Normally, organizations accept anonymous donations from people because of modesty or privacy -- the donors don't want their name on the wall or in the press. They have a mechanism for that called "anonymous donations", but the mechanism isn't meant to guarantee that no reputational benefits at all can be gotten by the donor.In this case, several people knew he had donated to MIT and he invited professors to his dinners to show off to his friends, so there were substantial reputational benefits.Lessig's utilitarian calculus doesn't convince me it's OK to take money anonymously from villains.

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ineedasername超过 5 年前

The article seems to imply at points that power and influence won't accrue much as a result of anonymous donations, which I think is wrong. You lose the public prestige, sure, but the powerful people behind the scenes know you donated, as with Media Lab, and that power and influence isn't much diminished. In fact it's the behind the scenes type of power that can be the most effective and, as we see with Epstein, most corrosive.Anonymity may shield the recipient from reputational damage of associating with a bad actor, but doesn't take away all of the benefits to the donor.

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jrochkind1超过 5 年前

You know what you should not do if you really believe "the money gets put to a better use, and they don’t get to accumulate prestige or connections from the donation because the public wouldn’t know about it."> The financier would meet with faculty members, apparently to allow him to give input on projects…(from the New Yorker article).Also, if you know you are violating the policies of MIT's central fund-raising office, and you are taking active steps to HIDE it from them... you can say you just had a different philosophy of philanthropy than them, and this was so important to you that you were willing to violate MIT's policies and risk whatever consequences if found out......but come on, we all know it's just plain greed.I don't think these are sincere philosophical beliefs about philanthropy, I think they are just the rationalizations that the powerful and greedy tell themselves to avoid admitting it's just about power and greed.

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msghacq超过 5 年前

This is a much better article and interview with the whistleblower:<a href="https://www.philanthropy.com/article/whistle-blower-tells-the/247113" rel="nofollow">https://www.philanthropy.com/article/whistle-blower-tells-th...</a>Media Lab knew exactly what they were doing.

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natalyarostova超过 5 年前

Of all the people to take Epstein's money or endorse him with their reputation, of all the slimy people, of all the career politicians, we've decided to mainly just fixate and ruin the life of one well-intentioned nerd who wanted to use the money for research.I hope everyone feels fuzzy and warm with their self-righteousness. Evil is defeated once more -- and you all helped -- with your brave internet shaming and directed anger. Truly, we live in marvelous times, where we can all gather together online and use the decentralized social networks to conspire and destroy.Of course, no one here could hope to destroy those who are truly powerful and deserving, so instead every once in a while perhaps we can pick off one of the weaker ones.But he deserved it! And that's why we write and focus on it, right? What else do people deserve? What else could we have done with this time and energy? Anything greater? If so, why didn't we? Perhaps it's because destroying people feels good -- it's fun.

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8bitsrule超过 5 年前

"If a donation is anonymous, the theory goes — that is, anonymous to the public — the giver cannot accrue any prestige or social capital from it."OTOH, it at least helps the anonymous 'givers' to feel a bit consecrated about their nefarious actions. Also it helps the prestigious 'takers', capable of ignoring the smell of it, to cloak their taint.The rationalization that 'it's okay if noone knows' seems more like something for, say, a bank than for an academic institution. And the smell hangs around. It might lead to things like, say, rigged admissions standards. Or the unfortunate suicides of bright young stars.

cwyers超过 5 年前

What Lessig's piece seemed to completely ignore (and what this seems to touch on but never quite state plainly) is that under the conditions of anonymity where someone can't use their donations to launder their reputation, someone like Epstein would have never made the sort of donation he made. The only thing that anonymity did here was to shield MIT from accountability; Epstein still got the benefits of such a large donation.

fmajid超过 5 年前

Cognitive dissonance at work. I really want to take the money, so I will come up with all sorts of rationalizations, and subconsciously I will adopt those beliefs strongly, because the alternative is not being able to face myself in the mirror.

jdkee超过 5 年前

The question I have is this: how did Jeffrey Epstein get his money in the first place? And once he acquired it, how did people accept it from him knowing his behavior?

RcouF1uZ4gsC超过 5 年前

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!”-Upton SinclairI think most people from the outside could see the problem in accepting donations from Epstein. People at the Media Lab (with some very notable exceptions) allowed their desire for money to get the better of their judgment.

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lidHanteyk超过 5 年前

There's an easy answer for this, although it's uncomfortable for the Epsteins of the world. Simply formalize the entire process. Have a dedicated system for handling not just Very Important People, but Very Rich Assholes. When VRAs want to give money, make it clear that the money will be marked as from "an anoymous piece of shit" rather than "a generous donor". When they want to walk around the lab, make it clear that they'll be wearing a nametag with "VRA" printed in big red letters.Sure, take money from child slavers if you must, but don't glorify them or even give them the decency of polite society. Mark them for who they are, if you know it.

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olefoo超过 5 年前

Then there is the whole question of whether Epstein was using his money to _direct research_ specifically to junk science like Euugenics.I think Sarah Taber said it best though.""" I think the best lens to understand what was going on here isn't just "reputation laundering."The Media Lab's leadership catered to a superiority fetish in exchange for cash.That's sex work """<a href="https://twitter.com/SarahTaber_bww/status/1171931939080691713" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/SarahTaber_bww/status/117193193908069171...</a>

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algaeontoast超过 5 年前

Nobody should be trying to cover for the Media Lab in any way or form. If you're a professional and you take money in this way you are complicit, period.An article claiming Epstein was a victim because pedophiles and rapists are "victims" would have been less vapid than what Vox focuses on in this article.

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