13 ms·

MIT's student newspaper criticizes MIT's convenience-based ethics

218 points by polygamous_bat 9y ago

znpy 9y ago
Living ethically is very expensive, as you often have to turn down generous but unethical offers. I am not surprised about MIT's behaviour by the way. As long as top-level education stays private and has to hunt for funding, things like this will always happen.
- germinalphrase 9y ago
  Does MIT really need to "hunt for funding"? My impression is that their endowment is enormous.
  - jacobolus 9y ago
    A huge amount of the money in big endowments comes from various unsavory characters. The names of buildings at famous universities are a Who’s Who of famous fortunes built on slavery, war profiteering, drug running, child labor, wage theft and other worker abuse, large-scale environmental destruction, bribes and kickbacks, fraud, outright theft, etc. The Saudis are a particularly unsavory monarchy (torture, arbitrary imprisonment, lack of basic political rights, foreign assassinations, sponsorship of terrorism, direct military attacks on foreign civilians, etc.), but not fundamentally different from many historical donors.
    - rflrob 9y ago
      The Saudi money is different in that the university administration today is seeking it out, as opposed to money from historical donors, which the current administration already has. Which is not to say that historical blood money, whether the direct result of (for instance) slave sales [1], or laundered as philanthropy from robber barons is ethically free and clear; rather, if your institution has long been engaged in taking that money, the very least you can do is stop taking it now. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/17/us/georgetown-university-search-for-slave-descendants.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/17/us/georgetown-university-...
  - smt88 9y ago
    Endowments are complicated. The money often has restrictions on how it can be used, and of course the goal is for the endowment's principal to grow. A large endowment doesn't guarantee that an institution is wealthy enough to refuse money.
  - omegaworks 9y ago
    Like any for-profit entity, growth is one of its primary objectives. Stagnation is death. It's certainly not helped that our government has taken aim directly at universities with sizable endowments[1]. The recent tax bill hits hard and has directly impacted MIT's ability to provide financial aid and pursue humanitarian research[2]. 1. https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2018/01/16/tax-college-endowment-unconstitutionally-targets-institutions-opinion https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2018/01/16/tax-college-... 2. http://news.mit.edu/2017/letter-regarding-new-federal-tax-bill-and-its-impact-mit-1220 http://news.mit.edu/2017/letter-regarding-new-federal-tax-bi...
    - RcouF1uZ4gsC 9y ago
      A 1.4% tax on endowment income is consider being hard hit?
      - megaman22 9y ago
        If they invested it at all wisely, they should have made at least 5% over the past year. When I was at Dartmouth during the great recession a decade ago, they were gloating that they were nevertheless still making gains on the endowment, as the rest of the world crashed.
        varenc 9y ago
        Last fiscal year MIT's investments earned a 14.3% profit or $1.86 in gains. The principle is now $14.8B. Agreed that 1.4% doesn't feel too crazy... http://news.mit.edu/2017/endowment-figures-2017-0908 http://news.mit.edu/2017/endowment-figures-2017-0908 Though curiously, MIT's own estimation of the new tax says it'll only cost $10M. If MIT really made $2.1B in one year on just investments, an extra $10M seems pretty manageable. (though this also seems far less than the 1.4% cited, so not sure what's going on). Here's where MIT mentions the $10M in new taxes: http://news.mit.edu/2017/letter-regarding-new-federal-tax-bill-and-its-impact-mit-1220 http://news.mit.edu/2017/letter-regarding-new-federal-tax-bi...
        9y ago
  - mrgordon 9y ago
    Yes the source of much of the enormous endowment is Department of Defense, Department of Energy, and private donations (see the new Koch building, for example). The major energy companies (e.g. Shell) are also big donors to the climate change research group which has no doubt tempered their publicly expressed views. So overall much of the funding is from less than ideal sources from an ethical point of view. It does create some issues from time to time.
    - robotresearcher 9y ago
      Are you sure the DoE or DoD are contributing to MIT’s endowment? That seems unlikely to me. Those agencies award research contracts with statements of work on a cost plus overhead basis. That’s not at all the same as contributing to an endowment.
      - mrgordon 9y ago
        "All research institutions get additional money tacked on to federal science and medical grants to help pay for general overhead. But federal rules allow institutions to deposit those payments into their general budgets, with no requirement they be used to directly support scientific endeavors." "Universities and the federal government became partners in research after World War II. MIT was one of the biggest beneficiaries. The National Institutes of Health initially set the overhead reimbursement rate at 8 percent and it eventually rose to 20 percent for all universities. In 1965, Congress permitted schools to directly negotiate their rates with the federal government, setting ballooning rates on their course." https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2013/03/17/harvard-mit-and-other-research-schools-thwart-obama-administration-effort-cap-overhead-payments/Nk5PT0Mc8MQZihFVNs5gNK/story.html https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2013/03/17/harvard-m... You are probably right that much of the money may technically not be part of the endowment but I'm not sure that the technicalities of what constitutes an endowment is very useful if they are still the main funder of the university. If universities include up to 90% "overhead" that can be deposited into their general budgets with no requirement that it supports scientific endeavors then what do we really mean when we say the DoE / DoD don't contribute to the endowment? We mean they weren't "donations" basically? The article wasn't really about donations / endowment so other than using a slightly wrong word its not really relevant to the discussion anyway. Furthermore more than half of MIT's R&D funds come from the government so this isn't exactly an edge case. Its the rule not the exception.
- musage 9y ago
  Though whether an unethical offer is generous or a rip-off depends on how much you value you place on the personal integrity you have to trade for it.
komali2 9y ago
A lot of righteous, eloquent fury here. I had nearly forgotten about the foxconn suicides, and now that I think about it I don't remember anything really happening except nets being put up. Louis CK (RIP our opinion of him, but still) put it pretty well once, something along the lines of "slavery built everything we love. We just throw human death and suffering at a thing until it's done. There's no end to what you can do when you don't give a fuck about a certain group of people. You can have candles and horses and be a little kinder to eachother, or you can leverage the endless suffering of someone really far away so you can leave a mean comment on someone's youtube video while you take a shit."
- evanpw 9y ago
  Apparently (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn_suicides https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn_suicides), the suicide rate at Foxconn during that period was lower than the overall Chinese or US suicide rate.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - tclancy 9y ago
    Congrats on the greatest ACKCHYUALLY of all time.
    - Rescis 9y ago
      I believe this comment neither adds to the discussion, nor brings up a valid point. When people discuss anything, all parties should strive for intellectual honesty. As the grandparent post used a false example, then it helps all sides involved to correct that and prevent it from happening again.
  - dragonmum 9y ago
    > the suicide rate at Foxconn during that period was lower than the overall Chinese or US suicide rate. Please allow me to change your opinion on this. The comparison being made there is the ( number of suicides at Foxconn / number of Foxconn employees ) vs number of suicides in China / population of China. At first glance, this looks like a valid comparison. But it is not. It is actually comparing apples to oranges. The real comparison is against number of employees who choose to commit suicide at their employers premise / number of employees. A useful way to paraphrase this is: Lets say Google has 100,000 employees. How many Google employees commit suicide at the Googleplex per year? Not how many google employees commit suicide overall. When phrased this way, it becomes clear that other companies have much lower suicide rates than Foxconn. That's what is critical to compare. It turns out Foxconn's suicide rate is massively higher than equivalent Chinese employers and the inference is the alleged egregious mistreatment of Foxconn laborers by Foxconn is the cause.
valuearb 9y ago
They should have stuck to attacking MBS, and brought up the fact that the 9/11 hijackers had direct support from Saudi diplomatic personnel. Attacking Apple for providing well above market pay for jobs that rescue chinese laborers from brutal and dangerous rural farm jobs just makes the writer sound entitled.
- DamnYuppie 9y ago
  Can you please provide more context from the "brutal and dangerous rural farm jobs"? I am aware agriculture production in China is very different then here but even at its most labor intensive times it is not something that I would have considered to be "dangerous".
  - valuearb 9y ago
    Everything is relative but it’s much more dangerous than assembling iPhones. And it is one of the reasons why whenever Foxcon is hiring the applicant lines are so long.
    - tclancy 9y ago
      Can we get a citation for these claims? Otherwise it feels a lot like something one says while rocking themselves to sleep at night. The whole thesis of "Sapiens" is exactly the opposite of this, that "progress" has been mainly a way of making life harder. The idea rural farming is somehow more dangerous than moving to a city and working long hours in a factory seems worthy of some numbers. If you basically learn, "Don't stick your face in the thresher" I feel like farming would be fairly low danger.
      - mlazos 9y ago
        https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/04/the-most-dangerous-jobs-in-america-000395 https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/04/the-most-dange... This cites some numbers from the CDC, looks like in America farms are dangerous, can’t imagine what it’s like in China. It says farmers are 2x as likely as police and 5x as likely as firefighters to die on the job. My intuition is formed from knowing that logging is one of the most dangerous jobs in America, I kind of assumed farming wasn’t so far off.
temporama 9y ago
Mbs is not trying to make himself look like a positive transformative figure, he actually is one. The war in Yemen is equally the fault of Saudi Arabia and Iran but I don't hear anyone calling for sanctions on Iran. I am astounded that such ignorance could come from one of the worlds pillars of higher education. Consolidation of power such as that recently performed by mbs is routine and it was done in a very humane way indeed compared to other instances. When you consider that not properly consolidating power could lead to the compromising of the state and perhaps set the groundwork for the destruction of the state, his actions seem quite reasonable
- ascorbic 9y ago
  > I don't hear anyone calling for sanctions on Iran You're not listening very hard then.
  - tempagain567i 9y ago
    Among liberal circles like hn and MIT,Jesus Christ dude. But appealing to you people is useless because my polite and correct comment gets flagged, flagged for nothing more than offending someone. Iran's influence is overblown? Are you serious? Where are rebels getting their supplies? If Iranian support ceased completely the resistance would dry up and the whole thing would grind to a total and complete stop. Same more or less for saudi Arabia. Iran has committed directly and indirectly heinous terrorist crimes that match or exceed the acts commuted by Saudi/us. This is basically a war between two countries and as has always been true, trying to reduce the thing into a framework of good and evil or right and wrong is a fools errand and an intellectual molestation of the truth. In actual fact mbs is a force for reform. He is perusing reform both because it is plainly in the best interest of his empire and because this is a trend that goes all the way to the beginning with for example the introduction of television to the masses despite huge resistance from religious bodies. Anyone who claims to favor reform and simultaneously condemns mbs knows nothing about the history or international politics of Saudi Arabia. I have been watching mobs and his behaviour indicates very positive direction indeed. Do your homework. Astoundingly the people at MIT seem to have not done theirs.
- 9y ago
jzl 9y ago
You don't even have to look as far as Saudi Arabia to raise similar questions. The Koch brothers are MIT graduates and huge donors. For a similar discussion of the ethics of MIT's acceptance of their money, see: https://www.quora.com/How-could-MIT-have-received-a-grant-for-the-David-H-Koch-Institute-for-Integrative-Cancer-Research-read-details https://www.quora.com/How-could-MIT-have-received-a-grant-fo...
- jadedhacker 9y ago
  I remember being shocked at walking down Kendall and seeing the cancer research building named the "Koch Institute". I'm glad the Kochs are doing things with their money other than attempting to overthrow democratic government and burn the world but my feeling is that MIT shouldn't help immunize them to criticism by burnishing their reputation.
  - erikpukinskis 9y ago
    “Greenwashing”. It’s a big business for non-profits.
- mhneu 9y ago
  Agreed that MIT should be careful taking money from big donors with obvious agendas. When the Koches put money into universities, it typically has strings attached - they get some say in hiring faculty that align with their agenda, for example. Here's more discussion of the Koch strategy to put money into universities, including MIT, in an effort to buy ideological support for their political goals (which are to destroy government to cut billionaires' taxes.) http://www.unkochmycampus.org/ http://www.unkochmycampus.org/ From Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2018/01/30/daily-202-koch-network-laying-groundwork-to-fundamentally-transform-america-s-education-system/5a6feb8530fb041c3c7d74db/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-2... From the Chronicle of Higher Ed: https://apicciano.commons.gc.cuny.edu/2017/12/21/the-chronicle-of-higher-education-examines-the-charles-koch-foundation/ https://apicciano.commons.gc.cuny.edu/2017/12/21/the-chronic...
prepend 9y ago
I just figured MIT was making “easy” ethical statements. In general the examples that MIT spoke out about had no opposing parties, had no impact to MIT, and no repercussions. So MIT didn’t really have to care or make a sacrifice to speak out for Dreamers or against Charlottesville and whatnot. But for anything that requires sacrifice like MBS not giving an endowment, they suck it up. This is what sucks as wishy washy populism as it doesn’t reflect any insight into an orginizarion’s leadership’s values. MIT is likely concerned with increasing its power. Thus is part of the establishment. Doing lots of great things, but part of the establishment. Thus their total cop out over Aaron Schwartz back to when they didn’t admit their first black professor until 1956 (http://diverseeducation.com/article/7136/ http://diverseeducation.com/article/7136/). There’s a really popular and well respected engineering school that has a big problem with sexual assault. They issue statements and sponsor marches and stuff. But drag their feet on any actions like removing organizations that frequently have members commit sexual assault. I just consider most of the statements from universities PR and virtue signaling unless it’s acompanied with allocation of resources.
- meri_dian 9y ago
  "MIT is likely concerned with increasing its power. Thus is part of the establishment. Doing lots of great things, but part of the establishment." Almost all organized groups exist in order to increase their power/influence. Those who try to destroy centers of power without either redistributing power or accumulating it for themselves are destroyers, nothing more.
  - erikpukinskis 9y ago
    Isn’t redistributing power different from increasing ones own power though? My goal is to redistribute power from people of my “kind” to people in my geography, roughly evenly. I think that’s fundamentally different from “increasing my own power” although I do admit it’s not wholly different. I think your statement is just too reductive. There are corporations, federations, partnerships, syndicates, all of these organizations have vastly different power centralization properties.
- varenc 9y ago
gumby 9y ago
Where do they think Lincoln came from anyway? MITRE, Lincoln and Draper were ways to shift classified research off campus in the wake of MIT's involvement in the Viet Nam war (which was far more than the crimes of Walt Rostow). MIT has been first and foremost a government research lab since Conant (an MIT grad) was FDR's wartime science advisor and reformulated the institute (just compare the small size of the student body vs overall research staff, or consider that education brings in only 14% of the institute's revenue). Your education is essentially subsidized by the Pentagon. The 1970s reforms shuffled the pieces around the board but didn't make a substantive change (they did improve academic freedom, though). Through the 1990s MIT was really more policy rather than corporate focused but now there is more private sector involvement can you really say it's any better?
- hueving 9y ago
  Same story with Stanford and SRI. Stanford admins didn't like the optics of supporting the military so that was split into the Stanford Research Institute one caltrain stop away and suddenly everything was fine.
fatjokes 9y ago
If it makes MIT feel better, I don't think "ethics" when I think of MIT. I think technological leadership and excellence, but definitely not ethics. For starters, they have plenty of collaborations with the military (e.g., MIT Lincoln Labs; not saying that can't be ethical... but it usually means someone's going to die). Nothing to be ashamed of. Somebody's gotta do it...
- user15128 9y ago
  as long as it is not you who is dying?
- darawk 9y ago
  What's unethical about collaborating with the military? We don't exist in a vacuum. American military hegemony has been an extremely powerful stabilizing force, post-WWII. This idea that it is unethical to build weapons is profoundly wrong, short sighted, and morally selfish. Not to overly pick on your comment, since you did say that it can be ethical, of course. But i've seen this sentiment that military work is unethical echo'd a bunch of times here lately, and I think it's an incredibly naive perspective.
  - knuththetruth 9y ago
    I think as human consciousness, morality, and our understanding of history have evolved, the question we now ask is “Stability for whom?” Certainly not for Latin America during the Cold War, for example. Those who oppose collaborating with the military do so because “America military hegemony” has been used for all kinds of horrors, including recent events like the Iraq War. There’s nothing naive about not wanting to be party to at least half a million civilian casualties and the destabilization of the Middle East. You can make some Real Politik argument about the ends justifying the means, if that’s what you truly believe, but you’ll have to do so more explicitly and account for things like Vietnam and the Iraq War. The reductive abstraction of “stability” you pose know longer holds the same kind of sway it once did among most people.
    - darawk 9y ago
jadedhacker 9y ago
As a former MIT person, I applaud the editorial board here. I had long assumed that despite MIT housing a dissident or two here and there, their primary social mission is to provide technical advice to the people that run the country and elite staff for them. MIT students and staff spend far too much time narrowly focused on (beautiful) math and engineering without properly reflecting on how their hard earned abilities will be used. MBS's crimes in his country and in Yemen (and US complicity) should be sharply criticized by people who think they represent the front of progress for human civilization.
- internetman55 9y ago
  They'll be used to make me money beeeeitcg
tzs 9y ago
> It is a well-documented fact that Apple products are built through the exploitation of laborers in foreign factories, who must work deplorable hours for pitiable wages. It's also pretty well documented that Apple does at least as much as, and usually for more than, any other major consumer electronics company to make its suppliers improve working conditions and wages. I'm curious how Apple compares to whoever made the computer the author used to type that article, or whoever made the author's mobile phone.
- MadSudaca 9y ago
  I bet the wages are not pitiable for the people that work there.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
tempagain567i 9y ago
I must re-iterate my opinion here because of flagging abuse. In the article, mbs's consolidation of power is criticised. This is naive and incorrect. Mbs is in fact a positive force for progress and reform. Detracting him only serves to aid the people of sa and the religious bodies of sa all of whom wish to remain cemented within the traditional and brutal interpretations of the Koran that MIT seems to dislike so much. The rebels and Iran are just as responsible for the innocent deaths as sa and us are. This is difficult to explain in such short form but it is true and if you disagree then you can tell me why instead of flagging my comment. This way I can promptly respond to you and our disagreement can be settled. It's very important for non-mainstream narratives to be heard, especially when they are correct as in this case.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
tech_opn 9y ago
Hey folks -- Thanks to everybody who read the editorial and commented! We're glad that it's generating some discussion. We're interested in writing another piece on MIT and the military. A lot of these comments contain useful information and we'd love to hear more tip from you all for future pieces -- if you have any information regarding the topic (regardless of how trivial or how well-known you think the information is), we'd really appreciate it if you could email opinion@the-tech.mit.edu. Further, if you're affiliated with MIT and you're interested in writing a letter to the editor in response to this piece, we'd love that as well -- please email letters letters@tech.mit.edu. Thanks so much everybody!
- lvs 9y ago
  Just a brief note of support here. It's really moving to see the younger generation taking this on. Great work, and keep on fighting the good fight.
  - tech_opn 9y ago
    Thanks so much! :) Also for anybody reading this - I'd really appreciate if you could upvote my comment so more people can see it!
- larry_d 9y ago
  Super glad to see people taking on issues of holding institutions accountable to at least acknowledging the way their investments support immoral actors.
isthatart 9y ago
Anybody about Aaron Swartz and MIT? EDIT: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16769270 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16769270

znpy 9y ago

Living ethically is very expensive, as you often have to turn down generous but unethical offers. I am not surprised about MIT's behaviour by the way. As long as top-level education stays private and has to hunt for funding, things like this will always happen.

germinalphrase 9y ago
Does MIT really need to "hunt for funding"? My impression is that their endowment is enormous.
- jacobolus 9y ago
  A huge amount of the money in big endowments comes from various unsavory characters. The names of buildings at famous universities are a Who’s Who of famous fortunes built on slavery, war profiteering, drug running, child labor, wage theft and other worker abuse, large-scale environmental destruction, bribes and kickbacks, fraud, outright theft, etc. The Saudis are a particularly unsavory monarchy (torture, arbitrary imprisonment, lack of basic political rights, foreign assassinations, sponsorship of terrorism, direct military attacks on foreign civilians, etc.), but not fundamentally different from many historical donors.
  - rflrob 9y ago
    The Saudi money is different in that the university administration today is seeking it out, as opposed to money from historical donors, which the current administration already has. Which is not to say that historical blood money, whether the direct result of (for instance) slave sales [1], or laundered as philanthropy from robber barons is ethically free and clear; rather, if your institution has long been engaged in taking that money, the very least you can do is stop taking it now. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/17/us/georgetown-university-search-for-slave-descendants.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/17/us/georgetown-university-...
- smt88 9y ago
  Endowments are complicated. The money often has restrictions on how it can be used, and of course the goal is for the endowment's principal to grow. A large endowment doesn't guarantee that an institution is wealthy enough to refuse money.
- omegaworks 9y ago
  Like any for-profit entity, growth is one of its primary objectives. Stagnation is death. It's certainly not helped that our government has taken aim directly at universities with sizable endowments[1]. The recent tax bill hits hard and has directly impacted MIT's ability to provide financial aid and pursue humanitarian research[2]. 1. https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2018/01/16/tax-college-endowment-unconstitutionally-targets-institutions-opinion https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2018/01/16/tax-college-... 2. http://news.mit.edu/2017/letter-regarding-new-federal-tax-bill-and-its-impact-mit-1220 http://news.mit.edu/2017/letter-regarding-new-federal-tax-bi...
  - RcouF1uZ4gsC 9y ago
    A 1.4% tax on endowment income is consider being hard hit?
    - megaman22 9y ago
      If they invested it at all wisely, they should have made at least 5% over the past year. When I was at Dartmouth during the great recession a decade ago, they were gloating that they were nevertheless still making gains on the endowment, as the rest of the world crashed.
      - varenc 9y ago
        Last fiscal year MIT's investments earned a 14.3% profit or $1.86 in gains. The principle is now $14.8B. Agreed that 1.4% doesn't feel too crazy... http://news.mit.edu/2017/endowment-figures-2017-0908 http://news.mit.edu/2017/endowment-figures-2017-0908 Though curiously, MIT's own estimation of the new tax says it'll only cost $10M. If MIT really made $2.1B in one year on just investments, an extra $10M seems pretty manageable. (though this also seems far less than the 1.4% cited, so not sure what's going on). Here's where MIT mentions the $10M in new taxes: http://news.mit.edu/2017/letter-regarding-new-federal-tax-bill-and-its-impact-mit-1220 http://news.mit.edu/2017/letter-regarding-new-federal-tax-bi...
        9y ago
- mrgordon 9y ago
  Yes the source of much of the enormous endowment is Department of Defense, Department of Energy, and private donations (see the new Koch building, for example). The major energy companies (e.g. Shell) are also big donors to the climate change research group which has no doubt tempered their publicly expressed views. So overall much of the funding is from less than ideal sources from an ethical point of view. It does create some issues from time to time.
  - robotresearcher 9y ago
    Are you sure the DoE or DoD are contributing to MIT’s endowment? That seems unlikely to me. Those agencies award research contracts with statements of work on a cost plus overhead basis. That’s not at all the same as contributing to an endowment.
    - mrgordon 9y ago
      "All research institutions get additional money tacked on to federal science and medical grants to help pay for general overhead. But federal rules allow institutions to deposit those payments into their general budgets, with no requirement they be used to directly support scientific endeavors." "Universities and the federal government became partners in research after World War II. MIT was one of the biggest beneficiaries. The National Institutes of Health initially set the overhead reimbursement rate at 8 percent and it eventually rose to 20 percent for all universities. In 1965, Congress permitted schools to directly negotiate their rates with the federal government, setting ballooning rates on their course." https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2013/03/17/harvard-mit-and-other-research-schools-thwart-obama-administration-effort-cap-overhead-payments/Nk5PT0Mc8MQZihFVNs5gNK/story.html https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2013/03/17/harvard-m... You are probably right that much of the money may technically not be part of the endowment but I'm not sure that the technicalities of what constitutes an endowment is very useful if they are still the main funder of the university. If universities include up to 90% "overhead" that can be deposited into their general budgets with no requirement that it supports scientific endeavors then what do we really mean when we say the DoE / DoD don't contribute to the endowment? We mean they weren't "donations" basically? The article wasn't really about donations / endowment so other than using a slightly wrong word its not really relevant to the discussion anyway. Furthermore more than half of MIT's R&D funds come from the government so this isn't exactly an edge case. Its the rule not the exception.
musage 9y ago
Though whether an unethical offer is generous or a rip-off depends on how much you value you place on the personal integrity you have to trade for it.

komali2 9y ago

A lot of righteous, eloquent fury here. I had nearly forgotten about the foxconn suicides, and now that I think about it I don't remember anything really happening except nets being put up. Louis CK (RIP our opinion of him, but still) put it pretty well once, something along the lines of "slavery built everything we love. We just throw human death and suffering at a thing until it's done. There's no end to what you can do when you don't give a fuck about a certain group of people. You can have candles and horses and be a little kinder to eachother, or you can leverage the endless suffering of someone really far away so you can leave a mean comment on someone's youtube video while you take a shit."

evanpw 9y ago
Apparently (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn_suicides https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn_suicides), the suicide rate at Foxconn during that period was lower than the overall Chinese or US suicide rate.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- tclancy 9y ago
  Congrats on the greatest ACKCHYUALLY of all time.
  - Rescis 9y ago
    I believe this comment neither adds to the discussion, nor brings up a valid point. When people discuss anything, all parties should strive for intellectual honesty. As the grandparent post used a false example, then it helps all sides involved to correct that and prevent it from happening again.
- dragonmum 9y ago
  > the suicide rate at Foxconn during that period was lower than the overall Chinese or US suicide rate. Please allow me to change your opinion on this. The comparison being made there is the ( number of suicides at Foxconn / number of Foxconn employees ) vs number of suicides in China / population of China. At first glance, this looks like a valid comparison. But it is not. It is actually comparing apples to oranges. The real comparison is against number of employees who choose to commit suicide at their employers premise / number of employees. A useful way to paraphrase this is: Lets say Google has 100,000 employees. How many Google employees commit suicide at the Googleplex per year? Not how many google employees commit suicide overall. When phrased this way, it becomes clear that other companies have much lower suicide rates than Foxconn. That's what is critical to compare. It turns out Foxconn's suicide rate is massively higher than equivalent Chinese employers and the inference is the alleged egregious mistreatment of Foxconn laborers by Foxconn is the cause.

valuearb 9y ago

They should have stuck to attacking MBS, and brought up the fact that the 9/11 hijackers had direct support from Saudi diplomatic personnel. Attacking Apple for providing well above market pay for jobs that rescue chinese laborers from brutal and dangerous rural farm jobs just makes the writer sound entitled.

DamnYuppie 9y ago
Can you please provide more context from the "brutal and dangerous rural farm jobs"? I am aware agriculture production in China is very different then here but even at its most labor intensive times it is not something that I would have considered to be "dangerous".
- valuearb 9y ago
  Everything is relative but it’s much more dangerous than assembling iPhones. And it is one of the reasons why whenever Foxcon is hiring the applicant lines are so long.
  - tclancy 9y ago
    Can we get a citation for these claims? Otherwise it feels a lot like something one says while rocking themselves to sleep at night. The whole thesis of "Sapiens" is exactly the opposite of this, that "progress" has been mainly a way of making life harder. The idea rural farming is somehow more dangerous than moving to a city and working long hours in a factory seems worthy of some numbers. If you basically learn, "Don't stick your face in the thresher" I feel like farming would be fairly low danger.
    - mlazos 9y ago
      https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/04/the-most-dangerous-jobs-in-america-000395 https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/04/the-most-dange... This cites some numbers from the CDC, looks like in America farms are dangerous, can’t imagine what it’s like in China. It says farmers are 2x as likely as police and 5x as likely as firefighters to die on the job. My intuition is formed from knowing that logging is one of the most dangerous jobs in America, I kind of assumed farming wasn’t so far off.

temporama 9y ago

Mbs is not trying to make himself look like a positive transformative figure, he actually is one. The war in Yemen is equally the fault of Saudi Arabia and Iran but I don't hear anyone calling for sanctions on Iran. I am astounded that such ignorance could come from one of the worlds pillars of higher education. Consolidation of power such as that recently performed by mbs is routine and it was done in a very humane way indeed compared to other instances. When you consider that not properly consolidating power could lead to the compromising of the state and perhaps set the groundwork for the destruction of the state, his actions seem quite reasonable

ascorbic 9y ago
> I don't hear anyone calling for sanctions on Iran You're not listening very hard then.
- tempagain567i 9y ago
  Among liberal circles like hn and MIT,Jesus Christ dude. But appealing to you people is useless because my polite and correct comment gets flagged, flagged for nothing more than offending someone. Iran's influence is overblown? Are you serious? Where are rebels getting their supplies? If Iranian support ceased completely the resistance would dry up and the whole thing would grind to a total and complete stop. Same more or less for saudi Arabia. Iran has committed directly and indirectly heinous terrorist crimes that match or exceed the acts commuted by Saudi/us. This is basically a war between two countries and as has always been true, trying to reduce the thing into a framework of good and evil or right and wrong is a fools errand and an intellectual molestation of the truth. In actual fact mbs is a force for reform. He is perusing reform both because it is plainly in the best interest of his empire and because this is a trend that goes all the way to the beginning with for example the introduction of television to the masses despite huge resistance from religious bodies. Anyone who claims to favor reform and simultaneously condemns mbs knows nothing about the history or international politics of Saudi Arabia. I have been watching mobs and his behaviour indicates very positive direction indeed. Do your homework. Astoundingly the people at MIT seem to have not done theirs.
9y ago

jzl 9y ago

You don't even have to look as far as Saudi Arabia to raise similar questions. The Koch brothers are MIT graduates and huge donors. For a similar discussion of the ethics of MIT's acceptance of their money, see: https://www.quora.com/How-could-MIT-have-received-a-grant-for-the-David-H-Koch-Institute-for-Integrative-Cancer-Research-read-details https://www.quora.com/How-could-MIT-have-received-a-grant-fo...

jadedhacker 9y ago
I remember being shocked at walking down Kendall and seeing the cancer research building named the "Koch Institute". I'm glad the Kochs are doing things with their money other than attempting to overthrow democratic government and burn the world but my feeling is that MIT shouldn't help immunize them to criticism by burnishing their reputation.
- erikpukinskis 9y ago
  “Greenwashing”. It’s a big business for non-profits.
mhneu 9y ago
Agreed that MIT should be careful taking money from big donors with obvious agendas. When the Koches put money into universities, it typically has strings attached - they get some say in hiring faculty that align with their agenda, for example. Here's more discussion of the Koch strategy to put money into universities, including MIT, in an effort to buy ideological support for their political goals (which are to destroy government to cut billionaires' taxes.) http://www.unkochmycampus.org/ http://www.unkochmycampus.org/ From Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2018/01/30/daily-202-koch-network-laying-groundwork-to-fundamentally-transform-america-s-education-system/5a6feb8530fb041c3c7d74db/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-2... From the Chronicle of Higher Ed: https://apicciano.commons.gc.cuny.edu/2017/12/21/the-chronicle-of-higher-education-examines-the-charles-koch-foundation/ https://apicciano.commons.gc.cuny.edu/2017/12/21/the-chronic...

prepend 9y ago

I just figured MIT was making “easy” ethical statements. In general the examples that MIT spoke out about had no opposing parties, had no impact to MIT, and no repercussions. So MIT didn’t really have to care or make a sacrifice to speak out for Dreamers or against Charlottesville and whatnot. But for anything that requires sacrifice like MBS not giving an endowment, they suck it up. This is what sucks as wishy washy populism as it doesn’t reflect any insight into an orginizarion’s leadership’s values. MIT is likely concerned with increasing its power. Thus is part of the establishment. Doing lots of great things, but part of the establishment. Thus their total cop out over Aaron Schwartz back to when they didn’t admit their first black professor until 1956 (http://diverseeducation.com/article/7136/ http://diverseeducation.com/article/7136/). There’s a really popular and well respected engineering school that has a big problem with sexual assault. They issue statements and sponsor marches and stuff. But drag their feet on any actions like removing organizations that frequently have members commit sexual assault. I just consider most of the statements from universities PR and virtue signaling unless it’s acompanied with allocation of resources.

meri_dian 9y ago
"MIT is likely concerned with increasing its power. Thus is part of the establishment. Doing lots of great things, but part of the establishment." Almost all organized groups exist in order to increase their power/influence. Those who try to destroy centers of power without either redistributing power or accumulating it for themselves are destroyers, nothing more.
- erikpukinskis 9y ago
  Isn’t redistributing power different from increasing ones own power though? My goal is to redistribute power from people of my “kind” to people in my geography, roughly evenly. I think that’s fundamentally different from “increasing my own power” although I do admit it’s not wholly different. I think your statement is just too reductive. There are corporations, federations, partnerships, syndicates, all of these organizations have vastly different power centralization properties.
varenc 9y ago

gumby 9y ago

Where do they think Lincoln came from anyway? MITRE, Lincoln and Draper were ways to shift classified research off campus in the wake of MIT's involvement in the Viet Nam war (which was far more than the crimes of Walt Rostow). MIT has been first and foremost a government research lab since Conant (an MIT grad) was FDR's wartime science advisor and reformulated the institute (just compare the small size of the student body vs overall research staff, or consider that education brings in only 14% of the institute's revenue). Your education is essentially subsidized by the Pentagon. The 1970s reforms shuffled the pieces around the board but didn't make a substantive change (they did improve academic freedom, though). Through the 1990s MIT was really more policy rather than corporate focused but now there is more private sector involvement can you really say it's any better?

hueving 9y ago
Same story with Stanford and SRI. Stanford admins didn't like the optics of supporting the military so that was split into the Stanford Research Institute one caltrain stop away and suddenly everything was fine.

fatjokes 9y ago

If it makes MIT feel better, I don't think "ethics" when I think of MIT. I think technological leadership and excellence, but definitely not ethics. For starters, they have plenty of collaborations with the military (e.g., MIT Lincoln Labs; not saying that can't be ethical... but it usually means someone's going to die). Nothing to be ashamed of. Somebody's gotta do it...

user15128 9y ago
as long as it is not you who is dying?
darawk 9y ago
What's unethical about collaborating with the military? We don't exist in a vacuum. American military hegemony has been an extremely powerful stabilizing force, post-WWII. This idea that it is unethical to build weapons is profoundly wrong, short sighted, and morally selfish. Not to overly pick on your comment, since you did say that it can be ethical, of course. But i've seen this sentiment that military work is unethical echo'd a bunch of times here lately, and I think it's an incredibly naive perspective.
- knuththetruth 9y ago
  I think as human consciousness, morality, and our understanding of history have evolved, the question we now ask is “Stability for whom?” Certainly not for Latin America during the Cold War, for example. Those who oppose collaborating with the military do so because “America military hegemony” has been used for all kinds of horrors, including recent events like the Iraq War. There’s nothing naive about not wanting to be party to at least half a million civilian casualties and the destabilization of the Middle East. You can make some Real Politik argument about the ends justifying the means, if that’s what you truly believe, but you’ll have to do so more explicitly and account for things like Vietnam and the Iraq War. The reductive abstraction of “stability” you pose know longer holds the same kind of sway it once did among most people.
  - darawk 9y ago

jadedhacker 9y ago

As a former MIT person, I applaud the editorial board here. I had long assumed that despite MIT housing a dissident or two here and there, their primary social mission is to provide technical advice to the people that run the country and elite staff for them. MIT students and staff spend far too much time narrowly focused on (beautiful) math and engineering without properly reflecting on how their hard earned abilities will be used. MBS's crimes in his country and in Yemen (and US complicity) should be sharply criticized by people who think they represent the front of progress for human civilization.

internetman55 9y ago
They'll be used to make me money beeeeitcg

tzs 9y ago

> It is a well-documented fact that Apple products are built through the exploitation of laborers in foreign factories, who must work deplorable hours for pitiable wages. It's also pretty well documented that Apple does at least as much as, and usually for more than, any other major consumer electronics company to make its suppliers improve working conditions and wages. I'm curious how Apple compares to whoever made the computer the author used to type that article, or whoever made the author's mobile phone.

MadSudaca 9y ago
I bet the wages are not pitiable for the people that work there.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

tempagain567i 9y ago

I must re-iterate my opinion here because of flagging abuse. In the article, mbs's consolidation of power is criticised. This is naive and incorrect. Mbs is in fact a positive force for progress and reform. Detracting him only serves to aid the people of sa and the religious bodies of sa all of whom wish to remain cemented within the traditional and brutal interpretations of the Koran that MIT seems to dislike so much. The rebels and Iran are just as responsible for the innocent deaths as sa and us are. This is difficult to explain in such short form but it is true and if you disagree then you can tell me why instead of flagging my comment. This way I can promptly respond to you and our disagreement can be settled. It's very important for non-mainstream narratives to be heard, especially when they are correct as in this case.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

tech_opn 9y ago

Hey folks -- Thanks to everybody who read the editorial and commented! We're glad that it's generating some discussion. We're interested in writing another piece on MIT and the military. A lot of these comments contain useful information and we'd love to hear more tip from you all for future pieces -- if you have any information regarding the topic (regardless of how trivial or how well-known you think the information is), we'd really appreciate it if you could email opinion@the-tech.mit.edu. Further, if you're affiliated with MIT and you're interested in writing a letter to the editor in response to this piece, we'd love that as well -- please email letters letters@tech.mit.edu. Thanks so much everybody!

lvs 9y ago
Just a brief note of support here. It's really moving to see the younger generation taking this on. Great work, and keep on fighting the good fight.
- tech_opn 9y ago
  Thanks so much! :) Also for anybody reading this - I'd really appreciate if you could upvote my comment so more people can see it!
larry_d 9y ago
Super glad to see people taking on issues of holding institutions accountable to at least acknowledging the way their investments support immoral actors.

isthatart 9y ago

Anybody about Aaron Swartz and MIT? EDIT: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16769270 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16769270