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You appear angry at me. I didn't argue anything in bad faith or attempt to distract anyone. Nor do I think the thing I said is totally irrelevant. There is a ge

You appear angry at me. I didn't argue anything in bad faith or attempt to distract anyone. Nor do I think the thing I said is totally irrelevant. There is a generic thing to be said about the "criminal-philanthropist" concept, it is a topic that many of us have not considered until stories in recent years, which seem to be a trend of more than one such offender, brought it to the forefront.

acdha 7y ago
Note that I said “read like” — nobody in this thread can know what you were actually thinking what I described is the most obvious way I saw that those comments would be interpreted in a down-vote worthy manner. It might be useful to clarify your intentions to avoid that, especially since there are a lot of people who feel betrayed right now.
watwut 7y ago
You said this: > It all highlights the difficult job facing people tasked with taking money from donors in this way. They won't always have 20/20 hindsight. It does not highlight that and no hindsight was needed. What was needed was to not go out of your way to conceal taking money you know you should not. You converted situation into completely different situation.
- asveikau 7y ago
  In quoting me, you cut off my comments mid-paragraph. That is removal of context. I described several hypotheticals, the hindsight question being one. Yes we can point at the misdeeds of Ito and others and they are awful. But there is a nonzero amount of people here that could fall into similar traps if they were in a position to accept millions from shady characters, which most of us aren't. If Ito, as bad as his acts were, had full realization of consequences (as he now does in hindsight), do you think he would have done this? I don't know the guy, but I am guessing not. That is not to exculpate him or trivialize or distract. He screwed up majorly.
  - watwut 7y ago
    You mean, if he knew people will find out? Because that is only new information, really. Everything else was known at the time.
    - asveikau 7y ago
      It could also be that he knew some facts, but was too stupid to realize their significance until after it blows up on him. None of it is exculpatory, mind you.
      - mcguire 7y ago
        It could also be that Ito is actually a collective intelligence made up of squirrels concealed in a business suit. Both seem rather unlikely, though.
- meerita 7y ago
  But in these cases, how do you know?
  - CrazyStat 7y ago
    In this case you know because Epstein already had a criminal conviction and MIT had already blacklisted him as a donor.
    - meerita 7y ago
      I mean before that. Obviously you cannot accept money from someone we discover is a criminal
    - asveikau 7y ago
      Here is one thing. If you want to get technical, without knowing everything we now know about Epstein, I am not sure a conviction is enough. MIT is not the criminal justice system. We now know that Epstein got a light sentence and the guy responsible had to quit his job in disgrace. But maybe not everybody knew this. Maybe he says, "yeah I did this thing, but I served my time blah blah, by the way please take this million dollars". And in the abstract, do you want to stigmatize every single convict or do you believe that some of them are reformed? Obviously Epstein was not, and MIT didn't want to take the risk, correctly.
  - watwut 7y ago
    In this case, I do know. It the stories were similar, then it was not not knowing. In others, if you don't know, why does one assumes it was innocent situation that highlight how unclear everything is and required hindsight? It is real question btw, not rhetorical one. The older I am, the more I see how many of much lesser ethical conflict situations have not just red flags all over them, but clear breaches going on long before something blows. And how people like to not act on it all, because it benefits them. It is possible that innocent people are being framed in that or this situation. But the issues with rich psychopaths building impenetrable circles of enablers around them are not that situation. People willing to go there are given advantages and build further circles of people willing to support them around them too.

acdha 7y ago

Note that I said “read like” — nobody in this thread can know what you were actually thinking what I described is the most obvious way I saw that those comments would be interpreted in a down-vote worthy manner. It might be useful to clarify your intentions to avoid that, especially since there are a lot of people who feel betrayed right now.

watwut 7y ago

You said this: > It all highlights the difficult job facing people tasked with taking money from donors in this way. They won't always have 20/20 hindsight. It does not highlight that and no hindsight was needed. What was needed was to not go out of your way to conceal taking money you know you should not. You converted situation into completely different situation.

asveikau 7y ago
In quoting me, you cut off my comments mid-paragraph. That is removal of context. I described several hypotheticals, the hindsight question being one. Yes we can point at the misdeeds of Ito and others and they are awful. But there is a nonzero amount of people here that could fall into similar traps if they were in a position to accept millions from shady characters, which most of us aren't. If Ito, as bad as his acts were, had full realization of consequences (as he now does in hindsight), do you think he would have done this? I don't know the guy, but I am guessing not. That is not to exculpate him or trivialize or distract. He screwed up majorly.
- watwut 7y ago
  You mean, if he knew people will find out? Because that is only new information, really. Everything else was known at the time.
  - asveikau 7y ago
    It could also be that he knew some facts, but was too stupid to realize their significance until after it blows up on him. None of it is exculpatory, mind you.
    - mcguire 7y ago
      It could also be that Ito is actually a collective intelligence made up of squirrels concealed in a business suit. Both seem rather unlikely, though.
meerita 7y ago
But in these cases, how do you know?
- CrazyStat 7y ago
  In this case you know because Epstein already had a criminal conviction and MIT had already blacklisted him as a donor.
  - meerita 7y ago
    I mean before that. Obviously you cannot accept money from someone we discover is a criminal
  - asveikau 7y ago
    Here is one thing. If you want to get technical, without knowing everything we now know about Epstein, I am not sure a conviction is enough. MIT is not the criminal justice system. We now know that Epstein got a light sentence and the guy responsible had to quit his job in disgrace. But maybe not everybody knew this. Maybe he says, "yeah I did this thing, but I served my time blah blah, by the way please take this million dollars". And in the abstract, do you want to stigmatize every single convict or do you believe that some of them are reformed? Obviously Epstein was not, and MIT didn't want to take the risk, correctly.
- watwut 7y ago
  In this case, I do know. It the stories were similar, then it was not not knowing. In others, if you don't know, why does one assumes it was innocent situation that highlight how unclear everything is and required hindsight? It is real question btw, not rhetorical one. The older I am, the more I see how many of much lesser ethical conflict situations have not just red flags all over them, but clear breaches going on long before something blows. And how people like to not act on it all, because it benefits them. It is possible that innocent people are being framed in that or this situation. But the issues with rich psychopaths building impenetrable circles of enablers around them are not that situation. People willing to go there are given advantages and build further circles of people willing to support them around them too.