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Remember when MIT media Lab gave a civil disobedience award to bethann mclaughlin for some nebulous #metoo bs who since disgraced herself by LARPing as a fake N
by nangz 6y ago
Remember when MIT media Lab gave a civil disobedience award to bethann mclaughlin for some nebulous #metoo bs who since disgraced herself by LARPing as a fake Native American academic who died of covid?
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/08/twitter-account-embattled-metoostem-founder-suspended https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/08/twitter-account-emba...
Remember when they chased Aaron Swartz to commit suicide and never gave him a civil disobedience award?
Remember their extremely close links to Jeffrey Epstein?
Sorry but MIT media Lab is absolute trash and an embarrassment to the MIT name.
- saeranv 6y agoYeah, their treatment of Aaron Swartz was despicable, and extremely hypocritical.
- xdavidliu 6y agoI hope by "their" you mean "MIT's", not "MIT media lab's". MIT media lab wasn't particular responsible for the Aaron Swartz situation.
- sbierwagen 6y ago"Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- nangz 6y agoSorry, but organisations need to be held to account.
- techer 6y agoBut rarely are.
- saeranv 6y agoI think the parent comment is relevant since the blog post (and subsequent comments here) praises the hacker/anti-institutionalist mentality of the Media Lab. Yet when Schwartz practiced altruistic, civil disobedience in line with that sentiment, MIT's response was to sue him until he killed himself. They've done a lot of cool things that I'm into, but let's not whitewash history.
- geofft 6y agoThe only link between Aaron Swartz and the Media Lab is that they hosted his memorial service. Step one of not whitewashing history is to be accurate about it. You can't say that the Media Lab is an embarrassment to the MIT name when one of your pieces of evidence is that the rest of MIT - not the Media Lab - did something unconscionable. You can't hold organizations to account if your account is wrong. And that's the danger with unrelated controversies and tangents - all of a sudden we need to have a discussion about the substance of that controversy and tangent. The angrier you are about something, the more important - and harder - it is to target your anger appropriately. Anger is a great tool. Make sure it is hitting what you intend for it to hit. (In the interest of disclosure: I am an MIT alum who has never been particularly proud of my alma mater in general; I have no tie to the Media Lab.)
- saeranv 6y agoI could be wrong and am glad to be corrected if I am. It's not like I'm following MIT Media news all day. But did the Media Lab acknowledge and critique MIT for its actions? If so you're right, I shouldn't criticize the MIT Media Lab. But if not I consider them complicit. Re: the Disobedience Award. I did a google search to find the speech they gave where they discuss why they didn't give it to him. https://www.media.mit.edu/posts/reflections-on-the-disobedience-award/ https://www.media.mit.edu/posts/reflections-on-the-disobedie.... I'm glad they recognized his principled and disobedient activism, but there's no acknowledgement about MIT's role in his death, and ultimately they chose not to give him the award.
- geofft 6y ago
- ethanwillis 6y agoJust because you don't like it doesn't mean it's a flamewar topic. There's a new controversy coming out of MIT media lab every week and we need to question whether whatever "culture" they're putting out is actually worth emulating. And don't forget MIT pushed out Richard Stallman in regards to Epstein debate while ignoring people who knowingly took childfucking money.
- cinquemb 6y agoYeah… The sensitivities people have with the those mentioning rot and rampant prestige laundering in these institutions to the point its frowned on talking about it in association with the topic… banality of evil… lol
- ponker 6y agoI think "cancel culture" has gone too far in all respects but that Stallman email was beyond the pale and he deserved to get kicked out of MIT for writing that on an MIT mailing list.
- xdavidliu 6y agosome of your points, including regarding Epstein, are valid. However, unless I'm recalling incorrectly, the Aaron Swartz incident wasn't related to the Media lab in particular.
- GoodJokes 6y agoI would say MIT for all intents and purposes IS the MIT Media Lab. It is the thing the general public hears about the most. MIT has to own it. They do, and they love the exposure. MIT sold out a long time ago.
- mrgordon 6y agoYou realize the author of the linked article resigned over Epstein and frequently fought to improve things? Why try to link him to some trash that he vehemently opposed? And Swartz’s death was caused by JSTOR not the Media Lab FYI
- wombatpm 6y agoAnd MIT threw Adam to the wolves.
- tzs 6y ago> And Swartz’s death was caused by JSTOR Huh? What in JSTOR's behavior [1] do you think caused Swartz's death? [1] https://docs.jstor.org/summary.html https://docs.jstor.org/summary.html
- mrgordon 6y agoBy their own account, “We also reiterated our desire that MIT identify the individual(s) responsible” They pushed for aggressive chasing down of an individual for stealing some articles that were largely publicly funded as I recall. This escalated to the FBI and led to a laundry list of charges that scared him into suicide. Not great for some research we should have just had available for free after already paying to fund it once
- foldr 6y agoJSTOR has to at least make a show of respecting the licensing agreements that they have with publishers. It can't be seen to wink at an attempt to make its entire archive available for free. JSTOR actually does a ton of useful work scanning old journal articles. Someone has to pay for this.