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[deleted]

neffy 6y ago
Hard to say - but personally I think it's a positive that they went with an MIT^3. The Media Lab has many issues, but one of them is that it deliberately set itself aside from the main campus, and that attitude was part of what got them into this mess. You would also need to be an MIT insider to manage the byzantine way everybody does things there, and get moving quickly - an external person wouldn't have a chance on that score. More interestingly, I hope this is also a signal that Space is back on the agenda in the US.
- xhkkffbf 6y ago
  Yes, poor Joi Ito even felt the need to write some silly thesis to earn a doctorate just so he could fit in. But I don't see it as a positive. It just means more inbreeding. The goal for the Media Lab was to bring a different kind of person into MIT. Perhaps that was a mistake. Perhaps the flashy demos were rather superficial. But if this just going to turn into an outpost of her old department and some folks from material science, I don't see that as adding anything to MIT.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    I can see it both ways. Yes, they were always intended to be something different and were definitely the "new hotness" at one point. But, although good work has certainly come out of the Media Lab, when was the last time you saw them in the news other than for, well, that? Certainly not intended to be a knock on everyone at the Media Lab. But there was certainly a point when it was viewed as one of the places that was "inventing the future" as it said in the title of Stewart Brand's book. How much real impact has it had lately?
xhkkffbf 6y ago
Could I ask you to enumerate, now that we've had the distance of time, just what went wrong? As best I can tell, Ito wasn't guilty of doing rogue fundraising. The President of the University signed off -- literally -- on the gifts. The other folks who were angry struck me as particularly odd. The best was the visiting researcher who announced that he wasn't coming back after his contract was over -- and pretended that he was somehow quitting or making a statement or virtue signaling. So can you explain what I'm missing?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- whymauri 6y ago
  >The President of the University signed off -- literally -- on the gifts. They were both wrong in doing so. And the idea that Reif was a naïve first year college president does not make sense (an argument used to gaslight the MIT community). He'd spent years in positions of bureaucratic power at MIT and is masterful at playing Institute politics.
  - selfishgene 6y ago
    Mr. Reif allegedly was promoted to president of MIT for his role as then-provost of MIT in covering up a several hundred million dollar fraud in missile defense research at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, which some observers believe led Susan Hockfield to unexpectedly resign from her position as president of MIT when the university was forced to enter into a sealed settlement agreement with MIT Prof. Ted Postol under the threat of facing potential criminal obstruction of justice charges after a closed-door investigation by the Senate Armed Services Committee was opened and FBI agents were placed on notice. The idea that Mr. Reif was somehow a "naive" rookie in this game is pure nonsense ... he's earned his stripes for running a very well-greased protection racket, whether he's masterminding the cover-up of a massive fraud in the defense contracting business or laundering money from the sex-trafficking one.
- ghaff 6y ago
  >Ito wasn't guilty of doing rogue fundraising He sort of was. I don't remember all the details but he apparently deliberately obscured where the money was coming from. >The President of the University signed off As I recall, he did sign a routine thank you letter but it was a committee of three people in treasurer's office who actually OKd it. Two had already left and the EVP of finance resigned to do a pursue other interests sort of thing, presumably because he saw the writing on the wall. I would guess it was a very near thing for Reif but he didn't quite have his fingerprints on it.
- eddywebs 6y ago
  Ito knew all about money laundering - https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/07/business/mit-media-lab-jeffrey-epstein-joichi-ito.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/07/business/mit-media-lab-je...

[deleted]

Hard to say - but personally I think it's a positive that they went with an MIT^3. The Media Lab has many issues, but one of them is that it deliberately set itself aside from the main campus, and that attitude was part of what got them into this mess. You would also need to be an MIT insider to manage the byzantine way everybody does things there, and get moving quickly - an external person wouldn't have a chance on that score. More interestingly, I hope this is also a signal that Space is back on the agenda in the US.

xhkkffbf 6y ago
Yes, poor Joi Ito even felt the need to write some silly thesis to earn a doctorate just so he could fit in. But I don't see it as a positive. It just means more inbreeding. The goal for the Media Lab was to bring a different kind of person into MIT. Perhaps that was a mistake. Perhaps the flashy demos were rather superficial. But if this just going to turn into an outpost of her old department and some folks from material science, I don't see that as adding anything to MIT.
- ghaff 6y ago
  I can see it both ways. Yes, they were always intended to be something different and were definitely the "new hotness" at one point. But, although good work has certainly come out of the Media Lab, when was the last time you saw them in the news other than for, well, that? Certainly not intended to be a knock on everyone at the Media Lab. But there was certainly a point when it was viewed as one of the places that was "inventing the future" as it said in the title of Stewart Brand's book. How much real impact has it had lately?

xhkkffbf 6y ago

Could I ask you to enumerate, now that we've had the distance of time, just what went wrong? As best I can tell, Ito wasn't guilty of doing rogue fundraising. The President of the University signed off -- literally -- on the gifts. The other folks who were angry struck me as particularly odd. The best was the visiting researcher who announced that he wasn't coming back after his contract was over -- and pretended that he was somehow quitting or making a statement or virtue signaling. So can you explain what I'm missing?

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
whymauri 6y ago
>The President of the University signed off -- literally -- on the gifts. They were both wrong in doing so. And the idea that Reif was a naïve first year college president does not make sense (an argument used to gaslight the MIT community). He'd spent years in positions of bureaucratic power at MIT and is masterful at playing Institute politics.
- selfishgene 6y ago
  Mr. Reif allegedly was promoted to president of MIT for his role as then-provost of MIT in covering up a several hundred million dollar fraud in missile defense research at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, which some observers believe led Susan Hockfield to unexpectedly resign from her position as president of MIT when the university was forced to enter into a sealed settlement agreement with MIT Prof. Ted Postol under the threat of facing potential criminal obstruction of justice charges after a closed-door investigation by the Senate Armed Services Committee was opened and FBI agents were placed on notice. The idea that Mr. Reif was somehow a "naive" rookie in this game is pure nonsense ... he's earned his stripes for running a very well-greased protection racket, whether he's masterminding the cover-up of a massive fraud in the defense contracting business or laundering money from the sex-trafficking one.
ghaff 6y ago
>Ito wasn't guilty of doing rogue fundraising He sort of was. I don't remember all the details but he apparently deliberately obscured where the money was coming from. >The President of the University signed off As I recall, he did sign a routine thank you letter but it was a committee of three people in treasurer's office who actually OKd it. Two had already left and the EVP of finance resigned to do a pursue other interests sort of thing, presumably because he saw the writing on the wall. I would guess it was a very near thing for Reif but he didn't quite have his fingerprints on it.
eddywebs 6y ago
Ito knew all about money laundering - https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/07/business/mit-media-lab-jeffrey-epstein-joichi-ito.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/07/business/mit-media-lab-je...