4 ms·

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. T

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...
woofie11 6y ago
Well, Joi Ito came forward, apologized, and showed remorse, so he got canned. Seth Lloyd came forward, apologized, and showed extreme remorse, so he got severely disciplined. All the folks who went to Epstein's island and partook of the girls didn't even get mentioned in the "Factfinding report." The sin seems to be coming forward and apologizing. I know I'll get down-voted for this by MIT fanbois, but if you'd like to find photos of MIT faculty on Epstein's island, you'll find at least a half-dozen on archive.org for Epstein's various charities. MIT CSAIL shut down its mailing list because someone had the gall to raise the issue of Minsky, not so much because Minsky did anything wrong (he probably didn't), but because Minsky was conspicuously absent from Factfinding too. Have at it: http://factfindingjan2020.mit.edu/ http://factfindingjan2020.mit.edu/ I have a lot of insider information, but I'm only mentioning things which are public record at this point. A lot of people did a lot of wrong. The only ones who were punished were the ones who came forward. Stepping beyond public record, lots of NDAs and non-disparage agreements at MIT now... MIT is a cesspool of corruption these days. And yes, if you went to MIT and care about MIT, you should NOT be donating money. That leads to more corruption. You should be pushing for it to clean up, although it seems too late for that...
- Scheherazade 6y ago
  So the upper echelons of MIT are all-in on playing the shadowy political game. Is there any hope for alumni + some combination of other interests to alter the dim future of a once proud organization?
  - woofie11 6y ago
    Dunno. A possible set of steps: 1) Being able to connect and discuss openly. Probably the largest community mailing list at MIT -- the ancient csail-related mailing list, whose roots date back to the AI Lab days is gone after a thread titled "What is CSAIL's stance on Marvin Minsky?" (Minsky was on Epstein's island once, and one of the Epstein girls was pressured to offer herself; by Minsky's wife's account, he didn't take her up on it). MIT killed the whole list -- probably a half-century old community mailing list with thousands of people. I'm not sure how to recover from that. Keep in mind that MIT emails were also mined for evidence to cover up (also not a secret; just a buried open fact -- part of the "Factfinding" process was finding evidence and getting ahead of it, and MIT was straightforward that MIT private emails were now under surveillance -- and I presume they're still monitoring). I'm not sure how nasty MIT will get if people start organizing. Higher-ups are well-connected. 2) Letting folks know what's up. Keep in mind that a lot of the MIT community trusts the administration implicitly. A lot of school pride. And public evidence is mixed. 3) Reform. Ideally, across elite schools. These issues aren't unique to MIT. MIT is a leader in corruption, as it is in so many areas, but other schools are neck-and-neck, and others will follow. Working to block funding, pending transparency reforms. No more NDAs and non-disparage agreements. Make universities subject to FOIA-style requests. Implement open governance measures. Etc. Ideally, that would go for alumni donations, government grants, and foundation funding. 4) Providing a face-saving out. Sad to say, lots of people at MIT illicitly made millions of dollars. They're powerful and connected. A direct fight is unlikely to be successful. They're less likely to block reforms they feel less threatened by. Whether the future is dim or bright is hard to say. MIT has a massive endowment, and professors are very comfortable. My major concern is that we need an MIT-classic: a pre-brand-obsessed, low-key institute where nerds can nerd, build need things, do credible science, etc. Ideally, that'd be MIT again, post-reform. Less ideally, we'd take another institute and run with it. If all alumni donations went somewhere new, that'd be an option too: pick a school, and pending transparency and anti-corruption checks-and-balances, build it up. But I don't really know if that would do it, or if that's reasonable. Thoughts?

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...

woofie11 6y ago

Well, Joi Ito came forward, apologized, and showed remorse, so he got canned. Seth Lloyd came forward, apologized, and showed extreme remorse, so he got severely disciplined. All the folks who went to Epstein's island and partook of the girls didn't even get mentioned in the "Factfinding report." The sin seems to be coming forward and apologizing. I know I'll get down-voted for this by MIT fanbois, but if you'd like to find photos of MIT faculty on Epstein's island, you'll find at least a half-dozen on archive.org for Epstein's various charities. MIT CSAIL shut down its mailing list because someone had the gall to raise the issue of Minsky, not so much because Minsky did anything wrong (he probably didn't), but because Minsky was conspicuously absent from Factfinding too. Have at it: http://factfindingjan2020.mit.edu/ http://factfindingjan2020.mit.edu/ I have a lot of insider information, but I'm only mentioning things which are public record at this point. A lot of people did a lot of wrong. The only ones who were punished were the ones who came forward. Stepping beyond public record, lots of NDAs and non-disparage agreements at MIT now... MIT is a cesspool of corruption these days. And yes, if you went to MIT and care about MIT, you should NOT be donating money. That leads to more corruption. You should be pushing for it to clean up, although it seems too late for that...

Scheherazade 6y ago
So the upper echelons of MIT are all-in on playing the shadowy political game. Is there any hope for alumni + some combination of other interests to alter the dim future of a once proud organization?
- woofie11 6y ago
  Dunno. A possible set of steps: 1) Being able to connect and discuss openly. Probably the largest community mailing list at MIT -- the ancient csail-related mailing list, whose roots date back to the AI Lab days is gone after a thread titled "What is CSAIL's stance on Marvin Minsky?" (Minsky was on Epstein's island once, and one of the Epstein girls was pressured to offer herself; by Minsky's wife's account, he didn't take her up on it). MIT killed the whole list -- probably a half-century old community mailing list with thousands of people. I'm not sure how to recover from that. Keep in mind that MIT emails were also mined for evidence to cover up (also not a secret; just a buried open fact -- part of the "Factfinding" process was finding evidence and getting ahead of it, and MIT was straightforward that MIT private emails were now under surveillance -- and I presume they're still monitoring). I'm not sure how nasty MIT will get if people start organizing. Higher-ups are well-connected. 2) Letting folks know what's up. Keep in mind that a lot of the MIT community trusts the administration implicitly. A lot of school pride. And public evidence is mixed. 3) Reform. Ideally, across elite schools. These issues aren't unique to MIT. MIT is a leader in corruption, as it is in so many areas, but other schools are neck-and-neck, and others will follow. Working to block funding, pending transparency reforms. No more NDAs and non-disparage agreements. Make universities subject to FOIA-style requests. Implement open governance measures. Etc. Ideally, that would go for alumni donations, government grants, and foundation funding. 4) Providing a face-saving out. Sad to say, lots of people at MIT illicitly made millions of dollars. They're powerful and connected. A direct fight is unlikely to be successful. They're less likely to block reforms they feel less threatened by. Whether the future is dim or bright is hard to say. MIT has a massive endowment, and professors are very comfortable. My major concern is that we need an MIT-classic: a pre-brand-obsessed, low-key institute where nerds can nerd, build need things, do credible science, etc. Ideally, that'd be MIT again, post-reform. Less ideally, we'd take another institute and run with it. If all alumni donations went somewhere new, that'd be an option too: pick a school, and pending transparency and anti-corruption checks-and-balances, build it up. But I don't really know if that would do it, or if that's reasonable. Thoughts?