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Depending on how far up the ladder the people behind Epstein are, all education institutions in the US maybe are vulnerable as long as Washington has any contro

Depending on how far up the ladder the people behind Epstein are, all education institutions in the US maybe are vulnerable as long as Washington has any control over them. Which would really mean every current and potential institution in the US would be at risk from asymmetrical shadowy maneuvering. i.e. if there truly were folks pulling Epstein’s strings through the CIA/Mossad/etc., then they will do anything to preserve and expand their capabilities including tolerating a boundless amount of corruption within academia. Since it’s very likely they’ve already been intimidating federal judges, offing journalists, undermining NIST, undermining the NSF, etc., disrupting newMIT would be peanuts compared to that. If all that turns out to be the case, the US won’t be able to support such a genuine organization without very powerful backers to shield it behind-the-scenes. Maybe if all the influential tech folks combined and really were motivated to resist those sorts of influences. For complete protection from a motivated Epstein+ level of intrigue from Washington, I can only think of Russia and China, which aren’t very promising either. They can hardly be expected to be more open to intellectual freedom this century, in practice, unless there were some geopolitical goals they could achieve through it. That leaves only a decentralized and anonymous option if you want to be able to completely ignore political maneuvering. Perhaps some sort of blockchain+ combined with some sort of trust network scoring to make anonymity workable. A neutral middle power option with a minimal amount of careful maneuvering is also possible. Though of course Canada/Australia/Japan/Norway/Switzerland/etc. are not immune to these things, they certainly increase the bar, at least from forces outside their borders, such that with only a bit of precaution and vigilance situations like this can be avoided without calling in favors from power brokers. As middle sized countries they don’t have nearly as motivation to play these shadow games themselves. In all likelihood a newMIT based in the US would need some seriously powerful backers to run proactive interference if the wrong crowd really wants to undermine it. Which suggests why current MIT may have fallen into the quagmire they’re in. In this light the decision makers at MIT, of those at any of the big research schools, are tragic actors; they have no hope without playing the same game, or reforming the whole of society.

woofie11 6y ago
I care less about national-level conspiracies and the deep government as I do about my alma mater. Harvard, as far as I can tell, was pretty straightforward. MIT lied and covered up. Whatever dynamics apply to MIT certainly apply to Harvard. That culture extends way beyond Epstein. If a well-connected researcher fakes research, everyone signs an NDA and moves on too. That has no national level dynamics. I'd just like an honest MIT back. And I'd like to be able to trust all the elite schools. Yes, once in a while, man in black suits might sweep in and classify something, but that shouldn't be the modus operandi. And in this case, I don't think MIT was nearly important enough to have been bullied by anyone. As far as I know, MIT was protecting its senior officials, not anyone else.
- Scheherazade 6y ago
  The key difference is that MIT had someone with decision making authority admit it to it on the record, i.e. Joi Ito, whereas Harvard did not. This is precisely what gave the whole Epstein debacle some fresh oxygen. In fact it may have been what tipped mostly vague conspiracy theories into a critical mass of undeniable reality. Although there definitely were numerous folks at Harvard also doing dubious things they simply closed ranks and didn’t say anything substantial. They almost certainly are less straightforward than the MediaLab crowd, after all they have far more to lose since it was done directly under the school administration and not a semi-autonomous entity. Doesn’t that seem like a very strong incentive for certain folks to do something to MIT? At the very least to discourage anyone at Harvard from getting funny ideas in their old age, and to encourage in the future immediate responses like Harvard and discourage another Ito when something like this happens again. Because there probably are even more damaging things under wraps than the worst fantasies Epstein had, as another commenter alluded to with strange accounting anomalies of Defense research money in the several hundred million range, i.e that a significant percentage of the money going to MIT from the DoD was shady. If you extrapolate that to a nationwide scale, that’s a lot of billions going who knows where.
  - woofie11 6y ago
    ... I think you missed how this played out at Harvard. The Harvard administration -- exaggerating only a little bit -- said "Yes, we took a bunch of money from Epstein, yes we gave him an office, and by golly, we're not giving any of it back and if we had a mulligan, we'd do it all over again just the same way." Of course, they used more erudite, PC language to say that, but that's in effect what Harvard did. Perhaps you might not like it, but it had the virtue of being honest. They did pull back a little bit from that stance, upon taking flack for it, but at the end of the day, not a lot. MIT, in contrast, bullied, covered-up, and intimidated. It's a different type of corruption, but I prefer the open and honest Harvard type of corruption.

woofie11 6y ago

I care less about national-level conspiracies and the deep government as I do about my alma mater. Harvard, as far as I can tell, was pretty straightforward. MIT lied and covered up. Whatever dynamics apply to MIT certainly apply to Harvard. That culture extends way beyond Epstein. If a well-connected researcher fakes research, everyone signs an NDA and moves on too. That has no national level dynamics. I'd just like an honest MIT back. And I'd like to be able to trust all the elite schools. Yes, once in a while, man in black suits might sweep in and classify something, but that shouldn't be the modus operandi. And in this case, I don't think MIT was nearly important enough to have been bullied by anyone. As far as I know, MIT was protecting its senior officials, not anyone else.

Scheherazade 6y ago
The key difference is that MIT had someone with decision making authority admit it to it on the record, i.e. Joi Ito, whereas Harvard did not. This is precisely what gave the whole Epstein debacle some fresh oxygen. In fact it may have been what tipped mostly vague conspiracy theories into a critical mass of undeniable reality. Although there definitely were numerous folks at Harvard also doing dubious things they simply closed ranks and didn’t say anything substantial. They almost certainly are less straightforward than the MediaLab crowd, after all they have far more to lose since it was done directly under the school administration and not a semi-autonomous entity. Doesn’t that seem like a very strong incentive for certain folks to do something to MIT? At the very least to discourage anyone at Harvard from getting funny ideas in their old age, and to encourage in the future immediate responses like Harvard and discourage another Ito when something like this happens again. Because there probably are even more damaging things under wraps than the worst fantasies Epstein had, as another commenter alluded to with strange accounting anomalies of Defense research money in the several hundred million range, i.e that a significant percentage of the money going to MIT from the DoD was shady. If you extrapolate that to a nationwide scale, that’s a lot of billions going who knows where.
- woofie11 6y ago
  ... I think you missed how this played out at Harvard. The Harvard administration -- exaggerating only a little bit -- said "Yes, we took a bunch of money from Epstein, yes we gave him an office, and by golly, we're not giving any of it back and if we had a mulligan, we'd do it all over again just the same way." Of course, they used more erudite, PC language to say that, but that's in effect what Harvard did. Perhaps you might not like it, but it had the virtue of being honest. They did pull back a little bit from that stance, upon taking flack for it, but at the end of the day, not a lot. MIT, in contrast, bullied, covered-up, and intimidated. It's a different type of corruption, but I prefer the open and honest Harvard type of corruption.