MIT Media Lab taking money from Epstein

[mamselle]

I agree. MIT does not fit in the "Impecunious, needs money any way they can get it" category.

He was buying expiation in his own mind, I think.

M.

[Hibush]

The narrow news sources I have read on the case imply that Epstein made money by exploiting his friends and acquaintances and spent money on his sex-trafficking operation. If that is accurate (a BIG if), then MIT was not taking profits from sex-trafficking, but less sleazy money. The distinction matters to many. We will learn more with time.

Raising philanthropic money is a rough business with a genteel image. Learning to navigate that world takes more candor than you usually find.

[mamselle]

Being part of a money-laundering scheme, I believe, is being suggested in the WSJ today as a culpable offense that could cover this issue, too.

Or maybe not, I can't open the whole article...just the first 2 paras...

M.

[polly_mer]

I guess it's just a moral difference. I would rather die penniless and starving than take money from someone who earned it raping children. And before you claim that I can say that in my privileged position, I have been homeless in the past, and lived off less than $1 a day in food, and was able to make moral decisions then. I guess my moral compass is wound a little too tight for some people, but for me I would not accept it no matter how much good it might do.

That's nice.  However, this seems to fall into the category of the people who protest all defense efforts because somehow we all have to be vulnerable because their moral compass indicates that all deaths are wrong, the people who insist that all information should be freely available regardless of how our enemies will use that information against us, and the people who insist that all software should be free to all users because individuals working hard to create the software aren't nearly as important as the masses.

My moral compass is wound so tightly enough that I can confidently walk past misguided protesters to do my job, which involves keeping people safe in a world filled with dangers.  Some of those dangers can be ameliorated if we have enough money and resources to do the research and then roll out the results.  My research matters every day because of how we're helping ameliorate the dangers.  No one should commit crimes to give us money, but we're absolutely taking money that is freely offered.

[pigou]

He was buying expiation in his own mind, I think.

I think this explains most large scale charitable giving. Many people who make large amounts of money feel (surprisingly?) guilty about it... and it's a win-win to schmooze them over and show how they can improve the lives of thousands of people by donating to your hospital/museum/village/research.

As for MIT having more than enough money... I don't know a single place where that's the case. Any kind of funding usually comes with restrictions on how it's used and there's a "grant review" process even for internal funding. That sucks up time and if you realize half way through that you need to hire a programmer, you're out of luck. And you can't just use some of the money to send your grad student to a statistics workshop or pay for their conference travel. Unrestricted gifts are nice exactly because they don't restrict what you can do with them.

[marshwiggle]

Being part of a money-laundering scheme, I believe, is being suggested in the WSJ today as a culpable offense that could cover this issue, too.

Or maybe not, I can't open the whole article...just the first 2 paras...

M.

I'm curious how giving works as money laundering; doesn't "giving" mean it only goes one way? And doesn't "laundering" require some way to exchange "dirty" money for "clean" money? I don't see how the "clean" money comes BACK from MIT in this case.

[pink_]

One of the things that gives me pause, in addition to the human-trafficking and sexual abuse of minors (as if that weren't bad enough) is Epstein's fondness for eugenics. Even if we can set aside the sex-trafficking (and that's a REALLY BIG IF), how does taking money from someone who openly espouses these views (see the NYT article that details his fascination with AI & genetic engineering https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/31/business/jeffrey-epstein-eugenics.html, in which he is quoted discussing his plans to "seed the human race with his DNA") not compromise the integrity of anyone claiming to be a scientist or tarnish the reputation of scientific labs or institutes?

[marshwiggle]

One of the things that gives me pause, in addition to the human-trafficking and sexual abuse of minors (as if that weren't bad enough) is Epstein's fondness for eugenics. Even if we can set aside the sex-trafficking (and that's a REALLY BIG IF), how does taking money from someone who openly espouses these views (see the NYT article that details his fascination with AI & genetic engineering https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/31/business/jeffrey-epstein-eugenics.html, in which he is quoted discussing his plans to "seed the human race with his DNA") not compromise the integrity of anyone claiming to be a scientist or tarnish the reputation of scientific labs or institutes?

There are organizations which serve to "anonymize" charitable donations. They are aimed at people who don't want to get on mailing lists, etc. so you can give them money, get the charitable receipt, but to the charity the gift will be completely anonymous. Should organizations refused these "anonymized" donations because of the possibility that the money is not "clean"?

[pigou]

One of the things that gives me pause, in addition to the human-trafficking and sexual abuse of minors (as if that weren't bad enough) is Epstein's fondness for eugenics. Even if we can set aside the sex-trafficking (and that's a REALLY BIG IF), how does taking money from someone who openly espouses these views (see the NYT article that details his fascination with AI & genetic engineering https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/31/business/jeffrey-epstein-eugenics.html, in which he is quoted discussing his plans to "seed the human race with his DNA") not compromise the integrity of anyone claiming to be a scientist or tarnish the reputation of scientific labs or institutes?

What's your view of Planned Parenthood? The founder had ties to the Eugenics movement (free abortion -> fewer poor/black children). Many family planning nonprofits today target poor people in developing countries, where the idea is that fewer children is a good thing for economic development. Mind you, there's a case to be made for promoting fertility choices that doesn't rely on Eugenics or racism... but should these organizations launch an inquiry into the political views of each of their donors? Because some of them might care more about "fewer black people" than they do about the fertility choices of poor, black women.

Unrelated, but just odd:

Another scientist cultivated by Mr. Epstein, Jaron Lanier, a prolific author who is a founder of virtual reality, said that Mr. Epstein's ideas did not amount to science, in that they did not lend themselves to rigorous proof. Mr. Lanier said Mr. Epstein had once hypothesized that atoms behaved like investors in a marketplace.

Stock prices are modeled as Brownian motion with upward drift and stock prices are determined by investors in a marketplace. Auction theory also borrows from astrophysics to create practically useful things like the FCC wireless spectrum auctions (which raise billions of dollars for the federal government). Whether any insights from finance in turn could inform physicists (since the quote seems to imply the other direction)... well, all depends on how smart you think the MIT Physics PhDs who end up working at hedge funds are. I wouldn't file it under "crackpot science."

Similarly, the morality of gene editing isn't that clear-cut either. You could argue that forcing a child to go through life with a disease that could have been prevented is unethical, too. And in fact there are deaf parents who purposefully select deaf children. In any case, funding research into gene editing doesn't seem an outrageous ethical violation -- and that's why there are federal grants for it, too.

[Diogenes]

He wasn't just "into" eugenics. He had some crazy super villain sci-fi dystopian plan to seed the human race with his DNA https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/31/business/jeffrey-epstein-eugenics.html

Refusing dirty money does happen. I don't want to disclose too much info (to remain anonymous) but in my state, a person who makes their millions off the private immigration concentration camps was asked to resign from non-profit boards and told their money was no longer good at at least one major non-profit. And these non-profits have no direct connection to immigration issues.