Normally, organizations accept anonymous donations from people because of modesty or privacy -- the donors don't want their name on the wall or in the press. They have a mechanism for that called "anonymous donations", but the mechanism isn't meant to guarantee that no reputational benefits at all can be gotten by the donor.
In this case, several people knew he had donated to MIT and he invited professors to his dinners to show off to his friends, so there were substantial reputational benefits.
Lessig's utilitarian calculus doesn't convince me it's OK to take money anonymously from villains.
Concur with this. According to friends who works in the university's development department, anonymous donations are often used by people whose kids will attend , or are attending the university. So it's the parents' way of being discrete w/o outing their kids as "undeserving".
Right, his identity may have been concealed from MIT's accounting department, but when it came to getting personal/social access to MIT professors, it's clear people were aware he was contributing to their program.
> Lessig's utilitarian calculus doesn't convince me it's OK to take money anonymously from villains.
Meh. It's not OK, but it's not that bad either. Even if what Ito did was wrong, which at least with hindsight it clearly was, the guy is still a hero.
Even the allegations about him using his position to raise LP money for his fund is somewhat dubious, given that he's much more famous for being a venture capitalist than he is for running the media lab; it's literally why he was hired for that job in the first place. It was bad judgment, and maybe he deserved to get fired for it, but as scandals go it's fairly benign.
The article seems to imply at points that power and influence won't accrue much as a result of anonymous donations, which I think is wrong. You lose the public prestige, sure, but the powerful people behind the scenes know you donated, as with Media Lab, and that power and influence isn't much diminished. In fact it's the behind the scenes type of power that can be the most effective and, as we see with Epstein, most corrosive.
Anonymity may shield the recipient from reputational damage of associating with a bad actor, but doesn't take away all of the benefits to the donor.
I saw another article like this about MIT recently. I have a really hard time taking the discussion as a whole seriously, because it kind of feels like bike-shedding as compared to "How are we going to grill some of the people who really, actually deserve it?"
On the list of priorities, reprimanding labs and schools for taking donations seems like it should not be coming first.
Isn't that the exact opposite of what the article says? The article is pretty clear that anonymity did not reduce his power at all, precisely for the reason you described.
It did suggest it might work if the recipient was not aware of who the money was from, but makes it clear that was not the case here.
You know what you should not do if you really believe "the money gets put to a better use, and they don’t get to accumulate prestige or connections from the donation because the public wouldn’t know about it."
> The financier would meet with faculty members, apparently to allow him to give input on projects…
(from the New Yorker article).
Also, if you know you are violating the policies of MIT's central fund-raising office, and you are taking active steps to HIDE it from them... you can say you just had a different philosophy of philanthropy than them, and this was so important to you that you were willing to violate MIT's policies and risk whatever consequences if found out...
...but come on, we all know it's just plain greed.
I don't think these are sincere philosophical beliefs about philanthropy, I think they are just the rationalizations that the powerful and greedy tell themselves to avoid admitting it's just about power and greed.
The evidence it was all about greed is that Epstein gave Ito's investment funds $1.6 million, more than TWICE the amount of money than the chump change Epstein gave to Media Lab in exchange for highly discounted reputation and a cast of academic celebrities to parade at his parties.
Epstein bribed Ito with more than 200% commission to make the other cash-for-reputation deal, which they both knew they must covered up at all cost, because Media Lab would pay with its reputation when discovered.
Of all the people to take Epstein's money or endorse him with their reputation, of all the slimy people, of all the career politicians, we've decided to mainly just fixate and ruin the life of one well-intentioned nerd who wanted to use the money for research.
I hope everyone feels fuzzy and warm with their self-righteousness. Evil is defeated once more -- and you all helped -- with your brave internet shaming and directed anger. Truly, we live in marvelous times, where we can all gather together online and use the decentralized social networks to conspire and destroy.
Of course, no one here could hope to destroy those who are truly powerful and deserving, so instead every once in a while perhaps we can pick off one of the weaker ones.
But he deserved it! And that's why we write and focus on it, right? What else do people deserve? What else could we have done with this time and energy? Anything greater? If so, why didn't we? Perhaps it's because destroying people feels good -- it's fun.
What makes you think he was well-intentioned? He deliberately hid his actions. They sent Epstein a Disobedience Prize orb!
What makes you think he was powerless? He was on the board of the MIT Media Lab, The New York Times, The MacArthur Foundation, The Knight Foundation among other things.
He's exactly the kind of person who should be held accountable for their actions.
"If a donation is anonymous, the theory goes — that is, anonymous to the public — the giver cannot accrue any prestige or social capital from it."
OTOH, it at least helps the anonymous 'givers' to feel a bit consecrated about their nefarious actions. Also it helps the prestigious 'takers', capable of ignoring the smell of it, to cloak their taint.
The rationalization that 'it's okay if noone knows' seems more like something for, say, a bank than for an academic institution. And the smell hangs around. It might lead to things like, say, rigged admissions standards. Or the unfortunate suicides of bright young stars.
What Lessig's piece seemed to completely ignore (and what this seems to touch on but never quite state plainly) is that under the conditions of anonymity where someone can't use their donations to launder their reputation, someone like Epstein would have never made the sort of donation he made. The only thing that anonymity did here was to shield MIT from accountability; Epstein still got the benefits of such a large donation.
Cognitive dissonance at work. I really want to take the money, so I will come up with all sorts of rationalizations, and subconsciously I will adopt those beliefs strongly, because the alternative is not being able to face myself in the mirror.
The question I have is this: how did Jeffrey Epstein get his money in the first place? And once he acquired it, how did people accept it from him knowing his behavior?
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!”
-Upton Sinclair
I think most people from the outside could see the problem in accepting donations from Epstein. People at the Media Lab (with some very notable exceptions) allowed their desire for money to get the better of their judgment.
Arwa Michelle Mboya is an early and very notable exception: an example of a person at the Media Lab with good judgement. She called for his resignation on August 23, and wrote the guest column "Why Joi Ito needs to resign" published in The Tech on August 29.
Arwa Michelle Mboya - @RuMboya:
The MIT @medialab was nicknamed “The Future Factory” by @60Minutes . We are supposed to reflect the future, not just of technology but of society. I’m fighting for the #FutureOfWomen when I call for Joi Ito’s resignation.
1:38 AM · Aug 23, 2019
OPINION GUEST COLUMN:
Why Joi Ito needs to resign.
We need to set a standard that ensures a safe future for women where money will never be seen as more valuable than their lives. By Arwa Mboya, Aug. 29, 2019.
Ito’s resignation was necessary for the greater good, Mboya suggested. “This is not an MIT issue, and this is not a Joi Ito issue. This is an international issue where a global network of powerful individuals have used their influence to secure their privilege at the expense of women’s bodies and lives.”
After Ito resigned, Mboyo told The Washongton Post, “I feel vindicated, like I’m not crazy.” Ito is to blame for his actions, but others are to blame for allowing his actions to continue, she wrote in the guest column.
[...]
“We have a bad history of forgiving talented men who wield power,” Mboyo wrote. “If there is no accountability for the people who bolster men like Epstein, sexual violence against powerless people will continue.”
Mboyo is from Kenya. “I’m a young black woman (running the risk of being called ‘angry’ or ‘crazy’ for speaking up),” she wrote. “On the ladder of power, I am on a very low rung. That said, I am educated, I am smart, and I have a voice … I at least have the power to advocate for the girls and women who couldn’t speak out when they were raped and abused. I have the power to say no to a director who chose not only to ignore the accusations but to lie about his involvement as well. I can say that I am part of the #MeTooSTEM movement and will not be silent.”
There's an easy answer for this, although it's uncomfortable for the Epsteins of the world. Simply formalize the entire process. Have a dedicated system for handling not just Very Important People, but Very Rich Assholes. When VRAs want to give money, make it clear that the money will be marked as from "an anoymous piece of shit" rather than "a generous donor". When they want to walk around the lab, make it clear that they'll be wearing a nametag with "VRA" printed in big red letters.
Sure, take money from child slavers if you must, but don't glorify them or even give them the decency of polite society. Mark them for who they are, if you know it.
I like this sentiment, but the lab's behavior is antithetical to Lessig's argument. For unsavory benefactors there should be no tours, no VIP badges, no meetings with senior staff, no visits or honor of any kind. An invitation to the campus degrades the university's reputation. His presence in the lab is offensive to decent people.
Nobody should be trying to cover for the Media Lab in any way or form. If you're a professional and you take money in this way you are complicit, period.
An article claiming Epstein was a victim because pedophiles and rapists are "victims" would have been less vapid than what Vox focuses on in this article.
Hey! I'm the article author, and I didn't write about what the Media Lab was thinking to give them "cover". As I put it in the article, the Media Lab's actions were so horrific that it brings into question the whole philosophy behind anonymous donations. So why take a close look at their justifications? Well, a couple reasons. Firstly, I think it's interesting when smart people argue themselves into incredibly bad decisions that anyone could've warned them against. It's an easy failure mode to fall into, and looking in gruesome detail at some cases where other people fell into it has taught me a lot about how these failures happen.
Secondly, I think that condemnation hits harder when it's the result of sincere engagement with someone's justifications. Yep, I listened to you when you said why you did it. And you were wrong. It's not always worth taking that step, of course, but in a big case like this, I think it is.
Did you read the same article I did? I feel like the article said the opposite of what you are saying it did... the article pretty strongly says that Media Lab was in the wrong and the argument that the donations were anonymous and therefore ok were completely wrong.
tlb|6 years ago
In this case, several people knew he had donated to MIT and he invited professors to his dinners to show off to his friends, so there were substantial reputational benefits.
Lessig's utilitarian calculus doesn't convince me it's OK to take money anonymously from villains.
xiaolingxiao|6 years ago
partialrecall|6 years ago
HillaryBriss|6 years ago
Alex3917|6 years ago
Meh. It's not OK, but it's not that bad either. Even if what Ito did was wrong, which at least with hindsight it clearly was, the guy is still a hero.
Even the allegations about him using his position to raise LP money for his fund is somewhat dubious, given that he's much more famous for being a venture capitalist than he is for running the media lab; it's literally why he was hired for that job in the first place. It was bad judgment, and maybe he deserved to get fired for it, but as scandals go it's fairly benign.
ineedasername|6 years ago
Anonymity may shield the recipient from reputational damage of associating with a bad actor, but doesn't take away all of the benefits to the donor.
seph-reed|6 years ago
On the list of priorities, reprimanding labs and schools for taking donations seems like it should not be coming first.
cortesoft|6 years ago
It did suggest it might work if the recipient was not aware of who the money was from, but makes it clear that was not the case here.
pesmhey|6 years ago
jrochkind1|6 years ago
> The financier would meet with faculty members, apparently to allow him to give input on projects…
(from the New Yorker article).
Also, if you know you are violating the policies of MIT's central fund-raising office, and you are taking active steps to HIDE it from them... you can say you just had a different philosophy of philanthropy than them, and this was so important to you that you were willing to violate MIT's policies and risk whatever consequences if found out...
...but come on, we all know it's just plain greed.
I don't think these are sincere philosophical beliefs about philanthropy, I think they are just the rationalizations that the powerful and greedy tell themselves to avoid admitting it's just about power and greed.
DonHopkins|6 years ago
Epstein bribed Ito with more than 200% commission to make the other cash-for-reputation deal, which they both knew they must covered up at all cost, because Media Lab would pay with its reputation when discovered.
msghacq|6 years ago
https://www.philanthropy.com/article/whistle-blower-tells-th...
Media Lab knew exactly what they were doing.
nyolfen|6 years ago
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2019/09/10/former-mit-medi...
natalyarostova|6 years ago
I hope everyone feels fuzzy and warm with their self-righteousness. Evil is defeated once more -- and you all helped -- with your brave internet shaming and directed anger. Truly, we live in marvelous times, where we can all gather together online and use the decentralized social networks to conspire and destroy.
Of course, no one here could hope to destroy those who are truly powerful and deserving, so instead every once in a while perhaps we can pick off one of the weaker ones.
But he deserved it! And that's why we write and focus on it, right? What else do people deserve? What else could we have done with this time and energy? Anything greater? If so, why didn't we? Perhaps it's because destroying people feels good -- it's fun.
malvosenior|6 years ago
What makes you think he was powerless? He was on the board of the MIT Media Lab, The New York Times, The MacArthur Foundation, The Knight Foundation among other things.
He's exactly the kind of person who should be held accountable for their actions.
vernie|6 years ago
bbanyc|6 years ago
8bitsrule|6 years ago
OTOH, it at least helps the anonymous 'givers' to feel a bit consecrated about their nefarious actions. Also it helps the prestigious 'takers', capable of ignoring the smell of it, to cloak their taint.
The rationalization that 'it's okay if noone knows' seems more like something for, say, a bank than for an academic institution. And the smell hangs around. It might lead to things like, say, rigged admissions standards. Or the unfortunate suicides of bright young stars.
cwyers|6 years ago
fmajid|6 years ago
unknown|6 years ago
[deleted]
jdkee|6 years ago
RcouF1uZ4gsC|6 years ago
-Upton Sinclair
I think most people from the outside could see the problem in accepting donations from Epstein. People at the Media Lab (with some very notable exceptions) allowed their desire for money to get the better of their judgment.
DonHopkins|6 years ago
Arwa Michelle Mboya - @RuMboya: The MIT @medialab was nicknamed “The Future Factory” by @60Minutes . We are supposed to reflect the future, not just of technology but of society. I’m fighting for the #FutureOfWomen when I call for Joi Ito’s resignation. 1:38 AM · Aug 23, 2019
https://twitter.com/RuMboya/status/1164683383815004160
OPINION GUEST COLUMN: Why Joi Ito needs to resign. We need to set a standard that ensures a safe future for women where money will never be seen as more valuable than their lives. By Arwa Mboya, Aug. 29, 2019.
https://thetech.com/2019/08/29/joi-ito-needs-to-resign
MIT Media Lab People: Arwa Michelle Mboya. Civic Media.
https://www.media.mit.edu/people/mboya/overview/
How Grad Student Arwa Mboya Helped Bring Down The Epstein Coverup At The MIT Media Lab
https://moguldom.com/225575/how-grad-student-arwa-mboya-help...
Ito’s resignation was necessary for the greater good, Mboya suggested. “This is not an MIT issue, and this is not a Joi Ito issue. This is an international issue where a global network of powerful individuals have used their influence to secure their privilege at the expense of women’s bodies and lives.”
After Ito resigned, Mboyo told The Washongton Post, “I feel vindicated, like I’m not crazy.” Ito is to blame for his actions, but others are to blame for allowing his actions to continue, she wrote in the guest column.
[...]
“We have a bad history of forgiving talented men who wield power,” Mboyo wrote. “If there is no accountability for the people who bolster men like Epstein, sexual violence against powerless people will continue.”
Mboyo is from Kenya. “I’m a young black woman (running the risk of being called ‘angry’ or ‘crazy’ for speaking up),” she wrote. “On the ladder of power, I am on a very low rung. That said, I am educated, I am smart, and I have a voice … I at least have the power to advocate for the girls and women who couldn’t speak out when they were raped and abused. I have the power to say no to a director who chose not only to ignore the accusations but to lie about his involvement as well. I can say that I am part of the #MeTooSTEM movement and will not be silent.”
lidHanteyk|6 years ago
Sure, take money from child slavers if you must, but don't glorify them or even give them the decency of polite society. Mark them for who they are, if you know it.
raisedbyninjas|6 years ago
olefoo|6 years ago
I think Sarah Taber said it best though.
""" I think the best lens to understand what was going on here isn't just "reputation laundering."
The Media Lab's leadership catered to a superiority fetish in exchange for cash.
That's sex work """
https://twitter.com/SarahTaber_bww/status/117193193908069171...
partialrecall|6 years ago
What a weird lab.
wutangson1|6 years ago
unknown|6 years ago
[deleted]
algaeontoast|6 years ago
An article claiming Epstein was a victim because pedophiles and rapists are "victims" would have been less vapid than what Vox focuses on in this article.
nosseo|6 years ago
Secondly, I think that condemnation hits harder when it's the result of sincere engagement with someone's justifications. Yep, I listened to you when you said why you did it. And you were wrong. It's not always worth taking that step, of course, but in a big case like this, I think it is.
cortesoft|6 years ago