Wikipedia Sucks!

http://news.mit.edu/2019/letter-regarding-jeffrey-epstein-and-mit-0822
https://www.media.mit.edu/posts/my-apology-regarding-jeffrey-epstein/

Having ANY connection to Epstein is deeply embarrassing, and sadly for the "East Coast Elite", many of them do. Epstein's foundation spread a lot of money around during the 1990s and early 2000s.

Note that short squibs about this have already been added to former WMF advisor Joi Ito and Seth Lloyd. I might note that Ethan Zuckerman, longtime lover of Wikipedia and former WMF Advisory Board member, just left the MIT Media Lab thanks to this scandal. (It is mentioned in the Ito article, oddly enough, but with no explanation. You have to Google it. Turns out he quit the Lab in disgust with Ito's acceptance of money from Epstein.)

It is still not mentioned in Zuckerman's article, though. Probably because he's a WMF Butt-Buddy from way back, and Nothing Bad Ever Happens To Jimbolovers.

We could always take wagers on which Epstein Pals will continue to receive good treatment on WP, and which will not. I suspect it might relate to their public love for the WP cult. Figuring out a list requires going thru the lists of members of the Berkman Center, Creative Commons, the Sunlight Foundation, and other Jimbo-loving organizations. This would be a big job--anyone who wants to take it on is welcome to proceed.

Have a list of prominent scientists (who all got $$$ from Epstein) to watch. I don't see any of them sending the money back. (Apart from Minsky who's been dead for a while.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_M._Krauss
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Smolin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kip_Thorne
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_Benford
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Wilczek
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Edelman
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvin_Minsky

Nowak's article already mentions the Epstein funding.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Nowak

Not a surprise in this stinking dump and digital slump. Not at all, Eric.

Having ANY connection to Epstein is deeply embarrassing

Can't agree more. And any decent person should.

Having ANY connection to Epstein is deeply embarrassing

Even Prince Andrew is looking worried.

Dysklyver wrote:Even Prince Andrew is looking worried.

Haha, the Andrew article talks at length about Epstein and mentions the non-attorney-client connections to Alan Dershowitz. But there STILL is no mention of Dershowitz's "Epstein problem" in the WP article. I continue to think that WP insiders are protecting Dershowitz.

The same month, Virginia Roberts Giuffre made allegations of sexual impropriety against the Duke in court papers related to a civil action in Florida arising from her connection to the Epstein case, but to which the Duke was not a party. Roberts claimed that the Duke was among men, including "a former prime minister" and Alan Dershowitz, who had sex with her while she was a teenager.....Dershowitz said, "she's lied about me ... she should not be believed about anyone else ... it must be presumed all her allegations against Prince Andrew were false as well."[50] Dershowitz initiated legal proceedings contesting the allegations and he and Epstein are suing the lawyers representing Roberts.[38][51] In response Virginia Roberts stated she would not "be bullied back into silence."[52]

Yeah whatever

https://www.wikipediasucks.co/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=695

Great article about Epstein, blackmail, and his connections to the Mob, Roy Cohn etc.

https://www.mintpressnews.com/shocking- ... hn/260621/

Dysklyver wrote:

Having ANY connection to Epstein is deeply embarrassing

Even Prince Andrew is looking worried.

I don't think the Queen mum will be very amused, Dysk. On the other hand you can't blame the rest of the family for the stupidities of one family member and the new royal generation is totally different. Also in Holland but not a word wrong of them because they are a example of what Noblesse oblige Integrity is. But Beatrix heeft dat erin geslagen, just like my dad did. Integrity is the greatest gift e a parent can give to his or her child, and not only royals and professors must give that gift to there children but everyone.

Jeffrey Epstein. It was a honey pot he had created, he knew the weakness of man. Also a Hotel Caifonia. De geest is gewillig maar het vlees is zwak.

Integrity is a struggle with yourself Dysk, both for man and woman. And sometimes a difficult one and Prince Andrew lost him.

TWO WEEKS LATER, the news media finally noticed Ito's resignation.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/09/director-mit-media-lab-joichi-ito-resigns-jeffrey-epstein.html

Ito has been a board member of the New York Times since 2012. He is also on the board of the MacArthur Foundation and the Knight Foundation.

No shit, obviously he's Mr. Suck-Up. He resigned from THOSE jobs too, after the Epstein Shitriver rolled over him.
https://gizmodo.com/mit-media-lab-director-joichi-ito-resigns-after-financi-1837959756
I like this part:

Though he apologized for accepting Epstein’s money at a meeting last week, one of the Media Lab’s co-founders, Nicholas Negroponte, reportedly stood up near the end of the meeting and said he had advised Ito to take the funding and would make the decision again. Negroponte’s remarks were widely seen as making the already considerable tensions over Ito’s conduct much worse.

Oh btw: FIVE DAYS after I posted that remark about Zuckerman's article, a paragraph about the resignation "mysteriously appeared". The nerds ARE watching this forum.
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ethan_Zuckerman&diff=912794193&oldid=910368511

Oh look, SOMEONE noticed that the much-vaunted MIT Media Lab has "problems". 30 years of sucking-up to the media, and NOW there are "problems".

The MIT Media Lab's moral rot

This only happened because Ito's resignation made the front page of the New York Times on Friday. As usual, it became "too hot to ignore".

In the comments for the Slate article is this priceless "burn":

I love all this moral outrage from Justin Peters, the man who boasted here at Slate that he was responsible for abusing LL Bean's return policy:
https://slate.com/business/2018/02/l-l- ... fault.html
So much for the letter, rather than the spirit, of the law.

For the record: I figured out that Negroponte was a narcissistic, money-grubbing, arrogant bastard long ago--it was obvious, especially in the hagiographies WIRED magazine ran in the 1990s. Funny how many of our "great leaders" turn out to be little dictators. With public-relations firms and corporate types applying their slurpy mouths to genitals constantly. Then giving large checks to Great Leader. (Kinda like Wikimedia today in fact.) Corporate funding of academia has been routine for more than a century and can't be escaped by now. But taking money from Jeffy Epstein, a known pedophile......creeeeepy.

Other than Lego Mindstorms and the OLPC project (which apparently died out), I can't think of ANY major commercial products that came out of the Media Lab. Anyone else?

This stuff was added to the article starting on August 21. You just KNOW that people are sitting around and thinking "well, did the "great digerati" Joi Ito go to Epstein's mansions and "avail" himself of the teenaged girls?" People are salacious creatures, and love sleazy gossip far more than they love digital gizmos the Media Lab may have been involved with. Inevitably this story ends up dirtying people, absurd as it all is. This is the first time ANYONE inserted negative information into the Media Lab article on WP, because (OF COURSE) Ito and his wife were longtime "Wikimedia Friends".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_Media_Lab#Connections_to_Jeffrey_Epstein

From the book wiki's "Autobiographies" list, a note I wrote back in 2012:

Joi Ito
Repeatedly edited his own biography. One of the world's most connected "digerati", he is on the Board of Trustees of Creative Commons, and on the boards of directors of a number of major corporations. And in May 2010, his wife Mimi became a member of the Wikimedia Foundation's Advisory Board. (Yes, he also edited Mimi Ito.)

Larry Lessig, the god of "open licensing" and a Jimbo-pal since the early 2000s, tries to defend Joi Ito--and gives up. Because Lessig himself was molested in grade school.

https://medium.com/@lessig/on-joi-and-mit-3cb422fe5ae7

This is still early days in an ugly sequence of events. Ito is just minor collateral damage.

And so now Joi is gone. Not dead. Not destroyed. I can’t imagine the creative greatness that the next life of this sweet soul will produce. It will be greatness beyond measure, no doubt, again.

Jesus christ, someone fetch me a vomit bucket.

On 2nd thought, don't bother--Lessig is being pilloried in the comment section. Wonder if he's even been the target of so much berserk rage before, and if he can even understand why.

Speaking of a pile-on, here's longtime Wikipedia critic Evgeny Morozov discussing the Ito fiasco--in the pages of the Guardian, Jimbo's favorite UK newspaper:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/sep/07/jeffrey-epstein-mit-funding-tech-intellectuals

The ugly collective picture of the techno-elites that emerges from the Epstein scandal reveals them as a bunch of morally bankrupt opportunists. To treat their ideas as genuine but wrong is too generous; the only genuine thing about them is their fakeness. Big tech and its apologists do produce the big thoughts – alas, mostly accidental byproducts of them chasing the big bucks.

Wait, hold on, who is this John Brockman? Well...
https://newrepublic.com/article/154826/jeffrey-epsteins-intellectual-enabler

Lately, John has been in the news for other reasons, namely because of his troubling connections to Jeffrey Epstein, the so-called financier who reportedly hanged himself earlier this month while facing federal charges of sex-trafficking. Epstein participated in the Edge Foundation’s annual questions, and attended its “billionaires’ dinners.” Brockman may also be the reason why so many prominent academics—from Steven Pinker to Daniel Dennett—have found themselves answering awkward questions about their associations with Epstein; they are clients of Brockman’s. Marvin Minsky, the prominent MIT scientist who surfaced as one of Epstein’s island buddies? A client of Brockman’s. Joi Ito, the director of the elite research facility MIT Media Lab, who has recently acknowledged extensive ties to Epstein? Also, a client of Brockman’s.

Was Jeeembo a client/pal/something of Brockman's? Yes he was.
https://stage.edge.org/memberbio/jimmy_wales