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by dsfyu404ed 2492 days ago
If someone wants to invest a quarter million in whatever I'm doing with no strings attached (aka donate) the last thing I'm gonna be doing is asking questions. Most academics, charities, and other operations that run off donations don't have enough money to be picky about where it comes from.

Considering that that's basically pocket change to the MIT Media Lab they can afford to do their due diligence and turn people down if need be.

Some small charity you've never heard of that runs a summer camp for inner city kids or some no-name research lab at a state university's non-flagship campus (or whatever) is just gonna take the money because they can't afford to be picky. They're not gonna do background checks because the last thing they want is being in a position of weighing the need for money vs the ethics of who's giving it.

TL;DR: People and groups with less resources are less picky who they're willing to take money from but MIT doesn't have this excuse.
2 comments
root_axis 2492 days ago
> If someone wants to invest a quarter million in whatever I'm doing with no strings attached (aka donate) the last thing I'm gonna be doing is asking questions

haha why are you proud of this? That's essentially the quintessential spirit of corruption representing everything wrong with this country and world.

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dsfyu404ed 2492 days ago
The presence of strings attached or implied is necessarily part of how corruption and "not technically corruption but pretty damn close" behavior works.

It's a little different if you're a pro-privacy organization or climate change researcher and google or exxon starts stuffing you with money. There's a material conflict of interest in cases like that. That's the exception, not the rule. Some hypothetical summer camp has no conflict of interest taking the Koch brothers' money even if it disagrees with their politics.

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root_axis 2492 days ago
Strings are always attached when taking billionaire money.
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Gibbon1 2492 days ago
> I'm doing with no strings attached (aka donate) the last thing I'm gonna be doing is asking questions.

Good you can end up like a friend of a friend that realized his investors were part of the Israeli Mafia. That guy was one of the few people who was ecstatic when tech industry cratered in 2001.

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