[Alex3917]

> 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.

[kyledrake]

I would love to hear your perspective on why Joi Ito is a hero.

[9nGQluzmnq3M]

Ito was the chairman of Creative Commons for the six years (2006-2012) and championed, among other things, Wikipedia adopting the CC license in 2009.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joi_Ito#Career

[ineedasername]

To me that just says he agreed with some good ideas and was influential in their community, which is good. Doesn't read as "hero" though, it just tells me he maybe wanted to do good things. And good intentions are fine and all, but it seems like he got himself pretty dirty trying to further them. Good deeds don't always follow from good intentions.

[fmajid]

He’s someone who was famous for being famous, but then again he fit right in in the Media Lab, and it’s smoke-and-mirrors carnival as opposed to the serious research done at the AI Lab.

[Alex3917]

He was an early investor in Six Apart and Technorati, was one of the top 100 bloggers, and was one of the first to clearly articulate the ability of the Internet to change society. He was also on the board of Creative Commons, ICANN, Mozilla, etc.

Also his sister is one of the top Internet researchers, and iirc she has said that she became interested in the field because of his early entrepreneurial career.

[RcouF1uZ4gsC]

>and was one of the first to clearly articulate the ability of the Internet to change society.

A few years ago, it would have been considered a given that the Internet’s ability to change society was a good thing. I don’t think people take that position as unequivocally as before.

So in judging Ito, you have “Hypes the Internet” vs “helps normalize the reputation a child rapist”

I am not so sure that the good outweighs the bad

[dirtybird04]

These are nice achievements. Impressive, even. But that's a very low bar for a "hero" imo.

[Alex3917]

If playing a key role in connecting everyone on earth doesn’t make someone a hero, what does? IMHO that seems like just about the greatest possible human accomplishment.

[_jal]

What? He was a VC who made some investments. He had a role in CC, which is actually above and beyond his job description, sure. But he doesn't hold a candle to Jon Postel or Vint Cerf or even John Perry Barlow.

He's another greedhead who got caught doing what he clearly did not want others to see him doing. He didn't even have the honor to get ahead of things; he tried to hang on until after he made the news.

That's an accomplishment he'll be remembered for.

[bbanyc]

Weird that of all the institutions of the 2000s tech scene, only BoingBoing.net comes out looking good.