The crux here is about ‘how bad it is to make public, false, potentially damaging claims about people, and the standard of care/evidence required before making those claims’.
I suspect there are two kinds of people most passionately involved in this dialogue here on EA Forum:
(1) those who have personally experienced being harmed by false, damaging claims (e.g. libel, slander) in the past (which includes me, for example) -- who tend to focus on the brutal downsides of reckless accusations that aren’t properly researched, and
(2) those who have been harmed by people who should have been called out earlier, but where nobody had the guts to be a whistle-blower before—who tend to focus on the downsides of failing to report bad behavior in a quick and effective and public way.
I think if everybody does a little soul-searching about which camp they fall into, and is a little more upfront about their possible personal biases around these issues, the quality of discourse might be higher.
Spencer—good reply.
The crux here is about ‘how bad it is to make public, false, potentially damaging claims about people, and the standard of care/evidence required before making those claims’.
I suspect there are two kinds of people most passionately involved in this dialogue here on EA Forum:
(1) those who have personally experienced being harmed by false, damaging claims (e.g. libel, slander) in the past (which includes me, for example) -- who tend to focus on the brutal downsides of reckless accusations that aren’t properly researched, and
(2) those who have been harmed by people who should have been called out earlier, but where nobody had the guts to be a whistle-blower before—who tend to focus on the downsides of failing to report bad behavior in a quick and effective and public way.
I think if everybody does a little soul-searching about which camp they fall into, and is a little more upfront about their possible personal biases around these issues, the quality of discourse might be higher.