I think this is unacceptable, and unless serious evidence appears that Ben behaved dishonestly in a way nobody seems to currently be claiming (e.g. if he had personally doctored the texts from Kat to add incriminating phrases), I think filing this kind of lawsuit would be cause for the EA community to permanently cut all ties with Nonlinear and with Emerson in particular. I believe this even if it turns out Nonlinear has evidence that the main claims in the post are false.
[Edit 12/15/23 -- Nonlinear’s update makes stronger claims about Ben’s actions than I’d seen anyone make when I wrote this, so I’m crossing out “in a way nobody seems to currently be claiming” because it’s no longer accurate. So the applicability of this argument hinges a lot more on the “unless” clause now. ]
Reasoning: I think the question of whether Ben should have waited a week is difficult, and I have felt differently about it at different times over the past few days. But the question of whether the choice he made was justifiable is easy: the people he spoke to seem to be terrified of retaliation, and he has at least two strong pieces of direct evidence (Kat’s text, Emerson’s lawsuit threat) and several pieces of indirect evidence (Emerson’s stories about behavior that while legal strike me as highly unethical, Kat offering a very vulnerable Alice housing only under the condition that she not say mean things about Nonlinear, some of the Glassdoor comments) that these fears of retaliation are well-founded. The fear of that Emerson or Nonlinear might retaliate in some way in the intervening week to stop the post from being posted seems very reasonable to me, and acting on this fear is justifiable even if it overall turned out to be the wrong choice.
Even if you think Ben made the wrong decision (I currently think maybe he did?), the question is not whether he was correct but whether his choice was so unacceptable that it’s appropriate to respond in a way that has a high risk of direct financially ruining him (defamation lawsuits are notoriously a tool used by abusers to silence their critics because the costs of defense are so high, and based on Emerson’s business experience I am unwilling to believe he doesn’t know this.) It clearly wasn’t, and I think it’s imperative we make clear that using expensive lawsuits to win arguments is utterly unacceptable in a community like this one.
I think Habryka has mentioned that Lightcone could withstand a defamation suit, so there’s not a high chance of financially ruining him. I am tentatively in agreement otherwise though.
True! But for the record I definitely don’t have remotely enough personal wealth to cover such a suit. So if libel suits are permissible then you may only hear about credible accusations from people on teams who are willing to back the financial cost, the number of which in my estimation is currently close to 1.
Added: I don’t mean to be more pessimistic than is accurate. I am genuinely uncertain to what extent people will have my back if a lawsuit comes up (Manifold has it at 13%), and my uncertainty range does include “actually quite a lot of people are willing to spend their money to defend my and others’ ability to openly share info like this”.
I think this is unacceptable, and unless serious evidence appears that Ben behaved dishonestly
in a way nobody seems to currently be claiming(e.g. if he had personally doctored the texts from Kat to add incriminating phrases), I think filing this kind of lawsuit would be cause for the EA community to permanently cut all ties with Nonlinear and with Emerson in particular. I believe this even if it turns out Nonlinear has evidence that the main claims in the post are false.[Edit 12/15/23 -- Nonlinear’s update makes stronger claims about Ben’s actions than I’d seen anyone make when I wrote this, so I’m crossing out “in a way nobody seems to currently be claiming” because it’s no longer accurate. So the applicability of this argument hinges a lot more on the “unless” clause now. ]
Reasoning: I think the question of whether Ben should have waited a week is difficult, and I have felt differently about it at different times over the past few days. But the question of whether the choice he made was justifiable is easy: the people he spoke to seem to be terrified of retaliation, and he has at least two strong pieces of direct evidence (Kat’s text, Emerson’s lawsuit threat) and several pieces of indirect evidence (Emerson’s stories about behavior that while legal strike me as highly unethical, Kat offering a very vulnerable Alice housing only under the condition that she not say mean things about Nonlinear, some of the Glassdoor comments) that these fears of retaliation are well-founded. The fear of that Emerson or Nonlinear might retaliate in some way in the intervening week to stop the post from being posted seems very reasonable to me, and acting on this fear is justifiable even if it overall turned out to be the wrong choice.
Even if you think Ben made the wrong decision (I currently think maybe he did?), the question is not whether he was correct but whether his choice was so unacceptable that it’s appropriate to respond in a way that has a high risk of direct financially ruining him (defamation lawsuits are notoriously a tool used by abusers to silence their critics because the costs of defense are so high, and based on Emerson’s business experience I am unwilling to believe he doesn’t know this.) It clearly wasn’t, and I think it’s imperative we make clear that using expensive lawsuits to win arguments is utterly unacceptable in a community like this one.
I think Habryka has mentioned that Lightcone could withstand a defamation suit, so there’s not a high chance of financially ruining him. I am tentatively in agreement otherwise though.
True! But for the record I definitely don’t have remotely enough personal wealth to cover such a suit. So if libel suits are permissible then you may only hear about credible accusations from people on teams who are willing to back the financial cost, the number of which in my estimation is currently close to 1.
Added: I don’t mean to be more pessimistic than is accurate. I am genuinely uncertain to what extent people will have my back if a lawsuit comes up (Manifold has it at 13%), and my uncertainty range does include “actually quite a lot of people are willing to spend their money to defend my and others’ ability to openly share info like this”.