Props to Ben for the investigation. And my thoughts go out to those who’ve been affected. As a side-note, I am skeptical of the impact of Nonlinear’s work so far in pure results terms. Their direct work seems pretty mediocre and easy, and the rest has just been throwing money at prizes that don’t seem to have had much, if any, positive impact. I’d be curious how other people evaluate Nonlinear’s work.
I think overall this discussion probably isn’t helped by criticism of their object-level work. I don’t think their work being high-impact or low-impact would make these allegations unimportant, but I can see commenters and Nonlinear themselves feeling obliged to get sucked into it. I would rather keep that discussion to other, less fraught venues.
Personally I have also been skeptical of Nonlinear’s work, BUT before anything else, I just want to say I have not carefully kept track of Nonlinear’s work and this is a pretty uninformed vague impression.
I’m not skeptical because of the prizes specifically, I just think they had ideas that sounded not particularly fruitful, or more costly than they were worth. I do think that there was a lot of theoretical discussion around that type of prize setup before Nonlinear tried it, and I respect the ethos of just try-it-and-see-what-happens for something like that, with minimal downside risk. (Notably, if nobody claims the prize, the money isn’t spent and can just be used for other work.) The best-sounding concepts in the world still have to be tested before we should build lots of infrastructure on them, so I see the prize stuff as a fairly inexpensive experiment, and I think often good coordinators are undervalued. My skepticism is more that despite Nonlinear’s high profile as coordinators, I have no evidence of Nonlinear’s impact, and I’m unconvinced that they’ve found good pressure points for coordination in general. I have also judged them more harshly for this than I otherwise would, due to what I perceive as a gimmicky and overconfident style to some of their written materials. This style unavoidably puts up my guard, but its influence on my assessment may be unfair of me!
Thank you! I am also primarily concerned with the experience of the former employees, which has been exceedingly unpleasant.
I will also say, I heard from Alice and Chloe and others that people said things like “Nonlinear is really high impact, we shouldn’t hurt them” and then also “Nonlinear is too powerful, we should try to change them to become better people”.
When I was deciding whether to invite them to the Lightcone Offices, I thought some of their prizes seemed like good ideas, and it swayed me on accepting their request.
If you’re going to lob comments like “mediocre” at an entire orgs work, the least you could do is actually write a comment on it and give me a reason to update. As it stands, you lob stones from behind a pseudonym, something that strikes me not only as cowardly but also unhelpful. Happy to engage if you take the time to make an actual argument.
This account receives and posts comment requests from people who prefer to not post under their own account (see bio).
I do think it is particularly reasonable in this case given claims of Nonlinear staff being willing to retaliate, as well as an active threat to take legal action (though I am not speaking for the person I posted on behalf of, and other justifications for pseudonymous comments exist even where litigation is not a major concern). I will also say that I asked the commentor to ensure this is a comment that they are willing to endorse personally, just not associate with publicly.
I agree that not much justification was provided about the claim of mediocrity, and I also agree with Ben Millwood’s comment that the object level discussion is likely of lower priority at this stage. This passed my vetting despite that in part because I saw this comment’s value more as a discussion prompt (“I’d be curious how other people evaluate Nonlinear’s work”) that could bring out more information, which may have been helpful in getting a better overview of Nonlinear’s practices or how their staff operated, or what it was like interacting with them (for good or bad), and thought this was positive in expectation. I see Gavriel’s comment (see below) as weakly supportive of this, and can imagine worlds where even more useful information came out as a result.
Disclaimer copied: “I have not carefully kept track of Nonlinear’s work and this is a pretty uninformed vague impression”
I just think they had ideas that sounded not particularly fruitful, or more costly than they were worth.
I respect the ethos of just try-it-and-see-what-happens for something like that, with minimal downside risk.
despite Nonlinear’s high profile as coordinators, I have no evidence of Nonlinear’s impact, and I’m unconvinced that they’ve found good pressure points for coordination in general.
I have also judged them more harshly for this than I otherwise would, due to what I perceive as a gimmicky and overconfident style to some of their written materials.
Ah, sorry I missed this, but have updated to agree as all your reasoning seems sound to me. I don’t know that I’d agree with posting in every instance, but it seems like a descent community service to have and given the pressures involved I think you likely made the right call in this case. Thanks for explaining, it helped change my views a bit on anon commenting :)
Props to Ben for the investigation. And my thoughts go out to those who’ve been affected.
As a side-note, I am skeptical of the impact of Nonlinear’s work so far in pure results terms. Their direct work seems pretty mediocre and easy, and the rest has just been throwing money at prizes that don’t seem to have had much, if any, positive impact. I’d be curious how other people evaluate Nonlinear’s work.
I think overall this discussion probably isn’t helped by criticism of their object-level work. I don’t think their work being high-impact or low-impact would make these allegations unimportant, but I can see commenters and Nonlinear themselves feeling obliged to get sucked into it. I would rather keep that discussion to other, less fraught venues.
Personally I have also been skeptical of Nonlinear’s work, BUT before anything else, I just want to say I have not carefully kept track of Nonlinear’s work and this is a pretty uninformed vague impression.
I’m not skeptical because of the prizes specifically, I just think they had ideas that sounded not particularly fruitful, or more costly than they were worth. I do think that there was a lot of theoretical discussion around that type of prize setup before Nonlinear tried it, and I respect the ethos of just try-it-and-see-what-happens for something like that, with minimal downside risk. (Notably, if nobody claims the prize, the money isn’t spent and can just be used for other work.) The best-sounding concepts in the world still have to be tested before we should build lots of infrastructure on them, so I see the prize stuff as a fairly inexpensive experiment, and I think often good coordinators are undervalued. My skepticism is more that despite Nonlinear’s high profile as coordinators, I have no evidence of Nonlinear’s impact, and I’m unconvinced that they’ve found good pressure points for coordination in general. I have also judged them more harshly for this than I otherwise would, due to what I perceive as a gimmicky and overconfident style to some of their written materials. This style unavoidably puts up my guard, but its influence on my assessment may be unfair of me!
Thank you! I am also primarily concerned with the experience of the former employees, which has been exceedingly unpleasant.
I will also say, I heard from Alice and Chloe and others that people said things like “Nonlinear is really high impact, we shouldn’t hurt them” and then also “Nonlinear is too powerful, we should try to change them to become better people”.
When I was deciding whether to invite them to the Lightcone Offices, I thought some of their prizes seemed like good ideas, and it swayed me on accepting their request.
If you’re going to lob comments like “mediocre” at an entire orgs work, the least you could do is actually write a comment on it and give me a reason to update. As it stands, you lob stones from behind a pseudonym, something that strikes me not only as cowardly but also unhelpful. Happy to engage if you take the time to make an actual argument.
This account receives and posts comment requests from people who prefer to not post under their own account (see bio).
I do think it is particularly reasonable in this case given claims of Nonlinear staff being willing to retaliate, as well as an active threat to take legal action (though I am not speaking for the person I posted on behalf of, and other justifications for pseudonymous comments exist even where litigation is not a major concern). I will also say that I asked the commentor to ensure this is a comment that they are willing to endorse personally, just not associate with publicly.
I agree that not much justification was provided about the claim of mediocrity, and I also agree with Ben Millwood’s comment that the object level discussion is likely of lower priority at this stage. This passed my vetting despite that in part because I saw this comment’s value more as a discussion prompt (“I’d be curious how other people evaluate Nonlinear’s work”) that could bring out more information, which may have been helpful in getting a better overview of Nonlinear’s practices or how their staff operated, or what it was like interacting with them (for good or bad), and thought this was positive in expectation. I see Gavriel’s comment (see below) as weakly supportive of this, and can imagine worlds where even more useful information came out as a result.
Disclaimer copied: “I have not carefully kept track of Nonlinear’s work and this is a pretty uninformed vague impression”
Ah, sorry I missed this, but have updated to agree as all your reasoning seems sound to me. I don’t know that I’d agree with posting in every instance, but it seems like a descent community service to have and given the pressures involved I think you likely made the right call in this case. Thanks for explaining, it helped change my views a bit on anon commenting :)