CFAR investigated Brent and stood by him until there was public outcry!
This says very bad things about the leadership of CFAR, and probably other CFAR staff (to the extent that they either agreed with leadership or failed to push back hard enough, though the latter can be hard to do).
It seems to say good things about the public that did the outcry, which at the time felt to me like “almost everyone outside of CFAR”. Everyone* yelled at a venerable and respected org until they stopped doing bad stuff. Is this a negative update against EA/rationality, or a positive one?
*It’s entirely possible that there were private whisper networks supporting Brett/attacking his accusers, or even public posts defending him that I missed. But it felt to me like the overwhelming community sentiment was “get Brent the hell out of here”.
I think negative update since lots of the people with bad judgment remained in positions of power. This remains true even if some people were forced out. AFAIK Mike Valentine was forced out of CFAR for his connections to Brent, in particular greenlighting Brent meeting with a very young person alone. Though I dont have proof of this specific incident. Unsurprisingly, post-brent Anna Salomon defended included Mike Vassar.
This says very bad things about the leadership of CFAR, and probably other CFAR staff (to the extent that they either agreed with leadership or failed to push back hard enough, though the latter can be hard to do).
It seems to say good things about the public that did the outcry, which at the time felt to me like “almost everyone outside of CFAR”. Everyone* yelled at a venerable and respected org until they stopped doing bad stuff. Is this a negative update against EA/rationality, or a positive one?
*It’s entirely possible that there were private whisper networks supporting Brett/attacking his accusers, or even public posts defending him that I missed. But it felt to me like the overwhelming community sentiment was “get Brent the hell out of here”.
I think negative update since lots of the people with bad judgment remained in positions of power. This remains true even if some people were forced out. AFAIK Mike Valentine was forced out of CFAR for his connections to Brent, in particular greenlighting Brent meeting with a very young person alone. Though I dont have proof of this specific incident. Unsurprisingly, post-brent Anna Salomon defended included Mike Vassar.