Thanks for agreeing to state your credences explicitly (and strongly upvoted for that reason).
I thought it was important to get more precision given the evidence showing that qualifiers such as ‘possible’, ‘likely’, etc are compatible with a wide range of values. Before your subsequent clarification, I interpreted your ‘quite plausible’ as expressing a probability of ~60%.
As I mention below, he admits the allegations above but not the brown ones. Are you saying he is admitting to the brown ones in the statement above and therefore that he lied in 2012? And If he denied the brown allegations in 2012 in the public spotlight, why would he stop doing that now just because someone has raised the brown complaints to CEA?
As Holly said above, I do not think that Jacy is actually admitting to significant wrongdoing in the above. I think he has been asked to apologize, and is doing so, and is admitting to the possibility of having caused at least some discomfort, but not that he actually violated any major boundaries.
I think Holly is better placed to continue this discussion.
I don’t think the apology above gives us much more evidence than that Jacy believes “I recognize that I probably caused some unnecessary discomfort, and I apologize for that”, which is definitely not the same as “I admit to sexually harassing other people to a degree that it was right to expel me from my university”.
Just to be clear, I barely know Jacy. I’ve seen him many times at events, including when he came to Harvard on his book tour, but I don’t believe I’ve ever had a private conversation with him. (Fwiw he never came close to being inappropriate with me or giving me a bad vibe.)
Ah, no. This was mostly because I think you are doing a better job at explaining my position than I am myself, and also that I am feeling relatively scared of participating in this conversation publicly, partially for reasons that I expect you to be less influenced by.
I know the two are not the same—this argument was about your claim: “Hmm, it is not at all clear to me that the accusations that are being discussed here [the Brown accusations] are separate from the accusations that appear to have caused his apology.”
I think you’re really grasping at straws here. Is the point to depose Oli, or what? Surely you can’t think you’re going to get more information about what did or did not happen this way. There are many conceivable ways that the Brown allegations could color CEA’s perception of more recent allegation, making the different events not entirely separate.
We were debating the claim “Hmm, it is not at all clear to me that the accusations that are being discussed here [the Brown accusations] are separate from the accusations that appear to have caused his apology.” Julia Wise’s comments has confirmed that the claims were separate. The term ‘separate’ here means ‘different instance of sexual harassment’.
By “not entirely separate,” I meant something more like “the Brown accusations have put him under a level of scrutiny that makes future allegations more likely/more likely to be refelexively believed/make smaller incidents more damning, even if he weren’t doing anything to provoke them.” So I was referring more to whether the judges in the recent events were affected by knowledge of the Brown events, that kind of “not entirely separate.” The events themselves, you’re right, would have to be different instances.
What I thought was grasping at straws was your attempt at gotcha syllogistic reasoning.
Yes but he would say that either way? One question is whether there’s just enough ambiguity to navigate the waters in today’s climate, or subtly more ambiguity.
This is false. Jacy was accused of sexual harassment at Brown, never sexual assault. Some members of this community have conflated Jacy’s case with the case of another student, which for some reason shows up in google searches for Jacy’s name. This is an understandable confusion, but it is a very bad confusion to continue spreading.
Noted, thanks Tyler—that’s an important distinction. I had retracted my comment anyway as the main point of it has been made elsewhere. I think my original comment still stands.
Julia Wise clarified this in her reply elsewhere in this comment section:
The accusation of sexual misconduct at Brown is one of the things that worried us at CEA. But we approached Jacy primarily out of concern about other more recent reports from members of the animal advocacy and EA communities.
Thanks for agreeing to state your credences explicitly (and strongly upvoted for that reason).
I thought it was important to get more precision given the evidence showing that qualifiers such as ‘possible’, ‘likely’, etc are compatible with a wide range of values. Before your subsequent clarification, I interpreted your ‘quite plausible’ as expressing a probability of ~60%.
Alas, that does update me towards using probabilities even more than I usually do. I definitely did not intend to communicate a 60% probability.
As I mention below, he admits the allegations above but not the brown ones. Are you saying he is admitting to the brown ones in the statement above and therefore that he lied in 2012? And If he denied the brown allegations in 2012 in the public spotlight, why would he stop doing that now just because someone has raised the brown complaints to CEA?
As Holly said above, I do not think that Jacy is actually admitting to significant wrongdoing in the above. I think he has been asked to apologize, and is doing so, and is admitting to the possibility of having caused at least some discomfort, but not that he actually violated any major boundaries.
Oli, this doesn’t make sense.
1. In the Brown statement, he strenuously denies wrongdoing and does not admit the possibility of having done something wrong.
2.You are saying that this is an admission to the possibility of having done something wrong and that this refers to the Brown allegations.
This implies:
3. He has changed his view of the Brown allegations.
You deny 3. This is not consistent. Please tell me which part of this you disagree with.
I think Holly is better placed to continue this discussion.
I don’t think the apology above gives us much more evidence than that Jacy believes “I recognize that I probably caused some unnecessary discomfort, and I apologize for that”, which is definitely not the same as “I admit to sexually harassing other people to a degree that it was right to expel me from my university”.
Just to be clear, I barely know Jacy. I’ve seen him many times at events, including when he came to Harvard on his book tour, but I don’t believe I’ve ever had a private conversation with him. (Fwiw he never came close to being inappropriate with me or giving me a bad vibe.)
.
I’m curious about all these deleted comments by Halstead.
Was deleted for tone, no interesting content
Can’t we just allow people to change their mind and retract their statements?
(I thought maybe Oli thought I knew him or something and that’s why he said I was “better placed to continue the discussion.”)
Ah, no. This was mostly because I think you are doing a better job at explaining my position than I am myself, and also that I am feeling relatively scared of participating in this conversation publicly, partially for reasons that I expect you to be less influenced by.
I know the two are not the same—this argument was about your claim: “Hmm, it is not at all clear to me that the accusations that are being discussed here [the Brown accusations] are separate from the accusations that appear to have caused his apology.”
I think you’re really grasping at straws here. Is the point to depose Oli, or what? Surely you can’t think you’re going to get more information about what did or did not happen this way. There are many conceivable ways that the Brown allegations could color CEA’s perception of more recent allegation, making the different events not entirely separate.
We were debating the claim “Hmm, it is not at all clear to me that the accusations that are being discussed here [the Brown accusations] are separate from the accusations that appear to have caused his apology.” Julia Wise’s comments has confirmed that the claims were separate. The term ‘separate’ here means ‘different instance of sexual harassment’.
By “not entirely separate,” I meant something more like “the Brown accusations have put him under a level of scrutiny that makes future allegations more likely/more likely to be refelexively believed/make smaller incidents more damning, even if he weren’t doing anything to provoke them.” So I was referring more to whether the judges in the recent events were affected by knowledge of the Brown events, that kind of “not entirely separate.” The events themselves, you’re right, would have to be different instances.
What I thought was grasping at straws was your attempt at gotcha syllogistic reasoning.
ok thanks, understood. i hope it wasn’t grasping at straws, but maybe this debate has got too sidetracked and should draw to a close.
Yes but he would say that either way? One question is whether there’s just enough ambiguity to navigate the waters in today’s climate, or subtly more ambiguity.
[delete] I realised that Halstead and Pablo have already made this point, and I was repeating them.
This is false. Jacy was accused of sexual harassment at Brown, never sexual assault. Some members of this community have conflated Jacy’s case with the case of another student, which for some reason shows up in google searches for Jacy’s name. This is an understandable confusion, but it is a very bad confusion to continue spreading.
Noted, thanks Tyler—that’s an important distinction. I had retracted my comment anyway as the main point of it has been made elsewhere. I think my original comment still stands.
This feels like something that CEA could confirm or deny quite easily without damaging confidentiality or legal factors.
Julia Wise clarified this in her reply elsewhere in this comment section: