I am very confused. Did someone dig this up and then he wrote that in a scramble, or did he proactively come out with this unilaterally? If it’s the latter, we should be applauding his courage in forthrightness for apologizing in his current letter and intentionally letting us know, while naturally condemning his words as a student 26 years ago he made on the mailing list. This post currently does not distinguish between these stances; I consider the apology to be a really important social technology if we want to be humans in a functioning community of other humans rather than subject to the vast impersonal forces of ostracism.
First sentence of the apology says “I have caught wind that somebody has been digging through the archives of the Extropians listserv with a view towards finding embarrassing materials to disseminate about people.” So it seems like he is trying to get ahead of a public disclosure by someone else.
My read is that Bostrom had reason to believe that the email would come out either way, and then he elected to get out in front of the probable blowback.
That said, it’s not entirely clear whether Bostrom knew the email specifically was going to be written about or knew that someone was poking around in the extropian mailing list and then guessed that the email would come out as a result.
In any case, I think it’s unlikely that he posted his apology for the email unprovoked.
I think this would be true except his apology imo is not a good one. He gets some points for apologizing proactively, but I don’t give him many, because the apology doesn’t come across to me as sincere to me (but rather defensive).
I am very confused. Did someone dig this up and then he wrote that in a scramble, or did he proactively come out with this unilaterally? If it’s the latter, we should be applauding his courage in forthrightness for apologizing in his current letter and intentionally letting us know, while naturally condemning his words as a student 26 years ago he made on the mailing list. This post currently does not distinguish between these stances; I consider the apology to be a really important social technology if we want to be humans in a functioning community of other humans rather than subject to the vast impersonal forces of ostracism.
First sentence of the apology says “I have caught wind that somebody has been digging through the archives of the Extropians listserv with a view towards finding embarrassing materials to disseminate about people.” So it seems like he is trying to get ahead of a public disclosure by someone else.
My read is that Bostrom had reason to believe that the email would come out either way, and then he elected to get out in front of the probable blowback.
As evidence, here is Émile Torres indicating that they were planning to write something about the email.
That said, it’s not entirely clear whether Bostrom knew the email specifically was going to be written about or knew that someone was poking around in the extropian mailing list and then guessed that the email would come out as a result.
In any case, I think it’s unlikely that he posted his apology for the email unprovoked.
I think this would be true except his apology imo is not a good one. He gets some points for apologizing proactively, but I don’t give him many, because the apology doesn’t come across to me as sincere to me (but rather defensive).