I’m glad to see that Nonlinear’s evidence is now public, since Ben’s post did not seem to be a thorough investigation. As I said to Ben before he posted his original post, I knew of evidence that strongly contradicted his post, and I encouraged him to temporarily pause the release of his post so he could review the evidence carefully, but he would not delay.
1) Do you have any concerns the section above on Ben Pace could be considered an ad hominem attack? I.e. attacking someone’s character rather than their claims? [1]
2) How long do you think it would have been reasonable for Ben Pace to wait? With the benefit of hindsight, we can see it has taken nonlinear 96 days to write a response to his post. [2]
3) What specific claims do you think have been rebutted? Perhaps you can quote Ben’s original piece; link to the evidence which disproves it; and include your interpretation of what said evidence shows.
(1) I interpreted the section “Sharing Information About Ben Pace” as making the point that it’s quite easy to make very bad-sounding accusations that are not reliable and that are not something people should update to any significant degree on if one applies a one-sided and biased approach. It sounds like some people interpreted it differently, but I thought the point of the section was quite clear (to me, anyway) based on this part of it: “However, this is completely unfair to Ben. It’s written in the style of a hit piece. And I believe you should not update much on Ben’s character from this.
[...list of reasons why you shouldn’t update given...]
I’m not yet worried about these “patterns” about Ben because I don’t know if they are patterns. I haven’t heard his side. And I refuse to pass judgment on someone without hearing their side”
(2) I think it would have been reasonable for Ben to wait 4 or 5 weeks (e.g., 3 or 4 weeks for them to gather their evidence, 1 or 2 weeks to review it). I assume (though I could be wrong) that Nonlinear could have provided a lot of the key evidence in 3 weeks, though not written it up in long-form prose and organized it as they have done for this post, which is vastly more work than merely providing the raw evidence about each claim for someone to look through. Providing evidence to an investigator takes way less time than doing a full write-up for the EA forum.
(3) I didn’t do a detailed look at every row in the “Short summary overview table”, but for the ones I did look into in more detail, I found Nonlinear’s counter evidence to be compelling. That table is organized by claim and is in an easy-to-navigate structure, so I suggest people take a look for themselves at the evidence Nonlinear provided regarding whatever claims they think are important.
(3) I didn’t do a detailed look at every row in the “Short summary overview table”, but for the ones I did look into in more detail, I found Nonlinear’s counter evidence to be compelling. That table is organized by claim and is in an easy-to-navigate structure, so I suggest people take a look for themselves at the evidence Nonlinear provided regarding whatever claims they think are important.
I would have loved to hear in your own words the most important claims that you think have been rebutted, and why you think so. When I look through the appendix document, I see a tangle of screenshots; mildly to moderately related points about these screenshots; and subjective claims about the ex-employees’ personal dispositions. I am not sure if this is because nonlinear is highly dysfunctional, or whether this is practicing a “[...] see what sticks” strategy.
Taking two important claims from Ben’s post. (1) Chloe wasn’t paid what she was promised (2) The employees were asked to transport drugs across a border.
(1) The first thing any union employee, HR person, or employment lawyer will ask: Was there a contract and what does it say?
When I come away from reading the appendix, I am unable to answer this, and my followup question remains also unanswered.
(2) The screenshots and related claims are even more confusing in this case. I’m left with the impression that it was pretty common for the nonlinear team to make these kinds of requests, including to “load up” on antibiotics. This is a pretty strange professional culture, from my perspective. So whilst I can see that the screenshot does not mention any recreational drugs, it’s not updating me negatively towards the likeliness of the claim.
Also, a quick legal note: it’s necessarily legal to fly with drugs, even if you purchased them legitimately. Buying drugs without a prescription in Mexico, and flying them to the US where you require a prescription, would be a crime.
Edit: it looks to me like the Mexican government is trying to shut down illegal pharmacies that dispense these kinds of medications without prescriptions. So they likely would have been both illegal to purchase in Mexico and illegal to import into the US.
If you don’t, update based on that, I’m not sure what to say. She knowingly and clearly lied, despite knowing that we had a work contract and interview transcripts showing this. Please consider that you shouldn’t trust somebody who has provably lied to you and the community multiple times.
For #2, you are saying you’re worried about a people who want to buy antibiotics? We travel all the time and it’s often hard to interact with local medical systems since we don’t speak the language. And I get frequent UTIs (if you must know), and very frequently end up being in pain for days because it’s hard to navigate a new medical system where I don’t speak the language, so it just seems pretty good to be prepared and travel with some antibiotics, just in case.
The link you share isn’t saying that pharmacies are illegal, it’s saying that they sometimes sell counterfeit drugs, and that’s illegal. It’s not related to this situation.
Lastly, we thought since she was getting a single pack in a country where it was legal, it was very unlikely that anything would happen traveling with that. I googled it, asked ChatGPT to search for it, and asked a lawyer friend of mine if they’ve ever heard of somebody being arrested for traveling with a single pack of ADHD medicine without a prescription. Nothing showed up (except for going to a place like Japan with famously strict laws around that).
Think about it. The number of people who take ADHD medication who travel with their medicine without remembering to bring their prescription is massive, and you never hear about anybody getting in trouble for it. They’re not looking for people with ADHD who just forgot to bring their prescription. They’re looking for smugglers.
This is all moot though: she went and got herself a prescription. Also, once again, she was travelling with genuinely illegal recreational drugs on both flights for herself. I am very surprised you don’t consider this point to be extremely relevant here.
The whole point Ben was making was that “they were convinced to take actions that could have had severe personal downsides such as jail time in a foreign country, and that these are actions that they confidently believe they would not have taken had it not been due to the strong pressures they felt from the Nonlinear cofounders”.
We didn’t pressure her—we just asked, and when she said she needed a perscription, we said to forget about it. And she would have done it anyways—and did. With her own genuinely illegal recreational drugs. She actually kept half of the ADHD medicine for herself.
Can I confirm I am seeing the correct image. I see a screenshot of a google document. As oppose to contract signed by both parties. Would you be able to confirm this contract was signed by both parties?
The link you share isn’t saying that pharmacies are illegal, it’s saying that they sometimes sell counterfeit drugs, and that’s illegal.
It indeed looks like the article I linked was related to counterfeit drugs, and not necessarily dispensing drugs without prescription. Although, I still suspect the reason adderall is accessible in tourist areas, is not related to their inherent legality, but instead some of the themes this article. I will research this further and make edits below.
I googled it, asked ChatGPT to search for it, and asked a lawyer friend of mine if they’ve ever heard of somebody being arrested for traveling with a single pack of ADHD medicine without a prescription. Nothing showed up (except for going to a place like Japan with famously strict laws around that).
If I understand these complaints to have been made in 2021, ChatGPT was launched in Nov 2022. Is it possible you are mistaken here?
If I understand you correctly, you were aware that by asking your employee to bring drugs across the border, she would be committing a crime?
Are you referring to the part of the post called “Sharing Information on Ben Pace” when you say “attempted smear of Ben in retaliation for writing the post”? If so, I don’t interpret that section the way you might because (from my perspective) it seemed clear that it was trying to make a point about how easy it is to make allegations sound bad when they are flimsy. Especially since the section says:
“However, this is completely unfair to Ben. It’s written in the style of a hit piece. And I believe you should not update much on Ben’s character from this.
[...list of reasons why you shouldn’t update given...]
I’m not yet worried about these “patterns” about Ben because I don’t know if they are patterns. I haven’t heard his side. And I refuse to pass judgment on someone without hearing their side”
I think the thing people are taking issue with is that Ben was used as the particular example to illustrate this—if there was no desire to create a negative impression of him, why was a different or even anonymous example used? You can say ‘here is X information—but don’t treat it as information’, and know that it’s very unlikely people would update 0.0% on the information. I think this seems so self-evident to people that they’re not explaining why they’re not taking the disclaimer at face value.
I also agree with other commenters that it’s actually irrational to update 0.0% on the information anyway.
Another confusing this is that in the comments here Kat says she believes what the person told her—so that is passing judgement on Ben without getting his side. It may not be updating at all on his broader personality (which again seems irrational) but it is passing judgement on his actions in that incident, and without hearing his side of the incident.
I didn’t interpret the original post as saying you should update 0%, just that you should update only a very small amount because it’s flimsy and sloppily reported on evidence.
I’m glad to see that Nonlinear’s evidence is now public, since Ben’s post did not seem to be a thorough investigation. As I said to Ben before he posted his original post, I knew of evidence that strongly contradicted his post, and I encouraged him to temporarily pause the release of his post so he could review the evidence carefully, but he would not delay.
1) Do you have any concerns the section above on Ben Pace could be considered an ad hominem attack? I.e. attacking someone’s character rather than their claims? [1]
2) How long do you think it would have been reasonable for Ben Pace to wait? With the benefit of hindsight, we can see it has taken nonlinear 96 days to write a response to his post. [2]
3) What specific claims do you think have been rebutted? Perhaps you can quote Ben’s original piece; link to the evidence which disproves it; and include your interpretation of what said evidence shows.
Whilst I think @John G. Halstead comment could have been written better. I agree the question needs to be asked.
It’s taken 1 year and 29 days if considering the first time these comments were made https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/L4S2NCysoJxgCBuB6/announcing-nonlinear-emergency-funding?commentId=5P75dFuKLo894MQFf
Hi Elliot. To respond to your questions:
(1) I interpreted the section “Sharing Information About Ben Pace” as making the point that it’s quite easy to make very bad-sounding accusations that are not reliable and that are not something people should update to any significant degree on if one applies a one-sided and biased approach. It sounds like some people interpreted it differently, but I thought the point of the section was quite clear (to me, anyway) based on this part of it: “However, this is completely unfair to Ben. It’s written in the style of a hit piece. And I believe you should not update much on Ben’s character from this.
[...list of reasons why you shouldn’t update given...]
I’m not yet worried about these “patterns” about Ben because I don’t know if they are patterns. I haven’t heard his side. And I refuse to pass judgment on someone without hearing their side”
(2) I think it would have been reasonable for Ben to wait 4 or 5 weeks (e.g., 3 or 4 weeks for them to gather their evidence, 1 or 2 weeks to review it). I assume (though I could be wrong) that Nonlinear could have provided a lot of the key evidence in 3 weeks, though not written it up in long-form prose and organized it as they have done for this post, which is vastly more work than merely providing the raw evidence about each claim for someone to look through. Providing evidence to an investigator takes way less time than doing a full write-up for the EA forum.
(3) I didn’t do a detailed look at every row in the “Short summary overview table”, but for the ones I did look into in more detail, I found Nonlinear’s counter evidence to be compelling. That table is organized by claim and is in an easy-to-navigate structure, so I suggest people take a look for themselves at the evidence Nonlinear provided regarding whatever claims they think are important.
I would have loved to hear in your own words the most important claims that you think have been rebutted, and why you think so. When I look through the appendix document, I see a tangle of screenshots; mildly to moderately related points about these screenshots; and subjective claims about the ex-employees’ personal dispositions. I am not sure if this is because nonlinear is highly dysfunctional, or whether this is practicing a “[...] see what sticks” strategy.
Taking two important claims from Ben’s post. (1) Chloe wasn’t paid what she was promised (2) The employees were asked to transport drugs across a border.
(1) The first thing any union employee, HR person, or employment lawyer will ask: Was there a contract and what does it say?
When I come away from reading the appendix, I am unable to answer this, and my followup question remains also unanswered.
(2) The screenshots and related claims are even more confusing in this case. I’m left with the impression that it was pretty common for the nonlinear team to make these kinds of requests, including to “load up” on antibiotics. This is a pretty strange professional culture, from my perspective. So whilst I can see that the screenshot does not mention any recreational drugs, it’s not updating me negatively towards the likeliness of the claim.
Also, a quick legal note: it’s necessarily legal to fly with drugs, even if you purchased them legitimately. Buying drugs without a prescription in Mexico, and flying them to the US where you require a prescription, would be a crime.
Edit: it looks to me like the Mexican government is trying to shut down illegal pharmacies that dispense these kinds of medications without prescriptions. So they likely would have been both illegal to purchase in Mexico and illegal to import into the US.
We show Chloe’s work contract in the third row of the very first table. We also link to interview transcripts showing that we paid her exactly what she was promised. This is a clear example of Chloe lying.
If you don’t, update based on that, I’m not sure what to say. She knowingly and clearly lied, despite knowing that we had a work contract and interview transcripts showing this. Please consider that you shouldn’t trust somebody who has provably lied to you and the community multiple times.
For #2, you are saying you’re worried about a people who want to buy antibiotics? We travel all the time and it’s often hard to interact with local medical systems since we don’t speak the language. And I get frequent UTIs (if you must know), and very frequently end up being in pain for days because it’s hard to navigate a new medical system where I don’t speak the language, so it just seems pretty good to be prepared and travel with some antibiotics, just in case.
The link you share isn’t saying that pharmacies are illegal, it’s saying that they sometimes sell counterfeit drugs, and that’s illegal. It’s not related to this situation.
Lastly, we thought since she was getting a single pack in a country where it was legal, it was very unlikely that anything would happen traveling with that. I googled it, asked ChatGPT to search for it, and asked a lawyer friend of mine if they’ve ever heard of somebody being arrested for traveling with a single pack of ADHD medicine without a prescription. Nothing showed up (except for going to a place like Japan with famously strict laws around that).
Think about it. The number of people who take ADHD medication who travel with their medicine without remembering to bring their prescription is massive, and you never hear about anybody getting in trouble for it. They’re not looking for people with ADHD who just forgot to bring their prescription. They’re looking for smugglers.
This is all moot though: she went and got herself a prescription. Also, once again, she was travelling with genuinely illegal recreational drugs on both flights for herself. I am very surprised you don’t consider this point to be extremely relevant here.
The whole point Ben was making was that “they were convinced to take actions that could have had severe personal downsides such as jail time in a foreign country, and that these are actions that they confidently believe they would not have taken had it not been due to the strong pressures they felt from the Nonlinear cofounders”.
We didn’t pressure her—we just asked, and when she said she needed a perscription, we said to forget about it. And she would have done it anyways—and did. With her own genuinely illegal recreational drugs. She actually kept half of the ADHD medicine for herself.
Can I confirm I am seeing the correct image. I see a screenshot of a google document. As oppose to contract signed by both parties. Would you be able to confirm this contract was signed by both parties?
It indeed looks like the article I linked was related to counterfeit drugs, and not necessarily dispensing drugs without prescription. Although, I still suspect the reason adderall is accessible in tourist areas, is not related to their inherent legality, but instead some of the themes this article. I will research this further and make edits below.
If I understand these complaints to have been made in 2021, ChatGPT was launched in Nov 2022. Is it possible you are mistaken here?
If I understand you correctly, you were aware that by asking your employee to bring drugs across the border, she would be committing a crime?
Hi Spencer what do you make of the attempted smear of Ben in retaliation for writing the post? Is that sane behaviour?
Are you referring to the part of the post called “Sharing Information on Ben Pace” when you say “attempted smear of Ben in retaliation for writing the post”? If so, I don’t interpret that section the way you might because (from my perspective) it seemed clear that it was trying to make a point about how easy it is to make allegations sound bad when they are flimsy. Especially since the section says:
“However, this is completely unfair to Ben. It’s written in the style of a hit piece. And I believe you should not update much on Ben’s character from this.
[...list of reasons why you shouldn’t update given...]
I’m not yet worried about these “patterns” about Ben because I don’t know if they are patterns. I haven’t heard his side. And I refuse to pass judgment on someone without hearing their side”
I think the thing people are taking issue with is that Ben was used as the particular example to illustrate this—if there was no desire to create a negative impression of him, why was a different or even anonymous example used? You can say ‘here is X information—but don’t treat it as information’, and know that it’s very unlikely people would update 0.0% on the information. I think this seems so self-evident to people that they’re not explaining why they’re not taking the disclaimer at face value.
I also agree with other commenters that it’s actually irrational to update 0.0% on the information anyway.
Another confusing this is that in the comments here Kat says she believes what the person told her—so that is passing judgement on Ben without getting his side. It may not be updating at all on his broader personality (which again seems irrational) but it is passing judgement on his actions in that incident, and without hearing his side of the incident.
I didn’t interpret the original post as saying you should update 0%, just that you should update only a very small amount because it’s flimsy and sloppily reported on evidence.