Yarrow Bouchard 🔸 comments on Nonlinear’s Evidence: Debunking False and Misleading Claims

[Yarrow Bouchard 🔸]

In Ben’s post, he paraphrased Nonlinear as saying (N.B.: these are Ben’s words, written from Nonlinear’s perspective, not Nonlinear’s words):

Third; the semi-employee was also asked to bring some productivity-related and recreational drugs over the border for us. In general we didn’t push hard on this. For one, this is an activity she already did (with other drugs). For two, we thought it didn’t need prescription in the country she was visiting, and when we found out otherwise, we dropped it. And for three, she used a bunch of our drugs herself, so it’s not fair to say that this request was made entirely selfishly. I think this just seems like an extension of the sorts of actions she’s generally open to.

Regarding Ben’s summary of his call with Nonlinear, of which the above is part, Ben claimed in his post:

Afterwards, I wrote up a paraphrase of their responses. I shared it with Emerson and he replied that it was a “Good summary!”.

In this Nonlinear post responding to Ben’s post, they write:

And:

Kat requested Alice bring legal medicine from a pharmacy—specifically antibiotics and one pack of ADHD medicine—not illegal drugs. These medicines are cheap and legal without a prescription in other parts of Mexico we’d visited, and she was already going to a pharmacy anyway.

And:

We shared much of this information with Ben—he knew it was legal medicine, not illegal drugs—yet he still published this misleading version. We were horrified that Ben published this knowing full well it wasn’t true. We told him we’d share these exact screenshots with him, but he refused to look at them.

So, Ben’s post claims that Nonlinear admitted to asking a “semi-employee” to bring “recreational drugs” over a border. In this post, Nonlinear now seems to emphatically deny this claim.

We have an apparent contradiction.

My questions for Nonlinear:

1) Was Ben’s paraphrase (quoted above) inaccurate?

2) Was Ben’s claim that Emerson said the summary of his call with Nonlinear (of which Ben’s paraphrase was a part) “good summary” false?

3) What were the so-called “recreational drugs”, if there were any? Were they legal drugs, obtained with a prescription, but used recreationally?

[Kat Woods 🔶 ⏸️]

Thanks for the questions!

1) Was Ben’s paraphrase (quoted above) inaccurate?

Yes. We wouldn’t ask somebody to travel across borders with illegal drugs. We thought they were legal where she was going, and that’s the only reason we asked her. We actually recommended she not travel across borders with illegal recreational drugs, which she was in the habit of doing.

2) Was Ben’s claim that Emerson said the summary of his call with Nonlinear (of which Ben’s paraphrase was a part) “good summary” false?

Yes, it was false. We told him that. We sent him multiple emails saying that the article was riddled with falsehoods and misleading claims. The rest of that sentence was “Good summary. Some points still require clarification”. I think this was very intellectually dishonest of Ben to publish just one part of the sentence.

3) What were the so-called “recreational drugs”, if there were any? Were they legal drugs, obtained with a prescription, but used recreationally?

We didn’t ask for any recreational drugs across borders. We asked for one pack of producitivity medicine which we thought were legal where she was going. When we found out it required a prescription, we said never mind.