I want you to know that I don’t think you’re a villain, and that your pain makes me sad. I wrote some comments that were critical of your responses … and still I stand by those comments. I dislike and disapprove the approach you took. But I also know that you’re hurting, and that makes me sad.
So… I’d like you to dwell on that for a minute.
I wrote something in an edited paragraph deep within a subthread, and thought I should raise the point more directly. My sense is that you and Emerson have some characteristics or habits that I would call flawed or bad, and that it was justified to publicly write something about that.
But I also have a sense that Ben’s post contains errors.
I think you are EAs and rationalists at heart. I respect that. And I respect the (unknown to me but probably large) funds you’ve put into trying to do good. Because of that, I think Ben & co should’ve spent more time to get Ben’s initial post right.
And I guess I’m sad about this situation because I feel that both Ben’s post and your post were worded in somewhat unfair ways, and I’m unconvinced that quite so much acrimony was necessary. I like to imagine a softer version of Ben’s post, and a softer version of your response, in which Ben basically says “I’ve spoken to a bunch of people who disapprove of the way Kat & Emerson handle A, B, C, and D, and two people I’m calling Alice and Chloe were hurt by factors A, B, C and E”.… and you end up saying “after a lot of soul-searching we’ve decided to apologize about A and B and handle those differently in the future, but we still contend that E was an inaccurate characterization, and we stand by C and D because reasons, and we accept that some people won’t like that.”
Do you think an alternate timeline like that was possible?
Thank you for the empathy. Means a lot to me. This has been incredibly rough, and being expected to exhibit no strong negative emotions in the face of all of this has been very challenging.
And, yes, I do think an alternative timeline like that was possible. I really wish that had happened, and if the multiverse hypothesis is true, then it did happen somewhere, so that’s nice to think about.
I strongly agree with the end of your post:
I want you to know that I don’t think you’re a villain, and that your pain makes me sad. I wrote some comments that were critical of your responses … and still I stand by those comments. I dislike and disapprove the approach you took. But I also know that you’re hurting, and that makes me sad.
So… I’d like you to dwell on that for a minute.
I wrote something in an edited paragraph deep within a subthread, and thought I should raise the point more directly. My sense is that you and Emerson have some characteristics or habits that I would call flawed or bad, and that it was justified to publicly write something about that.
But I also have a sense that Ben’s post contains errors.
I think you are EAs and rationalists at heart. I respect that. And I respect the (unknown to me but probably large) funds you’ve put into trying to do good. Because of that, I think Ben & co should’ve spent more time to get Ben’s initial post right.
And I guess I’m sad about this situation because I feel that both Ben’s post and your post were worded in somewhat unfair ways, and I’m unconvinced that quite so much acrimony was necessary. I like to imagine a softer version of Ben’s post, and a softer version of your response, in which Ben basically says “I’ve spoken to a bunch of people who disapprove of the way Kat & Emerson handle A, B, C, and D, and two people I’m calling Alice and Chloe were hurt by factors A, B, C and E”.… and you end up saying “after a lot of soul-searching we’ve decided to apologize about A and B and handle those differently in the future, but we still contend that E was an inaccurate characterization, and we stand by C and D because reasons, and we accept that some people won’t like that.”
Do you think an alternate timeline like that was possible?
Thank you for the empathy. Means a lot to me. This has been incredibly rough, and being expected to exhibit no strong negative emotions in the face of all of this has been very challenging.
And, yes, I do think an alternative timeline like that was possible. I really wish that had happened, and if the multiverse hypothesis is true, then it did happen somewhere, so that’s nice to think about.