I think it is too early to make a call on whether Ben could have done a better job fact-checking things. The linked doc is 135 pages long, and I don’t think you or anyone else really has had time to read it and see how well it actually responds to the specific accusations.
I do think this is a pretty high-stakes situation, and people should be held accountable if they caused harm, but I think you are jumping to conclusions here at a speed that I don’t think can be well-justified.
I am myself still reading the 135 page document and trying to piece together which exact parts of the original post now seem inaccurate to me, and also whether Ben successfully communicated his epistemic state and seemed well-calibrated about the trustworthiness of different claims, which is an operation that I expect will take even very motivated people working on this-full time many hours. Over the coming days, I expect many people to read the linked documents, and piece together which claims have been responded to, which of the evidence provided is easily verifiable vs. hearsay, etc., and I think then we’ll have a much better guess whether there was some problem with fact-checking or accuracy of the original investigation.
Habryka—I read several earlier versions of the documentation. I’m familiar with the contents. I understand that others will want to take their time before reaching judgments. Fair enough.
Ah, that makes more sense. I agree that if you’ve read earlier versions of the documentation, then you are of course in a better position to judge things.
I do think this sentence could use some rephrasing in that case:
I hope it’s clear to most EAs that Ben Pace could have done a much better job fact-checking his allegations against Nonlinear, and in getting their side of the story.
Since you are talking about the epistemic state of “most EAs” here, who of course haven’t had advance access to the documentation here, and so aren’t really in a position to have made up their mind on this. I do think it’s fine for you to express a more overall judgement here, and am looking forward to comparing notes and takes when I am in a more similar epistemic state.
I think it is too early to make a call on whether Ben could have done a better job fact-checking things. The linked doc is 135 pages long, and I don’t think you or anyone else really has had time to read it and see how well it actually responds to the specific accusations.
I do think this is a pretty high-stakes situation, and people should be held accountable if they caused harm, but I think you are jumping to conclusions here at a speed that I don’t think can be well-justified.
I am myself still reading the 135 page document and trying to piece together which exact parts of the original post now seem inaccurate to me, and also whether Ben successfully communicated his epistemic state and seemed well-calibrated about the trustworthiness of different claims, which is an operation that I expect will take even very motivated people working on this-full time many hours. Over the coming days, I expect many people to read the linked documents, and piece together which claims have been responded to, which of the evidence provided is easily verifiable vs. hearsay, etc., and I think then we’ll have a much better guess whether there was some problem with fact-checking or accuracy of the original investigation.
Habryka—I read several earlier versions of the documentation. I’m familiar with the contents. I understand that others will want to take their time before reaching judgments. Fair enough.
Ah, that makes more sense. I agree that if you’ve read earlier versions of the documentation, then you are of course in a better position to judge things.
I do think this sentence could use some rephrasing in that case:
Since you are talking about the epistemic state of “most EAs” here, who of course haven’t had advance access to the documentation here, and so aren’t really in a position to have made up their mind on this. I do think it’s fine for you to express a more overall judgement here, and am looking forward to comparing notes and takes when I am in a more similar epistemic state.
Yes, I should have said ‘I hope it will be clear to most EAs that Ben Pace could have done a much better job....’