I really like the “no villains” conclusion. It might be naive and definitely would be difficult, but I would love to see us all have that attitude of goodwill and forgiveness towards one another.
I read the author’s intention, when she makes the case for ‘forgiveness as a virtue’, as a bid to (1) seem more virtuous herself, and (2) make others more likely to forgive her (since she was so generous to her accusers—at least in that section—and we want to reciprocate generosity). I think this is an effective persuasive writing technique, but is not relevant to the questions at issue (who did what).
Another related ‘persuasive writing’ technique I spotted was that, in general, Kat is keen to phrase the hypothesis where Nonlinear did bad things in an extreme way—effectively challenging skeptics “so, you saying we’re completely evil moustache-twirling vagabonds from out of a children’s fairytale?”. That’s a straw person, because what’s at issue is the overall character of Nonlinear staff, not whether they’re cartoon villains. The word ‘witch’ is used 7 times in this post, and ‘evil’ half a dozen times too. Quote:
> 2 EAs are Secretly Evil Hypothesis: 2 (of 21) Nonlinear employees felt bad because while Kat/Emerson seem like kind, uplifting charity workers publicly, behind closed doors they are ill-intentioned ne’er do wells.
I’m confused. You say “what’s at issue is the overall character of Nonlinear staff”, but that Kat displaying virtues like forgiveness is “is not relevant to the questions at issue (who did what)”. (I think both people’s character and “who did what” are relevant, and a lot of the post addresses “who did what”).
Incidentally, your interpretation of Kat as being manipulative happens to be an example of the lack of goodwill that my original comment was referring to. Whether or not goodwill is in general desirable, I think viewing things through such an overly negative lens puts you at risk of confirmation bias.
When I said ‘overall character’ I was trying to draw a contrast between, on the one hand, categorising people into ‘evil’ vs ‘normal’ in a binary way, and, on the other hand, a kind of evaluation that allows for gradations of being a bad actor. My lazy phrasing implied that I was interested in the good behaviour of Nonlinear staff as well as the bad, but I actually think it’s more worth paying one’s limited attention to the bad side in particular, in the same way that it makes more sense to launch an investigation when someone has potentially done something bad, than when someone has potentially done something good.
David probably meant “overall character of Nonlinear management” there. And in that case you might not interview the managers themselves, although you’d probably want to interview other employees to see if they were treated like Alice and Chloe.
I phrased that poorly, please see my reply to Vlad’s reply for an explanation.
I weakly think Ben’s decision to search for bad information rather than good was a good policy, but that the investigation was lacking in some other aspects.
I really like the “no villains” conclusion. It might be naive and definitely would be difficult, but I would love to see us all have that attitude of goodwill and forgiveness towards one another.
I read the author’s intention, when she makes the case for ‘forgiveness as a virtue’, as a bid to (1) seem more virtuous herself, and (2) make others more likely to forgive her (since she was so generous to her accusers—at least in that section—and we want to reciprocate generosity). I think this is an effective persuasive writing technique, but is not relevant to the questions at issue (who did what).
Another related ‘persuasive writing’ technique I spotted was that, in general, Kat is keen to phrase the hypothesis where Nonlinear did bad things in an extreme way—effectively challenging skeptics “so, you saying we’re completely evil moustache-twirling vagabonds from out of a children’s fairytale?”. That’s a straw person, because what’s at issue is the overall character of Nonlinear staff, not whether they’re cartoon villains. The word ‘witch’ is used 7 times in this post, and ‘evil’ half a dozen times too. Quote:
> 2 EAs are Secretly Evil Hypothesis: 2 (of 21) Nonlinear employees felt bad because while Kat/Emerson seem like kind, uplifting charity workers publicly, behind closed doors they are ill-intentioned ne’er do wells.
I’m confused. You say “what’s at issue is the overall character of Nonlinear staff”, but that Kat displaying virtues like forgiveness is “is not relevant to the questions at issue (who did what)”. (I think both people’s character and “who did what” are relevant, and a lot of the post addresses “who did what”).
Incidentally, your interpretation of Kat as being manipulative happens to be an example of the lack of goodwill that my original comment was referring to. Whether or not goodwill is in general desirable, I think viewing things through such an overly negative lens puts you at risk of confirmation bias.
When I said ‘overall character’ I was trying to draw a contrast between, on the one hand, categorising people into ‘evil’ vs ‘normal’ in a binary way, and, on the other hand, a kind of evaluation that allows for gradations of being a bad actor. My lazy phrasing implied that I was interested in the good behaviour of Nonlinear staff as well as the bad, but I actually think it’s more worth paying one’s limited attention to the bad side in particular, in the same way that it makes more sense to launch an investigation when someone has potentially done something bad, than when someone has potentially done something good.
If what’s at issue was the ‘overall character of Nonlinear staff’, then is it fair to assume you fully disagreed with Ben’s one-sided approach?
David probably meant “overall character of Nonlinear management” there. And in that case you might not interview the managers themselves, although you’d probably want to interview other employees to see if they were treated like Alice and Chloe.
I phrased that poorly, please see my reply to Vlad’s reply for an explanation.
I weakly think Ben’s decision to search for bad information rather than good was a good policy, but that the investigation was lacking in some other aspects.