I’ve heard enough bad stuff about Nonlinear from before, that I was seriously concerned about them. But I did not know what to do. Especially since part of their bad reputation is about attacking critics, and I don’t feel well positioned to take that fight.
I’m happy some of these accusations are now out in the open. If it’s all wrong and Nonlinear is blame free, then this is their chance to clear their reputation.
I can’t say that I will withhold judgment until more evidence comes in, since I already made a preliminary judgment even before this post. But I can promise to be open to changing my mind.
I have now read the above post, some of the comments, and very little of the appendix.
Nonlinear seems to have more evidence on their side than I had expected. I had the impression that the whole situation was very informal, with practically nothing written down. Now it looks like Nonlinear actually have documentations on their side. Although I have not actually looked at them. I might do this at some point, but mostly I’m hoping that other impartial observers will do this work for me, and I can just read their summaries in a couple of weeks or so.
This is to say, I’m still keeping my mind open. But given that this superficially looks better than expected, I am updating in favour on Nonliner’s version. I.e, I went from expecting Nonlinear to be in the wrong to being much more unsure.
Some thoughts:
I expect that if I ever get a clear view of what happened here, it will look like one side was mostly telling the truth and one side where either delusional or straight up lying. But I don’t yet know who is telling the truth and who isn’t. The reason I think this is that this don’t look like just escalating misunderstandings. From what I can see [at least one side is delusional or lying], but also [only one side being delusional or lying] is enough to explain the evidence. I still have enough faith in EA that I think most EAs are mostly sane an honest, which means that [only one side being delusional or lying] is more likely on priors.
I think the important thing now is to find the truth. Any discussions of what lessons to learn should wait.
I expect all of these public accusations to be very painful for everyone involved. I want to express sympathy for everyone involved. Someone is falsely accused of terrible things. I think I can imagine how much this hurts.
I still think it probably good that this issue get public scrutiny. Who ever is right, some of these allegations are serious enough that I don’t think it should be over looked, and our community don’t have some type of more closed doors court to appeal too. If this was not brough out, who ever is in the wrong, would probably continue to hurt more people. But I also have a lot of uncertainty on this point.
Even though I expect it to be mostly one sided (which I could be wrong about by the way). I also expect anyone involved in this, who is trying to be honest, will make mistakes, and will sometimes express things in a somewhat hyperbolic way. That’s what happens when you are hurt.
I wrote this in response to Ben’s post
I have now read the above post, some of the comments, and very little of the appendix.
Nonlinear seems to have more evidence on their side than I had expected. I had the impression that the whole situation was very informal, with practically nothing written down. Now it looks like Nonlinear actually have documentations on their side. Although I have not actually looked at them. I might do this at some point, but mostly I’m hoping that other impartial observers will do this work for me, and I can just read their summaries in a couple of weeks or so.
This is to say, I’m still keeping my mind open. But given that this superficially looks better than expected, I am updating in favour on Nonliner’s version. I.e, I went from expecting Nonlinear to be in the wrong to being much more unsure.
Some thoughts:
I expect that if I ever get a clear view of what happened here, it will look like one side was mostly telling the truth and one side where either delusional or straight up lying. But I don’t yet know who is telling the truth and who isn’t. The reason I think this is that this don’t look like just escalating misunderstandings. From what I can see [at least one side is delusional or lying], but also [only one side being delusional or lying] is enough to explain the evidence. I still have enough faith in EA that I think most EAs are mostly sane an honest, which means that [only one side being delusional or lying] is more likely on priors.
I think the important thing now is to find the truth. Any discussions of what lessons to learn should wait.
I expect all of these public accusations to be very painful for everyone involved. I want to express sympathy for everyone involved. Someone is falsely accused of terrible things. I think I can imagine how much this hurts.
I still think it probably good that this issue get public scrutiny. Who ever is right, some of these allegations are serious enough that I don’t think it should be over looked, and our community don’t have some type of more closed doors court to appeal too. If this was not brough out, who ever is in the wrong, would probably continue to hurt more people. But I also have a lot of uncertainty on this point.
Even though I expect it to be mostly one sided (which I could be wrong about by the way). I also expect anyone involved in this, who is trying to be honest, will make mistakes, and will sometimes express things in a somewhat hyperbolic way. That’s what happens when you are hurt.