One lesson I see in this saga that we, as a community, and hopefully as a society, should be more aware of the fact that accusations are sometimes false and a little slower to pass judgement or react to them.
I think that EAs are particularly vulnerable to a sort of ‘moral hazard’ of being especially receptive to perceived victims; many of us are empathetic people who feel strong moral obligations to help others. In this case, I can imagine Ben feeling a strong need or even obligation to do something and acting according. If so, what he did was actually very admirable, even if it turns out to have been misguided in hindsight.
I’ll also just quickly say that I am still somewhat conflicted about how to interpret the threat of legal action made by NL. On one hand, that seems extreme and a very bad signal for an EA organisation.
On the other hand, as we see here, someone publishing a lot of (in your view) false information about your organisation is extremely harmful and time-consuming to those who are invested in that organisation. It does irreparable damage to reputations and trust.
So this does seem like an exceptional circumstance where you might consider exceptional actions/threats—especially if you have a background in business and entrepreneurship, areas where threatening and taking legal action is normal and necessary.
Having written that, I am realising that I feel NL acted reasonably, knowing what I now know.
One lesson I see in this saga that we, as a community, and hopefully as a society, should be more aware of the fact that accusations are sometimes false and a little slower to pass judgement or react to them.
I think that EAs are particularly vulnerable to a sort of ‘moral hazard’ of being especially receptive to perceived victims; many of us are empathetic people who feel strong moral obligations to help others. In this case, I can imagine Ben feeling a strong need or even obligation to do something and acting according. If so, what he did was actually very admirable, even if it turns out to have been misguided in hindsight.
I’ll also just quickly say that I am still somewhat conflicted about how to interpret the threat of legal action made by NL. On one hand, that seems extreme and a very bad signal for an EA organisation.
On the other hand, as we see here, someone publishing a lot of (in your view) false information about your organisation is extremely harmful and time-consuming to those who are invested in that organisation. It does irreparable damage to reputations and trust.
So this does seem like an exceptional circumstance where you might consider exceptional actions/threats—especially if you have a background in business and entrepreneurship, areas where threatening and taking legal action is normal and necessary.
Having written that, I am realising that I feel NL acted reasonably, knowing what I now know.
Yeah, I think that is my current position.