The alleged perpetrator seems to be at least tolerated by some influential people. About Two years ago Anna Salomon wrote:
(1) X seems to me to precipitate psychotic episodes in his interlocutors surprisingly often, to come closer to advocating physical violence than I would like, and to have conversational patterns that often disorient his interlocutors and leave them believing different things while talking to X than they do a bit later.
(2) I don’t have overall advice that people ought to avoid X, in spite of (1), because it now seems to me that he is trying to help himself and others toward truth, and I think we’re bottlenecked on that enough that I could easily imagine (2) overshadowing (1) for individuals who are in a robust place (e.g., who don’t feel like they are trapped or “have to” talk to a person or do a thing) and who are choosing who they want to talk to. (There were parts of X’s conversational patterns that I was interpreting as less truth-conducive a couple years ago than I am now. I now think that this was partly because I was overanchored on the (then-recent) example of Brent, as well as because I didn’t understand part of how he was doing it, but it is possible that it is current-me who is wrong.) (As one example of a consideration that moved me here: a friend of mine whose epistemics I trust, and who has known X for a long time, said that she usually in the long-run ended up agreeing with her while-in-the-conversation self, and not with her after-she-left-the-conversation self.)
Also I was a bit discomfited when my previous LW comment was later cited by folks who weren’t all that LW-y in their conversational patterns as a general “denouncement” of X, although I should probably have predicted this, so, that’s another reason I’d like to try to publicly state my revised views. To be clear, I do not currently wish to “denounce” X, and I don’t even think that’s what I was trying to do last time, although I think the fault was mostly mine that some people read my previous comment as a general denouncement.
Also, to be clear, what I am saying here is just that on the strength of my own evidence (which is not all evidence), (1) and (2) seem true to me. I am not at all trying to be a court here, or to evaluate any objections anyone else may have to X, or to claim that there are no valid objections someone else might have, or anything like that. Just to share my own revised impression from my own limited first-hand observations.
One year ago she wrote:
I hereby apologize for the role I played in X’s ostracism from the community, which AFAICT was both unjust and harmful to both the community and X. There’s more to say here, and I don’t yet know how to say it well. But the shortest version is that in the years leading up to my original comment X was criticizing me and many in the rationality and EA communities intensely, and, despite our alleged desire to aspire to rationality, I and I think many others did not like having our political foundations criticized/eroded, nor did I and I think various others like having the story I told myself to keep stably “doing my work” criticized/eroded. This, despite the fact that attempting to share reasoning and disagreements is in fact a furthering of our alleged goals and our alleged culture. The specific voiced accusations about X were not “but he keeps criticizing us and hurting our feelings and/or our political support” — and nevertheless I’m sure this was part of what led to me making the comment I made above (though it was not my conscious reason), and I’m sure it led to some of the rest of the ostracism he experienced as well. This isn’t the whole of the story, but it ought to have been disclosed clearly in the same way that conflicts of interest ought to be disclosed clearly. And, separately but relatedly, it is my current view that it would be all things considered much better to have X around talking to people in these communities, though this will bring friction.
There’s broader context I don’t know how to discuss well, which I’ll at least discuss poorly:
Should the aspiring rationality community, or any community, attempt to protect its adult members from misleading reasoning, allegedly manipulative conversational tactics, etc., via cautioning them not to talk to some people? My view at the time of my original (Feb 2019) comment was “yes”. My current view is more or less “heck no!”; protecting people from allegedly manipulative tactics, or allegedly misleading arguments, is good — but it should be done via sharing additional info, not via discouraging people from encountering info/conversations. The reason is that more info tends to be broadly helpful (and this is a relatively fool-resistant heuristic even if implemented by people who are deluded in various ways), and trusting who can figure out who ought to restrict their info-intake how seems like a doomed endeavor (and does not degrade gracefully with deludedness/corruption in the leadership). (Watching the CDC on covid helped drive this home for me. Belatedly noticing how much something-like-doublethink I had in my original beliefs about X and related matters also helped drive this home for me.)
Should some organizations/people within the rationality and EA communities create simplified narratives that allow many people to pull in the same direction, to feel good about each others’ donations to the same organizations, etc.? My view at the time of my original (Feb 2019) comment was “yes”; my current view is “no — and especially not via implicit or explicit pressures to restrict information-flow.” Reasons for updates same as above.
It is nevertheless the case that X has had a tendency to e.g. yell rather more than I would like. For an aspiring rationality community’s general “who is worth ever talking to?” list, this ought to matter much less than the above. Insofar as a given person is trying to create contexts where people reliably don’t yell or something, they’ll want to do whatever they want to do; but insofar as we’re creating a community-wide include/exclude list (as in e.g. this comment on whether to let X speak at SSC meetups), it is my opinion that X ought to be on the “include” list.
Thoughts/comments welcome, and probably helpful for getting to shared accurate pictures about any of what’s above.
While I don’t really disagree, I think it’s worth pointing out that Anna here is talking about pretty different behaviors (precipitating psychotic episodes, approaching advocating physical violence, misleading reasoning, yelling) than we’re talking about here (sexual abuse).
Would be extremely surprising if she didn’t know about the sexual abuse allegations. They are very well known among her social circle. Despite this she has chosen to defend the fellow.
My interpretation of Anna was that if she thought there were credible allegations she would have included them in her long list of potentially undesirable actions?
The alleged perpetrator seems to be at least tolerated by some influential people. About Two years ago Anna Salomon wrote:
One year ago she wrote:
While I don’t really disagree, I think it’s worth pointing out that Anna here is talking about pretty different behaviors (precipitating psychotic episodes, approaching advocating physical violence, misleading reasoning, yelling) than we’re talking about here (sexual abuse).
Would be extremely surprising if she didn’t know about the sexual abuse allegations. They are very well known among her social circle. Despite this she has chosen to defend the fellow.
My interpretation of Anna was that if she thought there were credible allegations she would have included them in her long list of potentially undesirable actions?
I doubt she agrees with the accusations but I assume she knows they exist.
Probably important nitpick: The last bit of your first quoted paragraph misses a redaction.
Given what I’ve heard of this person, I’m really surprised and dismayed by the tolerance of this person by some, and wish they wouldn’t do that.
Pm’d you
The comments in question seem to be
1) [redacted]
2) [redacted]
X is [redacted]
(I am posting this because I agree with the reasoning here: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/JCyX29F77Jak5gbwq/ea-sexual-harassment-and-abuse?commentId=tQfPCeSGrhonCtJ4g )
I have redacted this comment based on https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/JCyX29F77Jak5gbwq/ea-sexual-harassment-and-abuse?commentId=9hdQzfxNZ9K4cBCGG , please lets give the teams a few days