When someoneโs actions are criticised, they are often criticised for several different things. They may wish to apologise for some of these things, while explaining and defending others.
It appears that Bostrom was trying to make his document both an apology and a defense, ended up making it mostly the latter, and ultimately failed at both tasks.
It reads like he was getting pre-emptively angry at the twitter threads that would misrepresent him. And yes, twitter mobs can occasionally be quite awful and unreasonable, but that is not the majority of people that are going to read this apology, and not the majority of people affected by his words.
This greatly undermined his apology, for the reasons I outlined in my post, but it also undermined his defense, because he had no examples of unreasonableness to point to at that point, and the bad apology makes him look like a jerk.
For future reference of people who are apologising: You should prioritise a kind and empathetic response first, and deal with whatever twitter comes up with later. The first thing will give you credibility when dealing with the second thing (and more importantly, itโs the right thing to do.) And for the record, it is, in fact, possible to be kind and empathetic without lying or misrepresenting your own views.
Eugenics was not an unrelated tangent.
Bostrom has been accused of being a eugenicist, and Bostrom has defended views that could be characterised as eugenics.
Probably the people trying to cancel him would have attempted to cancel him for eugenics.
It was very much in topic.
This strengthens OPโs point: this is not an apology at all, itโs an attempted (and failed) defense.
When someoneโs actions are criticised, they are often criticised for several different things. They may wish to apologise for some of these things, while explaining and defending others.
It appears that Bostrom was trying to make his document both an apology and a defense, ended up making it mostly the latter, and ultimately failed at both tasks.
It reads like he was getting pre-emptively angry at the twitter threads that would misrepresent him. And yes, twitter mobs can occasionally be quite awful and unreasonable, but that is not the majority of people that are going to read this apology, and not the majority of people affected by his words.
This greatly undermined his apology, for the reasons I outlined in my post, but it also undermined his defense, because he had no examples of unreasonableness to point to at that point, and the bad apology makes him look like a jerk.
For future reference of people who are apologising: You should prioritise a kind and empathetic response first, and deal with whatever twitter comes up with later. The first thing will give you credibility when dealing with the second thing (and more importantly, itโs the right thing to do.) And for the record, it is, in fact, possible to be kind and empathetic without lying or misrepresenting your own views.