Could you (or someone else) actually make the case for “good apologies” (in the sense you outline in this post) that goes beyond PR concerns?
I understand the desire to know what Bostrom really thinks, but the attention on the structural quality of his apology seems completely undue. None of these elements would presumably reveal more about how Bostrom really thinks than his actual apology.
In fact, it seems like if our preference is to understand how Bostrom really feels, your “good apology” approach might take us further away from that! Your emphasis is on appearing “sincere and genuine” which again, fair enough for PR concerns, but presumably we are after some sort of larger reconciliation here that necessitates being honest and forthright?
If an apology was terribly written—but was in fact genuine and sincere—that seems preferable? If a good apology is just to “sell forgiveness”, what could the point be beyond PR?
My apologies if I am missing something here, but you seem to be writing a guide for some kind of dishonesty? And if you mean it to be about true honesty, I think this scheme really fails.
What I am arguing for are principles of kindness, empathy, and decency.
When you engage in actions that hurt people, I think it is a good thing to address that hurt and make things right, and mitigate the damage as much as possible. I do not think Bostrom achieved this goal with his apology.
I do not oppose people stating beliefs that might be upsetting to some people, if such beliefs are relevant and important to a discussion at hand. However, when those beliefs are stated, they should be done so in an empathetic and sensitive manner, with the appropriate context in mind.
For example, if your friend has a problem with obesity, you should not address that by calling them a “fatso”, even if said claim is arguably true. You should certainly not do so at their wedding. Instead you would take them aside at an opportune time and start something like “hey, I know you’ve been struggling lately, and I’m concerned about you”.
The paragraphs on eugenics were not relevant to the apology. They should not have been brought up in that context, and the controversial topics were not treated with appropriate levels of sensitivity or kindness to the people he harmed. This is not dishonesty. This is human decency.
The problem with Bostrom’s apology is that it made the argument worse rather than achieving (the presumed) goal of making the conversation around it as small as possible.
There were true things and true impressions he could have said and left that would have done that.
I guess that the motivation for OP was that people were referring to Bostrom’s apology as evidence that he sincerely repented, and deserves to be welcomed back into the fold already; whereas in fact the apology provides scant evidence of sincere introspection and remorse, and so we should not treat him as redeemed, yet. OP describes the way the apology fails to provide this evidence, without which there’s no cause for redeeming him yet.
Perhaps unlike OP, I don’t want Bostrom to write a false apology by following those rules. Nor do I want a lazy or perfunctory apology to be accepted by the community. We should welcome Bostrom back into the fold on certain conditions, namely, that he is sincerely remorseful; and writing a dysfunctional apology doesn’t get him closer to meeting that condition.
If we successfully coordinated to withhold our acceptance until he makes serious amends, we may in fact succeed in causing him to introspect and change more than he otherwise would. Or he might just lie about his remorse. But accepting a bad (or non-) apology throws away the possibility of Nick introspecting.
Please explicitly make the argument, rather than linking a definition. I’m inclined to take this as a tribalistic “that’s communism!” remark, which is, indeed, unhelpful.
Yeah, given that no violence by the people criticizing Bostrom’s apology is happen, unlike the actual struggle sessions, I don’t understand how they’re very comparable.
But I also want to say here aloud: Bostrom is fine. He has no need at any point in this to engage in sincere repentence, introspection or remorse. He is not a bad person, and I would be happy to associate with him. He has shown no signs of factual views that are empirically untenable, and he has shown no sign of moral views that involve not valuing the well being of everyone in an approriate and equal manner, no matter who they are or where they came from.
He made a mistake in terms of communication and said something offensive twenty five years ago, that he understands was a mistake to say. But that mistake was one of judgement not of fundamental moral character.
You do not repent for making a mistake of judgement, you apologize for being dumb and move on.
There is nothing in this that indicates poor moral character or views that I find reprehensible in Bostrom. I do not view him as a sinner in need of repentence.
Further expecting those who have sinned to sincerely introspect and to sincerely repent is the sort of thing that religious fanatics and other sorts of bad people ask people to do.
That is my honest view. It is my honest view that David Mears is suggesting we create a community culture that is fundamentally designed to enforce conformity and prevent truth seeking. And I think just like those who think that discussion about race, genetics and intelligence should be allowed to happen somewhere (though that place definitely should not be the EA forum) need to ask themsevles ‘is what I am thinking similar in some important way to what Nazis thought’ and ‘might allowing these conversations lead to somewhere bad and unfairly exclude people’ those who want to demand the sort of conformist policy should ask themselves if this is similar to the sort of thought control that has been exerted by ideologically motivated villians throughout history, and if this sort of policy might lead to very bad places also.
But I also want to say here aloud: Bostrom is fine. He has no need at any point in this to engage in sincere repentence, introspection or remorse.
Without defending David’s views, I think saying Nick doesn’t need to engage in any introspection goes too far-are you saying there was nothing Nick could have done better?
He should recognize that his autism (after I recognized the sort of errors my own mind makes in reading his apology email, I non-expert with an Asperger’s diagnosis outside diagnosed him) makes him an idiot about PR things, and before making any future public announcements he should get several people who are ‘woke’ or whatever the right word to describe them is to read it first.
He also should introspect about the thing in his brain that made him feel like it was really, really important to be precise about what he thought about racism and eugenics in this apology, and he should recognize that sometimes it is not the time to say anything.
I mean, he made errors of judgement. Both 25 years ago, and last week. The one last week was actually a bigger error of judgement in my view, since he should have taken into account that he is currently in a position of public responsibility.
However the ‘introspection’ I want Bostrom to engage in is fundamentally different in kind from the ‘introspection’ that I think David wanted him to engage in.
When you say “PR concerns”, do you mean “every social aspect of human communication”? If so, then the point is exactly that people arguing the factual correctness of an apology are ignoring every social aspect of human communication.
No, that’s not really what I mean. I mean that I generally doubt these public apologies are generally able to give people the emotional reconciliation that they desire.
They can provide a few things, presumably including PR damage mitigation, a sincere account of their thinking, and perhaps some amount of reconciliation.
My criticism of your post is that it seems intent on optimizing for only one of those—indeed considering it entirely sufficient for a “good apology” without considering how these things trade off, nor considering what we might normatively want an apology to do. In my view, a sincere account of someone’s beliefs is very valuable.
Could you (or someone else) actually make the case for “good apologies” (in the sense you outline in this post) that goes beyond PR concerns?
I understand the desire to know what Bostrom really thinks, but the attention on the structural quality of his apology seems completely undue. None of these elements would presumably reveal more about how Bostrom really thinks than his actual apology.
In fact, it seems like if our preference is to understand how Bostrom really feels, your “good apology” approach might take us further away from that! Your emphasis is on appearing “sincere and genuine” which again, fair enough for PR concerns, but presumably we are after some sort of larger reconciliation here that necessitates being honest and forthright?
If an apology was terribly written—but was in fact genuine and sincere—that seems preferable? If a good apology is just to “sell forgiveness”, what could the point be beyond PR?
My apologies if I am missing something here, but you seem to be writing a guide for some kind of dishonesty? And if you mean it to be about true honesty, I think this scheme really fails.
What I am arguing for are principles of kindness, empathy, and decency.
When you engage in actions that hurt people, I think it is a good thing to address that hurt and make things right, and mitigate the damage as much as possible. I do not think Bostrom achieved this goal with his apology.
I do not oppose people stating beliefs that might be upsetting to some people, if such beliefs are relevant and important to a discussion at hand. However, when those beliefs are stated, they should be done so in an empathetic and sensitive manner, with the appropriate context in mind.
For example, if your friend has a problem with obesity, you should not address that by calling them a “fatso”, even if said claim is arguably true. You should certainly not do so at their wedding. Instead you would take them aside at an opportune time and start something like “hey, I know you’ve been struggling lately, and I’m concerned about you”.
The paragraphs on eugenics were not relevant to the apology. They should not have been brought up in that context, and the controversial topics were not treated with appropriate levels of sensitivity or kindness to the people he harmed. This is not dishonesty. This is human decency.
The problem with Bostrom’s apology is that it made the argument worse rather than achieving (the presumed) goal of making the conversation around it as small as possible.
There were true things and true impressions he could have said and left that would have done that.
I guess that the motivation for OP was that people were referring to Bostrom’s apology as evidence that he sincerely repented, and deserves to be welcomed back into the fold already; whereas in fact the apology provides scant evidence of sincere introspection and remorse, and so we should not treat him as redeemed, yet. OP describes the way the apology fails to provide this evidence, without which there’s no cause for redeeming him yet.
Perhaps unlike OP, I don’t want Bostrom to write a false apology by following those rules. Nor do I want a lazy or perfunctory apology to be accepted by the community. We should welcome Bostrom back into the fold on certain conditions, namely, that he is sincerely remorseful; and writing a dysfunctional apology doesn’t get him closer to meeting that condition.
If we successfully coordinated to withhold our acceptance until he makes serious amends, we may in fact succeed in causing him to introspect and change more than he otherwise would. Or he might just lie about his remorse. But accepting a bad (or non-) apology throws away the possibility of Nick introspecting.
>>> the apology provides scant evidence of sincere introspection and remorse
He described his old email as “disgusting.… repulsive.… idiotic and offensive.”
Here I go with something else completely unhelpful:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struggle_session
Please explicitly make the argument, rather than linking a definition. I’m inclined to take this as a tribalistic “that’s communism!” remark, which is, indeed, unhelpful.
Yeah, given that no violence by the people criticizing Bostrom’s apology is happen, unlike the actual struggle sessions, I don’t understand how they’re very comparable.
We are issuing timunderwood a warning for this comment. This is a needlessly inflammatory comparison.
Fair.
But I also want to say here aloud: Bostrom is fine. He has no need at any point in this to engage in sincere repentence, introspection or remorse. He is not a bad person, and I would be happy to associate with him. He has shown no signs of factual views that are empirically untenable, and he has shown no sign of moral views that involve not valuing the well being of everyone in an approriate and equal manner, no matter who they are or where they came from.
He made a mistake in terms of communication and said something offensive twenty five years ago, that he understands was a mistake to say. But that mistake was one of judgement not of fundamental moral character.
You do not repent for making a mistake of judgement, you apologize for being dumb and move on.
There is nothing in this that indicates poor moral character or views that I find reprehensible in Bostrom. I do not view him as a sinner in need of repentence.
Further expecting those who have sinned to sincerely introspect and to sincerely repent is the sort of thing that religious fanatics and other sorts of bad people ask people to do.
That is my honest view. It is my honest view that David Mears is suggesting we create a community culture that is fundamentally designed to enforce conformity and prevent truth seeking. And I think just like those who think that discussion about race, genetics and intelligence should be allowed to happen somewhere (though that place definitely should not be the EA forum) need to ask themsevles ‘is what I am thinking similar in some important way to what Nazis thought’ and ‘might allowing these conversations lead to somewhere bad and unfairly exclude people’ those who want to demand the sort of conformist policy should ask themselves if this is similar to the sort of thought control that has been exerted by ideologically motivated villians throughout history, and if this sort of policy might lead to very bad places also.
Without defending David’s views, I think saying Nick doesn’t need to engage in any introspection goes too far-are you saying there was nothing Nick could have done better?
He should recognize that his autism (after I recognized the sort of errors my own mind makes in reading his apology email, I non-expert with an Asperger’s diagnosis outside diagnosed him) makes him an idiot about PR things, and before making any future public announcements he should get several people who are ‘woke’ or whatever the right word to describe them is to read it first.
He also should introspect about the thing in his brain that made him feel like it was really, really important to be precise about what he thought about racism and eugenics in this apology, and he should recognize that sometimes it is not the time to say anything.
I mean, he made errors of judgement. Both 25 years ago, and last week. The one last week was actually a bigger error of judgement in my view, since he should have taken into account that he is currently in a position of public responsibility.
However the ‘introspection’ I want Bostrom to engage in is fundamentally different in kind from the ‘introspection’ that I think David wanted him to engage in.
When you say “PR concerns”, do you mean “every social aspect of human communication”? If so, then the point is exactly that people arguing the factual correctness of an apology are ignoring every social aspect of human communication.
No, that’s not really what I mean. I mean that I generally doubt these public apologies are generally able to give people the emotional reconciliation that they desire.
They can provide a few things, presumably including PR damage mitigation, a sincere account of their thinking, and perhaps some amount of reconciliation.
My criticism of your post is that it seems intent on optimizing for only one of those—indeed considering it entirely sufficient for a “good apology” without considering how these things trade off, nor considering what we might normatively want an apology to do. In my view, a sincere account of someone’s beliefs is very valuable.