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.
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.