I think you’re mischaracterising Shakeel’s 9.18pm response quite significantly.
The comments are short enough that I should probably just quote them here:
Comment 1: “The following is my personal opinion, not CEA’s. If this is true it’s absolutely horrifying. FLI needs to give a full explanation of what exactly happened here and I don’t understand why they haven’t. If FLI did knowingly agree to give money to a neo-Nazi group, that’s despicable. I don’t think people who would do something like that ought to have any place in this community.”
Comment 2: “Hi Jack — reasonable question! When I wrote this post I just didn’t see what the legal problems might be for FLI. With FTX, there are a ton of complications, most notably with regards to bankruptcy/clawbacks, and the fact that actual crimes were (seemingly) committed. This FLI situation, on face value, didn’t seem to have any similar complications — it seemed that something deeply immoral was done, but nothing more than that. Jason’s comment has made me realise there might be something else going on here, though; if that is the case then that would make the silence make more sense. I do still think it’s very weird that FLI hasn’t condemned Nya Dagbladet though — CEA did, after all, make it very clear very quickly what our stance on SBF was.”
My summary of comment 2: “Shakeel follows up, repeating that he sees no reason why FLI wouldn’t have already made a public statement, and raises the possibility that FLI has maybe done sinister questionably-legal things and that’s why they haven’t spoken up.”
I think this is a fine summary of the gist of Shakeel’s comment — obviously there isn’t literally “no reason” here (that would contradict the very next part of my sentence, “and raises the possibility that FLI has maybe done sinister questionably-legal things and that’s why they haven’t spoken up”), but there’s no good reason Shakeel can see, and Shakeel reiterates that he thinks “it’s very weird that FLI hasn’t condemned Nya Dagbladet”.
The main thing I was trying to point at is that Shakeel’s first comment says “I don’t understand” why FLI hasn’t given “a full explanation of exactly what happened here” (the implication being that there’s something really weird and suspicious about FLI not having already released a public statement), and Shakeel’s second comment doubles down on that basic perspective (it’s still weird and suspicious / he can’t think of an innocent explanation, though he acknowledges a non-innocent explanation).
That said, I think this is a great context to be a stickler about saying everything precisely (rather than relying on “gists”), and I’m generally a fan of the ethos that cares about precision and literalness. 🙂 Being completely literal, “he sees no reason” is flatly false (at least if ‘seeing no reason’ means ‘you haven’t thought of a remotely plausible motivation that might have caused this behavior’).
I’ll edit the comment to say “repeating that it’s really weird that FLI hasn’t already made a public statement”, since that’s closer to being a specific sentiment he expresses in both comments.
You also left out that Shakeel did already apologise to Max Tegmark for in his words “jumping to conclusions” when Max explained a reason for the delay, which I think is relevant to the timeline you’re setting out here.
I think this is a different thing, but it’s useful context anyway, so thanks for adding it. :)
Thanks for the response, Habiba. :)
The comments are short enough that I should probably just quote them here:
Comment 1: “The following is my personal opinion, not CEA’s. If this is true it’s absolutely horrifying. FLI needs to give a full explanation of what exactly happened here and I don’t understand why they haven’t. If FLI did knowingly agree to give money to a neo-Nazi group, that’s despicable. I don’t think people who would do something like that ought to have any place in this community.”
Comment 2: “Hi Jack — reasonable question! When I wrote this post I just didn’t see what the legal problems might be for FLI. With FTX, there are a ton of complications, most notably with regards to bankruptcy/clawbacks, and the fact that actual crimes were (seemingly) committed. This FLI situation, on face value, didn’t seem to have any similar complications — it seemed that something deeply immoral was done, but nothing more than that. Jason’s comment has made me realise there might be something else going on here, though; if that is the case then that would make the silence make more sense. I do still think it’s very weird that FLI hasn’t condemned Nya Dagbladet though — CEA did, after all, make it very clear very quickly what our stance on SBF was.”
My summary of comment 2: “Shakeel follows up, repeating that he sees no reason why FLI wouldn’t have already made a public statement, and raises the possibility that FLI has maybe done sinister questionably-legal things and that’s why they haven’t spoken up.”
I think this is a fine summary of the gist of Shakeel’s comment — obviously there isn’t literally “no reason” here (that would contradict the very next part of my sentence, “and raises the possibility that FLI has maybe done sinister questionably-legal things and that’s why they haven’t spoken up”), but there’s no good reason Shakeel can see, and Shakeel reiterates that he thinks “it’s very weird that FLI hasn’t condemned Nya Dagbladet”.
The main thing I was trying to point at is that Shakeel’s first comment says “I don’t understand” why FLI hasn’t given “a full explanation of exactly what happened here” (the implication being that there’s something really weird and suspicious about FLI not having already released a public statement), and Shakeel’s second comment doubles down on that basic perspective (it’s still weird and suspicious / he can’t think of an innocent explanation, though he acknowledges a non-innocent explanation).
That said, I think this is a great context to be a stickler about saying everything precisely (rather than relying on “gists”), and I’m generally a fan of the ethos that cares about precision and literalness. 🙂 Being completely literal, “he sees no reason” is flatly false (at least if ‘seeing no reason’ means ‘you haven’t thought of a remotely plausible motivation that might have caused this behavior’).
I’ll edit the comment to say “repeating that it’s really weird that FLI hasn’t already made a public statement”, since that’s closer to being a specific sentiment he expresses in both comments.
I think this is a different thing, but it’s useful context anyway, so thanks for adding it. :)