I upvoted this, but disagreed. I think the timeline would be better if it included:
November 2022: FLI inform Nya Dagbladet Foundation (NDF) that they will not be funding them
15 December 2022: FLI learn of media interest in the story
I therefore donât think itâs âabsurdâ to have expected FLI to have repudiated NDF sooner. You could argue that by apologising for their mistake before the media interest does more harm than good by drawing attention to it (and by association, to NDF), but once they became aware of the media attention, I think they should have issued something more like their current statement.
I also agreed with the thrust of titotalâs comment that their first statement was woefully inadequate (it was more like ânothing to see hereâ than âoh damn, we seriously considered supporting an odious publication and weâre sorryâ). I donât think lack of time gets them off the hook here, given they should have expected Expo to publish at some point.
I donât think anyone owes an apology for expecting FLI to do better than this.
(Note: I appreciate Max Tegmark was dealing with a personal tragedy (for which, my condolences) at the time of it becoming âa thingâ on the EA Forum, so I of course wouldnât expect him to be making quick-but-considered replies to everything posted on here at that time. But I think thereâs a difference between that and the speed of the proper statement.)
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FWIW I also had a different interpretation of Shakeelâs 9:18pm comment than what you write here:
âJan 13, 9:18pm: Shakeel follows up, repeating that he sees no reason why FLI wouldnât have already made a public statement, and raises the possibility that FLI has maybe done sinister questionably-legal things and thatâs why they havenât spoken up.â
Shakeel said âJasonâs 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.â â this seemed to me that Shakeel was trying to to be charitable, and understand the reasons FLI hadnât replied quicker.
Only a subtle difference, but wanted to point that out.
November 2022: FLI inform Nya Dagbladet Foundation (NDF) that they will not be funding them
15 December 2022: FLI learn of media interest in the story
Yeah, if the early EA Forum comments had explicitly said âFLI should have said something public about this as soon as they discovered that NDF was badâ, âFLI should have said something public about this as soon as Expo contacted themâ, or âFLI should have been way more response to Expoâs inquiriesââand if weâd generally expressed a lot more uncertainty and been more measured in what we said in the first few daysâthen I might still have disagreed, but I wouldnât have seen this as an embarrassingly bad response in the same way.
I, as a casual reader who wasnât trying to carefully track all the timestamps, had no idea when I first skimmed these threads on Jan. 13-14 that the article had only come out a few hours ago, and I didnât track timestamps carefully enough to register just how fast the EA Forum went from âa top-level post exists about this at allâ to âwow, FLI is stonewalling usâ and âwow, there must be something really sinister here given that FLI still hasnât respondedâ. I feel like I was misled by these comments, because I just took for granted (to some degree) that the people writing these highly upvoted comments were probably not saying something transparently silly.
If a commenter like Jason thought that FLI was âstonewallingâ because they didnât release a public statement about this in December, then itâs important to be explicit about that, so casual readers donât come away from the comment section thinking that FLI is displaying some amazing level of unresponsiveness to the forum post or to the news article.
once they became aware of the media attention, I think they should have issued something more like their current statement.
This is less obvious to me, if they didnât owe a public response before Expo reached out to them. A lot of press inquiries donât end up turning into articles, and if the goal is to respond to press coverage, itâs often better to wait and see whatâs in the actual article, since you might end up surprised about the articleâs contents.
I donât think anyone owes an apology for expecting FLI to do better than this.
âDo better than thisâ, notably, is switching out concrete actions for a much more general question, one thatâs closer to âWhatâs the correct overall level of affect we should have about FLI right now?â.
If weâre going to have âapologize when you mess up enoughâ norms, I think they should be more about evaluating local process, and less about evaluating the overall character of the person youâre apologizing to. (Or even the character-in-this-particular-case, since itâs possible to owe someone an apology even if that person owes an apology too.) âDid I fuck-up when I did X?â should be a referendum on whether the local action was OK, not a referendum on the people you fucked up at.
More thoughts about apology norms in my comment here.
I upvoted this, but disagreed. I think the timeline would be better if it included:
November 2022: FLI inform Nya Dagbladet Foundation (NDF) that they will not be funding them
15 December 2022: FLI learn of media interest in the story
I therefore donât think itâs âabsurdâ to have expected FLI to have repudiated NDF sooner. You could argue that by apologising for their mistake before the media interest does more harm than good by drawing attention to it (and by association, to NDF), but once they became aware of the media attention, I think they should have issued something more like their current statement.
I also agreed with the thrust of titotalâs comment that their first statement was woefully inadequate (it was more like ânothing to see hereâ than âoh damn, we seriously considered supporting an odious publication and weâre sorryâ). I donât think lack of time gets them off the hook here, given they should have expected Expo to publish at some point.
I donât think anyone owes an apology for expecting FLI to do better than this.
(Note: I appreciate Max Tegmark was dealing with a personal tragedy (for which, my condolences) at the time of it becoming âa thingâ on the EA Forum, so I of course wouldnât expect him to be making quick-but-considered replies to everything posted on here at that time. But I think thereâs a difference between that and the speed of the proper statement.)
***
FWIW I also had a different interpretation of Shakeelâs 9:18pm comment than what you write here:
âJan 13, 9:18pm: Shakeel follows up, repeating that he sees no reason why FLI wouldnât have already made a public statement, and raises the possibility that FLI has maybe done sinister questionably-legal things and thatâs why they havenât spoken up.â
Shakeel said âJasonâs 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.â â this seemed to me that Shakeel was trying to to be charitable, and understand the reasons FLI hadnât replied quicker.
Only a subtle difference, but wanted to point that out.
Yeah, if the early EA Forum comments had explicitly said âFLI should have said something public about this as soon as they discovered that NDF was badâ, âFLI should have said something public about this as soon as Expo contacted themâ, or âFLI should have been way more response to Expoâs inquiriesââand if weâd generally expressed a lot more uncertainty and been more measured in what we said in the first few daysâthen I might still have disagreed, but I wouldnât have seen this as an embarrassingly bad response in the same way.
I, as a casual reader who wasnât trying to carefully track all the timestamps, had no idea when I first skimmed these threads on Jan. 13-14 that the article had only come out a few hours ago, and I didnât track timestamps carefully enough to register just how fast the EA Forum went from âa top-level post exists about this at allâ to âwow, FLI is stonewalling usâ and âwow, there must be something really sinister here given that FLI still hasnât respondedâ. I feel like I was misled by these comments, because I just took for granted (to some degree) that the people writing these highly upvoted comments were probably not saying something transparently silly.
If a commenter like Jason thought that FLI was âstonewallingâ because they didnât release a public statement about this in December, then itâs important to be explicit about that, so casual readers donât come away from the comment section thinking that FLI is displaying some amazing level of unresponsiveness to the forum post or to the news article.
This is less obvious to me, if they didnât owe a public response before Expo reached out to them. A lot of press inquiries donât end up turning into articles, and if the goal is to respond to press coverage, itâs often better to wait and see whatâs in the actual article, since you might end up surprised about the articleâs contents.
âDo better than thisâ, notably, is switching out concrete actions for a much more general question, one thatâs closer to âWhatâs the correct overall level of affect we should have about FLI right now?â.
If weâre going to have âapologize when you mess up enoughâ norms, I think they should be more about evaluating local process, and less about evaluating the overall character of the person youâre apologizing to. (Or even the character-in-this-particular-case, since itâs possible to owe someone an apology even if that person owes an apology too.) âDid I fuck-up when I did X?â should be a referendum on whether the local action was OK, not a referendum on the people you fucked up at.
More thoughts about apology norms in my comment here.