He doesn’t present it as an opinion. He doesn’t even present it as an argument. It would be a stretch even to say he presents his opinions as fact. He sees a word that represents his ideological enemies, and he sees a word that causes visceral reactions of disgust in bystanders, and he resolves to use those two words in the same sentence as often as possible, so that the connotations of one will bleed into the other. There’s a reason this kind of attack is called a `smear.′
In this thread, he takes questions of the actual harms as settled, and concludes that taking the most extreme and divisive action possible is the only possible option. MOST NOTABLY, he says nothing about Austin, who was the one making the decision to invite Hanania because he wanted Hanania at the event. Instead he goes after Oliver, who is multiple levels removed the decision, and only provides `solutions’ focused on harming Oliver’s career and personal reputation.
I didn’t mention Habryka in any of my tweets. I mentioned him in this forum comment because he is the only person in this situation who I know is involved in EA “leadership”.
It also just occurred to me that Shakeel’s first tweet about the article was I think(?) the first time it appeared on Twitter. It was actually made before the author’s themselves retweeted it. And also before any of the “hit piece” pushback had appeared.
I agree that framing is a bit intense, but noting that:
He mentions “I’ve long expressed my disgust at how Lightcone/Manifold indulge abhorrent ideas and people, both while I was at CEA and after.”
The opinions are sometimes really just wrappers around imperative claims (“I think that… you ought to X”)
He also appears to support the journalistic methodology of the Guardian piece. That piece, of course, is not expressing opinions; it is adversarially designed to cause reputational damage.
I’ve seen Shakeel’s comments in other places before, and I used to think that he (or well, you, if you’re reading this) just had opinions different than mine. And if he would’ve said “This piece lacks journalistic integrity and is clearly a hit piece, but some of the underlying concerns are valid”, I think it would’ve been more fair to describe as “expressing an opinion”.
Now, however, seeing the combination of data points, I update that he is not just “analysing”, but rather quite actively saying these things with a political intent that can be described as a “campaign”.
“Pursuing an active campaign” is kind of a weird way to frame someone writing a few tweets and comments about their opinion on something
He doesn’t present it as an opinion. He doesn’t even present it as an argument. It would be a stretch even to say he presents his opinions as fact. He sees a word that represents his ideological enemies, and he sees a word that causes visceral reactions of disgust in bystanders, and he resolves to use those two words in the same sentence as often as possible, so that the connotations of one will bleed into the other. There’s a reason this kind of attack is called a `smear.′
In this thread, he takes questions of the actual harms as settled, and concludes that taking the most extreme and divisive action possible is the only possible option. MOST NOTABLY, he says nothing about Austin, who was the one making the decision to invite Hanania because he wanted Hanania at the event. Instead he goes after Oliver, who is multiple levels removed the decision, and only provides `solutions’ focused on harming Oliver’s career and personal reputation.
I didn’t mention Habryka in any of my tweets. I mentioned him in this forum comment because he is the only person in this situation who I know is involved in EA “leadership”.
It also just occurred to me that Shakeel’s first tweet about the article was I think(?) the first time it appeared on Twitter. It was actually made before the author’s themselves retweeted it. And also before any of the “hit piece” pushback had appeared.
Someone sent the article to me, I thought it was interesting and tweeted about it. I live in the UK so maybe I saw it before others woke up?
I agree that framing is a bit intense, but noting that:
He mentions “I’ve long expressed my disgust at how Lightcone/Manifold indulge abhorrent ideas and people, both while I was at CEA and after.”
The opinions are sometimes really just wrappers around imperative claims (“I think that… you ought to X”)
He also appears to support the journalistic methodology of the Guardian piece. That piece, of course, is not expressing opinions; it is adversarially designed to cause reputational damage.
I’ve seen Shakeel’s comments in other places before, and I used to think that he (or well, you, if you’re reading this) just had opinions different than mine. And if he would’ve said “This piece lacks journalistic integrity and is clearly a hit piece, but some of the underlying concerns are valid”, I think it would’ve been more fair to describe as “expressing an opinion”.
Now, however, seeing the combination of data points, I update that he is not just “analysing”, but rather quite actively saying these things with a political intent that can be described as a “campaign”.