I agree that some of your critics may not have quite been able to hit the nail on the head when they tried to articulate their critiques (it took me substantial effort to figure out what I precisely thought was wrong, as opposed to just ‘this feels bad’), but I believe that the general thrust of their arguments generally holds up.
In context, this comes across to me as an overly charitable characterization of what actually occurred: someone publicly labeled me a literal traitor and then made a baseless, false accusation against me. What’s even more concerning is that this unfounded claim is now apparently being repeated and upvoted by others.
When communities choose to excuse or downplay this kind of behavior—by interpreting it in the most charitable possible way, or by glossing over it as being “essentially correct”—they end up legitimizing what is, in fact, a low-effort personal attack without a factual basis. Brushing aside or downplaying such attacks as if they are somehow valid or acceptable doesn’t just misrepresent the situation; it actively undermines the conditions necessary for good faith engagement and genuine truth-seeking.
I urge you to recognize that tolerating or rationalizing this type of behavior has real social consequences. It fosters a hostile environment, discourages honest dialogue, and ultimately corrodes the integrity of any community that claims to value fairness and reasoned discussion.
I think Holly just said what a lot of people were feeling and I find that hard to condemn.
”Traitor” is a bit of a strong term, but it’s pretty natural for burning the commons to result in significantly less trust. To be honest, the main reason why I wouldn’t use that term myself is that it reifies individual actions into a permanent personal characteristic and I don’t have the context to make any such judgments. I’d be quite comfortable with saying that founding Mechanise was a betrayal of sorts, where the “of sorts” clarifies that I’m construing the term broadly.
Glossing over it as being “essentially correct”
This characterisation doesn’t quite match what happened. My comment wasn’t along the lines, “Oh, it’s essentially correct, close enough is good enough, details are unimportant”, but I actually wrote down what I thought a more careful analysis would look like.
They end up legitimizing what is, in fact, a low-effort personal attack without a factual basis
Part of the reason why I’ve been commenting is to encourage folks to make more precise critiques. And indeed, Michael has updated his previous comment in response to what I wrote.
A baseless, false accusation
Is it baseless?
I noticed you wrote: “we do not plan on meaningfully making use”. That provides you with substantial wriggle room. So it’s unclear to me at this stage that your statements being true/defensible would necessitate her statements being false.
Yes, absolutely. With respect, unless you can provide some evidence indicating that I’ve acted improperly, I see no productive reason to continue engaging on this point.
What concerns me most here is that the accusation seems to be treated as credible despite no evidence being presented and a clear denial from me. That pattern—assuming accusations about individuals who criticize or act against core dogmas are true without evidence—is precisely the kind of cult-like behavior I referenced in my original comment.
Suggesting that I’ve left myself “substantial wiggle room” misinterprets what I intended, and given the lack of supporting evidence, it feels unfair and unnecessarily adversarial. Repeatedly implying that I’ve acted improperly without concrete substantiation does not reflect a good-faith approach to discussion.
If you don’t want to engage, that’s perfectly fine. I’ve written a lot of comments and responding to all of them would take substantial time. It wouldn’t be fair to expect that from you.
That said, labelling asking for clarification “cult-like behaviour” is absurd. On the contrary, not naively taking claims at face value is a crucial defence against this. Furthermore, implying that someone asking questions in bad faith is precisely the technique that cult leaders use[1].
I said that the statement left you substantial wiggle room. This was purely a comment about how the statement could have a broad range of interpretations. I did not state, nor mean to imply, that this vagueness was intentional or in bad faith.
That said, people asking questions in bad faith is actually pretty common and so you can’t assume that something is a cult just because they say that their critics are mostly acting in bad faith.
To be clear, I was not calling your request for clarification “cult-like”. My comment was directed at how the accusation against me was seemingly handled—as though it were credible until I could somehow prove otherwise. No evidence was offered to support the claim. Instead, assertions were made without substantiation. I directly and clearly denied the accusations, but despite that, the line of questioning continued in a way that strongly suggested the accusation might still be valid.
To illustrate the issue more clearly: imagine if I were to accuse you of something completely baseless, and even after your firm denials, I continued to press you with questions that implicitly treated the accusation as credible. You would likely find that approach deeply frustrating and unfair, and understandably so. You’d be entirely justified in pushing back against it.
That said, I acknowledge that describing the behavior as “cult-like” may have generated more heat than light. It likely escalated the tone unnecessarily, and I’ll be more careful to avoid that kind of rhetoric going forward.
I can see why you’d find this personally frustrating.
On the other hand, many people in the community, myself included, took certain claims from OpenAI and sbf at face value when it might have been more prudent to be less trusting. I understand that it must be unpleasant to face some degree of distrust due to the actions of others.
And I can see why you’d see your statements as a firm denial, whilst from my perspective, they were ambiguous. For example, I don’t know how to interpret your use of the word “meaningful”, so I don’t actually know what exactly you’ve denied. It may be clear to you because you know what you mean, but it isn’t clear to me.
(For what it’s worth, I neither upvoted nor downvoted the comment you made before this one, but I did disagree vote it.)
In context, this comes across to me as an overly charitable characterization of what actually occurred: someone publicly labeled me a literal traitor and then made a baseless, false accusation against me. What’s even more concerning is that this unfounded claim is now apparently being repeated and upvoted by others.
When communities choose to excuse or downplay this kind of behavior—by interpreting it in the most charitable possible way, or by glossing over it as being “essentially correct”—they end up legitimizing what is, in fact, a low-effort personal attack without a factual basis. Brushing aside or downplaying such attacks as if they are somehow valid or acceptable doesn’t just misrepresent the situation; it actively undermines the conditions necessary for good faith engagement and genuine truth-seeking.
I urge you to recognize that tolerating or rationalizing this type of behavior has real social consequences. It fosters a hostile environment, discourages honest dialogue, and ultimately corrodes the integrity of any community that claims to value fairness and reasoned discussion.
I think Holly just said what a lot of people were feeling and I find that hard to condemn.
”Traitor” is a bit of a strong term, but it’s pretty natural for burning the commons to result in significantly less trust. To be honest, the main reason why I wouldn’t use that term myself is that it reifies individual actions into a permanent personal characteristic and I don’t have the context to make any such judgments. I’d be quite comfortable with saying that founding Mechanise was a betrayal of sorts, where the “of sorts” clarifies that I’m construing the term broadly.
This characterisation doesn’t quite match what happened. My comment wasn’t along the lines, “Oh, it’s essentially correct, close enough is good enough, details are unimportant”, but I actually wrote down what I thought a more careful analysis would look like.
Part of the reason why I’ve been commenting is to encourage folks to make more precise critiques. And indeed, Michael has updated his previous comment in response to what I wrote.
Is it baseless?
I noticed you wrote: “we do not plan on meaningfully making use”. That provides you with substantial wriggle room. So it’s unclear to me at this stage that your statements being true/defensible would necessitate her statements being false.
Yes, absolutely. With respect, unless you can provide some evidence indicating that I’ve acted improperly, I see no productive reason to continue engaging on this point.
What concerns me most here is that the accusation seems to be treated as credible despite no evidence being presented and a clear denial from me. That pattern—assuming accusations about individuals who criticize or act against core dogmas are true without evidence—is precisely the kind of cult-like behavior I referenced in my original comment.
Suggesting that I’ve left myself “substantial wiggle room” misinterprets what I intended, and given the lack of supporting evidence, it feels unfair and unnecessarily adversarial. Repeatedly implying that I’ve acted improperly without concrete substantiation does not reflect a good-faith approach to discussion.
If you don’t want to engage, that’s perfectly fine. I’ve written a lot of comments and responding to all of them would take substantial time. It wouldn’t be fair to expect that from you.
That said, labelling asking for clarification “cult-like behaviour” is absurd. On the contrary, not naively taking claims at face value is a crucial defence against this. Furthermore, implying that someone asking questions in bad faith is precisely the technique that cult leaders use[1].
I said that the statement left you substantial wiggle room. This was purely a comment about how the statement could have a broad range of interpretations. I did not state, nor mean to imply, that this vagueness was intentional or in bad faith.
That said, people asking questions in bad faith is actually pretty common and so you can’t assume that something is a cult just because they say that their critics are mostly acting in bad faith.
To be clear, I was not calling your request for clarification “cult-like”. My comment was directed at how the accusation against me was seemingly handled—as though it were credible until I could somehow prove otherwise. No evidence was offered to support the claim. Instead, assertions were made without substantiation. I directly and clearly denied the accusations, but despite that, the line of questioning continued in a way that strongly suggested the accusation might still be valid.
To illustrate the issue more clearly: imagine if I were to accuse you of something completely baseless, and even after your firm denials, I continued to press you with questions that implicitly treated the accusation as credible. You would likely find that approach deeply frustrating and unfair, and understandably so. You’d be entirely justified in pushing back against it.
That said, I acknowledge that describing the behavior as “cult-like” may have generated more heat than light. It likely escalated the tone unnecessarily, and I’ll be more careful to avoid that kind of rhetoric going forward.
I can see why you’d find this personally frustrating.
On the other hand, many people in the community, myself included, took certain claims from OpenAI and sbf at face value when it might have been more prudent to be less trusting. I understand that it must be unpleasant to face some degree of distrust due to the actions of others.
And I can see why you’d see your statements as a firm denial, whilst from my perspective, they were ambiguous. For example, I don’t know how to interpret your use of the word “meaningful”, so I don’t actually know what exactly you’ve denied. It may be clear to you because you know what you mean, but it isn’t clear to me.
(For what it’s worth, I neither upvoted nor downvoted the comment you made before this one, but I did disagree vote it.)
Holly herself believes standards of criticism should be higher than what (judging by the comments here without being familiar with the overall situation) she seems to have employed here; see Criticism is sanctified in EA, but, like any intervention, criticism needs to pay rent.