After checking with Oliver, my impression is that to properly detail that section would require sharing non-public information we would need another party’s permission to share. Given that and the degree to which litigating it could derail things, I’ll simply say that the core takeaway should be that I shared part of the post with Oliver prior to publication and we had a confusing and somewhat frustrating conversation about it, and that the bulk of the post contained arguments we had already been litigating in the public sphere.
Just to clarify, the only section that was shared with me was the following:
You don’t even have to look as far as my examples, though. To his credit, Oliver repeatedlyasked for better examples of what to do in similar situations. To the credit of the rationalist community, it contains some of those examples. To Oliver’s discredit, however, he had full awareness of one better example, as his response to allegations of community misconduct was one of its subjects of investigation.
Last year, a rationalist meetup organizer faced accusations of misconduct, Oliver and his wife Claire (who was in charge of meetup organization as a whole) banned him from an event, he objected, and Claire agreed to be bound by a community investigation. One principle used in that investigation is worth highlighting:
Anyone accused of misconduct should promptly be informed of any accusations made against them and given an opportunity to tell their side of the story, present evidence, and propose witnesses. Emergency preliminary actions should be taken where allegations are sufficiently serious and credible, but the accused should be given an opportunity to defend themselves as quickly as possible.[16]
In the end, the team writing the report highlighted several specific allegations against its primary subject before including a telling line:
We were unable to substantiate any other allegations made against [redacted]. At his request, we are not repeating unsubstantiated allegations in this document.
A prudent decision.
I pointed out one concrete error in the relevant section (which Tracing corrected), and then said some other stuff about the panel’s relationship to that section.
Mostly want people to not walk away with the impression that I saw the whole post, or any substantial fraction of it, which would directly contradict a point I made in another comment.
I shared the full post with a member of the panel, a CEA community health team representative, and several others who seemed well positioned to give good feedback prior to publication and made several adjustments based on their feedback.
Seeing that the local norm is to inform people of substantial responses before providing them, I told Ben and Oliver I would be providing a response that pulled together much of what I had been litigating in Oliver with public and brought in the ACX meetup dispute details and a bit more. Oliver wanted to see the meetup section, so I shared it, and he warned that specific factual allegations might be incorrect pending more information they gave (with a couple of examples) so I investigated those factual claims to ensure nothing I said contradicted what he was saying (which it did not).
Oliver corrected one point I’d misread in that section before going into the confusing and frustrating conversation I refer to.
Given that conversation, our prior conversations, and his prior public statements, I felt (and continue to feel) that I had enough to establish all that needed to be established in my post.
After checking with Oliver, my impression is that to properly detail that section would require sharing non-public information we would need another party’s permission to share. Given that and the degree to which litigating it could derail things, I’ll simply say that the core takeaway should be that I shared part of the post with Oliver prior to publication and we had a confusing and somewhat frustrating conversation about it, and that the bulk of the post contained arguments we had already been litigating in the public sphere.
Just to clarify, the only section that was shared with me was the following:
I pointed out one concrete error in the relevant section (which Tracing corrected), and then said some other stuff about the panel’s relationship to that section.
Mostly want people to not walk away with the impression that I saw the whole post, or any substantial fraction of it, which would directly contradict a point I made in another comment.
I can confirm this is accurate. More fully:
I shared the full post with a member of the panel, a CEA community health team representative, and several others who seemed well positioned to give good feedback prior to publication and made several adjustments based on their feedback.
Seeing that the local norm is to inform people of substantial responses before providing them, I told Ben and Oliver I would be providing a response that pulled together much of what I had been litigating in Oliver with public and brought in the ACX meetup dispute details and a bit more. Oliver wanted to see the meetup section, so I shared it, and he warned that specific factual allegations might be incorrect pending more information they gave (with a couple of examples) so I investigated those factual claims to ensure nothing I said contradicted what he was saying (which it did not).
Oliver corrected one point I’d misread in that section before going into the confusing and frustrating conversation I refer to.
Given that conversation, our prior conversations, and his prior public statements, I felt (and continue to feel) that I had enough to establish all that needed to be established in my post.