I can definitely be persuaded of this, and that’s in line with the conclusion I was aiming towards in my last section: lawsuits are a last resort and a sign of an embarrassing failure to resolve disputes any other way. The EA community prides itself on having better-than-median approaches to these things, so it can and should find a satisfactory resolution that does not involve an actual lawsuit.
Presumably you’re looking at some sort of arbitration? Here’s the chaIlenge I see: in general, the EA community seems very hesitant to bring outsiders into this sort of thing. However, it may often be difficult to find insiders who would be accepted by all as truly neutral, who also have the necessary skillset and bandwidth.
This is a favorable situation for arbitration from a structural point of view—Lightcone and Nonlinear seem to be roughly the same weight, by which I mean that their ability to present their case to an arbitrator seems roughly equal and that neither seems vastly more powerful in a way that risks an arbitrator deferring to them. In addition, both are probably in a position to pay for the costs of arbitration if they lose. Under those circumstances, some sort of private dispute resolution is viable in a way that it wouldn’t be if (e.g.) Open Phil was one of the disputants.
I maintain, of course, that the cleanest and best resolution would be for LC to back off of trying to litigate every specific claim to its maximum capacity and instead acknowledge the ways going on a hunt only for negative information and then refusing to pause to consider exculpatory evidence (including a point they agree was exculpatory on an accusation they agree was significant) poisoned the well in the dispute as a whole—even expecting them to continue to believe they were more-or-less correct about NL.
As things stand, it looks almost inevitable that Ben’s next post will focus primarily on relitigating specific claims and aiming to prove he really was right about NL. Oliver has, however, indicated at least some inclination towards the idea that if that does not persuade people, they will be more open to considering the procedural points I raise here. I believe him in that and am broadly optimistic that what I anticipate will be a lukewarm response to that further litigation will open the door to a clean resolution.
Failing a broadly community-satisfactory outcome from that, it does seem like an ideal case for arbitration or something that fills the same role, yes.
This is helpful; thanks. It brings up something I have been internally musing about (not specifically about your post or comments) --
For this exercise, let’s (roughly) condense the criticism of Lightcone into “They have acted like a partisan advocate, rather than a neutral truthseeker.” I can think of three ways to go from there, which have a good bit of overlap:
“We expect everyone to be a neutral truthseeker here; partisan advocacy is against our norms.”
“We accept some degree of advocacy from both sides here, but Lightcone went way over the line of permissible advocacy here.”
“A core problem is that Lightcone presented itself as a neutral truthseeker conducting an ‘investigation,’ when in fact its actions were that of a partisan advocate.”
As someone who is focused more about setting norms in the future than arbitrating Lightcone’s specific conduct per se, it might be helpful for future norm-building if Lightcone’s critics are clear about the extent to which each of these three pathways explains how they believe that Lightcone went astray. My guess is that it is some combination of number 2 and number 3 for most people, but I don’t actually know that.
I can definitely be persuaded of this, and that’s in line with the conclusion I was aiming towards in my last section: lawsuits are a last resort and a sign of an embarrassing failure to resolve disputes any other way. The EA community prides itself on having better-than-median approaches to these things, so it can and should find a satisfactory resolution that does not involve an actual lawsuit.
Presumably you’re looking at some sort of arbitration? Here’s the chaIlenge I see: in general, the EA community seems very hesitant to bring outsiders into this sort of thing. However, it may often be difficult to find insiders who would be accepted by all as truly neutral, who also have the necessary skillset and bandwidth.
This is a favorable situation for arbitration from a structural point of view—Lightcone and Nonlinear seem to be roughly the same weight, by which I mean that their ability to present their case to an arbitrator seems roughly equal and that neither seems vastly more powerful in a way that risks an arbitrator deferring to them. In addition, both are probably in a position to pay for the costs of arbitration if they lose. Under those circumstances, some sort of private dispute resolution is viable in a way that it wouldn’t be if (e.g.) Open Phil was one of the disputants.
I maintain, of course, that the cleanest and best resolution would be for LC to back off of trying to litigate every specific claim to its maximum capacity and instead acknowledge the ways going on a hunt only for negative information and then refusing to pause to consider exculpatory evidence (including a point they agree was exculpatory on an accusation they agree was significant) poisoned the well in the dispute as a whole—even expecting them to continue to believe they were more-or-less correct about NL.
As things stand, it looks almost inevitable that Ben’s next post will focus primarily on relitigating specific claims and aiming to prove he really was right about NL. Oliver has, however, indicated at least some inclination towards the idea that if that does not persuade people, they will be more open to considering the procedural points I raise here. I believe him in that and am broadly optimistic that what I anticipate will be a lukewarm response to that further litigation will open the door to a clean resolution.
Failing a broadly community-satisfactory outcome from that, it does seem like an ideal case for arbitration or something that fills the same role, yes.
This is helpful; thanks. It brings up something I have been internally musing about (not specifically about your post or comments) --
For this exercise, let’s (roughly) condense the criticism of Lightcone into “They have acted like a partisan advocate, rather than a neutral truthseeker.” I can think of three ways to go from there, which have a good bit of overlap:
“We expect everyone to be a neutral truthseeker here; partisan advocacy is against our norms.”
“We accept some degree of advocacy from both sides here, but Lightcone went way over the line of permissible advocacy here.”
“A core problem is that Lightcone presented itself as a neutral truthseeker conducting an ‘investigation,’ when in fact its actions were that of a partisan advocate.”
As someone who is focused more about setting norms in the future than arbitrating Lightcone’s specific conduct per se, it might be helpful for future norm-building if Lightcone’s critics are clear about the extent to which each of these three pathways explains how they believe that Lightcone went astray. My guess is that it is some combination of number 2 and number 3 for most people, but I don’t actually know that.