To me, it doesn’t seem that hard to understand how someone could act like that. Seems to be a common mistake, trusting someone (Sam) too much and thinking he’s a great entrepreneur (therefore connect him) and vouch for him. I’m not saying that it’s excusable, just that it’s a common type of mistake for someone with bad people judgment.
howdoyousay? made a good comment, admittedly:
As far as I can tell, EA overall and Will specifically do not have skills / knowhow in this domain.
And neither did Sam. But, if you think Sam’s a great entrepreneur, maybe it doesn’t take all that much knowhow to think it’s worth a shot? I mean Musk clearly hadn’t thought about this idea too much either, and you only have to improve the counterfactual where Musk does things alone!
I don’t dislike the idea of reforming twitter. Imagine if Sam was who Will thought he was and actually had 8 billion liquid that were his to spend (and not pledged to other EA causes or to anyone else). Then why not let him try it? (No need to make it EA-branded and no need for Will’s involvement – and therefore EA involvement – in the initial connection to become a topic in the media.)
I’m not saying Will did nothing wrong. I think the mistake of vouching is inexcusable (despite being understandable) and if I was Will I’d strongly consider forever forfeitting my vote on anything people-judgment-related. I’m just saying the twitter thing per se doesn’t seem obviously insane to me. Public discourse is broken in a way that makes me very pessimistic about the future in general, so thinking “maybe it would be better if Elon Musk wasn’t in charge of improving it alone, maybe it would be good if someone really thoughtful with an EA outlook played a role in this” seems totally reasonable.
Here’s an early selection of some of the texts. Sorry for the poor formatting. I am struggling to understand why MacAskill was acting like this:
Wow, thanks for posting these!
To me, it doesn’t seem that hard to understand how someone could act like that. Seems to be a common mistake, trusting someone (Sam) too much and thinking he’s a great entrepreneur (therefore connect him) and vouch for him. I’m not saying that it’s excusable, just that it’s a common type of mistake for someone with bad people judgment.
howdoyousay? made a good comment, admittedly:
And neither did Sam. But, if you think Sam’s a great entrepreneur, maybe it doesn’t take all that much knowhow to think it’s worth a shot? I mean Musk clearly hadn’t thought about this idea too much either, and you only have to improve the counterfactual where Musk does things alone!
I don’t dislike the idea of reforming twitter. Imagine if Sam was who Will thought he was and actually had 8 billion liquid that were his to spend (and not pledged to other EA causes or to anyone else). Then why not let him try it? (No need to make it EA-branded and no need for Will’s involvement – and therefore EA involvement – in the initial connection to become a topic in the media.)
I’m not saying Will did nothing wrong. I think the mistake of vouching is inexcusable (despite being understandable) and if I was Will I’d strongly consider forever forfeitting my vote on anything people-judgment-related. I’m just saying the twitter thing per se doesn’t seem obviously insane to me. Public discourse is broken in a way that makes me very pessimistic about the future in general, so thinking “maybe it would be better if Elon Musk wasn’t in charge of improving it alone, maybe it would be good if someone really thoughtful with an EA outlook played a role in this” seems totally reasonable.