Sorry for the delay in responding here, and apologies in advance for keeping this one short.
Your position appears to assume that speaking outside the court process after the fact is likely to add accurate information to the public record and help everyone get to the truth. One of the main thrusts of my OP is that this is not the case. Instead, speaking outside the process after the fact is more likely to create confusion instead of clarity, along with all the other negative effects I walk through. I’m speaking strictly from my experience and in the abstract here, but I think that’s where we disagree. Even information provided carefully, with counsel, under the controlled circumstances of the judicial process can be problematic, but it at least has the benefit of being relatively structured and under oath. It’s much more likely to help everyone (including class action attorneys) get as close to the truth as possible.
I’m not saying there are not potential upsides of speaking out—including to the mental and emotional well-being of folks who want to speak out and have been advised to stay quiet. I’m just stating my view that those upsides are outweighed by the potential downsides, not only to the speaker, but to folks they might speak about and the process in general.
Re the question about how organizations could get involved, I don’t pretend to know the specifics here and wouldn’t comment if I thought I did, but on a general level Jason covers this in his response.
I appreciate your take here, but would also take bets at pretty large odds that if we were to ask the relevant creditors and defendants that they would prefer people to speak openly here, and that this guess of yours is inaccurate.
I think I just don’t understand the basic argument by which information here will harm people, especially if that information provides accurate evidence about actual wrongdoing that happened, or provides substantial evidence about who might be relevant witnesses to the case, by modeling the social dynamics around FTX.
The prior in favor of “accurate information helps people come to more accurate beliefs” just seems so much stronger here than the relatively vague and abstract arguments you are providing.
The prior in favor of “accurate information helps people come to more accurate beliefs” just seems so much stronger here than the relatively vague and abstract arguments you are providing
A simple model, which is roughly what I interpret legal experts to mean when they say that the US justice system is intentionally designed as adversarial, is something like: the probability that a judge finds you guilty (pj) is the product of the true probability that you are guilty (pt), the bias on evidence introduced by the prosecutor (bp), and the bias on evidence introduced by the defender (bd):[1]
pj=ptbpbd
We observe that pj=pt↔bp=b−1d i.e. the optimal truth finding strategy is when both sides are equally biased in their own favor. And importantly to your point, one side being unbiased results in the judge making a worse decision (assuming the other side is biased).
Furthermore, the equilibrium of this game is when sides are maximally biased in their own favor (since otherwise the more biased side would disproportionately win). Knowing this, the US legal system encourages both sides to be maximally biased, since this results in the most accurate judgments.
I would be interested to hear from others if this seems accurate, as it’s not something I know a lot about.
FWIW, I’d happily take the other side of a bet from you here, if one could construct a wager that would settle this. But I don’t think that’s possible, which I reckon is part of the problem.
And while I’ll confess to being a little miffed at having my own prior (updated over 15+ years directly observing analogous circumstances) downgraded to a ”guess” in your comment, while your own remains on its linguistic perch, I don’t think our continuing to go around on this will be useful. I’ll propose we “settle” it by my buying you a beer (or a cup of coffee, if you prefer) the next time we’re in the same city (and I’ll draw my home circle out to include NYC, if you happen to come through), and we can spend the time discussing the many things I’d wager we agree on.
Sorry for the delay in responding here, and apologies in advance for keeping this one short.
Your position appears to assume that speaking outside the court process after the fact is likely to add accurate information to the public record and help everyone get to the truth. One of the main thrusts of my OP is that this is not the case. Instead, speaking outside the process after the fact is more likely to create confusion instead of clarity, along with all the other negative effects I walk through. I’m speaking strictly from my experience and in the abstract here, but I think that’s where we disagree. Even information provided carefully, with counsel, under the controlled circumstances of the judicial process can be problematic, but it at least has the benefit of being relatively structured and under oath. It’s much more likely to help everyone (including class action attorneys) get as close to the truth as possible.
I’m not saying there are not potential upsides of speaking out—including to the mental and emotional well-being of folks who want to speak out and have been advised to stay quiet. I’m just stating my view that those upsides are outweighed by the potential downsides, not only to the speaker, but to folks they might speak about and the process in general.
Re the question about how organizations could get involved, I don’t pretend to know the specifics here and wouldn’t comment if I thought I did, but on a general level Jason covers this in his response.
I appreciate your take here, but would also take bets at pretty large odds that if we were to ask the relevant creditors and defendants that they would prefer people to speak openly here, and that this guess of yours is inaccurate.
I think I just don’t understand the basic argument by which information here will harm people, especially if that information provides accurate evidence about actual wrongdoing that happened, or provides substantial evidence about who might be relevant witnesses to the case, by modeling the social dynamics around FTX.
The prior in favor of “accurate information helps people come to more accurate beliefs” just seems so much stronger here than the relatively vague and abstract arguments you are providing.
A simple model, which is roughly what I interpret legal experts to mean when they say that the US justice system is intentionally designed as adversarial, is something like: the probability that a judge finds you guilty (pj) is the product of the true probability that you are guilty (pt), the bias on evidence introduced by the prosecutor (bp), and the bias on evidence introduced by the defender (bd):[1]
pj=ptbpbd
We observe that pj=pt↔bp=b−1d i.e. the optimal truth finding strategy is when both sides are equally biased in their own favor. And importantly to your point, one side being unbiased results in the judge making a worse decision (assuming the other side is biased).
Furthermore, the equilibrium of this game is when sides are maximally biased in their own favor (since otherwise the more biased side would disproportionately win). Knowing this, the US legal system encourages both sides to be maximally biased, since this results in the most accurate judgments.
I would be interested to hear from others if this seems accurate, as it’s not something I know a lot about.
After writing this I realized these should be odds ratios, not probabilities, but hopefully you get the point.
FWIW, I’d happily take the other side of a bet from you here, if one could construct a wager that would settle this. But I don’t think that’s possible, which I reckon is part of the problem.
And while I’ll confess to being a little miffed at having my own prior (updated over 15+ years directly observing analogous circumstances) downgraded to a ”guess” in your comment, while your own remains on its linguistic perch, I don’t think our continuing to go around on this will be useful. I’ll propose we “settle” it by my buying you a beer (or a cup of coffee, if you prefer) the next time we’re in the same city (and I’ll draw my home circle out to include NYC, if you happen to come through), and we can spend the time discussing the many things I’d wager we agree on.