Jeff, in your comments above, you say describe yourself as having two kinds of concerns, the ones about the content being more serious. However, in your comments here, you describe your “primary concern” as the nature of the content. I am now not sure about your actual position.
So question 1: Were you revealing your true beliefs earlier or now?
I also want to point out what you said above
While I think the second category is more serious, the first category is much easier to document and communicate.
This to me seems a classical example of bikeshedding (not focusing on the “primary concern”) and motte-and-bailey (defending a much narrower but stronger position after making initially grand but indifensible claims).
So question 2: Do you agree or disagree that these are examples of bikeshedding and motte-and-bailey?
I hope Jeff will forgive me for answering this comment on his behalf, and Gleb will forgive me for ceasing to pretend he asking in good faith, rather than risible mudslinging in a misguided attempt at a damage limitation exercise (I particularly like the catty “Are you revealing your true beliefs earlier or now?”—setting an example for aspiring rationalists on how to garb their passive-aggressiveness with the appropriate verbiage).
Jeff notes here and in what you link there are two broad families concerns 1) your product is awful, and 2) your grasping duplicity in self-promotion, among the other problems illustrated above. He says that although [1] is actually the biggest problem, [2] is what he decided to focus on—he also notes in another comment he was happy to talk about [1], but was persuaded otherwise by Carl and I.
BTW, as both his comments agree on [1] being the big problem, there’s no inconsistency. I aver that even had Jeff been inconsistent, Gleb’s uncharitableness with ‘were you lying then or now?’ is a much meaner measure than Jeff would have dealt to him had the tables been turned—we’d have been keen to note the possibility of one sincerely changing ones mind, etc. etc.
Given your cargo-cult understanding of most concepts—or perhaps more likely your propensity to misuse them in some slanderous hail-mary when the facts plainly aren’t on your side—it is unsurprising you misuse both motte-and-bailey and bikeshedding.
It would only be motte-and-bailey if [1] was some logical extension of [2], and [2] was retreated to in the face of criticism. So: “Gleb lies about literally everything about InIn” would be a potential bailey, and “Gleb told some half-truths about topic X and nothing else” being a motte here (note we documented areas we were mistaken, making this accusation even less plausible).
Yet Jeff’s [1] is not some exaggeration of [2]: you could have rubbish content without being dodgy, or dodgy with great content. Further, Jeff is not ‘backing away’ from [1], but affirming it in addition, but suggesting that [2] is easier to make headway on and that the problems are more than ‘bad enough’ to explain why he has an extremely adverse view of InIn and you. He is correct: thanks in part to your endless self-promotion, I was acquianted enough with your content to appreciate it is rubbish for a while, yet I was unaware of all the other shady stuff you were up to—thanks to Jeff’s post, I found it out (and helped find some still further areas where you were up to no good), so I also now hold an extremely adverse view of InIn and yourself, as you kindly link above. I hope the post I contibuted to above can pay this valuable understanding forward to anyone else under the misapprehension that from your crooked timber anything straight can be made.
Bikeshedding applies to an organisation deciding to look at trivial issues because they are easy to work on. As someone who did a lot of the work in this document, it was neither easy to work on, and it definitely wasn’t trivial. It’s not trivial that for an ‘outreach org’ almost all of your social media engagement is illusory. It’s not trivial how you somehow manage to use 1000 hours a week and produce so little of value. It’s not trivial how you denied ever soliciting upvotes from the InIn group, got caught, then doubled down before making a tactical retreat. It’s not trivial how again and again you plant astroturf under the excuse it’s ‘their volunteer time’, doubly so given the murky relationship between your VAs paid work and their volunteering. It’s not trivial how many times you ‘update’ only to get caught red-handed doing something cosmetically different. It’s also not trivial you think this is trivial—and despite having weeks to see what we were writing, the best you can dredge up in response is some risible complaints against Michelle, Oliver, Jeff, CEA, etc. and flatly denying or ignoring the rest.
I am happy to discover current and prospective donors also don’t find it trivial, and I hope that this work has made InIn’s financial difficulty even less trivial than it was before.
you say describe yourself as having two kinds of concerns, the ones about the content being more serious. However, in your comments here, you describe your “primary concern” as the nature of the content
These are entirely compatible. I had and have multiple concerns, and described the one I was most worried about as my “primary concern”. There’s no contradiction here.
This to me seems a classical example of bikeshedding
In this case it’s more of a motte-and-motte, with the document authors agreeing to focus on motte-A because we didn’t have consensus that motte-B should be defended.
(I also appreciate Gregory’s response to your comment.)
Jeff, in your comments above, you say describe yourself as having two kinds of concerns, the ones about the content being more serious. However, in your comments here, you describe your “primary concern” as the nature of the content. I am now not sure about your actual position.
So question 1: Were you revealing your true beliefs earlier or now?
I also want to point out what you said above
This to me seems a classical example of bikeshedding (not focusing on the “primary concern”) and motte-and-bailey (defending a much narrower but stronger position after making initially grand but indifensible claims).
So question 2: Do you agree or disagree that these are examples of bikeshedding and motte-and-bailey?
I hope Jeff will forgive me for answering this comment on his behalf, and Gleb will forgive me for ceasing to pretend he asking in good faith, rather than risible mudslinging in a misguided attempt at a damage limitation exercise (I particularly like the catty “Are you revealing your true beliefs earlier or now?”—setting an example for aspiring rationalists on how to garb their passive-aggressiveness with the appropriate verbiage).
Jeff notes here and in what you link there are two broad families concerns 1) your product is awful, and 2) your grasping duplicity in self-promotion, among the other problems illustrated above. He says that although [1] is actually the biggest problem, [2] is what he decided to focus on—he also notes in another comment he was happy to talk about [1], but was persuaded otherwise by Carl and I.
BTW, as both his comments agree on [1] being the big problem, there’s no inconsistency. I aver that even had Jeff been inconsistent, Gleb’s uncharitableness with ‘were you lying then or now?’ is a much meaner measure than Jeff would have dealt to him had the tables been turned—we’d have been keen to note the possibility of one sincerely changing ones mind, etc. etc.
Given your cargo-cult understanding of most concepts—or perhaps more likely your propensity to misuse them in some slanderous hail-mary when the facts plainly aren’t on your side—it is unsurprising you misuse both motte-and-bailey and bikeshedding.
It would only be motte-and-bailey if [1] was some logical extension of [2], and [2] was retreated to in the face of criticism. So: “Gleb lies about literally everything about InIn” would be a potential bailey, and “Gleb told some half-truths about topic X and nothing else” being a motte here (note we documented areas we were mistaken, making this accusation even less plausible).
Yet Jeff’s [1] is not some exaggeration of [2]: you could have rubbish content without being dodgy, or dodgy with great content. Further, Jeff is not ‘backing away’ from [1], but affirming it in addition, but suggesting that [2] is easier to make headway on and that the problems are more than ‘bad enough’ to explain why he has an extremely adverse view of InIn and you. He is correct: thanks in part to your endless self-promotion, I was acquianted enough with your content to appreciate it is rubbish for a while, yet I was unaware of all the other shady stuff you were up to—thanks to Jeff’s post, I found it out (and helped find some still further areas where you were up to no good), so I also now hold an extremely adverse view of InIn and yourself, as you kindly link above. I hope the post I contibuted to above can pay this valuable understanding forward to anyone else under the misapprehension that from your crooked timber anything straight can be made.
Bikeshedding applies to an organisation deciding to look at trivial issues because they are easy to work on. As someone who did a lot of the work in this document, it was neither easy to work on, and it definitely wasn’t trivial. It’s not trivial that for an ‘outreach org’ almost all of your social media engagement is illusory. It’s not trivial how you somehow manage to use 1000 hours a week and produce so little of value. It’s not trivial how you denied ever soliciting upvotes from the InIn group, got caught, then doubled down before making a tactical retreat. It’s not trivial how again and again you plant astroturf under the excuse it’s ‘their volunteer time’, doubly so given the murky relationship between your VAs paid work and their volunteering. It’s not trivial how many times you ‘update’ only to get caught red-handed doing something cosmetically different. It’s also not trivial you think this is trivial—and despite having weeks to see what we were writing, the best you can dredge up in response is some risible complaints against Michelle, Oliver, Jeff, CEA, etc. and flatly denying or ignoring the rest.
I am happy to discover current and prospective donors also don’t find it trivial, and I hope that this work has made InIn’s financial difficulty even less trivial than it was before.
1) I would prefer to hear Jeff’s answer to my questions—he’s more than capable of speaking for himself.
2) I will not stoop to engaging with the level of discourse you present in this comment.
These are entirely compatible. I had and have multiple concerns, and described the one I was most worried about as my “primary concern”. There’s no contradiction here.
I think you’re confused about what bikeshedding means: http://bikeshed.org/
In this case it’s more of a motte-and-motte, with the document authors agreeing to focus on motte-A because we didn’t have consensus that motte-B should be defended.
(I also appreciate Gregory’s response to your comment.)