It seems like you’re very focused on the individual cost of investigation, and not the community wide benefit of preventing abuse from occurring.
The first and most obvious point is that bad actors cause harm, and we don’t want harm in our community. Aside from the immediate effect, there are also knock-on effects. Bad actors are more likely to engage in unethical behavior (like the FTX fraud), are likely to misuse funds, are non-aligned with our values (do you want an AGI designed by an abuser?), etc.
Even putting morality aside, it doesn’t stack up. 500 hours is roughly 3 months of full-time work. I would say the mistreated employees of nonlinear have lost far more than that. Hell, if a team of 12 loses one week of useful productivity from a bad boss, that cancels out the 500 hours.
I’m assuming this is an uncharitable and somewhat dickish way to accuse me of not reading your comment. I assure you I have. You are saying that it is not worth putting 500 hours into the level of investigation required to get it to the level of evidence required for a “public expose”. I am saying that this is worth it, because the community gets far more than 500 hours of benefit from this investigation. The lesser amount of investigation you advocate for will have a comparably smaller effect.
We’re issuing a warning for this comment for breaking our Forum norm on civility. We don’t think it was meant to be insulting, based on Linch’s previous Twitter poll (created months ago) and the fact that he himself is not a native speaker. However, we think the stark difference between the Twitter poll and responses here shows that this comment was widely taken as insulting, even if that wasn’t the intent. (I certainly saw it that way before reading the Twitter poll.)
A subsequent comment (“I at least made an effort to understand the language when I immigrated”) was more obviously an attack on titotal, and contributed to this warning.
Linch is an extremely active Forum user whose contributions have been vastly beneficial on net, and this strikes us as an uncharacteristic lapse. A warning doesn’t mean that someone hasn’t been a valuable member of the Forum; however, being a valuable member of the Forum doesn’t insulate someone from moderator action in cases like this.
On the constructive side, it’s hard to say what a “better” version of this comment would have looked like; even comments like “I think there may be a language barrier” still imply something along the lines of “you understand me so poorly that I think you may not be fluent in English”.
In the end, we think the best response to a confusing argument is to engage at the points of confusion (if that seems worthwhile), or ignore it (if not).
Another member of our team drafted these sample comments — not as “you should have said exactly X”, but “here’s one shape a better response could have taken”:
Engaging:
From your comment, you seem to think I’m arguing that public investigation is net harmful because the individual cost outweighs the collective benefit. That’s not my argument. Instead, I think that the collective benefit would be higher if someone took the time/energy spent on one public investigation and used it for many private investigations, because private investigations can also be valuable and are much easier to conduct.
It’s important to compare action not just to the null case (“is this better than nothing?”), but also to other possible actions (“is this the best way to handle problem X?”).
Does that response make sense? Did I misread your objection?
Ignoring:
This comment doesn’t address my argument; I think you may have misunderstood me. I don’t plan to engage further.
Thanks for the affirmation but while I strongly contest the “racism” remark by Akhil, I don’t think you should have much evidence about my internal motives re: “trying to be condescending.” Seems pretty hard to falsify.
If someone consistently generates combinations of words in an obviously adversarial/adverse way, then there are two major explanations:
They have chosen to be disruptive
the average intelligence of an EAforum user allows them to easily find clever ways to do this while simultaneously skirting the rules, or even with charisma on top of that (optimize for gaining status among onlookers)
refuting their argument gives them attention and puts you on a playing field that they are willing to invest way more time into thinking about
They don’t realize that they are being disruptive, e.g. due to language barrier, in which case Linch needs to know because then it is worth his time to make the effort to resolve the issue
They don’t realize they are being disruptive, due to a personality issue that they’re only dimly aware of and calling attention to it might help them
In both scenarios, asking them if they’re a native language speaker appears to be a net positive choice. I think that Linch was tearing down a Chesterton-Schelling fence here, causing an unforseen consequence, such as dozens of people going absolutely bananas.
I’m aware of this failure mode, but I specificallyasked Twitter a few months ago whether this type of question is considered racist, and the unanimous consensus is “no.” It’s possible they’ve misled me however.
My current position is that people with apparent poor reading comprehension[1] are not worth engaging with online[2] if they’re native speakers, but non-native speakers can at least use Google translate or something[3] so having a conversation with them isn’t hopeless.
I feel like I already spend a ton of effort on trying to make my writing simple enough to be understandable to the 20th percentile of EA Forum users (eg have far shorter sentences than my preferred style). Obviously if I’m a better writer explaining ideas simply would be effortless, but I’m not. I just wish readers would put in at least a bit of effort, and/or be more willing to acknowledge fault.
I know this might be unfair for smart people with reading disabilities like dyslexia. I’m sorry; I can only hope in-person conversations and podcasts are enough.
Linch, surprised you felt like titotal wasn’t reading your comment properly, since I feel like they make a version of the basically right argument here which is around deterrence and the benefits of public knowledge of wrongdoing outside the specific case. Any sort of investigatory/punitive process (e.g. in most legal contexts) will often have resources devoted to it that are very significant compared to the actual potential wrongdoing being interrogated. But having a system that reliably identifies wrongdoing is quite valuable (and even a patchwork system is probably also quite valuable). Plus there are a whole bunch of diffuse positive externalities to information (e.g. not requiring each actor in the system to spend the effort making a private judgment that has a decent chance of being wrong).
I think the broader problem with your argument here is it’s an example of consequentialism struggling to deal with collective action problems/the value of institutions. The idea that all acts can be cashed out into utility (i.e. “world is burning” above) struggles to engage with cases where broader institutions are necessary for an ecosystem to function. To use an example from outside this case, if one evaluates public statements on their individual utility (rather than descriptive accuracy), it can stymie free inquiry and lead to poorer decision-making. (Not saying this can never be accounted for through a consequentialist or primarily consequentialist theory but I think it’s a persistent and difficult problem).
I think “you didn’t seem to read my comment, which frustrates me” is a better thing to say to someone than “are you a native english speaker?” since it seems to get at the problem more directly and isn’t exclusionary to non-native speakers (which is rude, even if that’s not the intention). I also think the instant case should give pause about the way you’re attempting to deal with bad faith critics, since labeling a critic mentally as poorly comprehending or in bad faith can be a subconscious crutch to miss the thrust of their argument.
On the object-level, I think the argument has to route around something like “1 public investigation is worth 3-10 private cases not being addressed/punished,” because in the world we live in, resources are patently limited and most people empirically do not go around investigating potential bad actors.
I feel pretty much capped at how much time/emotional energy I can spend on investigations, given that I have competing priorities like a day job and writing snarky EA forum comments. I already kinda feel like “did my time” for things-akin-to-investigations that I initiated or participated in; if the expectation is always a public writeup I might as well curl up in a ball or something. And I suspect I’m more able/willing to take on public flak and private reprisal than most people on this forum. So I expect having norms to make investigations more costly to straightforwardly decrease them happening.
I think an undertone in much of this thread is that people simultaneously expect processes that can “reliably identify wrongdoing” as well as the benefits of public discourse, without being willing to pay the costs associated with such investigations and disclosures. It reminds me of taxpayers who want lower taxes and increased budgets. Overall this feels surprisingly “not EA” to me, in that one of the basic tenets of EA is appreciating the existence of tradeoffs.
I think “you didn’t seem to read my comment, which frustrates me” is a better thing to say to someone than “are you a native english speaker?” since it seems to get at the problem more directly and isn’t exclusionary to non-native speakers
Yeah this is helpful. Though to be clear, I think they did “read” my comment, just didn’t try to understand it.
And I’m sorry to appear to be exclusionary to non-native speakers, though again I want to register that (as you know) I’m not a native speaker myself whereas you and most people reprimanding me appear to be.
Yeah I should have clarified that I knew you’re not a native speaker and understand why that motivates your argument, but the harm of being exclusionary stems in part because not every reader will know that. (Though I think even if every reader did know that you were a non-native speaker, it still does create a negative effect (via this exclusionary channel) albeit a smaller one).
Also I didn’t take your claim to be “investigations should not only take place in cases where their results will be made public.” (Which seems to be the implication of your reply above but maybe I’m misunderstanding). I don’t think “public exposes are useful” implies that you need to necessarily conduct the work needed for a public expose in cases where you suspect wrongdoing.
Should also say as your friend that I recognize it sucks to be criticized especially when it feels like a group pile-on, and I appreciate your making controversial claims even if I don’t agree with them.
but the harm of being exclusionary stems in part because not every reader will know that. (Though I think even if every reader did know that you were a non-native speaker, it still does create a negative effect (via this exclusionary channel) albeit a smaller one).
For the record, I consider being a non-native speaker exculpatory evidence. I’d much rather exclude native speakers with poor[1] reading comprehension than non-native speakers.
Also I didn’t take your claim to be “investigations should not only take place in cases where their results will be made public.” (Which seems to be the implication of your reply above but maybe I’m misunderstanding). I don’t think “public exposes are useful” implies that you need to necessarily conduct the work needed for a public expose in cases where you suspect wrongdoing.
I agree it’s not a necessary result, but I think it has a strong directional effect. At the very least people will feel encouraged to make their results public, a situation where they’re likely to already systematically underestimate the costs (though tbf maybe some of the benefits as well).
Should also say as your friend that I recognize it sucks to be criticized especially when it feels like a group pile-on, and I appreciate your making controversial claims even if I don’t agree with them.
I appreciate the sympathy! I was worried a while ago that I cared more about being liked than being right, so I’m at least glad to get some contrary evidence here.
But the potential to be hurt by bad actors is (Edit: or, arguably, people with less influence and less access to non-public information are actually more likely to get hurt).
I agree with Akhil. There is no benefit to the comment you wrote and plenty of downside. If you’re feeling hopeless about conversing with someone or feeling misunderstood, say that instead. Condescendingly implying someone who disagrees with you isn’t good enough at English because they’re not a native speaker is a terrible response.
I’m confused why people keep thinking “not a native speaker” is a bad/unkind assumption, whereas from my perspective that is the most charitable plausible explanation of titotal’s repeated posting behavior (and the only one that makes me think it might be worthwhile to continue engaging with them). Every other explanation I could come up with is less flattering.
Tbh I’d rather go to sleep rather than litigate this case further, but sure.
The main issue is frequent aggressive misreadings. To give a few examples that I feel less emotional about now:
See this comment, and then doubling down here. I struggle to see how a native speaker could’ve misunderstood me.
At the time people challenged me when I suggested titotal use Google Translate. I was cowardly and retracted my comment, which I now regret.
See also here: “there is no guarantee that your co-workers are good housemates just because they are EA”: arguments for a lack of a sufficiency condition seems bizarre since no one could plausibly make a positive sufficiency case (as opposed to eg a correlational case, or Pablo’s reply).
ETA: see also here, which at the time I held my tongue,
I would like to reiterate that it’s pretty rich that multiple people who are probably native English speakers have decided to call me racist over that remark. If it helps, I can assure you that race was not at all on my mind when I made that comment, and indeed I’m quite willing to listen to people who display competent moral reasoning, regardless of demographics.
I’m sorry you felt offended by my comment. A few points:
I do not think you’re a racist or were trying to be racist, or that race was on your mind when making that comment. I thought you were feeling misunderstood by titotal and mistakenly thought this was a good way to push back. I said there are no upsides and plenty of downsides to your comment and suggested that you be more direct with your actual problem with titotal instead. “If you’re feeling hopeless about conversing with someone or feeling misunderstood, say that instead.”
Your defense about this being the most charitable interpretation you can think of doesn’t engage with any of the points above. A “charitable” explanation that is unlikely to be relevant even if true is just not worth much, nor did you ask your question in a way to make it easy for an actual non-native speaker to admit to a potential vulnerability if that was going on. I read your comment as a passive-aggressive “Can’t you read?” attack which carelessly used language issues as a shield against being called out for being an attack.
I’ve seen a previous similar comment you made and ignored it at the time, especially since (as you say somewhere here) you could have easily been a non-native speaker yourself. But because it had seemingly moved from a one-off comment to a pattern that you thought was justified, I’m glad I pushed back on it.
I did not call you racist and neither did Akhil. We called out issues with your comment. I hope you are mindful of the difference.
I am sympathetic to a general point about native speakers scolding a non-native speaker for not being inclusive enough in their language, but you are making some assumptions in applying it here.
As an unrelated point, I personally hope whether you listen to someone or not isn’t founded on whether they display competent moral reasoning, but I’m unsure what you meant by this.
I read your comment as a passive-aggressive “Can’t you read?” attack which carelessly used language issues as a shield against being called out for being an attack.
Yes, this is an accurate reading. Except I dispute “carelessly.”
I did not call you racist and neither did Akhil. We called out issues with your comment. I hope you are mindful of the difference.
Hmm sorry how is the following statement not a claim that I was being racist, at least in that incidence?
unacceptable comment, steeped with condescension and some racism.
If I say someone is doing something unacceptably racist, this is not exactly a subtle accusation! I mean, it’s possible someone isn’t overall racist in most ways but is racist in a specific way (eg think of an overall progressive voter/parent who still tries to persuade their children to not marry outside of their race). But I also contest that I was being racist in that comment specifically.
Let’s imagine your charitable hypothesis was true and titotal was a non-native speaker who misread some comments due to lack of familiarity with the language. When they pushed back on something you said, you condescendingly asked them if they were a native speaker and ignored everything else they said. This is a tactic with a racist element.
1. a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human racial groups determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one’s own race is superior and has the right to dominate others or that a particular racial group is inferior to the others.
2. Also called in·sti·tu·tion·al rac·ism [in-sti-too-shuh-nl rey-siz-uhm, -tyoo-], struc·tur·al rac·ism [struhk-cher-uhl rey-siz-uhm], sys·tem·ic rac·ism [si-stem-ik rey-siz-uhm] . a policy, system of government, etc., that is associated with or originated in such a doctrine, and that favors members of the dominant racial or ethnic group, or has a neutral effect on their life experiences, while discriminating against or harming members of other groups, ultimately serving to preserve the social status, economic advantage, or political power of the dominant group.
Can you clarify whether you think my comment fits into (1) or (2), or both? Alternatively, if you think dictionary.com’s definition is not the one you were using, can you pull up which alternative definition of racism you and/or Akhil were invoking when you made your comments?
Ok, in that case your claim is that my sentence is part of a “policy, system of government etc...that favors members of the dominant social group?”
Can you explain what prompted it?
I do not view my actions as racist, at least in this instance. If the claim is accurate, I need to reflect more on how to be less racist. If the claim is inaccurate, then, well, I also have some other reflection to do about life choices.
Linch, I believe you wrote elsewhere here that you wish people had engaged with you charitably, instead of focusing on possibly flawed word choice. I have tried to do this with you, although I feel you haven’t always returned the favor (uncharitable assumptions about my motivations/background, mischaracterizing my comments). You contested there was an element of racism in your comment and I gave you a simple, non-legalese outline of why I think so. In response to this, instead of engaging with my point, you asked me an extremely basic question about how to define racism, a question I had already partially addressed multiple times in how it applies here.
My gut reaction was that this was a defensive reaction and you weren’t interested in engaging, you just wanted to seem not racist and win an online debate.
Of course, my gut could be wrong. So I asked you where you were coming from. And I’m glad to hear you seem to be genuinely interested in learning whether you made mistakes here.
Unfortunately, I am not interested in the type of debate you’re setting up. I gave you a simple outline earlier of where I was coming from and you are welcome to engage with it.
I don’t personally view your comment as racist, but it feels like you’re trying to understand why someone might, so here’s a take.
Here’s a thing that I think is true: your comment came across as dismissive because it didn’t engage with the substance of what had been said. Instead, it seemed to dismiss someone’s substantive comments on the basis of their command of English. Consequently, it came across as a personal attack and specifically as dismissively disrespectful. (To be clear, I’m not saying this was your intention in making the comment; here I’m making a claim about how it came across, or at least how it will have come across to some readers)
Now let’s just focus on it as a dismissal for a moment (that is, let’s just focus on the role it plays as a dismissal despite the fact that this wasn’t the role you were intending it to play). This sort of dismissal might strike some as racist for two reasons:
1. Because there is a (very imperfect) connection between race and native grasp of English, this sort of strategy for dismissal of a person’s substantive views is likely to disproportionally impact people of certain races and is likely to reinforce existing factors that mean such people are dismissed/disrespected/not-adequately-heard. (This is perhaps particularly crucial given that English is one of a small number of languages that is disproportionately important for having power)
2. Because of 1, this strategy is (I suspect) actually deliberately used in many cases as a form of racist dismissal. At the very least, many people will perceive that this is so. Consequently, statements like this take on a certain sort of cultural meaning and carry with them certain consequences (for example, if someone has been racistly dismissed in this way many times before, it will be more hurtful to them to face this sort of dismissal again, and so the sentence comes to be particularly harmful to people who have experienced racist attacks).
Given 1 and 2, this sort of statement occupies a certain place in a set of norms around discourse: it is a member of a class of statements that reinforces racial disparities, that harms people disproportionally from certain races, and that is used as a dogwhistle to describe racist dismissal as something else. I think this does roughly fit the second definition of racism that you point to (or, at least, the more complete version of this that recognises that systemtic racism can be about not just policies or systems but also about the role played in broader social norms).
For myself, I buy at least some of the above, and think it might mean it was worth commenting on the way that your commenting could be upsetting to some. I wouldn’t personally chose to describe the comment as racism, because I think this is too easily read as a comment on a person’s intention and virtue, rather than some sort of comment about the place of the statement within a broader societal context. And as I’m confident your intentions here were good, I personally would avoid this description.
So I do understand this is not your actual position and you’re trying to explain someone else’s position. Nonetheless I’m going to try to argue against it directly:
Because of 1, this strategy is (I suspect) actually deliberately used in many cases as a form of racist dismissal...for example, if someone has been racistly dismissed in this way many times before, it will be more hurtful to them to face this sort of dismissal again
As a non-native speaker, I think I have literally never been dismissed in this way[1]. So I suspect you’re setting up an imaginary problem. But I only have anecdotes to go off of rather than data; if someone has survey data I’m willing to update quickly.
I think this does roughly fit the second definition of racism that you point to (or, at least, the more complete version of this...[emphasis mine]
Here’s where I’m coming from: I think you are bending over backwards to support what I view to be a blatantly false claim. In modern left-leaning American culture, “racist” is one of the worst things you can call someone, I’m surprised so many people would stand for me being called that based on such scant evidence, and I’m currently reflecting on whether it makes sense for me to continue to devote so much of my life to being in a community (see EDIT [2]) that finds this type of thing permissible.
For myself, I buy at least some of the above, and think it might mean it was worth commenting on the way that your commenting could be upsetting to some.
I’m not surprised my comment is upsetting to the intended target (what I perceive as poor reading comprehension by people who know better), and/or to people who might choose to take offense on others’ behalf. If anybody genuinely feels unwelcome for object-level race or ethnic-related reasons based on my comment, I’m deeply sorry and I’m happy to apologize further publicly if someone in that position messages me about it and/or messages one of the forum mods to relay the message to me.
And as I’m confident your intentions here were good, I personally would avoid this description.
Thank you. To be clear, I do appreciate both your confidence and your reticence.
EDIT: A month + in, no one has ever messaged me saying that they felt unwelcome for object-level race- or ethnic-related reasons. This feels like confirmatory evidence that privileged native speakers in fact are doing the political move of “feeling offended on others’ behalf” instead of being willing to acknowledge (and/or defend) their own mediocrity. (See also anti-Asian rules passed in educational etc institutions in the name of “diversity”, which I’m pretty sure benefits white people much more than other ethnic minorities)
And to be clear I’ve experienced very blatant (though ultimately harmless) racism not too infrequnetly, as an argumentative visibly nonwhite person on the ’net.
EDIT: I’m afraid that came off too dramatically. I do view being involved in the community as a community pretty differently than being involved professionally. I still intend to work on EA projects etc even if I reduce eg EA Forum commenting or going to social events dramatically, and personal unpleasantness is not going to stop me from working in EA unless it’s like >10-100x this comment thread daily. (And even if I stop having jobs in EA organizations for other reasons I’d likely still intend to be effectively altruistic with my time and other resources)
I’m not really up for a long exchange here, as I find this sort of thing draining. So I hope you’ll forgive me if I don’t reply further after this message.
As a non-native speaker, I think I have literally never been dismissed in this way. So I suspect you’re setting up an imaginary problem. But I only have anecdotes to go off of rather than data; if someone has survey data I’m willing to update quickly.
In text, at least, your English is notably better than the average native speaker, so I’m not convinced you’re representative here. Even setting aside your grasp of English, your obvious high intelligence would, I suspect, make it pretty hard to pull off dismissing you in this way, as would your willingness to speak your views. So I’m not convinced that the fact that you haven’t experienced this means that others haven’t.
That said, I accept that I have no actual data to point to.
In modern left-leaning American culture, “racist” is one of the worst things you can call someone,
I actually think this is importantly false (or, at least, importantly incomplete as a characterisation). Modern left-leaning culture really does distinguish between racism in the two senses that you quoted earlier. And when it comes to structural racism, saying that someone is racist (in the sense of having acted in a way that perpetuates and buys into racist structural norms) just isn’t a terrible thing to call someone.
I’ve heard multiple people saying that they think everyone is racist (ie. socialised into problematic norms that perpetuate racist discrimination) and also that they are themselves of course racist (because they too have been socialised in this way).
Structural racism is seen as a big deal by the left. It’s seen as worth correcting the influence of this on ourselves. But it’s not seen as a terrible accusation to acknowledge that a particular statement or behaviour was structurally racist (indeed, saying this can be helpful for allowing people to make progress in challenging the ways that structural racism has impacted their thinking).
Of course, a statement that someone is racist might be ambiguous, between the terrible reading and the structural reading, which is why I wouldn’t personally use it in the latter way. So I do wish we lived in a world where people wouldn’t call you racist for the things in this thread.
I’m surprised so many people would stand for me being called that based on such scant evidence
Setting aside my just-stated wish, my guess is that no-one intended to call you racist in the terrible sense. And, at the very least, my guess is that the reason people “stand for” Akhil’s comment is that they do not see it as an accusation of racism in the terrible sense.
I myself did not read it this way, despite (and I would actually say, because of) very much being steeped in the contemporary left. This is partly because Akhil commented on your comment rather than on you as an individual, and partly because I think the structural, rather than the terrible, claim is the more plausible accusation here (the accusation being something like: the statement is given meaning by a set of structural norms that developed because of racist attitudes and that perpetuates racial disadvantage). So I guess I felt like the charitable read of Akhil was that he wasn’t calling you racist in the terrible sense but rather was making a claim about structural racism.
For what it’s worth, I think it would be a real loss to the community if you chose to be less involved.
Linch, IMO this isn’t about racism. It’s just very condescending. Both the question itself, and the general treatment of non-natives here.
My level of English is much beyond Google translate being of any help, and I understood the same as titotal. Consider that your writing might not convey the meaning you intend, rather than the readers having too poor comprehension to understand it.
Edit: like the other commenter I’ll add that I know you’re well intentioned and I don’t feel very comfortable being part of this strong group reaction (Linch lynch?). But I felt it important to make my thoughts more explicit than just a downvote.
Consider that your writing might not convey the meaning you intend, rather than the readers having too poor comprehension to understand it.
Yeah this is an interesting question to consider. Speaking more generally, perhaps it might be helpful to consider which pieces of evidence are most dispositive for distinguishing the two hypotheses:
many people have poor reading comprehension
I’m bad at conveying information
I think I’ve gathered quite a bit of evidence in favor of the first proposition, and plenty of disconfirmatory evidence against the second.
Quick note: I don’t think there’s anything wrong with asking “are you an english speaker” for this reason, I’m just kinda surprised that that seemed like a crux in this particular case. Their argument seemed cogent, even if you disagreed with it.
It seems like you’re very focused on the individual cost of investigation, and not the community wide benefit of preventing abuse from occurring.
The first and most obvious point is that bad actors cause harm, and we don’t want harm in our community. Aside from the immediate effect, there are also knock-on effects. Bad actors are more likely to engage in unethical behavior (like the FTX fraud), are likely to misuse funds, are non-aligned with our values (do you want an AGI designed by an abuser?), etc.
Even putting morality aside, it doesn’t stack up. 500 hours is roughly 3 months of full-time work. I would say the mistreated employees of nonlinear have lost far more than that. Hell, if a team of 12 loses one week of useful productivity from a bad boss, that cancels out the 500 hours.
May I ask again if you are a native English speaker?
I’m assuming this is an uncharitable and somewhat dickish way to accuse me of not reading your comment. I assure you I have. You are saying that it is not worth putting 500 hours into the level of investigation required to get it to the level of evidence required for a “public expose”. I am saying that this is worth it, because the community gets far more than 500 hours of benefit from this investigation. The lesser amount of investigation you advocate for will have a comparably smaller effect.
Also, I recommend reading up on the forum guidelines again.
We’re issuing a warning for this comment for breaking our Forum norm on civility. We don’t think it was meant to be insulting, based on Linch’s previous Twitter poll (created months ago) and the fact that he himself is not a native speaker. However, we think the stark difference between the Twitter poll and responses here shows that this comment was widely taken as insulting, even if that wasn’t the intent. (I certainly saw it that way before reading the Twitter poll.)
A subsequent comment (“I at least made an effort to understand the language when I immigrated”) was more obviously an attack on titotal, and contributed to this warning.
Linch is an extremely active Forum user whose contributions have been vastly beneficial on net, and this strikes us as an uncharacteristic lapse. A warning doesn’t mean that someone hasn’t been a valuable member of the Forum; however, being a valuable member of the Forum doesn’t insulate someone from moderator action in cases like this.
We feel grateful to the community for responding productively to this situation.
On the constructive side, it’s hard to say what a “better” version of this comment would have looked like; even comments like “I think there may be a language barrier” still imply something along the lines of “you understand me so poorly that I think you may not be fluent in English”.
In the end, we think the best response to a confusing argument is to engage at the points of confusion (if that seems worthwhile), or ignore it (if not).
Another member of our team drafted these sample comments — not as “you should have said exactly X”, but “here’s one shape a better response could have taken”:
Engaging:
Ignoring:
@Linch this is an unacceptable comment, steeped with condescension and some racism.
This wasn’t ideal but I want to affirm that Linch is not rascist or trying to be condescending.
Thanks for the affirmation but while I strongly contest the “racism” remark by Akhil, I don’t think you should have much evidence about my internal motives re: “trying to be condescending.” Seems pretty hard to falsify.
If someone consistently generates combinations of words in an obviously adversarial/adverse way, then there are two major explanations:
They have chosen to be disruptive
the average intelligence of an EAforum user allows them to easily find clever ways to do this while simultaneously skirting the rules, or even with charisma on top of that (optimize for gaining status among onlookers)
refuting their argument gives them attention and puts you on a playing field that they are willing to invest way more time into thinking about
They don’t realize that they are being disruptive, e.g. due to language barrier, in which case Linch needs to know because then it is worth his time to make the effort to resolve the issue
They don’t realize they are being disruptive, due to a personality issue that they’re only dimly aware of and calling attention to it might help them
In both scenarios, asking them if they’re a native language speaker appears to be a net positive choice. I think that Linch was tearing down a Chesterton-Schelling fence here, causing an unforseen consequence, such as dozens of people going absolutely bananas.
To be clear, I think “obviously adversarial/adverse way” is too strong.
I’m aware of this failure mode, but I specifically asked Twitter a few months ago whether this type of question is considered racist, and the unanimous consensus is “no.” It’s possible they’ve misled me however.
My current position is that people with apparent poor reading comprehension[1] are not worth engaging with online[2] if they’re native speakers, but non-native speakers can at least use Google translate or something[3] so having a conversation with them isn’t hopeless.
I feel like I already spend a ton of effort on trying to make my writing simple enough to be understandable to the 20th percentile of EA Forum users (eg have far shorter sentences than my preferred style). Obviously if I’m a better writer explaining ideas simply would be effortless, but I’m not. I just wish readers would put in at least a bit of effort, and/or be more willing to acknowledge fault.
especially if feigned, as appears to be the case.
I know this might be unfair for smart people with reading disabilities like dyslexia. I’m sorry; I can only hope in-person conversations and podcasts are enough.
Not saying this is necessary. I’m not a native English speaker either, but I at least made an effort to understand the language when I immigrated.
Linch, surprised you felt like titotal wasn’t reading your comment properly, since I feel like they make a version of the basically right argument here which is around deterrence and the benefits of public knowledge of wrongdoing outside the specific case. Any sort of investigatory/punitive process (e.g. in most legal contexts) will often have resources devoted to it that are very significant compared to the actual potential wrongdoing being interrogated. But having a system that reliably identifies wrongdoing is quite valuable (and even a patchwork system is probably also quite valuable). Plus there are a whole bunch of diffuse positive externalities to information (e.g. not requiring each actor in the system to spend the effort making a private judgment that has a decent chance of being wrong).
I think the broader problem with your argument here is it’s an example of consequentialism struggling to deal with collective action problems/the value of institutions. The idea that all acts can be cashed out into utility (i.e. “world is burning” above) struggles to engage with cases where broader institutions are necessary for an ecosystem to function. To use an example from outside this case, if one evaluates public statements on their individual utility (rather than descriptive accuracy), it can stymie free inquiry and lead to poorer decision-making. (Not saying this can never be accounted for through a consequentialist or primarily consequentialist theory but I think it’s a persistent and difficult problem).
I think “you didn’t seem to read my comment, which frustrates me” is a better thing to say to someone than “are you a native english speaker?” since it seems to get at the problem more directly and isn’t exclusionary to non-native speakers (which is rude, even if that’s not the intention). I also think the instant case should give pause about the way you’re attempting to deal with bad faith critics, since labeling a critic mentally as poorly comprehending or in bad faith can be a subconscious crutch to miss the thrust of their argument.
On the object-level, I think the argument has to route around something like “1 public investigation is worth 3-10 private cases not being addressed/punished,” because in the world we live in, resources are patently limited and most people empirically do not go around investigating potential bad actors.
I feel pretty much capped at how much time/emotional energy I can spend on investigations, given that I have competing priorities like a day job and writing snarky EA forum comments. I already kinda feel like “did my time” for things-akin-to-investigations that I initiated or participated in; if the expectation is always a public writeup I might as well curl up in a ball or something. And I suspect I’m more able/willing to take on public flak and private reprisal than most people on this forum. So I expect having norms to make investigations more costly to straightforwardly decrease them happening.
I think an undertone in much of this thread is that people simultaneously expect processes that can “reliably identify wrongdoing” as well as the benefits of public discourse, without being willing to pay the costs associated with such investigations and disclosures. It reminds me of taxpayers who want lower taxes and increased budgets. Overall this feels surprisingly “not EA” to me, in that one of the basic tenets of EA is appreciating the existence of tradeoffs.
Yeah this is helpful. Though to be clear, I think they did “read” my comment, just didn’t try to understand it.
And I’m sorry to appear to be exclusionary to non-native speakers, though again I want to register that (as you know) I’m not a native speaker myself whereas you and most people reprimanding me appear to be.
Yeah I should have clarified that I knew you’re not a native speaker and understand why that motivates your argument, but the harm of being exclusionary stems in part because not every reader will know that. (Though I think even if every reader did know that you were a non-native speaker, it still does create a negative effect (via this exclusionary channel) albeit a smaller one).
Also I didn’t take your claim to be “investigations should not only take place in cases where their results will be made public.” (Which seems to be the implication of your reply above but maybe I’m misunderstanding). I don’t think “public exposes are useful” implies that you need to necessarily conduct the work needed for a public expose in cases where you suspect wrongdoing.
Should also say as your friend that I recognize it sucks to be criticized especially when it feels like a group pile-on, and I appreciate your making controversial claims even if I don’t agree with them.
For the record, I consider being a non-native speaker exculpatory evidence. I’d much rather exclude native speakers with poor[1] reading comprehension than non-native speakers.
I agree it’s not a necessary result, but I think it has a strong directional effect. At the very least people will feel encouraged to make their results public, a situation where they’re likely to already systematically underestimate the costs (though tbf maybe some of the benefits as well).
I appreciate the sympathy! I was worried a while ago that I cared more about being liked than being right, so I’m at least glad to get some contrary evidence here.
say worse than GPT-3.5? Or worse than GPT-4, I’m not sure.
As long as a public exposé reaches 3-10X more people, this seems entirely plausible.
Influence in EA is not uniformly distributed, nor is access to information, nor is ability to draw inferences from information.
But the potential to be hurt by bad actors is (Edit: or, arguably, people with less influence and less access to non-public information are actually more likely to get hurt).
I agree with Akhil. There is no benefit to the comment you wrote and plenty of downside. If you’re feeling hopeless about conversing with someone or feeling misunderstood, say that instead. Condescendingly implying someone who disagrees with you isn’t good enough at English because they’re not a native speaker is a terrible response.
I’m confused why people keep thinking “not a native speaker” is a bad/unkind assumption, whereas from my perspective that is the most charitable plausible explanation of titotal’s repeated posting behavior (and the only one that makes me think it might be worthwhile to continue engaging with them). Every other explanation I could come up with is less flattering.
Are you able to clarify what the issue with titotal’s posts is?
Tbh I’d rather go to sleep rather than litigate this case further, but sure.
The main issue is frequent aggressive misreadings. To give a few examples that I feel less emotional about now:
See this comment, and then doubling down here. I struggle to see how a native speaker could’ve misunderstood me.
At the time people challenged me when I suggested titotal use Google Translate. I was cowardly and retracted my comment, which I now regret.
See also here: “there is no guarantee that your co-workers are good housemates just because they are EA”: arguments for a lack of a sufficiency condition seems bizarre since no one could plausibly make a positive sufficiency case (as opposed to eg a correlational case, or Pablo’s reply).
ETA: see also here, which at the time I held my tongue,
I would like to reiterate that it’s pretty rich that multiple people who are probably native English speakers have decided to call me racist over that remark. If it helps, I can assure you that race was not at all on my mind when I made that comment, and indeed I’m quite willing to listen to people who display competent moral reasoning, regardless of demographics.
Hi Linch,
I’m sorry you felt offended by my comment. A few points:
I do not think you’re a racist or were trying to be racist, or that race was on your mind when making that comment. I thought you were feeling misunderstood by titotal and mistakenly thought this was a good way to push back. I said there are no upsides and plenty of downsides to your comment and suggested that you be more direct with your actual problem with titotal instead. “If you’re feeling hopeless about conversing with someone or feeling misunderstood, say that instead.”
Your defense about this being the most charitable interpretation you can think of doesn’t engage with any of the points above. A “charitable” explanation that is unlikely to be relevant even if true is just not worth much, nor did you ask your question in a way to make it easy for an actual non-native speaker to admit to a potential vulnerability if that was going on. I read your comment as a passive-aggressive “Can’t you read?” attack which carelessly used language issues as a shield against being called out for being an attack.
I’ve seen a previous similar comment you made and ignored it at the time, especially since (as you say somewhere here) you could have easily been a non-native speaker yourself. But because it had seemingly moved from a one-off comment to a pattern that you thought was justified, I’m glad I pushed back on it.
I did not call you racist and neither did Akhil. We called out issues with your comment. I hope you are mindful of the difference.
I am sympathetic to a general point about native speakers scolding a non-native speaker for not being inclusive enough in their language, but you are making some assumptions in applying it here.
As an unrelated point, I personally hope whether you listen to someone or not isn’t founded on whether they display competent moral reasoning, but I’m unsure what you meant by this.
Yes, this is an accurate reading. Except I dispute “carelessly.”
Hmm sorry how is the following statement not a claim that I was being racist, at least in that incidence?
If I say someone is doing something unacceptably racist, this is not exactly a subtle accusation! I mean, it’s possible someone isn’t overall racist in most ways but is racist in a specific way (eg think of an overall progressive voter/parent who still tries to persuade their children to not marry outside of their race). But I also contest that I was being racist in that comment specifically.
Let’s imagine your charitable hypothesis was true and titotal was a non-native speaker who misread some comments due to lack of familiarity with the language. When they pushed back on something you said, you condescendingly asked them if they were a native speaker and ignored everything else they said. This is a tactic with a racist element.
Here’s the dictionary definition of racism:
Can you clarify whether you think my comment fits into (1) or (2), or both? Alternatively, if you think dictionary.com’s definition is not the one you were using, can you pull up which alternative definition of racism you and/or Akhil were invoking when you made your comments?
I’m surprised by this question. Can you explain what prompted it? I think I’ve been pretty clear that I don’t think your comment was motivated by (1).
Ok, in that case your claim is that my sentence is part of a “policy, system of government etc...that favors members of the dominant social group?”
I do not view my actions as racist, at least in this instance. If the claim is accurate, I need to reflect more on how to be less racist. If the claim is inaccurate, then, well, I also have some other reflection to do about life choices.
I will probably refrain from engaging further.
Linch, I believe you wrote elsewhere here that you wish people had engaged with you charitably, instead of focusing on possibly flawed word choice. I have tried to do this with you, although I feel you haven’t always returned the favor (uncharitable assumptions about my motivations/background, mischaracterizing my comments). You contested there was an element of racism in your comment and I gave you a simple, non-legalese outline of why I think so. In response to this, instead of engaging with my point, you asked me an extremely basic question about how to define racism, a question I had already partially addressed multiple times in how it applies here.
My gut reaction was that this was a defensive reaction and you weren’t interested in engaging, you just wanted to seem not racist and win an online debate.
Of course, my gut could be wrong. So I asked you where you were coming from. And I’m glad to hear you seem to be genuinely interested in learning whether you made mistakes here.
Unfortunately, I am not interested in the type of debate you’re setting up. I gave you a simple outline earlier of where I was coming from and you are welcome to engage with it.
Take care.
I don’t personally view your comment as racist, but it feels like you’re trying to understand why someone might, so here’s a take.
Here’s a thing that I think is true: your comment came across as dismissive because it didn’t engage with the substance of what had been said. Instead, it seemed to dismiss someone’s substantive comments on the basis of their command of English. Consequently, it came across as a personal attack and specifically as dismissively disrespectful. (To be clear, I’m not saying this was your intention in making the comment; here I’m making a claim about how it came across, or at least how it will have come across to some readers)
Now let’s just focus on it as a dismissal for a moment (that is, let’s just focus on the role it plays as a dismissal despite the fact that this wasn’t the role you were intending it to play). This sort of dismissal might strike some as racist for two reasons:
1. Because there is a (very imperfect) connection between race and native grasp of English, this sort of strategy for dismissal of a person’s substantive views is likely to disproportionally impact people of certain races and is likely to reinforce existing factors that mean such people are dismissed/disrespected/not-adequately-heard. (This is perhaps particularly crucial given that English is one of a small number of languages that is disproportionately important for having power)
2. Because of 1, this strategy is (I suspect) actually deliberately used in many cases as a form of racist dismissal. At the very least, many people will perceive that this is so. Consequently, statements like this take on a certain sort of cultural meaning and carry with them certain consequences (for example, if someone has been racistly dismissed in this way many times before, it will be more hurtful to them to face this sort of dismissal again, and so the sentence comes to be particularly harmful to people who have experienced racist attacks).
Given 1 and 2, this sort of statement occupies a certain place in a set of norms around discourse: it is a member of a class of statements that reinforces racial disparities, that harms people disproportionally from certain races, and that is used as a dogwhistle to describe racist dismissal as something else. I think this does roughly fit the second definition of racism that you point to (or, at least, the more complete version of this that recognises that systemtic racism can be about not just policies or systems but also about the role played in broader social norms).
For myself, I buy at least some of the above, and think it might mean it was worth commenting on the way that your commenting could be upsetting to some. I wouldn’t personally chose to describe the comment as racism, because I think this is too easily read as a comment on a person’s intention and virtue, rather than some sort of comment about the place of the statement within a broader societal context. And as I’m confident your intentions here were good, I personally would avoid this description.
So I do understand this is not your actual position and you’re trying to explain someone else’s position. Nonetheless I’m going to try to argue against it directly:
As a non-native speaker, I think I have literally never been dismissed in this way[1]. So I suspect you’re setting up an imaginary problem. But I only have anecdotes to go off of rather than data; if someone has survey data I’m willing to update quickly.
Here’s where I’m coming from: I think you are bending over backwards to support what I view to be a blatantly false claim. In modern left-leaning American culture, “racist” is one of the worst things you can call someone, I’m surprised so many people would stand for me being called that based on such scant evidence, and I’m currently reflecting on whether it makes sense for me to continue to devote so much of my life to being in a community (see EDIT [2]) that finds this type of thing permissible.
I’m not surprised my comment is upsetting to the intended target (what I perceive as poor reading comprehension by people who know better), and/or to people who might choose to take offense on others’ behalf. If anybody genuinely feels unwelcome for object-level race or ethnic-related reasons based on my comment, I’m deeply sorry and I’m happy to apologize further publicly if someone in that position messages me about it and/or messages one of the forum mods to relay the message to me.
Thank you. To be clear, I do appreciate both your confidence and your reticence.
EDIT: A month + in, no one has ever messaged me saying that they felt unwelcome for object-level race- or ethnic-related reasons. This feels like confirmatory evidence that privileged native speakers in fact are doing the political move of “feeling offended on others’ behalf” instead of being willing to acknowledge (and/or defend) their own mediocrity. (See also anti-Asian rules passed in educational etc institutions in the name of “diversity”, which I’m pretty sure benefits white people much more than other ethnic minorities)
See also this Twitter poll https://twitter.com/LinchZhang/status/1708625779800867126
And to be clear I’ve experienced very blatant (though ultimately harmless) racism not too infrequnetly, as an argumentative visibly nonwhite person on the ’net.
EDIT: I’m afraid that came off too dramatically. I do view being involved in the community as a community pretty differently than being involved professionally. I still intend to work on EA projects etc even if I reduce eg EA Forum commenting or going to social events dramatically, and personal unpleasantness is not going to stop me from working in EA unless it’s like >10-100x this comment thread daily. (And even if I stop having jobs in EA organizations for other reasons I’d likely still intend to be effectively altruistic with my time and other resources)
I’m not really up for a long exchange here, as I find this sort of thing draining. So I hope you’ll forgive me if I don’t reply further after this message.
In text, at least, your English is notably better than the average native speaker, so I’m not convinced you’re representative here. Even setting aside your grasp of English, your obvious high intelligence would, I suspect, make it pretty hard to pull off dismissing you in this way, as would your willingness to speak your views. So I’m not convinced that the fact that you haven’t experienced this means that others haven’t.
That said, I accept that I have no actual data to point to.
I actually think this is importantly false (or, at least, importantly incomplete as a characterisation). Modern left-leaning culture really does distinguish between racism in the two senses that you quoted earlier. And when it comes to structural racism, saying that someone is racist (in the sense of having acted in a way that perpetuates and buys into racist structural norms) just isn’t a terrible thing to call someone.
I’ve heard multiple people saying that they think everyone is racist (ie. socialised into problematic norms that perpetuate racist discrimination) and also that they are themselves of course racist (because they too have been socialised in this way).
Structural racism is seen as a big deal by the left. It’s seen as worth correcting the influence of this on ourselves. But it’s not seen as a terrible accusation to acknowledge that a particular statement or behaviour was structurally racist (indeed, saying this can be helpful for allowing people to make progress in challenging the ways that structural racism has impacted their thinking).
Of course, a statement that someone is racist might be ambiguous, between the terrible reading and the structural reading, which is why I wouldn’t personally use it in the latter way. So I do wish we lived in a world where people wouldn’t call you racist for the things in this thread.
Setting aside my just-stated wish, my guess is that no-one intended to call you racist in the terrible sense. And, at the very least, my guess is that the reason people “stand for” Akhil’s comment is that they do not see it as an accusation of racism in the terrible sense.
I myself did not read it this way, despite (and I would actually say, because of) very much being steeped in the contemporary left. This is partly because Akhil commented on your comment rather than on you as an individual, and partly because I think the structural, rather than the terrible, claim is the more plausible accusation here (the accusation being something like: the statement is given meaning by a set of structural norms that developed because of racist attitudes and that perpetuates racial disadvantage). So I guess I felt like the charitable read of Akhil was that he wasn’t calling you racist in the terrible sense but rather was making a claim about structural racism.
For what it’s worth, I think it would be a real loss to the community if you chose to be less involved.
Linch, IMO this isn’t about racism. It’s just very condescending. Both the question itself, and the general treatment of non-natives here.
My level of English is much beyond Google translate being of any help, and I understood the same as titotal. Consider that your writing might not convey the meaning you intend, rather than the readers having too poor comprehension to understand it.
Edit: like the other commenter I’ll add that I know you’re well intentioned and I don’t feel very comfortable being part of this strong group reaction (Linch lynch?). But I felt it important to make my thoughts more explicit than just a downvote.
Yeah this is an interesting question to consider. Speaking more generally, perhaps it might be helpful to consider which pieces of evidence are most dispositive for distinguishing the two hypotheses:
many people have poor reading comprehension
I’m bad at conveying information
I think I’ve gathered quite a bit of evidence in favor of the first proposition, and plenty of disconfirmatory evidence against the second.
Quick note: I don’t think there’s anything wrong with asking “are you an english speaker” for this reason, I’m just kinda surprised that that seemed like a crux in this particular case. Their argument seemed cogent, even if you disagreed with it.