Not everyone is well connected enough to hear rumours. Newcomers and/or less-well-connected people need protection from bad actors too. If someone new to the community was considering an opportunity with Nonlinear, they wouldn’t have the same epistemic access as a central and long-standing grant-maker. They could, however, see a public exposé.
Like Guy Raveh’s comment, I think your comment is assuming the conclusion. If it were the case that the only (or best) way to deal with problematic actors in our community is via people learning about them and deciding not to work with them, then I agree that public awareness campaigns is the best strategy. But there are a number of other strategies that does not route completely through everybody voluntarily self-selecting away.
You didn’t provide an alternative, other than the example of you conducting your own private investigation. That option is not open to most, and the beneficial results do not accrue to most.
I agree hundreds of hours of work is a cost; that is a pretty banal point. I think we agree that a more systematic solution would be better than relying on a single individual’s decision to put in a lot of work and take on a lot of risk. But you are, blithely in my view, dismissing one of the few responses that have the potential to protect people. Nonlinear have their own funding, and lots of pre-existing ties to the community and EA public materials. A public expose has a much better chance of protecting newcomers from serious harm than some high-up EAs having a private critical doc.
The impression I have of your view is that it would have been better if Ben hadn’t written or published his post and instead saved his time, and prefer that Nonlinear was quietly rejected by those in the know. Is that an accurate picture of your view?
If you think there are better solutions, it would be good to name them up front, rather than just denigrate public criticism.
Taking a step back, I suspect part of the disagreement here is that I view my position as the default position whereas alternative positions need strong positive arguments for them, whereas (if I understand correctly), you and other commentators/agree-voters appear to believe that the position “public exposes are the best strategy” ought to be the default position and anything else need strong positive arguments for it. Stated that way, I hope you can see why your position is irrational:
The burden of proof isn’t on me. Very few strategies are the best possible strategy, so “X is a good use of time” has a much higher burden of proof than “X is not a good use of time.”
Compare “Charity C is probably a good donation target” vs “Charity C is probably not a good donation target.”
If you didn’t think of alternatives before saying public exposés is good, I’m honestly not sure how to react here. I’m kinda flabbergasted at your reaction (and that of people who agree with you).
Nonlinear have their own funding, and lots of pre-existing ties to the community and EA public materials.
Sure, if people agreed with me about the general case and argued that the Nonlinear exposé was an unusual exception, I’d be more inclined to take their arguments seriously. I do think the external source of funding makes it plausible that Nonlinear specifically could not be defanged via other channels. And I did say earlier “I think the case for public writeups are strongest are when the bad actors in question are too powerful for private accountability (eg SBF), or when somehow all other methods are ineffective.”
A public expose has a much better chance of protecting newcomers from serious harm than some high-up EAs having a private critical doc.
People keep asserting this without backing it up with either numbers or data or even actual arguments (rather than just emotional assertions).
The impression I have of your view is that it would have been better if Ben hadn’t written or published his post and instead saved his time, and prefer that Nonlinear was quietly rejected by those in the know. Is that an accurate picture of your view?
Thanks for asking. I think a better use of Ben’s time (though not necessarily the best use)is to spend .2x as much time on the Nonlinear investigation + followup work and then spend the remaining .8x of his time on other investigations. I think this strictly decreases the influence of bad actors in EA.
Your top-level post did not claim ‘public exposés are not the best strategy’, you claimed “public exposés are often a bad idea in EA”. That is a different claim, and far from a default view. It is also the view I have been arguing against. I think you’ve greatly misunderstood others’ positions, and have rudely dismissed them rather than trying to understand them. You’ve ignored the arguments given by others, while not defending your own assertions. So it’s frustrating to see you playing the ‘I’m being cool-headed and rational here’ card. This has been a pretty disappointing negative update for me. Thanks
Sorry, what does “bad idea” mean to you other than “this is not the best use of resources?” Does it have to mean net negative?
I’ve sorry that you believe I misunderstood other’s positions. Or that I’m playing the “I’m being cool and rational here” card. I don’t personally think I’m being unusually cool here, if anything this is a pretty unpleasant experience that has made me reconsider whether the EA community is worth continued engagement with.
I have made some updates as well, though I need to reflect further on the wisdom of sharing them publicly.
Things can be ‘not the best’, but still good. For example, let’s say a systematic, well-run, whistleblower organisation was the ‘best’ way. And compare it to ‘telling your friends about a bad org’. ‘Telling your friends’ is not the best strategy, but it still might be good to do, or worth doing. Saying “telling your friends is not the best way” is consistent with this. Saying “telling your friends is a bad idea” is not consistent with this.
I.e. ‘bad idea’ connotes much more than just ‘sub-optimal, all things considered’.
Sorry by “best” I was locally thinking of what’s locally best given present limitations, not globally best (which is separately an interesting but less directly relevant discussion). I agree that if there are good actions to do right now, it will be wrong for me to say that all of them are bad because one should wait for (eg) a “systematic, well-run, whistleblower organisation.”
For example, if I was saying “GiveDirectly is a bad charity for animal-welfare focused EAs to donate to,” I meant that there are better charities on the margin for animal-welfare focused EAs to donate to. I do not mean that in the abstract we should not donate to charities because a well-run international government should be handling public goods provisions and animal welfare restrictions instead. I agree that I should not in most cases be comparing real possibilities against an impossible (or at least heavily impractical) ideal.
Similarly, if I said “X is a bad idea for Bob to do,” I meant there are better things for Bob to do with Bob’s existing limitations etc, not that if Bob should magically overcome all of his present limitations and do Herculeanly impossible tasks. And in fact I was making a claim that there are practical and real possibilities that in my lights are probably better.
I.e. ‘bad idea’ connotes much more than just ‘sub-optimal, all things considered’.
Well clearly my choice of words on a quickly fired quick take at 1AM was sub-optimal, all things considered. Especially ex post. But I think it’d be helpful if people actually argued about the merits of different strategies instead of making inferences about my racism or lack thereof, or my rudeness or lack thereof. I feel like I’m putting a lot of work in defending fairly anodyne (denotatively) opinions, even if I had a few bad word choices.
After this conversation, I am considering retreating to more legalese and pre-filtering all my public statements for potential controversy by GPT-4, as a friend of mine suggested privately. I suspect this will be a loss for the EA forum being a place where people could be honest and real and human with each other, but it’d be a gain for my own health as well as productivity.
Happy to end this thread here. On a meta-point, I think paying attention to nuance/tone/implicatures is a better communication strategy than retreating to legalese, but it does need practice. I think reflecting on one’s own communicative ability is more productive than calling others irrational or being passive-aggressive. But it sucks that this has been a bad experience for you. Hope your day goes better!
Not everyone is well connected enough to hear rumours. Newcomers and/or less-well-connected people need protection from bad actors too. If someone new to the community was considering an opportunity with Nonlinear, they wouldn’t have the same epistemic access as a central and long-standing grant-maker. They could, however, see a public exposé.
Like Guy Raveh’s comment, I think your comment is assuming the conclusion. If it were the case that the only (or best) way to deal with problematic actors in our community is via people learning about them and deciding not to work with them, then I agree that public awareness campaigns is the best strategy. But there are a number of other strategies that does not route completely through everybody voluntarily self-selecting away.
You didn’t provide an alternative, other than the example of you conducting your own private investigation. That option is not open to most, and the beneficial results do not accrue to most. I agree hundreds of hours of work is a cost; that is a pretty banal point. I think we agree that a more systematic solution would be better than relying on a single individual’s decision to put in a lot of work and take on a lot of risk. But you are, blithely in my view, dismissing one of the few responses that have the potential to protect people. Nonlinear have their own funding, and lots of pre-existing ties to the community and EA public materials. A public expose has a much better chance of protecting newcomers from serious harm than some high-up EAs having a private critical doc. The impression I have of your view is that it would have been better if Ben hadn’t written or published his post and instead saved his time, and prefer that Nonlinear was quietly rejected by those in the know. Is that an accurate picture of your view? If you think there are better solutions, it would be good to name them up front, rather than just denigrate public criticism.
Taking a step back, I suspect part of the disagreement here is that I view my position as the default position whereas alternative positions need strong positive arguments for them, whereas (if I understand correctly), you and other commentators/agree-voters appear to believe that the position “public exposes are the best strategy” ought to be the default position and anything else need strong positive arguments for it. Stated that way, I hope you can see why your position is irrational:
The burden of proof isn’t on me. Very few strategies are the best possible strategy, so “X is a good use of time” has a much higher burden of proof than “X is not a good use of time.”
Compare “Charity C is probably a good donation target” vs “Charity C is probably not a good donation target.”
If you didn’t think of alternatives before saying public exposés is good, I’m honestly not sure how to react here. I’m kinda flabbergasted at your reaction (and that of people who agree with you).
Separately, I did write up alternatives here.
Sure, if people agreed with me about the general case and argued that the Nonlinear exposé was an unusual exception, I’d be more inclined to take their arguments seriously. I do think the external source of funding makes it plausible that Nonlinear specifically could not be defanged via other channels. And I did say earlier “I think the case for public writeups are strongest are when the bad actors in question are too powerful for private accountability (eg SBF), or when somehow all other methods are ineffective.”
People keep asserting this without backing it up with either numbers or data or even actual arguments (rather than just emotional assertions).
Thanks for asking. I think a better use of Ben’s time (though not necessarily the best use)is to spend .2x as much time on the Nonlinear investigation + followup work and then spend the remaining .8x of his time on other investigations. I think this strictly decreases the influence of bad actors in EA.
Your top-level post did not claim ‘public exposés are not the best strategy’, you claimed “public exposés are often a bad idea in EA”. That is a different claim, and far from a default view. It is also the view I have been arguing against. I think you’ve greatly misunderstood others’ positions, and have rudely dismissed them rather than trying to understand them. You’ve ignored the arguments given by others, while not defending your own assertions. So it’s frustrating to see you playing the ‘I’m being cool-headed and rational here’ card. This has been a pretty disappointing negative update for me. Thanks
Sorry, what does “bad idea” mean to you other than “this is not the best use of resources?” Does it have to mean net negative?
I’ve sorry that you believe I misunderstood other’s positions. Or that I’m playing the “I’m being cool and rational here” card. I don’t personally think I’m being unusually cool here, if anything this is a pretty unpleasant experience that has made me reconsider whether the EA community is worth continued engagement with.
I have made some updates as well, though I need to reflect further on the wisdom of sharing them publicly.
Things can be ‘not the best’, but still good. For example, let’s say a systematic, well-run, whistleblower organisation was the ‘best’ way. And compare it to ‘telling your friends about a bad org’. ‘Telling your friends’ is not the best strategy, but it still might be good to do, or worth doing. Saying “telling your friends is not the best way” is consistent with this. Saying “telling your friends is a bad idea” is not consistent with this.
I.e. ‘bad idea’ connotes much more than just ‘sub-optimal, all things considered’.
Sorry by “best” I was locally thinking of what’s locally best given present limitations, not globally best (which is separately an interesting but less directly relevant discussion). I agree that if there are good actions to do right now, it will be wrong for me to say that all of them are bad because one should wait for (eg) a “systematic, well-run, whistleblower organisation.”
For example, if I was saying “GiveDirectly is a bad charity for animal-welfare focused EAs to donate to,” I meant that there are better charities on the margin for animal-welfare focused EAs to donate to. I do not mean that in the abstract we should not donate to charities because a well-run international government should be handling public goods provisions and animal welfare restrictions instead. I agree that I should not in most cases be comparing real possibilities against an impossible (or at least heavily impractical) ideal.
Similarly, if I said “X is a bad idea for Bob to do,” I meant there are better things for Bob to do with Bob’s existing limitations etc, not that if Bob should magically overcome all of his present limitations and do Herculeanly impossible tasks. And in fact I was making a claim that there are practical and real possibilities that in my lights are probably better.
Well clearly my choice of words on a quickly fired quick take at 1AM was sub-optimal, all things considered. Especially ex post. But I think it’d be helpful if people actually argued about the merits of different strategies instead of making inferences about my racism or lack thereof, or my rudeness or lack thereof. I feel like I’m putting a lot of work in defending fairly anodyne (denotatively) opinions, even if I had a few bad word choices.
After this conversation, I am considering retreating to more legalese and pre-filtering all my public statements for potential controversy by GPT-4, as a friend of mine suggested privately. I suspect this will be a loss for the EA forum being a place where people could be honest and real and human with each other, but it’d be a gain for my own health as well as productivity.
Happy to end this thread here. On a meta-point, I think paying attention to nuance/tone/implicatures is a better communication strategy than retreating to legalese, but it does need practice. I think reflecting on one’s own communicative ability is more productive than calling others irrational or being passive-aggressive. But it sucks that this has been a bad experience for you. Hope your day goes better!