I’m glad you wrote this. I’m with the vast majority of people in thinking it extremely unlikely that Sam just made an honest mistake, but given that you think he did, I’m glad you wrote this.
Whether this blowup was caused by intentional deception or an honest mistake, the EA community has been extremely quick to change its tune. In less than a week, everyone has gone from “SBF, golden boy” to “What a criminal, don’t be like that guy”.
I think this comment re urgency is very relevant here. I think that when you suddenly have a lot of people briefly looking at you who know nothing about you beyond your association with something negative, it’s reasonable to just make very basic points very clearly while being very mindful that many people will try their hardest to take whatever you say out of context to prove that their initial assessment of you was correct.
I’m glad you wrote this. I’m with the vast majority of people in thinking it extremely unlikely that Sam just made an honest mistake, but given that you think he did, I’m glad you wrote this.
I think this comment re urgency is very relevant here. I think that when you suddenly have a lot of people briefly looking at you who know nothing about you beyond your association with something negative, it’s reasonable to just make very basic points very clearly while being very mindful that many people will try their hardest to take whatever you say out of context to prove that their initial assessment of you was correct.