I wonder if you’d be willing to do something along the lines of privately verifying that your identity is roughly as described in your post? I think this could be pretty straightforward, and might help a bunch in making things clear and low-drama. (At present you’re stating that the claims about your identify are a fabrication, but there’s no way for external parties to verify this.)
I think from something like a game-theoretic perspective (i.e. to avoid creating incentives for certain types of escalation if someone is willing to engage in bad faith), absent some verification it will be reasonable for observers to assume that Torres is correct that the anonymous account “Mark Fuentes” is misrepresenting itself as a disinterested party. (Which would be relevant information for readers in interpreting the post, even if much of the content remained valid.)
I sent Owen a private response yesterday as I prefer to avoid writing publicly about this topic, but seeing that there is some confusion about the importance of my pseudonymity I’m sharing an adapted version of it below.
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No, I am not comfortable disclosing my identity to a trusted party because I want to minimize the chances that Torres succeeds in doxxing me, and any disclosure involves risks. More fundamentally, I fail to see how my identity affects the credibility of what I said. I merely pointed out that Torres had accused me of “stalking, harassing, lying about, impersonating, and threatening [them] with physical violence”, and that this was a complete fabrication. If these accusations were True, Torres should be able to provide solid evidence. But Torres can provide this evidence regardless of whether my identity is known, or who it is known to.
The only scenario in which I can see Torres being unable to publicly back up their allegations is if (1) they are in a position to show that a specific individual did all of those things, (2) they know that I am this individual, but (3) they are unwilling to reveal the identity between that person and myself out of respect for my privacy. However, I am more than happy to waive my privacy rights in this case: I know I never contacted Torres or posted anything about Torres other than in my Substack or Twitter accounts, so I know that (1) is false (as the only conceivable way in which (1) could be true is if I had done those things).
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Owen then clarified that his comment was not about Torres’s accusations of my harassing etc them, which he found unconvincing. His actual concern was that knowing my identity would help readers gauge if I am “as much a disinterested observer as is implied”. I agree that this is relevant, so feel free to re-read my essay on the assumption that I am not the person I claim to be. It might be useful to ask yourself how your conclusions would change if the essay did not include a “My story” section but was otherwise identical to the present one.
I do not plan to engage further, but if anyone wants to contact me, you may do so at wmarkfuentes@proton.me. Though note that I check this email rarely.
Here is one of Emile P. Torres’s tweets about me:
As I note in my post, this is a complete fabrication.
Hi Mark,
I wonder if you’d be willing to do something along the lines of privately verifying that your identity is roughly as described in your post? I think this could be pretty straightforward, and might help a bunch in making things clear and low-drama. (At present you’re stating that the claims about your identify are a fabrication, but there’s no way for external parties to verify this.)
I think from something like a game-theoretic perspective (i.e. to avoid creating incentives for certain types of escalation if someone is willing to engage in bad faith), absent some verification it will be reasonable for observers to assume that Torres is correct that the anonymous account “Mark Fuentes” is misrepresenting itself as a disinterested party. (Which would be relevant information for readers in interpreting the post, even if much of the content remained valid.)
I sent Owen a private response yesterday as I prefer to avoid writing publicly about this topic, but seeing that there is some confusion about the importance of my pseudonymity I’m sharing an adapted version of it below.
--
No, I am not comfortable disclosing my identity to a trusted party because I want to minimize the chances that Torres succeeds in doxxing me, and any disclosure involves risks. More fundamentally, I fail to see how my identity affects the credibility of what I said. I merely pointed out that Torres had accused me of “stalking, harassing, lying about, impersonating, and threatening [them] with physical violence”, and that this was a complete fabrication. If these accusations were True, Torres should be able to provide solid evidence. But Torres can provide this evidence regardless of whether my identity is known, or who it is known to.
The only scenario in which I can see Torres being unable to publicly back up their allegations is if (1) they are in a position to show that a specific individual did all of those things, (2) they know that I am this individual, but (3) they are unwilling to reveal the identity between that person and myself out of respect for my privacy. However, I am more than happy to waive my privacy rights in this case: I know I never contacted Torres or posted anything about Torres other than in my Substack or Twitter accounts, so I know that (1) is false (as the only conceivable way in which (1) could be true is if I had done those things).
--
Owen then clarified that his comment was not about Torres’s accusations of my harassing etc them, which he found unconvincing. His actual concern was that knowing my identity would help readers gauge if I am “as much a disinterested observer as is implied”. I agree that this is relevant, so feel free to re-read my essay on the assumption that I am not the person I claim to be. It might be useful to ask yourself how your conclusions would change if the essay did not include a “My story” section but was otherwise identical to the present one.
I do not plan to engage further, but if anyone wants to contact me, you may do so at wmarkfuentes@proton.me. Though note that I check this email rarely.
I’m happy to be one of the intermediaries, if Torres etc are willing to trust me (no particular reason to think they would)
I have a pretty good relationship with Émile and would likewise be happy to.
Is there any way for us to validate that your EA Forum account and the substack are controlled by the same person?