ElliotJDavies

• ElliotJDaviesFeb 1, 2024, 11:19 AM

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Akhil’s comment on: Cause area re­port: An­timicro­bial Resistance

  I wrote a report for CE on an AMR idea; the cost-effectiveness analyses of which will be released soon and I will post here when they are!

  Hey Akhil, is there any update here?

• ElliotJDaviesJan 31, 2024, 10:41 AM

  8 points

  7 ∶ 5

  in reply to: Kat Woods 🔶 ⏸️’s comment on: EV in­ves­ti­ga­tion into Owen and Com­mu­nity Health

  Astroturfing and troll farms are different from friends and people on your side saying their opinion

  This is correct. What I am talking about is brigading.
  
  Astroturfing and troll farms are only similar in the mechanism behind their ability to distort public opinion. That mechanism is: People are influenced by the tone and volume of comments they read.

  Are you saying you’re against people being allowed to tell their friends and supporters about something they consider to be unethical and encouraging them to vote and comment according to their conscience?

  Yes, this is brigading. There are things you can do mitigate this brigading effect, for example: (1) Begin comments with “I am here from …” or “This post was shared by...”. (2) Commenters acknowledge, when asked, that the post was shared with them.
  
  Take your case (i.e. Ben Pace’s post on nonlinear), neither (1) or (2) was done. In fact, I found myself needing to comment alluding to this effect, after I confirmed this was the case with one of your collaborators.

• ElliotJDaviesJan 31, 2024, 10:18 AM

  40 points

  17 ∶ 6

  in reply to: Kat Woods 🔶 ⏸️’s comment on: EV in­ves­ti­ga­tion into Owen and Com­mu­nity Health

  Why would it be bad if he was given advance warning about this report?

  
  Some people - to be completely frank, like yourself—will use advanced notice to schedule their friends, fans and colleagues to write defensive comments. A high concentration of these types of comments can distort the quality of the conversation. This is commonly referred to as brigading.
  
  This strategy is so effective, that foreign governments have setup “troll-farms”, and companies have setup “astroturfing” operations to benefit from degrading the quality of certain conversations on the internet.

  Also, it does say in the document that Owen was given advanced notice. His document says that he saw the draft and disagreed with aspects of it that they didn’t address in the post.

  I would create a distinction between giving someone a read of a draft ahead of time, and actively communicating the date and time something is posted.
  
  Edit: Added third paragraph, changed wording on first sentence of second paragraph.

• ElliotJDaviesJan 31, 2024, 10:03 AM

  4 points

  5 ∶ 9

  on: EV in­ves­ti­ga­tion into Owen and Com­mu­nity Health

  There’s been some complaints from a banned EA Forum user that the timing of this post, and the timing of comments that bolster the character of Owen, have been coordinated. Whilst I think it’s unlikely this is the case, I would love to see the following:
  
  - Confirmation from OP (@EV UK Board) that Owen was not given advanced warning on the posting of this report. Or if he was, some discussion around the potential issues with doing so.
  
  - Some further discussion in the EA Forum team, and perhaps rules set, on coordinated posting (AKA “brigading”).

• ElliotJDaviesJan 15, 2024, 1:25 PM

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Patrick Gruban 🔸’s comment on: Cause-Gen­er­al­ity Is Hard If Some Causes Have Higher ROI

  In the business context, you could imagine a recruiter having the option to buy a booth at a university specialising in the area the company is working in vs. buying one at a broad career fair of a top university. While the specialised university may bring more people that have trained in and are specialised in your area, you might still go for the top university as talent there might have overall greater potential, has the ability to more easily pivot or can contribute in more general areas like leadership, entrepreneurship, communications or similar.

  I think this is a spot on analogy, and something we’ve discussed in our group a lot.

• ElliotJDaviesDec 20, 2023, 12:47 PM

  20 points

  18 ∶ 5

  on: Effec­tive Asper­sions: How the Non­lin­ear In­ves­ti­ga­tion Went Wrong

  Meta note: I’m not going to spend much more time on nonlinear threads, since I think it’s among the poorer uses of my time. With this in mind, I hope people don’t take unilateral actions (e.g. deanonymizing Chloe or Alice) after discussing in this thread, because I suspect at this point threads like these filter for specific people and are less representative of the EA community as a whole.

• ElliotJDaviesDec 17, 2023, 3:21 PM

  3 points

  2 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Sean_o_h’s comment on: Non­lin­ear’s Ev­i­dence: De­bunk­ing False and Mislead­ing Claims

  Oh thanks for flagging, I will retract it now

• ElliotJDaviesDec 15, 2023, 9:42 PM

  3 points

  2 ∶ 5

  in reply to: Habryka [Deactivated]’s comment on: Non­lin­ear’s Ev­i­dence: De­bunk­ing False and Mislead­ing Claims

  As we later received more screenshots, it seems like we actually received definitive confirmation that the conversation on that date did indeed not result in Alice getting food.

  I’m waiting for Ben, or someone else, to make a table of claims, counter claims, and what the evidence shows. Because nonlinear providing evidence that doesn’t support their claims seems to be a common occurance.
  
  Just to give a new example, Kat screenshots herself replying “mediating! Appreciate people not talking to loud on the way back [...] ” here, to provide evidence supporting that there was not a substantial discussion that occurred. However, I can only interpret the use of “mediating!” to indicate that there was in-fact a substantial amount of discussion at play.
  
  Edit: Retracted as correctly pointed out by @Sean_o_h , I read meditation as mediation.

• ElliotJDaviesDec 14, 2023, 10:37 PM

  5 points

  1 ∶ 0

  on: EV up­dates: FTX set­tle­ment and the fu­ture of EV

  Excited to hear both of these announcements!

• ElliotJDaviesDec 14, 2023, 7:48 PM

  12 points

  3 ∶ 1

  in reply to: Holly Elmore ⏸️ 🔸’s comment on: Non­lin­ear’s Ev­i­dence: De­bunk­ing False and Mislead­ing Claims

  This sounds right, but the counterfactual (no social accountability) seems worse to me, so I am operating on the assumption it’s a necessary evil.
  
  I live high trust country, which has very little of this social accountability, i.e. if someone does something potentially rude or unacceptable in public, they are given the benefit of the doubt. However, I expect this works because others are employed, full time, to hold people accountable. I.e. police officers, ticket inspectors, traffic wardens. I don’t think we have this in the wider Effective Altruism community right now.

• ElliotJDaviesDec 13, 2023, 11:45 PM

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: JoshuaBlake’s comment on: Non­lin­ear’s Ev­i­dence: De­bunk­ing False and Mislead­ing Claims

  Thanks for providing context here, similar to Vaipan, I wasn’t sure why people were disagree/​downvoting me.

• ElliotJDaviesDec 13, 2023, 11:41 PM

  4 points

  0 ∶ 4

  in reply to: Habryka [Deactivated]’s comment on: Non­lin­ear’s Ev­i­dence: De­bunk­ing False and Mislead­ing Claims

  I’ve been thinking about whether there is some kind of informal court or arbitration system that would allow the social pressure here to be less driven by people trying to individually enact social enforcement

  My model has been there should be social enforcement for both poor epistemic practices and rude/​unkind communication.

  I have been an active commenter in both posts, with a goal of social pressure in mind (i.e. providing accountability and a social pressure to not behave inappropriately towards/​with your employees).

  I’d be interested to hear meta level criticisms of my approach (e.g. “social pressure is inherently bad”). Because, whilst I don’t want witch hunting that employs poor epistemic practices, I do think social pressure plays an important role in stabilising communities. Perhaps someone can change my mind on this? If you do change my mind, I’ll certainly comment a lot less.

• ElliotJDaviesDec 13, 2023, 12:47 AM

  36 points

  7 ∶ 4

  in reply to: Kat Woods 🔶 ⏸️’s comment on: Non­lin­ear’s Ev­i­dence: De­bunk­ing False and Mislead­ing Claims

  We show Chloe’s work contract in the third row of the very first table.

  Can I confirm I am seeing the correct image. I see a screenshot of a google document. As oppose to contract signed by both parties. Would you be able to confirm this contract was signed by both parties?

  The link you share isn’t saying that pharmacies are illegal, it’s saying that they sometimes sell counterfeit drugs, and that’s illegal.

  It indeed looks like the article I linked was related to counterfeit drugs, and not necessarily dispensing drugs without prescription. Although, I still suspect the reason adderall is accessible in tourist areas, is not related to their inherent legality, but instead some of the themes this article. I will research this further and make edits below.
  

  I googled it, asked ChatGPT to search for it, and asked a lawyer friend of mine if they’ve ever heard of somebody being arrested for traveling with a single pack of ADHD medicine without a prescription. Nothing showed up (except for going to a place like Japan with famously strict laws around that).
  

  If I understand these complaints to have been made in 2021, ChatGPT was launched in Nov 2022. Is it possible you are mistaken here?
  
  If I understand you correctly, you were aware that by asking your employee to bring drugs across the border, she would be committing a crime?

  What links here?

  • Kat Woods 🔶 ⏸️'s comment on Non­lin­ear’s Ev­i­dence: De­bunk­ing False and Mislead­ing Claims by Kat Woods 🔶 ⏸️ (Dec 13, 2023, 1:24 AM; 5 points)

• ElliotJDaviesDec 13, 2023, 12:18 AM

  13 points

  30 ∶ 18

  in reply to: Yarrow🔸’s comment on: Non­lin­ear’s Ev­i­dence: De­bunk­ing False and Mislead­ing Claims

  Perhaps something missed from your list. The lack of moral seriousness regarding the value of the money being spent. I can imagine my global development and animal welfare colleagues, would be pretty displeased to learn that nonlinear has received over 500,000 USD in funding.
  
  From reading into this discussion, including the linked appendix document. There’s no reason for me to think that they were ready to receive this amount of money, or likely to use it effectively.

• ElliotJDaviesDec 13, 2023, 12:12 AM

  11 points

  6 ∶ 7

  in reply to: Geoffrey Miller’s comment on: Non­lin­ear’s Ev­i­dence: De­bunk­ing False and Mislead­ing Claims

  I agree with @Habryka that this comment is underspecified and likely written without proper review of the appendix linked. I suspect many readers are likely to conflate disputed with debunked, and this comment plays into that. This works so well, and it’s use is so widespread, that it has a name, FUD.
  
  In the comments below, I have asked Spencer Greenberg to specify the most important claims he feels have been repudiated, and why he thinks so. I expect the answer will be genuinely elucidating to me.

• ElliotJDaviesDec 12, 2023, 11:29 PM

  28 points

  12 ∶ 5

  in reply to: spencerg’s comment on: Non­lin­ear’s Ev­i­dence: De­bunk­ing False and Mislead­ing Claims

  (3) I didn’t do a detailed look at every row in the “Short summary overview table”, but for the ones I did look into in more detail, I found Nonlinear’s counter evidence to be compelling. That table is organized by claim and is in an easy-to-navigate structure, so I suggest people take a look for themselves at the evidence Nonlinear provided regarding whatever claims they think are important.

  
  I would have loved to hear in your own words the most important claims that you think have been rebutted, and why you think so. When I look through the appendix document, I see a tangle of screenshots; mildly to moderately related points about these screenshots; and subjective claims about the ex-employees’ personal dispositions. I am not sure if this is because nonlinear is highly dysfunctional, or whether this is practicing a “[...] see what sticks” strategy.
  
  Taking two important claims from Ben’s post. (1) Chloe wasn’t paid what she was promised (2) The employees were asked to transport drugs across a border.
  
  (1) The first thing any union employee, HR person, or employment lawyer will ask: Was there a contract and what does it say?
  
  When I come away from reading the appendix, I am unable to answer this, and my followup question remains also unanswered.
  
  (2) The screenshots and related claims are even more confusing in this case. I’m left with the impression that it was pretty common for the nonlinear team to make these kinds of requests, including to “load up” on antibiotics. This is a pretty strange professional culture, from my perspective. So whilst I can see that the screenshot does not mention any recreational drugs, it’s not updating me negatively towards the likeliness of the claim.
  
  Also, a quick legal note: it’s necessarily legal to fly with drugs, even if you purchased them legitimately. Buying drugs without a prescription in Mexico, and flying them to the US where you require a prescription, would be a crime.
  
  Edit: it looks to me like the Mexican government is trying to shut down illegal pharmacies that dispense these kinds of medications without prescriptions. So they likely would have been both illegal to purchase in Mexico and illegal to import into the US.

• ElliotJDaviesDec 12, 2023, 5:58 PM

  26 points

  5 ∶ 7

  in reply to: spencerg’s comment on: Non­lin­ear’s Ev­i­dence: De­bunk­ing False and Mislead­ing Claims

  1) Do you have any concerns the section above on Ben Pace could be considered an ad hominem attack? I.e. attacking someone’s character rather than their claims? ^[1]
  
  2) How long do you think it would have been reasonable for Ben Pace to wait? With the benefit of hindsight, we can see it has taken nonlinear 96 days to write a response to his post. ^[2]
  
  3) What specific claims do you think have been rebutted? Perhaps you can quote Ben’s original piece; link to the evidence which disproves it; and include your interpretation of what said evidence shows.

  1. ^

     Whilst I think @John G. Halstead comment could have been written better. I agree the question needs to be asked.

  2. ^

     It’s taken 1 year and 29 days if considering the first time these comments were made https://​​forum.effectivealtruism.org/​​posts/​​L4S2NCysoJxgCBuB6/​​announcing-nonlinear-emergency-funding?commentId=5P75dFuKLo894MQFf

• ElliotJDaviesDec 12, 2023, 3:17 PM

  33 points

  36 ∶ 21

  in reply to: frances_lorenz’s comment on: Non­lin­ear’s Ev­i­dence: De­bunk­ing False and Mislead­ing Claims

  In my opinion, including a photo section was surprising and came across as near completely misunderstanding the nature of Ben’s post. It is going to make it a bit hard to read any further with even consideration

  In addition to the overall tone of this post being generally unprofessional.

• ElliotJDaviesDec 12, 2023, 2:55 PM

  25 points

  5 ∶ 0

  on: Non­lin­ear’s Ev­i­dence: De­bunk­ing False and Mislead­ing Claims

  We have a work contract and interview recordings.

  Just to be clear, was this work contract was signed by both parties? If one has made a verbal contract to do X, but before any work is done, a different written contract to do Y is drafted and signed, the written contract will take precedence over the verbal contract (Y>X). I.e. it wouldn’t matter what was promised in interviews, as long as you have a written contract agreeing the compensation package. ^[1]

  1. ^

     GPT 4 Tells me this is often referred to as the “parol evidence rule” , and identifies some exceptions to this rule https://​​chat.openai.com/​​share/​​9139370f-9004-4717-85a6-f83a6a3cb07d

  What links here?

  • ElliotJDavies's comment on Non­lin­ear’s Ev­i­dence: De­bunk­ing False and Mislead­ing Claims by Kat Woods 🔶 ⏸️ (Dec 12, 2023, 11:29 PM; 28 points)

• ElliotJDaviesNov 17, 2023, 8:41 PM

  3 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: I’m in­ter­view­ing the au­thor of ‘Not Born Yes­ter­day’ — Hugo Mercier. He ar­gues peo­ple are less gullible and more savvy than you think. What should I ask him?

  I’d be interested to hear if he has any ideas pro-rationality interventions.