Co-founded Nonlinear.org, an x-risk incubator. Also into web3, history, rapid learning, complex systems.
DM on twitter for faster response: www.twitter.com/emersonspartz
Co-founded Nonlinear.org, an x-risk incubator. Also into web3, history, rapid learning, complex systems.
DM on twitter for faster response: www.twitter.com/emersonspartz
I find the idea of doing that absolutely awful and I’ve never done anything like that. Unfortunately, it’s a lie there is no possibility of defending myself from, since it’s hearsay from an anonymous source.
Love this! I used to manage teams of writers/editors and here are some ideas we found useful for increasing readability:
To remove fluff, imagine someone is paying you $1,000 for every word you remove. Our writers typically could cut 20-50% with minimal loss of information.
Long sentences are hard to read, so try to change your commas into periods.
Long paragraphs are hard to read, so try to break each paragraph into 2-3 sentences.
Most people just skim, and some of your ideas are much more important than others, so bold/italicize your important points.
Yes, that is incorrect. One of many such factual inaccuracies and why we told Ben to give us a week. The exact date is not simple to explain, since she gradually began working with us, but we will clarify ASAP.
I agree that if it were just a few disputed claims that would be a a reasonable thing to do, there are so many. And there is so much nuance.
Here is one example, however. This took us hours to prepare, just to rebut a single false claim:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/5pksH3SbQzaniX96b/a-quick-update-from-nonlinear
This was twisted to make me seem like a villain. I recommended it as a book specifically to read to be able to defend against unethical people who use those tactics offensively—Defense Against the Dark Arts.
I agree and will use this opportunity to re-share some tips for increasing readability. I used to manage teams of writers/editors and here are some ideas we found useful:
To remove fluff, imagine someone is paying you $1,000 for every word you remove. Our writers typically could cut 20-50% with minimal loss of information.
Long sentences are hard to read, so try to change your commas into periods.
Long paragraphs are hard to read, so try to break each paragraph into 2-3 sentences.
Most people just skim, and some of your ideas are much more important than others, so bold/italicize your important points.
I really respect that even in the middle of all this you (and other members of the LW team) still team leave comments like these.
I think serious mistakes were made in how this situation was handled but I have never doubted that you guys are trying your best to help the community, and comments like this are proof of that.
It was not remotely enough time to actually rebut all of the false claims and we told him so. We assumed that would be the first of many calls—it would take at least a week to clear things up—and then he just surprised us by posting.
As a mid-career EA, I strongly agree with this.
Neither!
Kat just added context below, but I’ll also note that the ‘transport drugs across a country border’ story is wildly distorted and we will provide evidence in the forthcoming post that we’re working hard on.
Thanks for updating this! This points at something that concerned me about the structure of the original post—Alice or Chloe accuse me of something, but (in the event it was actually covered in my one conversation with Ben) my response to it (or, rather, Ben’s paraphrase) might only be included 8,000 words later, and still likely missing important context I would want to add.
Yes, that counts as AI-safety related :)
Can you explain? She did eat.
I actually think that’s an interesting idea! I like the idea of using bounties to spur more bounty innovation. I’d love to see more bounties like this—let’s try mapping the whole design space.
Shovel ready bounties are preferred but to avoid premature exploitation I’d just like to hear as many ideas as possible at this point. Some ideas might require back and forth, but that’s ok!
Seeing the ideas coming in is already giving me lots of ideas for ways to potentially scale this.
This is interesting and useful, thanks for doing it!
@Ben Pace Can you please add at the top of the post “Nonlinear disputes at least 85 of the claims in this post and intends to publish a detailed point-by-point response.
They also published this short update giving an example of the kind of evidence they plan to demonstrate.”
We keep hearing from people who don’t know this. Our comments get buried, so they think your summary at the bottom contains the entirety of our response, though it is just the tip of the iceberg. As a result, they think your post marks the end of the story, and not the opening chapter.