We are playing for the future, for the survival of the human race. We can’t afford to let relatively petty squabbles divide us too much!
I think this is the sort of reasoning that has a) possibly contributed to some of the recent damaging behaviour by EAs and b) almost certainly contributed to the failure to take that behaviour seriously enough.
Everything is “relatively petty” when compared to the survival of the human race, but I don’t think that’s the relevant comparison here.
I upvoted this, but disagreed. I think the timeline would be better if it included:
November 2022: FLI inform Nya Dagbladet Foundation (NDF) that they will not be funding them
15 December 2022: FLI learn of media interest in the story
I therefore don’t think it’s “absurd” to have expected FLI to have repudiated NDF sooner. You could argue that by apologising for their mistake before the media interest does more harm than good by drawing attention to it (and by association, to NDF), but once they became aware of the media attention, I think they should have issued something more like their current statement.
I also agreed with the thrust of titotal’s comment that their first statement was woefully inadequate (it was more like “nothing to see here” than “oh damn, we seriously considered supporting an odious publication and we’re sorry”). I don’t think lack of time gets them off the hook here, given they should have expected Expo to publish at some point.
I don’t think anyone owes an apology for expecting FLI to do better than this.
(Note: I appreciate Max Tegmark was dealing with a personal tragedy (for which, my condolences) at the time of it becoming ‘a thing’ on the EA Forum, so I of course wouldn’t expect him to be making quick-but-considered replies to everything posted on here at that time. But I think there’s a difference between that and the speed of the proper statement.)
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FWIW I also had a different interpretation of Shakeel’s 9:18pm comment than what you write here:
“Jan 13, 9:18pm: Shakeel follows up, repeating that he sees no reason why FLI wouldn’t have already made a public statement, and raises the possibility that FLI has maybe done sinister questionably-legal things and that’s why they haven’t spoken up.”
Shakeel said “Jason’s comment has made me realise there might be something else going on here, though; if that is the case then that would make the silence make more sense.” → this seemed to me that Shakeel was trying to to be charitable, and understand the reasons FLI hadn’t replied quicker.
Only a subtle difference, but wanted to point that out.