@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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
@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.
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.
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.
Thanks for doing this, Nathan! I'm finding these results interesting and informative and I expect this to elevate to the discourse.
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
Neither!
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.
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.
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.