Lumpy is an undergraduate at some state college somewhere in the States. He isn't an interesting person and interesting things seldom happen to him.
Among his skills are such diverse elements as linguistic tomfoolery, procrastination, being terrible with computers yet running Linux anyway, a genial temperament and magnanimous spirit, a fairly swell necktie if he does say so himself, mounting dread, and quiet desperation.
Plays as a wizard in any table top or video game where that's an option, regardless of whether it's a [i]strong[/i] option. Has never failed a Hogwarts sorting test, of any sort or on any platform. (If you were about to say how one can't fail a sorting test . . . one surmises that you didn't make Ravenclaw.) Read The Fellowship, Two Towers, and Return of the King over the course of three sleepless days at age seven; couldn't keep down solid food after, because he'd forgotten to eat. Was really into the MBTI as a tweenager; thought it ridiculous how people said that no personality type was "better" than the others when ENTJ is clearly the most powerful. (Scored INFP, his self, but hey, one out of four isn't so bad. (However, found a better fit in INTP.)) Out of the Disney princesses Lumpy is Mulan--that is, if one is willing to trust BuzzFeed. Which, alas, one is not.
No, but seriously.
Mulan?? 0_o
If, despite this exhaustive list of traits and deeds, your burning question is left unanswered, send a missive in private. Should your quest be noble and intentions pure, it is said that Lumpyproletariat might respond in kind.
It's from the paper "Some Limits to Global Ecophagy" (which he's cited in this context before): https://lifeboat.com/ex/global.ecophagy
When I say that there's a seventy percent chance of something, that specific number carries a very specific meaning: there is a 67% chance that it is the case.
(I checked my calibration online just now.)
It's not some impossible skill to get decent enough calibration.
Your post begins with,
And ends with,
If in the writing of a comment you realize that you were wrong, you can just say that.
The EA Forum has recently had some very painful experiences where members of the community jumped to conclusions and tried to oust people on very flimsy evidence, and now we're seeing people upvote who are sick of the dynamic.
LessWrong commenters did a better job of navigating accusations, waiting for evidence, and downvoting low-quality combativeness. People running off half-cocked hasn't had as disastrous effects, so there aren't as many people there who are currently sick of it.
Upvoted.
I'm in strong agreement with point two and in agreement with point four. I think these are things that more people should keep in mind while putting together microcultures and they are things I worry about frequently.
I'm also in favor of point one for... basically all social groups and microcultures which aren't EA. But it wouldn't work for EA. EA is more public than a boardgame club, and many loadbearing people in EA are also public figures. Public figures are falsely accused of assault, constantly.
None of this was news to the people who use LessWrong.
The time to have a conversation about what went wrong and what a community can do better, is immediately after you learned that the thing happened. If you search for the names of the people involved, you'll see that LessWrong did that at length.
The worst possible time to bring the topic up again, is when someone writes a misleading article for the express purpose of hurting you, which was not written to be helpful and purposefully lacks the context that it would require in order to be helpful. Why would you give someone a button they can press to make your forum talk for weeks about nothing?
It was a low-quality article and was downvoted so fewer people saw it. I wish the same had happened here.
I'm worried about this a non-zero amount.
But in the longer run I'm relatively optimistic about most futures where humans survive and continue making decisions. The future will last a very long time, and it's not uncommon for totalitarian governments to liberalize as decades or centuries wear on. Where there is life, there is hope.
The Bloomberg piece was not an update on how misconduct has happened in EA to anyone who has been previously paying attention.
I'm strongly downvoting the parent comment for now, since I don't think it should be particularly visible. I'll reverse the downvote if you release the rejection letter and it is as you've represented.
One of the comments Ivy was responding to there began "I am encouraging you to try to exercise your empathetic muscles and understand..."
And the comment thread we are in by someone who named this burner account of theirs "Eugenics-Adjacent" began "Sadly I fear stories like this are lost on the devoted EA crowd here..."
I agree that posts on the EA forum should be kind and assume good faith.