I would like everyone posting criticism, especially heated criticism, to keep very firmly in mind that Duncan did not have to write this. Whatever your opinion of him, at least make sure you’ve factored in the evidence that he wrote this whole, weird thing, complete with references to Ender’s Game, Fight Club, etc. instead of writing either 1) nothing or 2) something much more reassuring.
There are critics who think Duncan is incompetent and overconfident, and about this hypothesis I can say at least that it is consistent with Duncan having written this post. Then there are critics who think Duncan is, I dunno, evil or power-hungry or something, and I think those people are mostly failing to see what is in front of them.
The whole point of him posting this was to acknowledge that he is doing something dangerous, and that we have a responsibility to speak up. To quote him exactly: “good and moral people have to stop and wonder whether their friends and colleagues with slightly weaker epistemics and slightly less-honed allergies to evil are getting hoodwinked”.
His refusal to address basic safety concerns simply because he was put off by my tone is very strong evidence to me that people are indeed being hoodwinked. I don’t care if the danger to them is because he’s incompetent, overconfident, evil, or power-hungry. I care that people might get hurt.
(I would actually favor the hypothesis that he is incompetent/overconfident. Evil people have more sensible targets to go after)
I think you’re confusing “refusal to address basic safety concerns to handoflixue directly” with “refusal to address basic safety concerns at all.” I deny your right to judge and interrogate me, because of your failure to exhibit clear thinking and good discourse. I’ve engaged with those very same points in many other comment threads, though—there are literally only three people in this entire thread for whom I’ve determined that the EV of digging into their perspective is not worth it.
I note that there’s a bet waiting in the wings to lend your harsh words credibility. You could charitably offer to donate your winnings to salving the pain of the people you claim to care about.
I think you’re dramatically underestimating how your responses are being read by third parties. Your style of response to handoflixue specifically has made at least one person I’ve spoken to decide to avoid giving you well thought out criticism out of fear of you yelling at them and being very confrontational.
If you stumble upon a schoolyard fight, and immediately assume that the person you see punching is fundamentally violent and has high odds of attacking you, I think you’re skipping an important step of checking to see whether they’re the bully or whether they’re defending themselves. Most of us have had the experience (either direct or vicarious) of being absolutely infuriated by the people who try to pretend like there’s a perfect symmetry between the punch thrown by the aggressor and the punch thrown by the defender—it’s not hypocritical to both support “not starting fights” and “being willing to end them.”
I am aware of the risk of losing people around the edges, yeah. But I can’t do anything except point to the scores and scores of other responses (it might be over a hundred by now) in which I’ve thanked people for critique, responded in depth, updated visibly in real time, etc.
People get anxious, and maybe they disengage. But anyone who’s not going to be openly and unjustifiably uncharitable has nothing to fear from me in particular. I’m not going to not stand up for myself against bullies and trolls, even if it costs me some quiet whispers that would’ve contained good content.
Everything is tradeoffs. To put it another way: The person who’s refusing to give me their well-thought-out criticism is either a) unable because of costs/time constraints to look further and see that my claim they have nothing to fear is credible, or b) themselves jumping to unfounded conclusions based on less data than they have available to them.
If a), then fair play—this is nobody’s first priority except mine, and I don’t feel entitled to everyone’s opinions; it’s perfectly reasonable to have a policy of not spending a lot of time if your first impression is strongly negative.
If b), and they have time to look but are choosing not to and running with a strawman without questioning their own conclusions, then … well … it probably wouldn’t have gone well anyway.
If c), they’ve followed the whole chain in chronological order and they still think I’m at fault, then that just means we have strongly differing priors on right and wrong/acceptable and unacceptable, and once you get down to values on that level, I don’t know how well we’d be able to pass one another’s ITTs anyway.
To the best of my ability to judge, handoflixue’s earlier comments (e.g. above and below this comment) were absolutely dripping with assumption-of-evil-intent, outright insults, unfounded leaps to Harsh Judgments of my fundamental character, poor logic, fallacious smears, and so on and so forth. They dropped into the thread after there were already over a hundred comments, including many where I’d demonstrated credible evidence of good faith and willingness to change my mind, which they completely ignored. They continued to ask loaded, unfair questions and set up strawmans over and over and over, with at least a dozen posts containing both deontological hostility and bad epistemics. They then offered a single token apology conditional on “if” their tone had been too harsh (rather than just saying sorry, I crossed the line, as I myself have done in these comments at least twice), and dropped the overtly hostile tone while continuing to subtly insinuate that I’m a bad actor in every post.
Given that my stated role model is Ender Wiggin, if somebody thinks handoflixue’s approach is okay, or thinks that I shouldn’t have defended myself, then it shouldn’t be surprising that I claim, as my personal opinion, that their moral compass is drastically askew. There’s a different question about whether I’ve marginally erred, e.g. by being 15% too defensive, but that shouldn’t trigger someone who’s not going to be hostile in the first place to be afraid.
To put it another way: The person who’s refusing to give me their well-thought-out criticism is either a) unable because of costs/time constraints to look further and see that my claim they have nothing to fear is credible, or b) themselves jumping to unfounded conclusions based on less data than they have available to them.
If a), then fair play—this is nobody’s first priority except mine, and I don’t feel entitled to everyone’s opinions; it’s perfectly reasonable to have a policy of not spending a lot of time if your first impression is strongly negative.
If b), and they have time to look but are choosing not to and running with a strawman without questioning their own conclusions, then … well … it probably wouldn’t have gone well anyway.
If c), they’ve followed the whole chain in chronological order and they still think I’m at fault, then that just means we have strongly differing priors on right and wrong/acceptable and unacceptable, and once you get down to values on that level, I don’t know how well we’d be able to pass one another’s ITTs anyway.
handoflixue’s earlier comments were absolutely dripping with assumption-of-evil-intent, outright insults, unfounded leaps to harsh judgments of my fundamental character, poor logic, fallacious smears, and so on and so forth. They dropped into the thread after there were already over a hundred comments, including many where I’d demonstrated credible evidence of good faith and willingness to change my mind, which they completely ignored. They continued to ask loaded, unfair questions and set up strawmans over and over and over, with at least a dozen posts containing both deontological hostility and bad epistemics. They then offered a single apology conditional on an “if” (rather than just saying, sorry, I was too harsh, as I myself have done in these comments at least twice), and dropped the overtly hostile tone while continuing to subtly insinuate that I’m a bad actor in every post.
If somebody thinks that’s okay, or thinks that I shouldn’t have defended myself, then that’s somebody whose moral framework is, in my personal opinion, drastically askew. There’s a different question about whether I’ve marginally erred, e.g. by being 15% too defensive, but that shouldn’t trigger someone who’s not going to be hostile in the first place to be afraid.
handoflixue’s earlier comments were absolutely dripping with assumption-of-evil-intent, outright insults, unfounded leaps to harsh judgments of my fundamental character, poor logic, fallacious smears, and so on and so forth. They dropped into the thread after there were already over a hundred comments, including many where I’d demonstrated credible evidence of good faith and willingness to change my mind, which they completely ignored. They continued to ask loaded, unfair questions and set up strawmans over and over and over, with at least a dozen posts containing both deontological hostility and bad epistemics.
Fine. Reply to my OP with links to where you addressed other people with those concerns. Stop wasting time blustering and insulting me—either you’re willing to commit publicly to safety protocols, or you’re a danger to the community.
If nothing else, the precedent of letting anyone recruit for their cult as long as they write a couple thousand words and paint it up in geek aesthetics is one I think actively harms the community.
But, you know what? I’m not the only one shouting “THIS IS DANGEROUS. PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD RECONSIDER WHAT YOU’RE DOING.” Go find one of them, and actually hold a conversation with someone who thinks this is a bad ideas.
I just desperately want you to pause and seriously consider that you might be wrong. I don’t give a shit if you engage with me.
I note for others reading this comment and wondering why it hasn’t been addressed that I’ve ceased replying to handoflixue and a couple of other posters on a policy level, for reasons surrounding norms of discourse, strawmanning, epistemic humility, presence or absence of good faith, etc. It’s possible that the above contains good questions or insights; if someone else chooses to repost/re-ask/rephrase sections of this, I’ll likely respond to them.
On third thought, everyone else is right and I am wrong. The Dragon Army group house is a very bad idea, enough so that it’s okay to be forceful in encouraging Duncan to modify it or other people not to join it. This is true even if the required modifications are so hard that they end up sinking the project.
I would like everyone posting criticism, especially heated criticism, to keep very firmly in mind that Duncan did not have to write this. Whatever your opinion of him, at least make sure you’ve factored in the evidence that he wrote this whole, weird thing, complete with references to Ender’s Game, Fight Club, etc. instead of writing either 1) nothing or 2) something much more reassuring.
There are critics who think Duncan is incompetent and overconfident, and about this hypothesis I can say at least that it is consistent with Duncan having written this post. Then there are critics who think Duncan is, I dunno, evil or power-hungry or something, and I think those people are mostly failing to see what is in front of them.
a
The whole point of him posting this was to acknowledge that he is doing something dangerous, and that we have a responsibility to speak up. To quote him exactly: “good and moral people have to stop and wonder whether their friends and colleagues with slightly weaker epistemics and slightly less-honed allergies to evil are getting hoodwinked”.
His refusal to address basic safety concerns simply because he was put off by my tone is very strong evidence to me that people are indeed being hoodwinked. I don’t care if the danger to them is because he’s incompetent, overconfident, evil, or power-hungry. I care that people might get hurt.
(I would actually favor the hypothesis that he is incompetent/overconfident. Evil people have more sensible targets to go after)
a
I think you’re confusing “refusal to address basic safety concerns to handoflixue directly” with “refusal to address basic safety concerns at all.” I deny your right to judge and interrogate me, because of your failure to exhibit clear thinking and good discourse. I’ve engaged with those very same points in many other comment threads, though—there are literally only three people in this entire thread for whom I’ve determined that the EV of digging into their perspective is not worth it.
I note that there’s a bet waiting in the wings to lend your harsh words credibility. You could charitably offer to donate your winnings to salving the pain of the people you claim to care about.
Duncan,
I think you’re dramatically underestimating how your responses are being read by third parties. Your style of response to handoflixue specifically has made at least one person I’ve spoken to decide to avoid giving you well thought out criticism out of fear of you yelling at them and being very confrontational.
shrug
If you stumble upon a schoolyard fight, and immediately assume that the person you see punching is fundamentally violent and has high odds of attacking you, I think you’re skipping an important step of checking to see whether they’re the bully or whether they’re defending themselves. Most of us have had the experience (either direct or vicarious) of being absolutely infuriated by the people who try to pretend like there’s a perfect symmetry between the punch thrown by the aggressor and the punch thrown by the defender—it’s not hypocritical to both support “not starting fights” and “being willing to end them.”
I am aware of the risk of losing people around the edges, yeah. But I can’t do anything except point to the scores and scores of other responses (it might be over a hundred by now) in which I’ve thanked people for critique, responded in depth, updated visibly in real time, etc.
People get anxious, and maybe they disengage. But anyone who’s not going to be openly and unjustifiably uncharitable has nothing to fear from me in particular. I’m not going to not stand up for myself against bullies and trolls, even if it costs me some quiet whispers that would’ve contained good content.
Everything is tradeoffs. To put it another way: The person who’s refusing to give me their well-thought-out criticism is either a) unable because of costs/time constraints to look further and see that my claim they have nothing to fear is credible, or b) themselves jumping to unfounded conclusions based on less data than they have available to them.
If a), then fair play—this is nobody’s first priority except mine, and I don’t feel entitled to everyone’s opinions; it’s perfectly reasonable to have a policy of not spending a lot of time if your first impression is strongly negative.
If b), and they have time to look but are choosing not to and running with a strawman without questioning their own conclusions, then … well … it probably wouldn’t have gone well anyway.
If c), they’ve followed the whole chain in chronological order and they still think I’m at fault, then that just means we have strongly differing priors on right and wrong/acceptable and unacceptable, and once you get down to values on that level, I don’t know how well we’d be able to pass one another’s ITTs anyway.
To the best of my ability to judge, handoflixue’s earlier comments (e.g. above and below this comment) were absolutely dripping with assumption-of-evil-intent, outright insults, unfounded leaps to Harsh Judgments of my fundamental character, poor logic, fallacious smears, and so on and so forth. They dropped into the thread after there were already over a hundred comments, including many where I’d demonstrated credible evidence of good faith and willingness to change my mind, which they completely ignored. They continued to ask loaded, unfair questions and set up strawmans over and over and over, with at least a dozen posts containing both deontological hostility and bad epistemics. They then offered a single token apology conditional on “if” their tone had been too harsh (rather than just saying sorry, I crossed the line, as I myself have done in these comments at least twice), and dropped the overtly hostile tone while continuing to subtly insinuate that I’m a bad actor in every post.
(I note that in the places where they didn’t do this, I answered them in the same way I was answering everyone else, up until deciding to disengage on a policy level.)
Given that my stated role model is Ender Wiggin, if somebody thinks handoflixue’s approach is okay, or thinks that I shouldn’t have defended myself, then it shouldn’t be surprising that I claim, as my personal opinion, that their moral compass is drastically askew. There’s a different question about whether I’ve marginally erred, e.g. by being 15% too defensive, but that shouldn’t trigger someone who’s not going to be hostile in the first place to be afraid.
To put it another way: The person who’s refusing to give me their well-thought-out criticism is either a) unable because of costs/time constraints to look further and see that my claim they have nothing to fear is credible, or b) themselves jumping to unfounded conclusions based on less data than they have available to them.
If a), then fair play—this is nobody’s first priority except mine, and I don’t feel entitled to everyone’s opinions; it’s perfectly reasonable to have a policy of not spending a lot of time if your first impression is strongly negative.
If b), and they have time to look but are choosing not to and running with a strawman without questioning their own conclusions, then … well … it probably wouldn’t have gone well anyway.
If c), they’ve followed the whole chain in chronological order and they still think I’m at fault, then that just means we have strongly differing priors on right and wrong/acceptable and unacceptable, and once you get down to values on that level, I don’t know how well we’d be able to pass one another’s ITTs anyway.
handoflixue’s earlier comments were absolutely dripping with assumption-of-evil-intent, outright insults, unfounded leaps to harsh judgments of my fundamental character, poor logic, fallacious smears, and so on and so forth. They dropped into the thread after there were already over a hundred comments, including many where I’d demonstrated credible evidence of good faith and willingness to change my mind, which they completely ignored. They continued to ask loaded, unfair questions and set up strawmans over and over and over, with at least a dozen posts containing both deontological hostility and bad epistemics. They then offered a single apology conditional on an “if” (rather than just saying, sorry, I was too harsh, as I myself have done in these comments at least twice), and dropped the overtly hostile tone while continuing to subtly insinuate that I’m a bad actor in every post.
If somebody thinks that’s okay, or thinks that I shouldn’t have defended myself, then that’s somebody whose moral framework is, in my personal opinion, drastically askew. There’s a different question about whether I’ve marginally erred, e.g. by being 15% too defensive, but that shouldn’t trigger someone who’s not going to be hostile in the first place to be afraid.
Just pondering this passage. Interesting.
Fine. Reply to my OP with links to where you addressed other people with those concerns. Stop wasting time blustering and insulting me—either you’re willing to commit publicly to safety protocols, or you’re a danger to the community.
If nothing else, the precedent of letting anyone recruit for their cult as long as they write a couple thousand words and paint it up in geek aesthetics is one I think actively harms the community.
But, you know what? I’m not the only one shouting “THIS IS DANGEROUS. PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD RECONSIDER WHAT YOU’RE DOING.” Go find one of them, and actually hold a conversation with someone who thinks this is a bad ideas.
I just desperately want you to pause and seriously consider that you might be wrong. I don’t give a shit if you engage with me.
I note for others reading this comment and wondering why it hasn’t been addressed that I’ve ceased replying to handoflixue and a couple of other posters on a policy level, for reasons surrounding norms of discourse, strawmanning, epistemic humility, presence or absence of good faith, etc. It’s possible that the above contains good questions or insights; if someone else chooses to repost/re-ask/rephrase sections of this, I’ll likely respond to them.
http://lesswrong.com/lw/c1/wellkept_gardens_die_by_pacifism/
Also: If you refuse to give someone evidence of your safety, you really don’t have the high ground to cry when that person refuses to trust you.
Scott just chimed in against: