Duncan hosted 2+ long FB threads at the time where a lot of people shared their experiences with Brent, and I think were some of the main ways that Berkeley rationalists oriented to the situation and shared information, and overall I think it was far better than the counterfactual of Duncan not having hosted those threads. I recall, but cannot easily find, Kelsey Piper also saying she was surprised how well the threads went, and I think Duncan’s contributions there and framing and moderation were a substantial part of what went well.
It is public record he was among the last defenders of said abuser. Duncan will dispute this characterization but I will include the full text he posted on facebook long after everyone else figured Brent out.
Just to share my impression, I think it’s false to say “long after everyone else figured Brent out”. I think it’s more accurate to say that it was “shortly after it became very socially risky to defend Brent”, but I think a lot of people in the threads confessed to still being quite disoriented, and I think providing a defense of Brent was a positive move to happen in the dialogue, even while I think it was not the true position. I don’t think Duncan punished anyone for disagreeing with him which is especially important, I think he did a pretty credible job of bringing it up as a perspective to engage with while not escalating in a fight.
For a bit more primary source, here’s some Duncan quotes from his post atop the second FB thread:
I focused yesterday’s conversation on what I suspected would be a minority viewpoint which might be lost in a rush to judgment. I wanted to preserve doubt, where doubt is often underpreserved, and remind people to gather as much information as they could before setting their personal opinions. I was afraid people would think that helping those who were suffering necessarily meant hurting Brent—that it was inextricably a zero-sum game.
and
I want to reorient now to something that I underweighted yesterday, and which is itself desperately important, and which I hope people will participate in with as much energy:
Are there concrete things I can do to help Persephone?
Are there concrete things I can do to help T?
Are there concrete things I can do to help other people in a similar boat?
Are there concrete things I can do to stop others from ending up in that same boat?
I also had nothing to do with the Burning Man group (have never been to Burning Man, came out to a beach in San Francisco once along with [a dozen other people also otherwise not involved with that group] to see a geodesic dome get partially assembled?) and the confidence with which that user asserts this falsehood seems relevant.
I also note that I was lodging a defense of “not leaping straight to judgment” far more than I was lodging a defense of Brent, i.e. I think the text above is much more consistent with “Duncan wants us to track multiple possible worlds consistent with the current set of observations” than with “Duncan has a strong and enduring preference for believing one of those worlds.”
This is exactly the sort of nuance that is precious, and difficult to maintain, and I am still glad I tried to maintain it even though it ultimately turned out that the null hypothesis (Brent is an abuser) proved correct.
To add the voice of someone who is not a “well known” or community landmark, the reading I got was one of pedantry, not defense. I read it in the same way as you might say “Wow, it would be great if we had 10,000 apples, but I am not sure that our 4+x apples sums to that many. Let’s keep open the possibility that x is 4 or 30″.
Hopefully tacking this on makes it
Easy for you to see how people might read this
Easy for other people to share that same support (or to disagree, I just think the former is more likely here)
Duncan hosted 2+ long FB threads at the time where a lot of people shared their experiences with Brent, and I think were some of the main ways that Berkeley rationalists oriented to the situation and shared information, and overall I think it was far better than the counterfactual of Duncan not having hosted those threads. I recall, but cannot easily find, Kelsey Piper also saying she was surprised how well the threads went, and I think Duncan’s contributions there and framing and moderation were a substantial part of what went well.
Just to share my impression, I think it’s false to say “long after everyone else figured Brent out”. I think it’s more accurate to say that it was “shortly after it became very socially risky to defend Brent”, but I think a lot of people in the threads confessed to still being quite disoriented, and I think providing a defense of Brent was a positive move to happen in the dialogue, even while I think it was not the true position. I don’t think Duncan punished anyone for disagreeing with him which is especially important, I think he did a pretty credible job of bringing it up as a perspective to engage with while not escalating in a fight.
For a bit more primary source, here’s some Duncan quotes from his post atop the second FB thread:
and
I also had nothing to do with the Burning Man group (have never been to Burning Man, came out to a beach in San Francisco once along with [a dozen other people also otherwise not involved with that group] to see a geodesic dome get partially assembled?) and the confidence with which that user asserts this falsehood seems relevant.
I also note that I was lodging a defense of “not leaping straight to judgment” far more than I was lodging a defense of Brent, i.e. I think the text above is much more consistent with “Duncan wants us to track multiple possible worlds consistent with the current set of observations” than with “Duncan has a strong and enduring preference for believing one of those worlds.”
This is exactly the sort of nuance that is precious, and difficult to maintain, and I am still glad I tried to maintain it even though it ultimately turned out that the null hypothesis (Brent is an abuser) proved correct.
Yeah that’s why I added the primary source, I went and read it and then realized that was what you were doing.
To add the voice of someone who is not a “well known” or community landmark, the reading I got was one of pedantry, not defense. I read it in the same way as you might say “Wow, it would be great if we had 10,000 apples, but I am not sure that our 4+x apples sums to that many. Let’s keep open the possibility that x is 4 or 30″.
Hopefully tacking this on makes it
Easy for you to see how people might read this
Easy for other people to share that same support (or to disagree, I just think the former is more likely here)
I’ll take it. =)
Like, the person adversarially quoting me above wants me to be seen as a rape apologist, and I’ll take “pedant” over that.
Haha, I was being pedantic when I said that. Replace it with “You were being lawful, which I respect the hell out of” for a better compliment