This is a fairly high-context conversation between me (Ben) and my friend (Ren).

Ren used to work at CFAR, and then ~4.5 years ago moved away to join the Monastic Academy in Vermont. Ren had recently visited me and others in the rationalist scene in the Bay and had written a Facebook post that included her saying she’d heard word that people had been gossiping behind her back about whether she’d “gone nuts”, which she said was unwholesome and further said she was angry that people thought it was acceptable behavior. As someone who had done some amount of that, I wanted to talk with Ren about it.

We found a time to have a zoom, then I proposed we move to try talking via written dialogue, a format which we both liked quite a bit.

This is a fairly high-context conversation, and the topic I’m sorry if it doesn’t make sense to a bunch of readers.

Thursday, October 12th

Hello! This is me.

Ben Pace

You can type and submit too.

Ben Pace

Hello! This is Ren.

Unreal

Cmd-enter (or ctrl-enter on Windows) will submit your message to the dialogue.

Bringing in from our spoken conversation: The thing that felt most worrying to me was your point that, if you suspected a friend had fallen into a cult or become crazy, then you would be concerned for them and want to support them, yet your sense was that rationalists were quietly coordinating to distance themselves from you, which was a very uncaring and somewhat hostile thing to do.

Ben Pace

Okay, so, I have two initial hypotheses about why people would treat you uncaringly if they thought that you had gone crazy.

The rationalists are an in-group for people who believe true things at the cost of all else. Insofar as you (in their judgment) are trying to have true beliefs then you’ll be supported, but if you appear to no longer be doing that then you’re “out”. This is not totally dissimilar to how a christian parish may accept lots of sinners except for the sin of not believing in God / being another religion.
Roughly speaking the rationalist-people are not actually friends, they’re a status hierarchy, and within it you are lucky to have 1-3 friends, and if you fall out of the status hierarchy, then you no longer get the benefits of being in the community. In this version of the story you are actually finding out that you didn’t have friends.
A third secret thing that I have not yet thought of.

Thoughts on either of these?

Ben Pace

Immediate reactions:

Seems okay.
Whoa, sad.
Mystery!!

Unreal

As a side note, I want to at least on-principle endorse that it’s basically pretty disrespectful and adversarial to discuss whether to oust someone while hiding this from them. I can imagine doing it in highly adversarial situations (e.g. concerns about physical assault, or someone being very powerful and corrupt) but my guess is that in most possible situations it is direct evidence of weakness (moral, character, not sure exactly what) for people to not be willing to talk openly about it if you are friends.

Ben Pace

(I say on-principle because I have some concern that I am not living up to my principle here. Happy to discuss that more at some point here.)

Ben Pace

I think I just forgot that some rationalists don’t view themselves as a community. And instead view themselves more as a group of professionals or some kind of … club. I think it’s a weird mix of things, and maybe … I and they are confused about what they are.

I do currently have a bad sense of … like, somehow rat’s are mixing things and calling it one thing when it suits them, and then using it in the other way when it suits them. But the inconsistency may be … troublesome. But this is a big tangled mess in my mind, and I’d need to spend more time considering what’s going on here.

Unreal

I agree that the use of the word ‘community’ seems confused. To me the word seems so overloaded in present culture that it’s on my personal list of terms to try to always taboo. For instance for the last 1+ year I have been ~exclusively using the phrase the “the EA ecosystem” instead of “the EA community”.

Ben Pace

I think part of what might be confusing here:

If I’m no longer in the ingroup, what’s the point of discussing my sanity at all? I’ve been out of the scene for 4.5 years. I guess I still occasionally comment on LessWrong. But then, man, I’d really … much rather … just be told to leave the clubhouse rather than people gossiping about me behind my back.

I think, from a certain perspective, it leaves better optionality for those people. Clueless me, I keep engaging with people in the community as though I’m still sort of included. But they get to evaluate my ‘fit’, and decide what to do with me, secretly. And like, they maybe have the power to ‘bring me in’ if they wanted to or ‘leave me out’ if they wanted to.

I understand what this is like from the inside, having been in CFAR. And I get why it might be appealing to ‘give the mission’ this sort of optionality, cuz there’s some interest in ‘finding the relevant ppl’ ‘for the mission’. But there are bad vibes to this too.

Unreal

I agree that being told openly is better than it happening implicitly and just not getting told about it.

I was about to propose some mistake theories, but I worry I am being far too mistake theory toward everyone involved...

Ben Pace

Do you think you would feel less betrayed if I right now tried out openly making the case that you are crazy and to-be ousted? :P

Ben Pace

(Not that I believe it, but I have some probability on this.)

Ben Pace

So… I have to investigate how I actually feel about this…

But I think, on principle, I’m against petty gossip regardless of friendship status or closeness to the people. Just based on what I would consider ethical behavior.

So … in fact I wouldn’t do petty gossip behind people’s backs even if they were relative strangers. And so the thing where these people aren’t really my friends or close to me… doesn’t really change… that it seems inadvisable, to me, to do.

However.....… I don’t know if I’d feel angry in the same way. yeah I think i’d just be like “huh that’s kinda shitty behavior”

But I do think it’s confusing because… a lot of the rat’s… I thought were my friends. Actually. And maybe… they don’t really think that. 😅

Unreal

I would feel good if you, as my friend, gave me feedback. And like, tried to explain things I’ve said or done that give you concern, out of a … desire to help me? Or something—I am failing to be quite precise.

I would feel pretty good if I received a “i think you actually don’t belong here”—if there was a clear conclusion like this. I’d feel somewhat relieved.

Unreal

That makes sense.

I could switch to that, but I want to first bring up that it wasn’t my motive for commenting on the Facebook post. One of the activities I regularly engage in is “public discussion of what the norms are”, which I think helps people both not have to make worst-case assumptions about the norms, and also prevent poor norms from coming to be. While I think there was something important you were trying to defend, I disagreed with the norm that it read to me that you were explicitly proposing, which is that “gossip about people having seriously lost touch with reality” should be punished.

I also would like you to not join a cult or go crazy, that would be very sad :(

Ben Pace

So specifically about gossip norms.

To me, the intent matters. The way it is done matters.

I think this includes professional contexts where people don’t know the other people very well. Or don’t have particular loyalties to the people, as friends. And maybe that’s more the relevant context here.

I am not interested in the punishment part of this.

I am interested in ‘calling out’ behavior that is inadvisable, unethical, or unprofessional. And I guess this would be… a norm reinforcement… but I don’t see it as all that punishing to do.

Gossip that is coming from a place of pettiness, or desire to boost oneself up or lower someone else. Gossip that is coming from envy, spite, jealousy, malice, ill-will, etc. Gossip that seeks to divide people / cause disharmony / cause conflict between friends. Gossip that dehumanizes.

[Edit: I want to elaborate that ‘dehumanizes’ here means something like “causes people to mistreat that person, including in their own minds.”]

Unreal

When you write this I really don’t know what you mean that isn’t incredibly overreaching and damaging:

But I think, on principle, I’m against petty gossip regardless of friendship status or closeness to the people. Just based on what I would consider ethical behavior.

Lots of private information gets passed around in small circles because it’s sensitive or delicate or unfair to share in wider circles. This includes positive and negative information.

Yeah, there’s private info you can spread about someone just to embarrass them or to feel superior for them or just so you can get points because you have private and personal info about someone. There’s lots of bad motives for sharing info. But also sharing private strongly negative info seems really important to me too, and I don’t want a rule of “no saying bad things behind people’s backs”.

It seems good to point out bad patterns and low motives. I’d be into trying to specify what’s going wrong with gossip in this situation, as my current best guess is that you have some legitimate grievances <hopeful-yet-also-sad-emoji>

Ben Pace

Lots of private information gets passed around in small circles because it’s sensitive or delicate or unfair to share in wider circles. This includes positive and negative information.

I mean this doesn’t immediately read to me as ‘petty’.

Petty would be more like “oh my god did you hear so-and-so did such-and-such??” Like you can kind of tell the vibe isn’t… the same as… “hey, i hear you’re about to engage with Bob in such-and-such. it seems relevant to tell you about this time Bob did this bad thing that would relevantly impact your decision.”

Unreal

For instance, today I asked Alice whether Bob made her uncomfortable if I invited him to an event. She said yes, and told me a story of their interactions, and showed me some texts, and I update negatively on Bob’s self-awareness and ability to handle conflict (not that he was a malefactor, just unaware and unskilled), and chose not to invite him to an event (that he was a v marginal invitee for, and Bob and I are barely acquaintances). I think this was really good info sharing and I am glad that Alice trusted me to share this info.

Ben Pace

I don’t take any issue with the above example about Alice and Bob.

Unreal

Sorry, I feel like I am being a bit needlessly defensive...

Ben Pace

I mean, gossip is legitimately a very nuanced situation. :/ It’s really case by case.

Unreal

To restate my paraphrase: it sounds like the thing that seemed pretty unvirtuous is

People presenting as friends, yet saying a lot of very negative and ousting-like things behind your back.

Can I get a 1-to-10 rating on how well that captures what you feel like has been happening?

Ben Pace

Somewhere between a 3 and a 6

Unreal

Okay. Um, maybe do you wanna type more about what it seems like to you? :)

Ben Pace

I will try to delineate the thing.

Negative or careless or petty gossip about me, without care for me as a person. They were just talking because they could, and it was maybe fun for them or a diversion. To speculate about my sanity. (I admit it is fun to speculate and psychoanalyze about people. So I get that. I just also think it’s inadvisable.)
Being so-called truth-seekers, but not going to the source of truth directly. Engaging in, what seems to me, to be somewhat cowardly behavior. Or at least avoidant. It’s ‘too convenient’. They avoid feeling uncomfortable, get to amuse themselves by talking about someone negatively, and don’t receive any of the impact of their actions.
Talking about me negatively, in a way that they would not do so when I am in the room. This feels deceptive. Then, not telling me directly about it, this is further unfriendly. Also reads to me as immature.

Unreal

Note: This is largely speculation about how people are engaging in this type of conversation. It’s not like I was there.

Unreal

This is helpful. I think the 3rd bullet is leaving me with a clearer impression of something that I think is clearly bad behavior.

(Yep, I am not reading you to say “I definitely know that this happened” but it seems like you’ve got enough evidence to think it probably did or something similar to it might’ve.)

Ben Pace

I think people saying one thing to your face and a different thing behind your back, is not an honorable way of interacting with people you respect or are friends/allies with. Especially if the thing behind your back is very damaging to you or very negative about you.

Ben Pace

Well I’ve been IN convos like this in the past. I’ll just confess that I’ve talked like this about … I feel like most ppl who have worked at CFAR? But I think this kind of convo would often come up about Alan in particular. And I’ve talked about Bob in ways I would now regret. Probably also Charlie. But I think Alan is the central example here. Because he ‘went the way of religion’ so to speak, and everyone was confused about it and couldn’t help but speculate and speak in patronizing ways about it.

[Edit: Some names have been anonymized here]

Unreal

While there were attempts to talk directly to Alan about the religion thing, that didn’t resolve in a way that was satisfying. And then from then on, ppl would keep talking about Alan in ….

Pretty much the same way I imagine old Christian ladies talking about someone gay. Like they got lost or something. But with a tone of … clucking. Tutting. Disappointed, but distancing. “what a shame”

And something about that reads to me as petty, unnecessary, and like… speech that ought to be avoided.

Unreal

I also feel like people were not forthright enough with Alan about that.

Well, in retrospect I think things were kind of confusing and what norms would be enforced was pretty confusing. I think it would have been good for a bunch of people to say “We’re pretty convinced that theism is false and there’s a civilizational-level amount of motivated cognition looking for arguments for it and we need around here to have a line in the sand that says we’re not accepting that conclusion here”. However, that wasn’t the case! Anna Salamon continued to hire him for events afterwards. So I think those people weren’t in a situation to enforce the boundary.

Ben Pace

Yeah… it’s really not cut-and-dry. I obviously don’t think the EA/rat scene should oust religious people. lol

Unreal

I think a bunch of people did lose a lot of respect for him (me included) and it seems likely to me that we weren’t up front about this and as such did not act very honorably toward him.

Ah, I do want to note that I think enough people had written their opinions on the internet and discussed atheism a bunch that I think it was surely quite clear that a lot of people would lose a lot of respect for Alan due to his believing in a god.

(I am unresolved on whether people acted honorably.)

Ben Pace

Well one thing I’m noticing is that…

Ben gravitates towards norms that seem somewhat legible or able to be reinforced b/c of their general legibility. I think this is actually pretty valuable and good for norms.

However… the way I judge people’s behavior… has a lot to do with the vibe or way that they go about it, and their motivation or intent behind their behavior—which is generally not legible. Like not permissible evidence in a court of law, so to speak. (Although they DO try to discuss and ascertain this in courts of law… actually… and maybe we just need to get real good at this?)

But anyway … I do use motive and intent as a measure because of certain perceptual skills I have. I believe I am unusually good at discerning people’s motives.

And maybe no one should ask me to write their norms for them.

And maybe I’m not even in this convo to discuss norms. Or what should be enforced. Or reinforced. Maybe I’m not even at that level here.

I think I’m like… more like… that Facebook post… was me, as a friend, calling for some kind of intervention or calling out some stuff that I’m personally upset about. And calling people to step into a higher integrity. Which I believe is what friends do!

And I believe the rationalists are my friends.

And maybe they don’t.

And I should maybe figure this out.

Unreal

Some things that feel alive to me:

I think gossip is good and want to defend gossip
I think acting dishonorably is bad and I want to know how to characterize dishonorable gossiping
I like chatting with Ren in a pretty general way
I wish I could remove the occasional whitespace/newlines at the end of some of Ren’s responses [edit: this has now been solved]
I feel like the lack of “caring about your friend” point was really worrying to me because I thought it might be true and so I wanted to talk around that some more

Also here’s a paragraph I wrote into my notes app because it didn’t seem like it had a natural place to fit into the dialogue above:

I guess it seems to me like we’re engaged in the great rationalist project of “legibilize what the local norms should be and then we will all follow the output of this process” which is notably quite different from “try to directly be kind to one another”, though it is something that can be very powerful and people you don’t currently know well can help you out a great deal with by just writing comments :)

This matches up with something you’re writing in your box.

Ben Pace

FYI think gossip can be quite good, and I do advocate for the wholesome version of gossip. I engage in it myself.

Unreal

For the record I’m coming from a place where people have had lots of power and I’ve been constantly interacting with people who are practicing and demanding norms of not gossiping about stuff you’ve heard and so my defensiveness is high on this norm.

Ben Pace

I think also: Insofar as you are unhappy with my behavior toward you, I feel honor-bound to step forward and tell you what I did and defend it / apologize!

[Meta: Ren here said in a side-channel that she’d be interested to know what I said.]

Ben Pace

I mentioned your name to someone who was visiting Lighthaven. They asked about you and how you were doing and I recall saying something like “Oh, she’s doing well. I mean, I don’t see her that often so I’m not confident, but I think she’s doing well.” Then later on I noticed that I think this person was worried that you had changed for the worse for being part of MAPLE, so I followed up via text.

I feel a bit embarrassed typing it in verbatim. I take this as a sign I should probably do so. Here is what I wrote:

the other day i said [ren] seemed to be doing well to me
to clarify, i am not sure she has not gone crazy
she might’ve, i’m not close enough to be confident
i’d give it 25%
i mostly meant she seemed more chill
like some anxiety / fakeness had fallen off of her

That’s what I sent.

Ben Pace

I think that this is not like an incredible summary of my impression of you and if I thought for half an hour I would say more substantive things, so I am concerned that it will feel a bit superficial / thoughtless.

Ben Pace

I guess I’m interested in your reaction, including whether you feel hurt by it or otherwise.

Ben Pace

OK well while Ben is typing… I’m just gonna, for fun, type the Buddhist norms around speech.

Wait, before that, it’s important not to like… assume these are held rigidly, in a deontological way. They are flexible, situation dependent, and more like ‘aspirations’ than rules.

They advise:

Avoid false speech.
Avoid speech that is malicious (designed or intended to cause harm)
Avoid speech that divides people (e.g. causes fights to break out among friends or people who were generally harmonious and getting along)
Avoid speech that is harsh

I think there’s a lot of nuance here, esp around the ‘harsh’ one. But I get a lot out of considering these.

Unreal

Okay, I’ve read what you wrote. In general, I have no substantial negative reaction to reading the description above. Although I’m a bit sad about 25%.

Unreal

But also, doesn’t seem terribly unreasonable or unkind to me. !

Unreal

I wonder if I want to know more about what people mean when they say “gone crazy.”

My current sense is that people using this phrase have almost no real model of what they mean. Like it’s got a black box feeling to it.

Cuz they clearly aren’t talking about me having a psychic break, being manic, or something.

It’s more like…

something something cult brain or brainwashed or something seemingly more sinister and hard to put a finger on. But it feels kinda creepy or like weird or off. In a way that’s hard to point at.

And this makes me ….. want to frown at it hard.

Unreal

Okay! I am glad you don’t think my texts were dishonorable.

Hmm… I have been thinking a bit about what “crazy” should refer to, I can give my current guess, with the caveat that it is probably wrong.

Ben Pace

So, I think one case I will include is medically insane, like they’re seeing ghosts or are paranoid and think the CIA is following them or have multiple personalities in their head, and broadly aren’t in touch with reality, and the concern is they might hurt themselves or someone else.

My stab at characterizing this in a way that might generalize is “has robustly false beliefs and is not epistemically open to changing their mind, and because of this they are unable to work with / living with other people”.

There’s also delusional people who believe that they are Napoleon or something. I think this is the same thing.

I think that religious people are sometimes like this. “Yes, I’d love to open a restaurant with you, but Christ is returning on Tuesday and I need to slaughter the infidels before he returns.” I am impugning this person as both likely to hurt people and also probably not open to evidence falsifying their beliefs.

Ben Pace

“Yes, I’d love to open a restaurant with you, but Christ is returning on Tuesday and I need to slaughter the infidels before he returns.”

Yeah, I read this as a person who is in fact experiencing a psychic break. And I would say their specific delusion has religious themes but I would not describe this person as a religious person.

This would be similar to me saying: “I think that rationalists are sometimes like this.” And pointing at [redacted] or similar. :P But anyway. Carry on.

Unreal

I think there are weaker cases of confidently believing something false and not being epistemically open to counter-evidence, in a way that is very damaging.

I think many Christian people also had confident beliefs about what their God wanted and would punish people in accordance with it (e.g. physically assault their children) and would say that their belief is based on their personal experience of the Holy Spirit, in a way where I suspect I would not be able to present them with evidence that would change their mind.

Ben Pace

My sense is that another time people describe someone as “acting crazy” is when someone is high on drugs and acting erratically and might be violent. They’re not properly in contact with reality and will react to aggressions that aren’t there and do things that don’t make sense.

Ben Pace

I wish I knew a Christian similar enough to your example to really consider it.

Hummmmmm.

I maybe don’t spend any time trying to change a Christian’s mind. This activity might be illuminating.

But … I dunno. My views here are nuanced.

A phrase that I’ve heard “I try not to kick anyone’s knees out from under them.”

And I like this as a general principle. Esp if they’re not committing violence or harm.

And most religious people aren’t really, as far as I can tell.

Unreal

I think there’s a related thing of being socially unpredictable that scares people and that people like to call crazy. I remember talking to [redacted] once during a circling session, and having a sense that the person appeared normal but was in fact not at all reading the social cues correctly, and I started to feel scared and like the person would maybe read something as a strong betrayal and act out.

[Added: I think that there’s an element of “this person is not going to play a consistent social role in the scene” that people often call this ‘crazy’. I think rationalists sometimes seem crazy because they’re going to operate in line with what’s true, which is often very different from what the scene demands. What I’m saying is that being crazy and seeming crazy are very similar, and sometimes it’s because you’ve lost touch with reality but other times it’s because you’re more in-touch with reality.]

Ben Pace

I am open to the story that the person who believes that they are Napoleon or Christ can be accepted into normal society and live a good life. I am here trying to say that they are still delusional even if that works.

Ben Pace

OK but the real question is: When you were like, I put 25% on Ren maybe being crazy. What does that crazy actually refer to?

Unreal

Oh right. I forgot about that context. I admit my examples are a bit more extreme / alarming. I feel a bit nervous about trying to talk about this politely.

Ben Pace

FTR, I would characterize a lot of rationalists as … ‘religiously so’ or ‘fundamentalist’ in the way they hold their views. As in, … attached to their specific stories of reality and not open to updating. So in other words, they believe what they believe based on a kind of faith, and not the good kind of faith. And I say this just b/c it sort of mirrors what you said above about religious people or Christians.

Unreal

It’s hard for me to share all of the vibes I’ve picked up, and I am a bit defensive about them. I am not sure exactly what I mean, but I’ll give it a shot at a explicit meaning.

Will Renshin confidently believe something that a lot of her actions rest on that seems to me strongly false and not be open to changing her mind, and as a result either waste a ton of time/effort or possibly do something harmful?

I think my concerns here are something like “Frame control by a central figure in her local social environment who has a lot of power, such that she does not really question some central tenets of belief”.

(I don’t mean to necessarily imply that this doesn’t happen to any other people and isn’t happening to me.)

Examining the case of Nonlinear gave me a bunch more taste for how much of an attractor state there is here. The two women I talked to at length were in a situation where:

The CEO of the company

Had ~all of the financial power (millions in his own bank account, paid out ~very little to any employees)
Believed himself to be one of the greatest people alive, such that his brother (also at the company) said that if the CEO ran for President, he had a 10% chance of winning
Generally got to win arguments by saying he had thought about the topic more than ~anyone else on Earth
They travelled in a small unit with its own social bubble and v few people coming in and out that didn’t respect the leader
(I could write more)

And at the end they’d taken a bunch of actions that they… couldn’t have imagined taking otherwise. Like, they were just like “this makes sense, the boss said it’s fine to drive illegally in a foreign country without a license for 2 months”.

Returning to the topic at hand, I have seen a bunch of little red flags around MAPLE (which I could go into, e.g. my sense is that people are often suffering from sleep deprivation there, I also recall reading some tale of the leader endorsing some atrocity like it might be better for humanity to go extinct than continue as it is), so I am somewhat concerned about your local social environment.

So that’s a key source of my probability estimate.

Ben Pace

To be clear, to me you seem stronger and to have more faith in yourself and to care about right action more, and you seem like a more powerful force in the world for it.

Ben Pace

Hmmm.

Interesting.

I take issue with the word ‘confidently’.

I would agree there was an issue if the thing were more like…

In a way that was attached. Esp in a personal, egoic way. Like If I needed to defend myself and my beliefs. Or I couldn’t face alternative realities that went against my sense of things. Like I was flinching against evidence. Or I was personally defending something or afraid to consider the possibility of my view being false.

But I agree that I hold certain views confidently but I would say that’s good, as long as I’m not attached to my views. I’m confident because … I’ve personally examined a lot of evidence and investigated it for myself. And verified it etc. But I’m also not afraid of considering alternatives. It just … the evidence is actually overwhelming in some cases.

So I’ve developed a lot of inner confidence. But also, I hold all my views lightly because there’s no frame or set of concepts that quite captures reality. And so… in some way… I don’t hold that tightly to any particular view or frame? But somehow I still am able to act with confidence? I dunno.

Unreal

Relatedly, I think I am slightly concerned that you will start saying a bunch of clearly false things at some point. I don’t know that it’s a super justified fear but I don’t think I have seen sufficient evidence to be totally confident it won’t happen.

Like, to give an overly concrete example that is probably rude (and not intended to be very accurate to be clear), if at some point you start saying “Well I’ve realized that beauty is truth and the one way and we all need to follow that path and I’m not going to change my mind about this Ben and also it’s affecting all of my behavior and I know that it seems like I’m doing things that are wrong but one day you’ll understand why actually this is good” then I’ll be like “Oh no, Ren’s gone crazy”. Probably you won’t! I’m pattern matching a bit to what people sometimes say who’ve gone to religious retreats for ages and changed their lives.

Like in the last few years I saw a person turn religious (which was worrying to me) and then also on a different issue say “I’m never going to stop <holding my position>” and that person had previously been rationalist-adjacent for a while. [Added: And now I am going to hold far stronger personal boundaries around that person and avoid them having much power over me and so on.]

Anyway, this is meant as a pointer to my fears about religious people, not as a very personal analysis.

Ben Pace

I want to reiterate that I don’t believe this is the world I’m living in and I’m writing this because I think it’s good to share concerns about possible worlds to avoid. I’m not at all saying “Ren is totally like this” but instead I more wrote “What am I afraid of”. I like you and like you being in my life :)

Ben Pace

OK! Well reading your sense was helpful.

I like knowing that.

I am fairly confident that personally, I, at least, am not going thru the thing you described above (using Nonlinear as an example).

I … if anything … am much more able to stand up to my teacher than before.

[Edit: I removed some text here going into some specifics about the above line. I didn’t feel like publishing that stuff but am open to private dialogue about it, if anyone is curious.]

Unreal

Friday, October 13th

Checking in, I’d like to ask if we can publish this dialogue? I liked the conversation. I’ve edited a few of my sentences for grammar/wording, deanonymized some people, added an intro for context, given it a title, and made two larger additions that I’ve flagged that look like: [Added: <new stuff>].

Ben Pace

I feel like I never really got to explain my views on gossip in a clear way. I feel dissatisfied about it. Might try to add it in.

Unreal

Oh interesting. I did get a sense of what you thought was bad behavior from some of your bullets ‘delineating’ it, but sounds like you don’t feel you said it very crisply.

Some options:

Spend some time now trying to add it.
Publish it, then tonight/tomorrow write a comment with more thoughts.
Publish it, then if we want to we can come back here and continue the dialogue another day.
F*ck it ship it, even if it could be better.

Ben Pace

(I personally am excited about sharing real conversation dialogues so I am making some request to publish even though we could both add more.)

Ben Pace

Yeah I don’t need to wait on publishing.

Unreal

Okie dokie :)

Ben Pace

Shall I hit publish?

Ben Pace

Aye.

Unreal

Addendum:

Ren’s views on Relationship

The relationship or ‘line’ drawn between individuals is “real” in her ontology, and it can be damaged, repaired, or honored. There’s always something there, even between people who’ve never met before—like on the other side of the world or something. There’s no such thing as a total disconnection.

However, one can choose to pretend or act like a relationship is nonexistent. This is a kind of dishonoring of the truth, which is that something exists there, but we can refuse to acknowledge it or take responsibility for it or treat it as real.

Much of Ren’s examination of this phenomenon comes from years of Circling practice and also her many years of living in community. However, this view is corroborated by ancient traditions, including indigenous / Native ones, Buddhist ones, etc.

An invocation we regularly use at MAPLE is from the Lakota tradition: Mitakuye Oyasin.

These ancient traditions and practices teach, in their culture, to honor all life because we’re all actually interconnected—everything impacts everything else. This feels trivially true, even from a purely materialistic standpoint.

In Buddhism, this is often referred to as interdependence.

In Circling, this principle is referred to as “Commitment to Connection” in the Circling Europe school—where I first learned to start taking this idea seriously.

When we act in ways that dishonor connection or relationship, it can cause “damage.” This “damage” in my view is due to the delusional aspect of it. If we act out of a deluded or wrong view of reality, we cause “damage”—but I see “damage” as “lying to oneself, to others, or to the world.” When we act out of accord with truth, this is itself “damage.”

So when I heard that people were gossiping about me behind my back in a way that seemed uncaring about me, this created a felt ‘rift’ between myself and these unknown gossipers. I became angry, more distrustful, felt hurt, etc. This is a kind of “damage” in my relational world. In fact, in OUR relational world. It hurt the relationships itself, more than the individuals in the relationship.

The impacts on me in a physical or material way are a second-order concern, not the primary concern.

The move toward division, disconnection, and disharmony between people I thought I had some trust or bond with… this is what I see as “damaging” and thus “inadvisable.” And why I advocate for a norm against speech that creates a wound or fracture, in a relational field.

The material impacts are real, but they all come downstream from living out of accord with a certain reality—that we are all connected, and all our relationships matter. To harm any of them ultimately harms ourselves and causes us to be deluded. Disconnected FROM reality, rather than connected with reality.

If I gossip about someone (in an unwholesome way), and they never find out, this still creates the rift, the disconnection, and still damages something real. (This can be observed, just watch how I behave around or to that person after I make secretly harmful comments about them. Or watch how I start treating relationships in general. See if I experience more shame, guilt, need to conceal things, lie, pretend, etc. My behavior starts lining up with the reality I have personally created, through my speech act. This is “damage”.)

Of course, gossip is valid in all the ways discussed above. But there are ways to do gossip that doesn’t cause these fractures or rifts and maintains the reality of the connection, even if the gossip is ‘negative’. Friends CAN talk about their friends behind their backs. Even saying negative, unflattering things. This isn’t off limit! But are we doing it in a way that honors the relationship, or are we creating a sense that the relationship isn’t important or isn’t real?

OK I feel like I have outlined the most major thing missing, from my philosophy, from the above.

Unreal

Gossiping in a way that causes people to believe I am ‘insane’ is damaging in particular because it also discourages people from engaging with me… and instead encourages people to start actively avoiding and shunning me. This removes even the option of a kind of repair, reconciliation, or investigation caused by this sort of gossip.

If it were true that I am insane—like y’know, esp in a potentially harmful way—I would advocate for people to warn other people about me.

There are such people in the world, who in general I would advise you to avoid (unless you are willing to take certain risks). And I would have no problem saying so.

But such people are, like, more in the category of acting in ways that are really quite harmful and are kind of beyond help or correction, for whatever reason. (As in, many people have made the attempt and failed.) I have people that seem to be in this category, and it is very sad. I still make attempts to reach out to them though, from a distance.

But currently I do not believe most people should bother making active attempts to avoid me (like, more than the default). The evidence is… as far as I can tell… way more in the other direction—that engaging with me is beneficial for the people I engage with. And people often come to me for all kinds of reasons. And report benefit. And this is more true now than it was a few years ago.

This might be harder to believe(?), but people come to me for my clarity, my ability to understand things and communicate them well, and my devotion to truth-seeking. I help bring other people more clarity in their lives, in their sense-making, and try to deepen their connection to the world, reality, themselves, etc.

So to cause people to instead be tempted to avoid me, to shun me, or see me as crazy, seems harmful and disingenuous from where I am standing, given the info I have (versus the info that speculators have, which is almost nothing).

I advise against casual, careless speculation on my insanity, given basically no direct contact with me. I wouldn’t do it others—for fun, for profit, for personal gain, for egoic validation, or due to my own insecurities or due to entitlement. If I do it to you, I owe you an apology.

Unreal

Dishonorable Gossip and Going Crazy

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