I did not intend to say or imply “you’re the only person I’ve ever heard of”, nor to be super-negative, and I don’t think I trust Duncan particularly less (or more) than a typical other prominent LW participant. (But I might trust him less specifically when reporting negative things about Said than I would trust him on other matters, and I would likewise trust Said less specifically when reporting negative things about Duncan.)
If anything I said caused anyone else to trust Duncan less, or caused Duncan any distress, then that was very much not an intended effect and I apologize.
I do, rereading what I wrote, see how it could be interpreted as having a much stronger negative subtext than I intended. What I intended was along the following lines: What Duncan is saying in this thread about “more than a dozen” high-quality ex-LWers citing Said as a major reason for their departure is, unlike the already well-known fact that Duncan himself finds Said intensely unpleasant to interact with, new information for me; but I am aware that when people find one another intensely unpleasant to interact with the things they say about one another are not always perfectly accurate, even when everyone involved is aiming to be truthful and fair, and I want to be cautious in how much I adjust my estimate of Said’s net impact on LW in response to something that comes from a single source I can’t check.
(But, in response to your outright accusation of dishonesty at the end: if I said the thing you would prefer me to say, it would be an untruth; my opinion of Duncan is not what you imply it is. My opinion of my wife, even less so, but I assume the point here is the application to the present case.)
I did not intend to say or imply “you’re the only person I’ve ever heard of”, nor to be super-negative, and I don’t think I trust Duncan particularly less (or more) than a typical other prominent LW participant. (But I might trust him less specifically when reporting negative things about Said than I would trust him on other matters, and I would likewise trust Said less specifically when reporting negative things about Duncan.)
If anything I said caused anyone else to trust Duncan less, or caused Duncan any distress, then that was very much not an intended effect and I apologize.
I do, rereading what I wrote, see how it could be interpreted as having a much stronger negative subtext than I intended. What I intended was along the following lines: What Duncan is saying in this thread about “more than a dozen” high-quality ex-LWers citing Said as a major reason for their departure is, unlike the already well-known fact that Duncan himself finds Said intensely unpleasant to interact with, new information for me; but I am aware that when people find one another intensely unpleasant to interact with the things they say about one another are not always perfectly accurate, even when everyone involved is aiming to be truthful and fair, and I want to be cautious in how much I adjust my estimate of Said’s net impact on LW in response to something that comes from a single source I can’t check.
(But, in response to your outright accusation of dishonesty at the end: if I said the thing you would prefer me to say, it would be an untruth; my opinion of Duncan is not what you imply it is. My opinion of my wife, even less so, but I assume the point here is the application to the present case.)
That’s fair—I should not have accused you of dishonesty, and I apologize.