Assuming something like this represents your views Freyja, then I think you’ve handled the situation quite well.
I hope you can see how that is quite different from the comment I was replying to which is someone who appears to have met Geoff once. I’m sure you can similarly imagine how you would feel if people made comments like the one from orthonormal about friends of yours without knowing them.
I’ve interacted with Geoff a few times since 2012, and continued to have that bad feeling about him.
I wanted to let people know that these impressions started even prior to Leverage, and that I know I’m not retconning my memory, because I remember a specific conversation in summer 2014 about my distrust of Leverage (and I believe that wasn’t the first such conversation). This post would not have surprised 2012!me; the signs may have been subjective but they were there.
Without getting to the object level, it’s very fair to discuss the personality of someone who wields power and authority over people, especially if one mechanism of influence is telling those people that the world is at stake.
The rationalist community did in fact have to have such conversations about Eliezer over the years, and (IMO) mostly concluded that he actively wants to just sit in a comfortable cave and produce FAI progress with his team, and so he delegates any social authority/power he gains to trusted others, making him a safer weirdo leader figure than most.
The rationalist community did in fact have to have such conversations about Eliezer over the years, and (IMO) mostly concluded that he actively wants to just sit in a comfortable cave and produce FAI progress with his team, and so he delegates any social authority/power he gains to trusted others, making him a safer weirdo leader figure than most.
Was this conversation held publicly on a non-Eliezer-influenced online forum?
I think there’s a pretty big difference—from accounts I’ve read about Leverage, the “Leverage community” had non-public conversations about Geoff as well, and they concluded he was a great guy.
He said that he had significant discussions about Geoff with people near Leverage afterwards that damaged those relationships. That suggests that the sense was very strong and he had talked about it with people who actually know him more deeply.
Assuming something like this represents your views Freyja, then I think you’ve handled the situation quite well.
I hope you can see how that is quite different from the comment I was replying to which is someone who appears to have met Geoff once. I’m sure you can similarly imagine how you would feel if people made comments like the one from orthonormal about friends of yours without knowing them.
Thank you for scaling back your initial response.
I’ve interacted with Geoff a few times since 2012, and continued to have that bad feeling about him.
I wanted to let people know that these impressions started even prior to Leverage, and that I know I’m not retconning my memory, because I remember a specific conversation in summer 2014 about my distrust of Leverage (and I believe that wasn’t the first such conversation). This post would not have surprised 2012!me; the signs may have been subjective but they were there.
Without getting to the object level, it’s very fair to discuss the personality of someone who wields power and authority over people, especially if one mechanism of influence is telling those people that the world is at stake.
The rationalist community did in fact have to have such conversations about Eliezer over the years, and (IMO) mostly concluded that he actively wants to just sit in a comfortable cave and produce FAI progress with his team, and so he delegates any social authority/power he gains to trusted others, making him a safer weirdo leader figure than most.
Was this conversation held publicly on a non-Eliezer-influenced online forum?
I think there’s a pretty big difference—from accounts I’ve read about Leverage, the “Leverage community” had non-public conversations about Geoff as well, and they concluded he was a great guy.
He said that he had significant discussions about Geoff with people near Leverage afterwards that damaged those relationships. That suggests that the sense was very strong and he had talked about it with people who actually know him more deeply.
This is a good point. I think I reacted too harshly. I’ve added an apology to the orthonormal to the original comment