Thanks for this. I think these distinctions are important.
Let me clarify: In this post when I say “Common knowledge among people who spent time socially adjacent to Leverage”, what I mean is:
I heard these directly from multiple different Leverage members.
When I said these to others, they shared they had also heard the same things directly from other Leverage members, including members other than the ones I had spoken to.
I was in groups of people where we all discussed that we had all heard these things directly from Leverage members. Some of these discussions included Leverage members who affirmed these things.
I believe there are several dozen people in the set of people this is true of.
So I did mean “People in my circles all know that we all know these things”, and by “know” I meant “believe, with sourcing to multiple independent first-hand witnesses”.
I do not count you as being in the “common knowledge” set, as your self-report is that you lightly believed these based on third-hand information that was “widely rumored”. Rather than having been directly told it by a member; witnessing others being directly told it by members; and having people tell you they were directly told it by members.
It also seems that yet further additional other Leverage members, quite possibly separate from the ones we all spoke to, are publicly claiming some of these things aren’t true to their own experience.
My current understanding is that members’ experiences differed by subgroup they were part of, at particular points in time. (See e.g. in another comment “(Hedge: there were two smaller training groups where I believe it was a norm for members of the group to train each other. I wasn’t part of those groups and can’t speak to them.)”). So, it’s likely that the social circle I’m speaking about had an understanding that was specific to a particular time period, based on reports from members involved in a particular slice of the organization.
Now that Zoe’s Medium post is public, there exists for the first time a public first-hand report of many of these statements. So the indirection required to make the claims in this post is no longer quite as necessary. But in the absence of any member yet willing to attest publicly to these first-hand, making the most {defensible x useful} second-hand claims I was able to seemed like a productive step.
Thanks for this. I think these distinctions are important.
Let me clarify: In this post when I say “Common knowledge among people who spent time socially adjacent to Leverage”, what I mean is:
I heard these directly from multiple different Leverage members.
When I said these to others, they shared they had also heard the same things directly from other Leverage members, including members other than the ones I had spoken to.
I was in groups of people where we all discussed that we had all heard these things directly from Leverage members. Some of these discussions included Leverage members who affirmed these things.
I believe there are several dozen people in the set of people this is true of.
So I did mean “People in my circles all know that we all know these things”, and by “know” I meant “believe, with sourcing to multiple independent first-hand witnesses”.
I do not count you as being in the “common knowledge” set, as your self-report is that you lightly believed these based on third-hand information that was “widely rumored”. Rather than having been directly told it by a member; witnessing others being directly told it by members; and having people tell you they were directly told it by members.
It also seems that yet further additional other Leverage members, quite possibly separate from the ones we all spoke to, are publicly claiming some of these things aren’t true to their own experience.
My current understanding is that members’ experiences differed by subgroup they were part of, at particular points in time. (See e.g. in another comment “(Hedge: there were two smaller training groups where I believe it was a norm for members of the group to train each other. I wasn’t part of those groups and can’t speak to them.)”). So, it’s likely that the social circle I’m speaking about had an understanding that was specific to a particular time period, based on reports from members involved in a particular slice of the organization.
Now that Zoe’s Medium post is public, there exists for the first time a public first-hand report of many of these statements. So the indirection required to make the claims in this post is no longer quite as necessary. But in the absence of any member yet willing to attest publicly to these first-hand, making the most {defensible x useful} second-hand claims I was able to seemed like a productive step.