The community still seems in the middle of sensemaking around Leverage, and figuring out what to do about it, and this post feels like it pulls the spotlight away.
I’m assuming that sensemaking is easier, rather than harder, with more relevant information and stories shared. I guess if it’s pulling the spotlight away, it’s partially because it’s showing relevant facts about things other than Leverage, and partially because people will be more afraid of scapegoating Leverage if the similarities to MIRI/CFAR are obvious. I don’t like scapegoating, so I don’t really care if it’s pulling the spotlight away for the second reason.
If the points in the post felt more compelling, then I’d probably be more down for an argument of “we should bin these together and look at this as a whole”, but as it stands the stuff listed in here feels like it’s describing something significantly less damaging, and of a different kind of damage.
I don’t really understand what Zoe went through, just reading her post (although I have talked with other ex-Leverage people about the events). You don’t understand what I went through, either. It was really, really psychologically disturbing. I sound paranoid writing what I wrote, but this paranoia affected so many people. What I thought was a discourse community broke down into low-trust behavior and gaslighting and I feared violence. Someone outside the central Berkeley community just messaged me saying it’s really understandable that I’d fear retribution given how important the relevant people thought the project was, it was a real risk.
Or, rather, I think there’s a core inside of what made Leverage damaging, and it’s really really hard to name it.
I’m really interested in the core being described better in the Leverage case. It would be unlikely that large parts of such a core wouldn’t apply to other cases even if not to MIRI/CFAR specifically. I know I haven’t done the best job I could have nailing down what was fucky about the MIRI/CFAR environment at 2017, but I’ve tried harder to (in the online space) more than anyone but Ziz, AFAICT.
This is small but an actually important difference, and has the effect of slightly downplaying Leverage.
I agree, will edit the post accordingly. I do think the fact that people were saying we wouldn’t have a chance to save the world without Eliezer shows that they consider him extremely historically special.
But the general sense I get from the overall post is this type of pattern, repeated over and over—a sensation of being asked to believe something terrible, and then when I squint the words themselves are quite reasonable.
Sorry, it’s possible that I’m writing not nearly as clearly as I could, and the stress of what happened might contribute some to that. But it’s hard for me to identify how I’m communicating unclearly from your or Logan’s description, which are both pretty vague.
But the way this deal is made bothers me, and I feel defensive and have stories in me about this doing more harm than good.
I appreciate that you’re communicating about your defensiveness and not just being defensive without signalling that.
I don’t really understand what Zoe went through, just reading her post (although I have talked with other ex-Leverage people about the events). You don’t understand what I went through, either. It was really, really psychologically disturbing. I sound paranoid writing what I wrote, but this paranoia affected so many people.
It would have probably better if you would have focused on your experience and drop all of the talk about Zoe from this post. That would make it easier for the reader to just take the information value from your experience.
I think that your post is still valuable information but that added narrative layer makes it harder to interact with then it would have been if it would have been focused more on your experience.
I’m assuming that sensemaking is easier, rather than harder, with more relevant information and stories shared. I guess if it’s pulling the spotlight away, it’s partially because it’s showing relevant facts about things other than Leverage, and partially because people will be more afraid of scapegoating Leverage if the similarities to MIRI/CFAR are obvious. I don’t like scapegoating, so I don’t really care if it’s pulling the spotlight away for the second reason.
I don’t really understand what Zoe went through, just reading her post (although I have talked with other ex-Leverage people about the events). You don’t understand what I went through, either. It was really, really psychologically disturbing. I sound paranoid writing what I wrote, but this paranoia affected so many people. What I thought was a discourse community broke down into low-trust behavior and gaslighting and I feared violence. Someone outside the central Berkeley community just messaged me saying it’s really understandable that I’d fear retribution given how important the relevant people thought the project was, it was a real risk.
I’m really interested in the core being described better in the Leverage case. It would be unlikely that large parts of such a core wouldn’t apply to other cases even if not to MIRI/CFAR specifically. I know I haven’t done the best job I could have nailing down what was fucky about the MIRI/CFAR environment at 2017, but I’ve tried harder to (in the online space) more than anyone but Ziz, AFAICT.
I agree, will edit the post accordingly. I do think the fact that people were saying we wouldn’t have a chance to save the world without Eliezer shows that they consider him extremely historically special.
Sorry, it’s possible that I’m writing not nearly as clearly as I could, and the stress of what happened might contribute some to that. But it’s hard for me to identify how I’m communicating unclearly from your or Logan’s description, which are both pretty vague.
I appreciate that you’re communicating about your defensiveness and not just being defensive without signalling that.
It would have probably better if you would have focused on your experience and drop all of the talk about Zoe from this post. That would make it easier for the reader to just take the information value from your experience.
I think that your post is still valuable information but that added narrative layer makes it harder to interact with then it would have been if it would have been focused more on your experience.