The rant (now somewhat redacted) can be found here, in response to the leaked emails of Scott more-or-less outright endorsing people like Steve Sailer re:”HBD”. There was a major backlash against Scott at the time, resulting in the departure of many longtime members of the community (including me), and Eliezer’s post was in response to that. It opened with:
it should have been obvious to anyone at this point that anybody who openly hates on this community generally or me personally is probably also a bad person inside and has no ethics
I think it would be good to acknowledge here Eliezer’s edits. Like, do you think that
The thing you quote here is a reasonable way to communicate the thing Eliezer was trying to communicate, and that thing is absurd?
The thing you quoted is absurd, but not what Eliezer was trying to communicate, but the thing he was actually trying to communicate was also absurd?
The thing Eliezer was trying to communicate is defensible, but it’s ridiculous that he initially tried to communicate it using those words?
What Eliezer initially said was a reasonable way to communicate what he meant, and his attempts to “clarify” are actually lying about what he meant?
Something else?
Idk, I don’t want to be like “I’m fine with criticism but it’s not really valid unless you deliver it standing on one foot in a bed of hot coals as is our local custom”. And I think it’s good that you brought this post into the conversation, it’s definitely relevant to questions like how much does Eliezer tolerate criticism. No obligation on you to reply further, certainly. (And I don’t commit to replying myself, if you do, so I guess take that into account when deciding if you will or not.)
But also… like, those edits really did happen, and I think they do change a lot.
I’m not sure how I feel about the post myself, there’s definitely things like “I actually don’t know if I can pick out the thing you’re trying to point out” and “how confident are you you’re being an impartial judge of the thing when it’s directed at you”. I definitely don’t think it’s a terrible post.
But I don’t know what about the post you’re reacting to, so like, I don’t know if we’re reacting different amounts to similar things, or you’re reacting to things I think are innocuous, or you’re reacting to things I’m not seeing (either because they’re not there or because I have a blind spot), or what.
(The very first version was actually ”...openly hates on Eliezer is probably...”, which I think is, uh, more in need of revision than the one you quoted.)
I think it would be good to acknowledge here Eliezer’s edits.
I don’t. He made them only after ingroup criticism, and that only happened because it was so incredibly egregious. Remember, this was the LAST straw for me—not the first.
The thing about ingroupy status-quo bias is that you’ll justify one small thing after another, but when you get a big one-two punch—enough to shatter that bias and make you look at things from outside—your beliefs about the group can shift very rapidly. I had already been kind of leery about a number of things I’d seen, but the one-two-three punch of the Scott emails, Eliezer’s response, and the complete refusal of anyone I knew in the community to engage with these things as a problem, was that moment for me.
Even if I did give him credit for the edit—which I don’t, really—it was only the breaking point, not the sole reason I left.
I believe Eliezer about his intended message, though I think it’s right to dock him some points for phrasing it poorly—being insufficiently self-critical is an attractor that idea-based groups have to be careful of, so if there’s a risk of some people misinterpreting you as saying ‘don’t criticize the ingroup’, you should at least take the time to define what you mean by “hating on”, or give examples of the kinds of Topher-behaviors you have in mind.
There’s a different attractor I’m worried about, which is something like “requiring community leaders to walk on eggshells all the time with how they phrase stuff, asking them to strictly optimize for impact/rhetoric/influence over blurting out what they actually believe, etc.” I think it’s worth putting effort into steering away from that outcome. But I think it’s possible to be extra-careful about ‘don’t criticize the ingroup’ signals without that spilling over into a generally high level of self-censorship.
You can avoid both by not having leaders who believe in terrible things (like “black people are genetically too stupid to govern themselves”) that they have to hide behind a veil of (im)plausible deniability.
Hm, so. Even just saying you don’t give him credit for the edits is at least a partial acknowledgement in my book, if you actually mean “no credit” and not “a little credit but not enough”. It helps narrow down where we disagree, because I do give him credit for them—I think it would be better if he’d started with the current version, but I think it would be much worse if he’d stopped with the first version.
But also, I guess I still don’t really know what makes this a straw for you, last or otherwise. Like I don’t know if it would still be a straw if Eliezer had started with the current version. And I don’t really have a sense of what you think Eliezer thinks. (Or if you think “what Eliezer thinks” is even a thing it’s sensible to try to talk about.) It seems you think this was really bad[1], worse than Rob’s criticism (which I think I agree with) would suggest. But I don’t know why you think that.
Which, again. No obligation to share, and I think what you’ve already shared is an asset to the conversation. But that’s where I’m at.
[1]: I get this impression from your earlier comments. Describing it as “the last straw” kind of makes it sound like not a big deal individually, but I don’t think that’s what you intended?
It would still be a straw if it started with the current version, because it is defending Scott for holding positions and supporting people I find indefensible. The moment someone like Steve Sailer is part of your “general theory of who to listen to”, you’re intellectually dead to me.
The last straw for me is that the community didn’t respond to that with “wow, Scott’s a real POS, time to distance ourselves from him and diagnose why we ever thought he was someone we wanted around”. Instead, it responded with “yep that sounds about right”. Which means the community is as indefensible as Scott is. And Eliezer, specifically, doing it meant that it wasn’t even a case of “well maybe the rank and file have some problems but at least the leadership...”
Thanks. After thinking for a bit… it doesn’t seem to me that Topher frobnitzes Scott, so indeed Eliezer’s reaction seems inappropriately strong. Publishing emails that someone requested (and was not promised) privacy for is not an act of sadism.
What screed are you referring to?
The rant (now somewhat redacted) can be found here, in response to the leaked emails of Scott more-or-less outright endorsing people like Steve Sailer re:”HBD”. There was a major backlash against Scott at the time, resulting in the departure of many longtime members of the community (including me), and Eliezer’s post was in response to that. It opened with:
...which is, to put it mildly, absurd.
I think it would be good to acknowledge here Eliezer’s edits. Like, do you think that
The thing you quote here is a reasonable way to communicate the thing Eliezer was trying to communicate, and that thing is absurd?
The thing you quoted is absurd, but not what Eliezer was trying to communicate, but the thing he was actually trying to communicate was also absurd?
The thing Eliezer was trying to communicate is defensible, but it’s ridiculous that he initially tried to communicate it using those words?
What Eliezer initially said was a reasonable way to communicate what he meant, and his attempts to “clarify” are actually lying about what he meant?
Something else?
Idk, I don’t want to be like “I’m fine with criticism but it’s not really valid unless you deliver it standing on one foot in a bed of hot coals as is our local custom”. And I think it’s good that you brought this post into the conversation, it’s definitely relevant to questions like how much does Eliezer tolerate criticism. No obligation on you to reply further, certainly. (And I don’t commit to replying myself, if you do, so I guess take that into account when deciding if you will or not.)
But also… like, those edits really did happen, and I think they do change a lot.
I’m not sure how I feel about the post myself, there’s definitely things like “I actually don’t know if I can pick out the thing you’re trying to point out” and “how confident are you you’re being an impartial judge of the thing when it’s directed at you”. I definitely don’t think it’s a terrible post.
But I don’t know what about the post you’re reacting to, so like, I don’t know if we’re reacting different amounts to similar things, or you’re reacting to things I think are innocuous, or you’re reacting to things I’m not seeing (either because they’re not there or because I have a blind spot), or what.
(The very first version was actually ”...openly hates on Eliezer is probably...”, which I think is, uh, more in need of revision than the one you quoted.)
Strong approval for the way this comment goes about making its point, and trying to bridge the inferential gap.
I don’t. He made them only after ingroup criticism, and that only happened because it was so incredibly egregious. Remember, this was the LAST straw for me—not the first.
The thing about ingroupy status-quo bias is that you’ll justify one small thing after another, but when you get a big one-two punch—enough to shatter that bias and make you look at things from outside—your beliefs about the group can shift very rapidly. I had already been kind of leery about a number of things I’d seen, but the one-two-three punch of the Scott emails, Eliezer’s response, and the complete refusal of anyone I knew in the community to engage with these things as a problem, was that moment for me.
Even if I did give him credit for the edit—which I don’t, really—it was only the breaking point, not the sole reason I left.
I believe Eliezer about his intended message, though I think it’s right to dock him some points for phrasing it poorly—being insufficiently self-critical is an attractor that idea-based groups have to be careful of, so if there’s a risk of some people misinterpreting you as saying ‘don’t criticize the ingroup’, you should at least take the time to define what you mean by “hating on”, or give examples of the kinds of Topher-behaviors you have in mind.
There’s a different attractor I’m worried about, which is something like “requiring community leaders to walk on eggshells all the time with how they phrase stuff, asking them to strictly optimize for impact/rhetoric/influence over blurting out what they actually believe, etc.” I think it’s worth putting effort into steering away from that outcome. But I think it’s possible to be extra-careful about ‘don’t criticize the ingroup’ signals without that spilling over into a generally high level of self-censorship.
You can avoid both by not having leaders who believe in terrible things (like “black people are genetically too stupid to govern themselves”) that they have to hide behind a veil of (im)plausible deniability.
Hm, so. Even just saying you don’t give him credit for the edits is at least a partial acknowledgement in my book, if you actually mean “no credit” and not “a little credit but not enough”. It helps narrow down where we disagree, because I do give him credit for them—I think it would be better if he’d started with the current version, but I think it would be much worse if he’d stopped with the first version.
But also, I guess I still don’t really know what makes this a straw for you, last or otherwise. Like I don’t know if it would still be a straw if Eliezer had started with the current version. And I don’t really have a sense of what you think Eliezer thinks. (Or if you think “what Eliezer thinks” is even a thing it’s sensible to try to talk about.) It seems you think this was really bad[1], worse than Rob’s criticism (which I think I agree with) would suggest. But I don’t know why you think that.
Which, again. No obligation to share, and I think what you’ve already shared is an asset to the conversation. But that’s where I’m at.
[1]: I get this impression from your earlier comments. Describing it as “the last straw” kind of makes it sound like not a big deal individually, but I don’t think that’s what you intended?
It would still be a straw if it started with the current version, because it is defending Scott for holding positions and supporting people I find indefensible. The moment someone like Steve Sailer is part of your “general theory of who to listen to”, you’re intellectually dead to me.
The last straw for me is that the community didn’t respond to that with “wow, Scott’s a real POS, time to distance ourselves from him and diagnose why we ever thought he was someone we wanted around”. Instead, it responded with “yep that sounds about right”. Which means the community is as indefensible as Scott is. And Eliezer, specifically, doing it meant that it wasn’t even a case of “well maybe the rank and file have some problems but at least the leadership...”
Thanks. After thinking for a bit… it doesn’t seem to me that Topher frobnitzes Scott, so indeed Eliezer’s reaction seems inappropriately strong. Publishing emails that someone requested (and was not promised) privacy for is not an act of sadism.
I believe the idea was not that this was an act of frobnitzing, but that
Topher is someone who openly frobnitzes.
Now he’s done this, which is bad.
It is unsurprising that someone who openly frobnitzes does other bad things too.