Edit: I got a request to cut the chaff and boil this down to discrete actionables. Let me do that.
Will you release everyone from any NDAs
Will you step down from any management roles (e.g. Leverage and Paradigm)
Will you state for the record, that you commit to not threaten* anyone who comes forward with reports that you do not like, in the course of this process
I get the sense that you have made people afraid to stand against you, historically. Engaging in any further threats, seems likely to impede all of our ability to make sense of, and come to terms with, whatever happened. It could also be quite incriminating on its own.
* For full points, commit to also not make any strong stealthy attempts to socially discredit people.
There’s good ways to do this kind of thing and bad ways. I feel that this is a bad way? Unless I’m missing a lot of context about what’s happening here.
Other ways to go about this:
Hire a third-party mediator to connect aggrieved parties with Geoff
Have a mutual trusted friend mediate conversations between aggrieved parties and Geoff
Geoff and ex-Leverage staff do a postmortem of some kind
Leverage creates an accountability system through which is collects data and feedback
I want to suggest that Geoff doesn’t need to respond to Spiracular’s requests because they contain a lot of assumptions, in the same way the question “Where were you on the night of the murder” contains a lot of assumptions. And this is a bad way to go about justice. Unless, again, I’m missing a bunch of context.
For whatever it’s worth, I think “No” is a pretty acceptable answer to some of these.
“No, for reasons X, Y, Z” is a pretty ordinary answer to the NDA concern. I’d still like to see that response.
“Leverage 2.0 was deliberately structured to avoid a lot of the drawbacks of Leverage 1.0” is something I actually think is TRUE. The fact that Leverage 1.0 was sun-setted deliberately, is something that I thought actually reflected well on both Geoff and the people there.
I think from that, an argument could be made that stepping down is not necessary. I can’t say I would necessarily agree with it, but I think the argument could be made.
Most of my stance, is that currently most people are too SCARED to talk. And this is actually really worrying to me.
I don’t think “introducing a mediator,” who would be spending about half of their time with Geoff—the epicenter of a lot of that fear—would actually completely solve all of that problem. It would surprise me a lot if it worked here.
My #1 most desired commitment, right now? Is actually #3, and I maybe should have put it first.
A commitment to, in the future, not go after people and especially not to threaten them, for talking about their experiences.
Well, I am at least gonna name a fraction of the assumptions that are implied by this set of requests. I am not asking you to do anything about this, but I am going to name them out loud, in the hopes that people come away more conscious of what other assumptions might be present.
Geoff was the center of the problem and, by himself, should be held accountable
If Geoff agrees to this, he is also agreeing on behalf of Leverage itself, including current members and potentially even past members. Meaning that if not-Geoff people break or violate these commitments, Geoff himself should be held responsible
Geoff has a meaningful degree of control over what other people do or do not do / say or do not say
The people who are scared of retaliation of some kind are mostly afraid of Geoff in particular
People’s views of Geoff’s willingness and ability to retaliate are basically correct / their fears are justified
The aggrieved parties should put the mass of the blame on Geoff
They should feel better if Geoff agrees to these requests
Geoff is totally free to say “no” to these requests on a public internet forum, and this won’t cause a bunch of misunderstanding / assumption of guilt if he does
Zoe’s account is more or less the full picture of what happened
Geoff shouldn’t be in a position of leadership
Geoff is bad in a way that cannot easily be corrected through a postmortem, accountability, or feedback process
Geoff meant ill-will toward individuals or sort-of knowingly abused people or used them for ego-inflating grandiose aims
Geoff knew the basics of Zoe’s post / experience
(If you or others basically agree that the above list is true, that would be illuminating and help me understand where you’re coming from.)
It seems bad that people are scared to talk. I appreciate your and other people’s efforts to make it easier for them to make sense of their experience and to process it out loud. I suspect Zoe’s account has helped a lot and created space for bravery, and I feel trust that others will come forward when it’s time.
Spiracular, I sense good faith from you and appreciate the thoughtfulness you seem to be bringing. I am wanting to have this conversation in the open so that people aren’t left with weird impressions about who knows what, what’s true, and we we have collectively agreed is true.
I’d like to suggest not moving too fast past the “processing what happened” phase by jumping ahead of “observe orient” to “decide act.” Even if for the sake of helping people, I think it’s important to “slow our roll” when it comes to deciding what a person should do and engaging them with a leading set of questions or demands. I don’t like the things Geoff would subtly be ‘agreeing to’ by saying ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to any of these requests. Him engaging them at all seems like a trap. (He might choose to do so anyway. I am not trying to protect HIM in particular. I am protecting against ‘doing justice in a way that doesn’t serve’. For that reason, I don’t want to see him respond to your requests until there’s more ‘orientation’.)
LessWrong is not the ideal medium for handling justice, as far as I can tell, and so I also generally feel like we shouldn’t be trying to handle this on LW.
(In the Duncan-culture version of LW, comments like the above are both commonplace and highly appreciated. I mention this because Unreal has mentioned having a tough time with LW, and imo the above comment demonstrates solidly central LW virtue.)
That last point sub-point is a little vague, so let my clarify my personal cut-off on this. Others may disagree.
I wouldn’t object to seeing the occasional brief overt statement coming directly from Geoff that his recollection doesn’t match someone else’s interpretation.
I would object to any further encouragement of things that resemble the “strong, repeated pressure by someone close to Geoff to have the post marked as flawed” that Ruby described.
Consistently denouncing the later going forward, would be very helpful.
I want to clarify that using the word “threat” in my case would cause one to overestimate the severity by 5-20x or something of the pressure I experienced (more so than “strong pressure”). Not that the word is strictly wrong, but the connotations of it are too strong. I might end up listing the actual behaviors in a bit, maybe after more dialog with the person in question.
Edit: I got a request to cut the chaff and boil this down to discrete actionables. Let me do that.
Will you release everyone from any NDAs
Will you step down from any management roles (e.g. Leverage and Paradigm)
Will you state for the record, that you commit to not threaten* anyone who comes forward with reports that you do not like, in the course of this process
I get the sense that you have made people afraid to stand against you, historically. Engaging in any further threats, seems likely to impede all of our ability to make sense of, and come to terms with, whatever happened. It could also be quite incriminating on its own.
* For full points, commit to also not make any strong stealthy attempts to socially discredit people.
There’s good ways to do this kind of thing and bad ways. I feel that this is a bad way? Unless I’m missing a lot of context about what’s happening here.
Other ways to go about this:
Hire a third-party mediator to connect aggrieved parties with Geoff
Have a mutual trusted friend mediate conversations between aggrieved parties and Geoff
Geoff and ex-Leverage staff do a postmortem of some kind
Leverage creates an accountability system through which is collects data and feedback
I want to suggest that Geoff doesn’t need to respond to Spiracular’s requests because they contain a lot of assumptions, in the same way the question “Where were you on the night of the murder” contains a lot of assumptions. And this is a bad way to go about justice. Unless, again, I’m missing a bunch of context.
For whatever it’s worth, I think “No” is a pretty acceptable answer to some of these.
“No, for reasons X, Y, Z” is a pretty ordinary answer to the NDA concern. I’d still like to see that response.
“Leverage 2.0 was deliberately structured to avoid a lot of the drawbacks of Leverage 1.0” is something I actually think is TRUE. The fact that Leverage 1.0 was sun-setted deliberately, is something that I thought actually reflected well on both Geoff and the people there.
I think from that, an argument could be made that stepping down is not necessary. I can’t say I would necessarily agree with it, but I think the argument could be made.
Most of my stance, is that currently most people are too SCARED to talk. And this is actually really worrying to me.
I don’t think “introducing a mediator,” who would be spending about half of their time with Geoff—the epicenter of a lot of that fear—would actually completely solve all of that problem. It would surprise me a lot if it worked here.
My #1 most desired commitment, right now? Is actually #3, and I maybe should have put it first.
A commitment to, in the future, not go after people and especially not to threaten them, for talking about their experiences.
That by itself, would be quite meaningful to me.
Well, I am at least gonna name a fraction of the assumptions that are implied by this set of requests. I am not asking you to do anything about this, but I am going to name them out loud, in the hopes that people come away more conscious of what other assumptions might be present.
Geoff was the center of the problem and, by himself, should be held accountable
If Geoff agrees to this, he is also agreeing on behalf of Leverage itself, including current members and potentially even past members. Meaning that if not-Geoff people break or violate these commitments, Geoff himself should be held responsible
Geoff has a meaningful degree of control over what other people do or do not do / say or do not say
The people who are scared of retaliation of some kind are mostly afraid of Geoff in particular
People’s views of Geoff’s willingness and ability to retaliate are basically correct / their fears are justified
The aggrieved parties should put the mass of the blame on Geoff
They should feel better if Geoff agrees to these requests
Geoff is totally free to say “no” to these requests on a public internet forum, and this won’t cause a bunch of misunderstanding / assumption of guilt if he does
Zoe’s account is more or less the full picture of what happened
Geoff shouldn’t be in a position of leadership
Geoff is bad in a way that cannot easily be corrected through a postmortem, accountability, or feedback process
Geoff meant ill-will toward individuals or sort-of knowingly abused people or used them for ego-inflating grandiose aims
Geoff knew the basics of Zoe’s post / experience
(If you or others basically agree that the above list is true, that would be illuminating and help me understand where you’re coming from.)
It seems bad that people are scared to talk. I appreciate your and other people’s efforts to make it easier for them to make sense of their experience and to process it out loud. I suspect Zoe’s account has helped a lot and created space for bravery, and I feel trust that others will come forward when it’s time.
Spiracular, I sense good faith from you and appreciate the thoughtfulness you seem to be bringing. I am wanting to have this conversation in the open so that people aren’t left with weird impressions about who knows what, what’s true, and we we have collectively agreed is true.
I’d like to suggest not moving too fast past the “processing what happened” phase by jumping ahead of “observe orient” to “decide act.” Even if for the sake of helping people, I think it’s important to “slow our roll” when it comes to deciding what a person should do and engaging them with a leading set of questions or demands. I don’t like the things Geoff would subtly be ‘agreeing to’ by saying ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to any of these requests. Him engaging them at all seems like a trap. (He might choose to do so anyway. I am not trying to protect HIM in particular. I am protecting against ‘doing justice in a way that doesn’t serve’. For that reason, I don’t want to see him respond to your requests until there’s more ‘orientation’.)
LessWrong is not the ideal medium for handling justice, as far as I can tell, and so I also generally feel like we shouldn’t be trying to handle this on LW.
(In the Duncan-culture version of LW, comments like the above are both commonplace and highly appreciated. I mention this because Unreal has mentioned having a tough time with LW, and imo the above comment demonstrates solidly central LW virtue.)
I appreciate this too. I think this form of push-back, is a potentially highly-productive one.
I may need to think for a bit about how to respond? But it seemed worth expressing my appreciation for it, first.
Meta-note: I tried the longer-form gentler one? But somebody ELSE complained about that structure.
(A piece of me recognizes that I can’t make everybody happy here, but it’s a little annoying.)
That last point sub-point is a little vague, so let my clarify my personal cut-off on this. Others may disagree.
I wouldn’t object to seeing the occasional brief overt statement coming directly from Geoff that his recollection doesn’t match someone else’s interpretation.
I would object to any further encouragement of things that resemble the “strong, repeated pressure by someone close to Geoff to have the post marked as flawed” that Ruby described.
Consistently denouncing the later going forward, would be very helpful.
I want to clarify that using the word “threat” in my case would cause one to overestimate the severity by 5-20x or something of the pressure I experienced (more so than “strong pressure”). Not that the word is strictly wrong, but the connotations of it are too strong. I might end up listing the actual behaviors in a bit, maybe after more dialog with the person in question.
When I said “last sub-point?”
I was referring to “make any strong stealthy attempts to socially discredit people,” not “threaten” (by which I mean, “threaten”).
I was deliberately treating “no threats” as minimum, and “no strong social pressure” as extra-credit.
Ah, gotcha. I misunderstood the meaning of “sub-point”.