A lot of the defenses here seem to be relying on the fact that one of the accused individuals was banned from several rationalist communities a long time ago. While this definitely should have been included in the article, I think the overall impression they are giving is misleading.
In 2020, the individual was invited to give a talk for an unofficial SSC online meetup (scott alexander was not involved, and does ban the guy from his events). The post was announced on lesswrong with zero pushback, and went ahead.
Here is a comment from Anna Salamon 2 years ago, discussing him, and stating that his ban on meetups should be lifted:
I hereby apologize for the role I played in X’s ostracism from the community, which AFAICT was both unjust and harmful to both the community and X. There’s more to say here, and I don’t yet know how to say it well. But the shortest version is that in the years leading up to my original comment X was criticizing me and many in the rationality and EA communities intensely, and, despite our alleged desire to aspire to rationality, I and I think many others did not like having our political foundations criticized/eroded, nor did I and I think various others like having the story I told myself to keep stably “doing my work” criticized/eroded. This, despite the fact that attempting to share reasoning and disagreements is in fact a furthering of our alleged goals and our alleged culture. The specific voiced accusations about X were not “but he keeps criticizing us and hurting our feelings and/or our political support” — and nevertheless I’m sure this was part of what led to me making the comment I made above (though it was not my conscious reason), and I’m sure it led to some of the rest of the ostracism he experienced as well. This isn’t the whole of the story, but it ought to have been disclosed clearly in the same way that conflicts of interest ought to be disclosed clearly. And, separately but relatedly, it is my current view that it would be all things considered much better to have X around talking to people in these communities, though this will bring friction.
There’s broader context I don’t know how to discuss well, which I’ll at least discuss poorly:
Should the aspiring rationality community, or any community, attempt to protect its adult members from misleading reasoning, allegedly manipulative conversational tactics, etc., via cautioning them not to talk to some people? My view at the time of my original (Feb 2019) comment was “yes”. My current view is more or less “heck no!”; protecting people from allegedly manipulative tactics, or allegedly misleading arguments, is good — but it should be done via sharing additional info, not via discouraging people from encountering info/conversations. The reason is that more info tends to be broadly helpful (and this is a relatively fool-resistant heuristic even if implemented by people who are deluded in various ways), and trusting who can figure out who ought to restrict their info-intake how seems like a doomed endeavor (and does not degrade gracefully with deludedness/corruption in the leadership). (Watching the CDC on covid helped drive this home for me. Belatedly noticing how much something-like-doublethink I had in my original beliefs about X and related matters also helped drive this home for me.)
Should some organizations/people within the rationality and EA communities create simplified narratives that allow many people to pull in the same direction, to feel good about each others’ donations to the same organizations, etc.? My view at the time of my original (Feb 2019) comment was “yes”; my current view is “no — and especially not via implicit or explicit pressures to restrict information-flow.” Reasons for updates same as above.
It is nevertheless the case that X has had a tendency to e.g. yell rather more than I would like. For an aspiring rationality community’s general “who is worth ever talking to?” list, this ought to matter much less than the above. Insofar as a given person is trying to create contexts where people reliably don’t yell or something, they’ll want to do whatever they want to do; but insofar as we’re creating a community-wide include/exclude list (as in e.g. this comment on whether to let X speak at SSC meetups), it is my opinion that X ought to be on the “include” list.
Here is Scott Alexander, talking about the same guy a year ago, after discussing a pattern of very harmful behaviour perpetrated by X:
I want to clarify that I don’t dislike X, he’s actually been extremely nice to me, I continue to be in cordial and productive communication with him, and his overall influence on my life personally has been positive. He’s also been surprisingly gracious about the fact that I go around accusing him of causing a bunch of cases of psychosis. I don’t think he does the psychosis thing on purpose, I think he is honest in his belief that the world is corrupt and traumatizing (which at the margin, shades into values of “the world is corrupt and traumatizing” which everyone agrees are true) and I believe he is honest in his belief that he needs to figure out ways to help people do better. There are many smart people who work with him and support him who have not gone psychotic at all. I don’t think we need to blame/ostracize/cancel him and his group, except maybe from especially sensitive situations full of especially vulnerable people. My main advice is that if he or someone related to him asks you if you want to take a bunch of drugs and hear his pitch for why the world is corrupt, you say no.
I don’t think X is still part of the rationalist community, but these definitely make it look like he is welcome and respected within your community, despite the many many allegations against him. I’ll end with a note that “Being ostracised from a particular subculture” is not actually a very severe punishment, and that maybe you should consider raising your standards somewhat?
I personally think the current relationship the community has to Michael feels about right in terms of distance.
I also want to be very clear that I have not investigated the accusations against Michael and don’t currently trust them hugely for a bunch of reasons, though they seem credible enough that I would totally investigate them if I thought that Michael would pose a risk to more people in the community if the accusations were true.
As it is, the current level of distance I don’t see it as hugely my, or the rationality community’s, responsibility to investigate them though if I had more time and was less crunched, I might.
A lot of the defenses here seem to be relying on the fact that one of the accused individuals was banned from several rationalist communities a long time ago. While this definitely should have been included in the article, I think the overall impression they are giving is misleading.
In 2020, the individual was invited to give a talk for an unofficial SSC online meetup (scott alexander was not involved, and does ban the guy from his events). The post was announced on lesswrong with zero pushback, and went ahead.
Here is a comment from Anna Salamon 2 years ago, discussing him, and stating that his ban on meetups should be lifted:
Here is Scott Alexander, talking about the same guy a year ago, after discussing a pattern of very harmful behaviour perpetrated by X:
I don’t think X is still part of the rationalist community, but these definitely make it look like he is welcome and respected within your community, despite the many many allegations against him. I’ll end with a note that “Being ostracised from a particular subculture” is not actually a very severe punishment, and that maybe you should consider raising your standards somewhat?
I personally think the current relationship the community has to Michael feels about right in terms of distance.
I also want to be very clear that I have not investigated the accusations against Michael and don’t currently trust them hugely for a bunch of reasons, though they seem credible enough that I would totally investigate them if I thought that Michael would pose a risk to more people in the community if the accusations were true.
As it is, the current level of distance I don’t see it as hugely my, or the rationality community’s, responsibility to investigate them though if I had more time and was less crunched, I might.
What kind of more severe punishment should “the rationalist community” mete out to X and how exactly would/should that work?