I never actually claimed you were making this up, merely that the likelihood of your story being true was low. You inventing the story is only one possible reason why your story might be false. You could also simply be mistaken, have witnessed actions that looked much worse out of context (For example, maybe your friends did something to deserve their treatment, but didn’t tell you because it would make them look bad) or some other reason I haven’t thought of.
In addition, you ask why I care so much about lack of transparency when I can think of reasons why you’d want to keep information private. You gave none of this information in the original post, so if I were to come up with potential reasons why you might want to keep the information secret, I’d be rationalising.
With that in mind, evidence that your story is false:
The prior probability of your claim is low. Not extremely low, but as when making any claim that isn’t obvious, the “burden of proof” is upon you. (Naturally, I don’t expect PROOF, hence the inverted commas, but you do need to provide sufficient evidence to overcome the initial low probability.)
You claim to have references, yet don’t provide them in the initial post or explain in the initial post why you won’t publicly provide them. (Yes, you’ve given me an explanation now, which reduces the strength of this evidence, but does not eliminate it.)
I have been unable to find any collaborating evidence for your story.
The reaction on LessWrong, a site where the average member tends to be at least somewhat rational and probably at least as rational as myself, if not more so, is nearly universally negative.
You’ve failed to provide verification. You claimed your story was easily verified, yet there’s a conspicuous absence of any verification. Unlike your references, if your story is “easily verified”, that means it’s verifiable using public knowledge, and you haven’t provided that knowledge. (If the story is verifiable by asking you, that does not count. You’re asking us to verify the trustability of a source by asking that same source.)
Evidence that your story is true:
You said it is. (Let’s start with the obvious here.)
Lack of discernable motivation for lying.
Consquences if you’re wrong, which you seem to care about. (Loss of karma/status in the group.)
You’ve been around for a while.
Decent chance people on LW would call you out on it if you were lying. (Thus making you less likely to try and fool people.)
In the end, the evidence for it being false is simply stronger. You’ve failed to overcome the burden of probability you’ve shouldered by making the claim. In order to overcome this burden, more evidence is required. Hence why I asked you to show the easy verification you claim exists, and post your references. If you have a good reason to not do the latter, at least do the former, and if you have a good reason not to do THAT as well, you’ll just have to resign yourself to not being believed here.
I’m sorry, I didn’t realize “easily verified” was a technical term. It seems perfectly easy to just ask me and receive what you want. How is that any different than getting results from a google search, except that you’d have to confirm that the evidence is real, which at that point would be a significantly higher probability (or lower probability, I suppose, depending on what you saw) belief anyway (and a requirement that the results of your search would be subject to anyway)?
Thank you. I apologise for not asking you for verification sooner. My downvote is revoked and I’ve upvoted your post.
I learnt that I should have asked for verification sooner, either immediately, or as soon as you informed me you had reasons for wishing to keep said verification private. I also learnt that I should assign a higher initial probability to claims made by LessWrong members I don’t know, which is a lesson I’m very glad to have learnt, since I do enjoy trusting people.
man now I feel bad about cussing when you took it so elegantly, lol. and yeah, on your last point, I seemed to be much more confident than the average Less Wronger about Kim Souzzi for example. Not really sure if that’s related but it at least seems like another data point.
I never actually claimed you were making this up, merely that the likelihood of your story being true was low. You inventing the story is only one possible reason why your story might be false. You could also simply be mistaken, have witnessed actions that looked much worse out of context (For example, maybe your friends did something to deserve their treatment, but didn’t tell you because it would make them look bad) or some other reason I haven’t thought of.
In addition, you ask why I care so much about lack of transparency when I can think of reasons why you’d want to keep information private. You gave none of this information in the original post, so if I were to come up with potential reasons why you might want to keep the information secret, I’d be rationalising.
With that in mind, evidence that your story is false:
The prior probability of your claim is low. Not extremely low, but as when making any claim that isn’t obvious, the “burden of proof” is upon you. (Naturally, I don’t expect PROOF, hence the inverted commas, but you do need to provide sufficient evidence to overcome the initial low probability.)
You claim to have references, yet don’t provide them in the initial post or explain in the initial post why you won’t publicly provide them. (Yes, you’ve given me an explanation now, which reduces the strength of this evidence, but does not eliminate it.)
I have been unable to find any collaborating evidence for your story.
The reaction on LessWrong, a site where the average member tends to be at least somewhat rational and probably at least as rational as myself, if not more so, is nearly universally negative.
You’ve failed to provide verification. You claimed your story was easily verified, yet there’s a conspicuous absence of any verification. Unlike your references, if your story is “easily verified”, that means it’s verifiable using public knowledge, and you haven’t provided that knowledge. (If the story is verifiable by asking you, that does not count. You’re asking us to verify the trustability of a source by asking that same source.)
Evidence that your story is true:
You said it is. (Let’s start with the obvious here.)
Lack of discernable motivation for lying.
Consquences if you’re wrong, which you seem to care about. (Loss of karma/status in the group.)
You’ve been around for a while.
Decent chance people on LW would call you out on it if you were lying. (Thus making you less likely to try and fool people.)
In the end, the evidence for it being false is simply stronger. You’ve failed to overcome the burden of probability you’ve shouldered by making the claim. In order to overcome this burden, more evidence is required. Hence why I asked you to show the easy verification you claim exists, and post your references. If you have a good reason to not do the latter, at least do the former, and if you have a good reason not to do THAT as well, you’ll just have to resign yourself to not being believed here.
silly question.
I’m sorry, I didn’t realize “easily verified” was a technical term. It seems perfectly easy to just ask me and receive what you want. How is that any different than getting results from a google search, except that you’d have to confirm that the evidence is real, which at that point would be a significantly higher probability (or lower probability, I suppose, depending on what you saw) belief anyway (and a requirement that the results of your search would be subject to anyway)?
Okay, I’ve sent a PM asking you for verification.
You’re too fucking late you idiot
http://lesswrong.com/lw/gys/young_cryonicist_gathering_warning/8lok
Now let’s learn from this and not make the same mistake when it counts, shall we? :)
Thank you. I apologise for not asking you for verification sooner. My downvote is revoked and I’ve upvoted your post.
I learnt that I should have asked for verification sooner, either immediately, or as soon as you informed me you had reasons for wishing to keep said verification private. I also learnt that I should assign a higher initial probability to claims made by LessWrong members I don’t know, which is a lesson I’m very glad to have learnt, since I do enjoy trusting people.
man now I feel bad about cussing when you took it so elegantly, lol. and yeah, on your last point, I seemed to be much more confident than the average Less Wronger about Kim Souzzi for example. Not really sure if that’s related but it at least seems like another data point.