Overall it seems like people are paying much, much more attention to the quality of my rhetoric than the subject matter the post is about
Just to be clear, I’m paying attention to the quality of your rhetoric because I cannot tell what the subject matter is supposed to be.
Upon being unable to actually distill out a set of clear claims, I fell back onto “okay, well, what sorts of conclusions would I be likely to draw if I just drank this all in trustingly/unquestioningly/uncritically?”
Like, “observe the result, and then assume (as a working hypothesis, held lightly) that the result is what was intended.”
And then, once I had that, I went looking to see whether it was justified/whether the post presented any actual reasons for me to believe what it left sandbox-Duncan believing, and found that the answer was basically “no.”
Which seems like a problem, for something that’s 13000 words long and that multiple people apparently put a lot of effort into. 13000 words on LessWrong should not, in my opinion, have the properties of:
a) not having a discernible thesis
b) leaving a clear impression on the reader
c) that impression, upon revisit/explicit evaluation, seeming really quite false
I think it’s actually quite good that you felt called to defend your friend Michael, who (after reading) does in fact seem to me to be basically innocent w/r/t your episode. I think you could have “cleared Michael of all charges” in a much more direct and simple post that would have been compelling to me and others looking in; it seems like that’s maybe 1⁄5 of what’s going on in the above, and it’s scattered throughout, piecemeal. I’m not sure what you think the other 4⁄5 is doing, or why you wanted it there.
(I mean this straightforwardly—that I am not sure. I don’t mean it in an attacky fashion, like me not being sure implies that there’s no good reason or whatever.)
getting the memories/interpretations into written form without making false/misleading/indefensible statements along the way
I believe and appreciate the fact that you were attending to and cared about this, separate from the fact that I unfortunately do not believe you succeeded.
EDIT: The reason I leave this comment is because I sense a sort of … trend toward treating the critique as if it’s missing the point? And while it might be missing Jessica’s point, I do not think that the critique was about trivial matters while not attending to serious ones. I think the critique was very much centered on Stuff I Think Actually Matters.
FWIW, I consider myself to be precisely one of those “middle distance” people. I wasn’t around you during this time at MIRI, I’m not particularly invested in defending MIRI (except to the degree which I believe MIRI is innocent in any given situation and therefore am actually invested in Defending An Innocent Party, which is different), and I have a very mixed-bag relationship with EA and rationality; solid criticisms of the EA/LW/rationality sphere usually find me quite sympathetic. I’m looking in as someone who would have appreciated a good clear post highlighting things worth feeling concern over. I really wished this and its precursor were e.g. tight analogues to the Zoe post, which I similarly appreciated as a middle distancer.
Just to be clear, I’m paying attention to the quality of your rhetoric because I cannot tell what the subject matter is supposed to be.
Upon being unable to actually distill out a set of clear claims, I fell back onto “okay, well, what sorts of conclusions would I be likely to draw if I just drank this all in trustingly/unquestioningly/uncritically?”
Like, “observe the result, and then assume (as a working hypothesis, held lightly) that the result is what was intended.”
And then, once I had that, I went looking to see whether it was justified/whether the post presented any actual reasons for me to believe what it left sandbox-Duncan believing, and found that the answer was basically “no.”
Which seems like a problem, for something that’s 13000 words long and that multiple people apparently put a lot of effort into. 13000 words on LessWrong should not, in my opinion, have the properties of:
a) not having a discernible thesis
b) leaving a clear impression on the reader
c) that impression, upon revisit/explicit evaluation, seeming really quite false
I think it’s actually quite good that you felt called to defend your friend Michael, who (after reading) does in fact seem to me to be basically innocent w/r/t your episode. I think you could have “cleared Michael of all charges” in a much more direct and simple post that would have been compelling to me and others looking in; it seems like that’s maybe 1⁄5 of what’s going on in the above, and it’s scattered throughout, piecemeal. I’m not sure what you think the other 4⁄5 is doing, or why you wanted it there.
(I mean this straightforwardly—that I am not sure. I don’t mean it in an attacky fashion, like me not being sure implies that there’s no good reason or whatever.)
I believe and appreciate the fact that you were attending to and cared about this, separate from the fact that I unfortunately do not believe you succeeded.
EDIT: The reason I leave this comment is because I sense a sort of … trend toward treating the critique as if it’s missing the point? And while it might be missing Jessica’s point, I do not think that the critique was about trivial matters while not attending to serious ones. I think the critique was very much centered on Stuff I Think Actually Matters.
FWIW, I consider myself to be precisely one of those “middle distance” people. I wasn’t around you during this time at MIRI, I’m not particularly invested in defending MIRI (except to the degree which I believe MIRI is innocent in any given situation and therefore am actually invested in Defending An Innocent Party, which is different), and I have a very mixed-bag relationship with EA and rationality; solid criticisms of the EA/LW/rationality sphere usually find me quite sympathetic. I’m looking in as someone who would have appreciated a good clear post highlighting things worth feeling concern over. I really wished this and its precursor were e.g. tight analogues to the Zoe post, which I similarly appreciated as a middle distancer.