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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   26707 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 11, 2023

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I'm not sure how much of this is specific to post-FTX behavior -- there were a good few explosions in the rat-tumblr sphere during its height, and even when (probably) correct, there was very little interest or ability to consider how one knows a thing from knowing the thing, or to separate halo-and-horns for one demonstrated bad act to every alleged one. The community often doesn't have the tools to do serious first-party investigation, evaluate conflicting claims, nor the dedication to track them down. The final collapse of su3su2u1 sticks with me for the extent people turned SHLevy (and Scott)'s reveal of the sock-puppeting into 'doxxing', but it's relatively light-weight in terms of spreading around the shit.

For a more serious one, I'm still not sure where to place the numbers any one specific allegation about Vassar, and that's as someone that considered conversation somewhere nonproductive back in the Gold Age of LessWrong.

((On the flip side, I've not been impressed by the guardrails in general society, not least of all because many of the people and methods were the same.))

I won't claim it's entirely discontinuous from the past, but I think it's notable that eg Ben expressed fury at the lack of changes since FTX and the EA community as a whole has recent memories of being dragged through scandal after not being suspicious enough.

EDIT: Oliver, too, mentions being intimidated by FTX and not sharing his concerns as one of the worst mistakes of his career.

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