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https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/2vNHiaTb4rcA8PgXQ/effective-aspersions-how-the-nonlinear-investigation-went#

This guy states (what I now consider) my opinion much better than me.

@RobertCousineau

>"HBD" is muttered, but it's nobody's birthday.

lol

>though their principles compel them to avoid threatening any form of legal action

why is this in the analogy, that's the opposite of what happened and it matters, as it suggests a good model of their behavior includes retaliation

@RobertCousineau my issue with this article is that their summary of their opinion of Nonlinear:

> What precisely do I think of Nonlinear, a group I had never heard of prior to a few days ago? More-or-less what my friends think, really—credit them for the bulk of the following description. It sounds like a minor celebrity got comfortably rich young, dove into the same fascinating online ecosystem we all did, and decided to spend his retirement with his partner (who has an impressive history of dedication to charity) and brother scratching his itch to be productive by traveling the world and doing charity via talking with cool, smart people about meaningful ideas. It sounds like they hired someone who imagined doing charity work but instead lived a life more akin to that of a live-in assistant to a celebrity, picked up another traveling-partner-turned-employee with a long history of tumultuous encounters, and had a lot of very predictable drama of the sort that happens when young people live as roommates and traveling partners with their bosses.

is more or less what I took away from the Ben Pace writeup. Given the Ben Pace writeup conveyed this successfully to me, it's hard for me to be too put off by a couple of the areas of dispute being presented without partially-exculpating context. And again, this author's assertion that non-prescribed schedule II amphetamines are a non-central example of "illegal drugs" is just deranged IMO.

resolves NO

@CodeandSolder resolution is fair. Nevertheless, I was looking at this as more of a:

I had a very low opinion of them after reading Ben's expose. They did refute many of the stated concerns satisfactorily. They were uncomfortably deranged in their response (seriously did they not listen to their editors?), but well within the normal human bounds of emotional state after someone publishes a hit piece on you and distributes it to all your friends/coworkers/acquaintances.

@RobertCousineau was this not an edited response that took three months and should have involved external review I would be quite sympathetic to this view. A couple other things that swayed me NO not in the comment below are lack of citations for claims addressed (and at least a couple extremely inaccurate paraphrases in quotation marks) and not only continuing to employ a person they claim was acting insane but giving that person $250k to spend.

@RobertCousineau the NO isn't because I still hold the original concerns, they are completely new, and no less significant.

Also, it has been pointed out my notes seem uncharitable, it's a propaganda text by experienced social/business people written over three months, I'm not going to write down "huh, that's convincing", that's the baseline I expect

@CodeandSolder Fair! For what it's worth, I did not take your notes as out of line and did guess that was your rationale for excerpting.

I don't get it, I really don't, who reads that the whole thing only got this big because they were expected to retaliate if given the opportunity and decides to drop "Sharing Information on Ben Pace"?

And this combination of uncritical self-positivity, skill in social influence and willingness to do what it takes makes me very worried they will sooner or later get things wrong and the outcomes will be severe

I think I should N/A this.

On one hand this would make me comfortable taking money from them if offered - they seem to fulfill their obligations, very generously in fact, and the current actions seem somewhat proportional to hostile behavior towards them by parties affected and it was well signaled in advance, I would not be afraid about becoming a target of something similar.

On the other hand some of the contents in there is absurd:

• insistence travelling with amphetamines across the border is legal, despite having months to check that

• absurd calculations of total compensation (which don't change the fact it seems to be above what was initially agreed upon)

• calling an ex-employee mentally ill a dozen or so times (it seems probable accurately, which does not make it any less disgusting)

• randomly dragging Kathy Forth (rest her soul) into this

• The whole Sharing information on Ben Pace section is absurd, wrong, WTF

• their lack of reflection on how their retaliatory behavior (said section, legal threats) could have contributed to this not getting solved peacefully is worrying

• in general I notice I am very confused

• those cult-recruitment-photo-op sections are unsettling in a hard to explain way

I have been told they are (mostly? fully?) self-funded, so I don't judge the lifestyle spending.

bought "no" but I hadn't read your priors; less certain, but not selling because kat's post is deranged and should update any right-thinking person further against nonlinear. Why they thought this post would bring people around to their side is truly beyond me.

Okay, done with the manifesto, very confused and way past bedtime, I'll sleep on it, let me know if you think I should read EA forum comments before or after resolving, I'm leaning towards after. and have no idea how to resolve TBH

here they are asking Alice to potentially carry a schedule II drug into the US. This conversation was included in the post as evidence of them not asking her to carry "illegal" drugs.

@Adam yes, I mentioned it a couple times in the notes (I think), but that's incompetence not malice, which is slightly better, though they really should have figured that fact out by now

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/q4MXBzzrE6bnDHJbM/nonlinear-s-evidence-debunking-false-and-misleading-claims

Where's the manifesto at?

Also, feel free to comment on the notes, I turned it on intentionally

1k limit order on NO at 65%, expiring in 1 hour

@MarcusAbramovitch I'd take at 52%

@RobertCousineau order up

@MarcusAbramovitch what on earth is in the second half, do they admit to eating puppies for lunch?

@RobertCousineau OK, in the spirit of being willing to make large bets, I threw up an order for 10k size, don't feel pressure to fill it all. Take as much as you want.

I also commit to not trying to sway @CodeandSolder on this (I assume you'll do the same)

@MarcusAbramovitch I'm slowly learning to listen to my estranged friend kelly a bit better - 2k on yes here is adequate for my level of knowledge/confidence around CodeAndSolders mindset.

I respect the move though!

Also, I shall do the same.

Live notes: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XUqGDCcSdfz5X32Q_OeYhbR1K5E7OadMibnjGPo8SEk/edit?usp=sharing

It significantly improved my opinion of them