Shortform

Dean Valentine

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The Nick Bostrom fiasco is instructive: never make public apologies to an outrage machine. If Nick had just ignored whoever it was trying to blackmail him, it would have been on them to assert the importance of a twenty-five year old deliberately provocative email, and things might not have ascended to the point of mild drama. When he tried to "get ahead of things" by issuing an apology, he ceded that the email was in fact socially significant despite its age, and that he did in fact have something to apologize for, and so opened himself up to the Standard Replies that the apology is not genuine, he's secretly evil etc. etc.

Instead, if you are ever put in this situation, just say nothing. Don't try to defend yourself. Definitely don't volunteer for a struggle session.

Treat outrage artists like the police. You do not prevent the police from filing charges against you by driving to the station and attempting to "explain yourself" to detectives, or by writing and publishing a letter explaining how sorry you are. At best you will inflate the airtime of the controversy by responding to it, at worst you'll be creating the controversy in the first place.

The professional class would be PR people. A vaguely remember reading that the firm that handled Biden's sexual assault allegations also did good work for other people.

-3Noosphere894y

IMO I disagree with the implication that Nick Bostrom shouldn't have apologized, since for once the Twitter machine is actually right to criticize the apology. From titotal's post on why Bostrom's apology isn't good, there are several tests that he failed at: [...] Link below: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/KB8XPfh7dJ9uJaaDs/does-ea-understand-how-to-apologize-for-things Disclaimer: This is a rare action for me to take, and just because I think the Twitter sphere is somewhat right does not equal that any of their conclusions are automatically right, nor does this mean I will care much about what Twitter thinks.

2Dagon4y

Does this generalize to "just ignore Twitter (and other blathering by "the masses") for most things"? Outside of a pretty small group, I haven't heard much handwringing, condemnation nor defense of Bostrom's old messages or his recent apology. I personally think that personal honor is better supported by a thoughtful apology when something is brought to one's attention, than by simply ignoring it. Don't engage in a back-and-forth, and don't expect the apology to convince the more vocal part of the 'verse. But do be honest and forthright with yourself and those who you respect enough to value their opinions. From what I can tell (and I haven't looked that deeply, as I don't particularly care), Professor Bostrom has done this pretty well, and I don't expect him to suffer much long-term harm from his early mistakes.