Seconding this. A very large part, perhaps the majority, of the problem with everything that’s been described in this discussion seems to me to boil down to “poor management”. Totally ignoring that and instead focusing either on Nate or on any of the “complainants” here seems just wildly misguided.
My take is that they (those who make such decisions of who runs what) are pretty well-informed about these issues well before they escalate to the point that complaints bubble up into posts / threads like these.
I would have liked this whole matter to have unfolded differently. I don’t think this is merely a sub-optimal way for these kinds of issues to be handled, I think this is a negative one.
I have a number of ideological differences with Nate’s MIRI and Nate himself that I can actually point to and articulate, and those disagreements could be managed in a way that actually resolve those differences satisfactorily. Nate’s MIRI—to me—seemed to be one of the most ideologically conformist iterations of the organization observed thus far.
Furthermore, I dislike that we’ve converged on the conclusion that Nate is a bad communicator, or that he has issues with his personality, or—even worse—that it was merely the lack of social norms imposed on someone with his level of authority that allowed him to behave in ways that don’t jive with many people (implying that literally anyone with such authority would behave in a similar way, without the imposition of more punitive and restrictive norms).
Potentially controversial take: I don’t think Nate is a bad communicator. I think Nate is incorrect about important things, and that incorrect ideas tend to appear to be communicated badly, which accounts for perceptions that he is a bad communicator (and perhaps also accounts for observations that he seemed frustrated and-or distressed while trying to argue for certain things). Whenever I’ve seen him communicate sensible ideas, it seems communicated pretty well to me.
I feel that this position is in fact more respectful to Nate himself.
If we react on the basis of Nate’s leadership style being bad, his communication being bad, or him having a brusque personality, then he’s just going to be quietly replaced by someone who will also run the organization in a similar (mostly ideologically conformist) way. It will be assumed (or rather, asserted) that all organizational issues experienced under his tenure were due to his personal foibles and not due to its various intellectual positions, policies, and strategic postures (e.g. secrecy), all of which are decided upon by other people including Nate, but executed upon by Nate! This is why I call this a negative outcome.
By the way: Whenever I see it said that an idea was “communicated badly” or alternatively that it is more complicated and nuanced than the person ostensibly not-understanding it thinks it should be, I take that as Bayesian evidence of ideological conformity. Given that this is apparently a factor that is being argued for, I have to take it as evidence of that.
It is possible to be a good communicator in some situations (e.g. when you write a blog post) and a bad communicator in other situations (e.g. when someone randomly interrupts you when you were worried about something else).
For example, when I talk, I am much less coherent, and my English sucks.
If I remember the details correctly (sorry, I am not going to read the entire thread again), this seems like a mistake that could be avoided in the future. -- Someone tried to make Nate happy by telling Kurt to do something for him; Nate didn’t ask for any help, but when an attempt was made regardless, he got angry at Kurt because he perceived the help as unreliable, worse than nothing. Kurt was hurt, because this wasn’t his idea in the first place, and he tried to communicate a problem with his task, unsuccessfully. -- I think a possible lesson is to just leave Nate alone, unless he explicitly asks for help, and even then think twice whether you chose the right person for the job. And maybe have someone managing your employees, whom they can ask for advice, if needed.
(Yes, I would prefer if Nate just magically stopped being angry at people who are trying to help, even if he is not satisfied with the outcome. But it is not wise to rely on magic to happen.)
More meta, when people have a bad experience with Nate (or anyone else), don’t ignore that fact. Stop and think about the situation.
If people felt hurt interacting with me, I would want to know it, get some advice how to prevent this outcome, and if the advice doesn’t feel actionable then at least how to avoid such people and/or situations. It doesn’t necessarily mean that someone is a bad person, sometimes people just rub each other the wrong way, but in such case there should be an option to avoid each other.
Seconding this. A very large part, perhaps the majority, of the problem with everything that’s been described in this discussion seems to me to boil down to “poor management”. Totally ignoring that and instead focusing either on Nate or on any of the “complainants” here seems just wildly misguided.
My take is that they (those who make such decisions of who runs what) are pretty well-informed about these issues well before they escalate to the point that complaints bubble up into posts / threads like these.
I would have liked this whole matter to have unfolded differently. I don’t think this is merely a sub-optimal way for these kinds of issues to be handled, I think this is a negative one.
I have a number of ideological differences with Nate’s MIRI and Nate himself that I can actually point to and articulate, and those disagreements could be managed in a way that actually resolve those differences satisfactorily. Nate’s MIRI—to me—seemed to be one of the most ideologically conformist iterations of the organization observed thus far.
Furthermore, I dislike that we’ve converged on the conclusion that Nate is a bad communicator, or that he has issues with his personality, or—even worse—that it was merely the lack of social norms imposed on someone with his level of authority that allowed him to behave in ways that don’t jive with many people (implying that literally anyone with such authority would behave in a similar way, without the imposition of more punitive and restrictive norms).
Potentially controversial take: I don’t think Nate is a bad communicator. I think Nate is incorrect about important things, and that incorrect ideas tend to appear to be communicated badly, which accounts for perceptions that he is a bad communicator (and perhaps also accounts for observations that he seemed frustrated and-or distressed while trying to argue for certain things). Whenever I’ve seen him communicate sensible ideas, it seems communicated pretty well to me.
I feel that this position is in fact more respectful to Nate himself.
If we react on the basis of Nate’s leadership style being bad, his communication being bad, or him having a brusque personality, then he’s just going to be quietly replaced by someone who will also run the organization in a similar (mostly ideologically conformist) way. It will be assumed (or rather, asserted) that all organizational issues experienced under his tenure were due to his personal foibles and not due to its various intellectual positions, policies, and strategic postures (e.g. secrecy), all of which are decided upon by other people including Nate, but executed upon by Nate! This is why I call this a negative outcome.
By the way: Whenever I see it said that an idea was “communicated badly” or alternatively that it is more complicated and nuanced than the person ostensibly not-understanding it thinks it should be, I take that as Bayesian evidence of ideological conformity. Given that this is apparently a factor that is being argued for, I have to take it as evidence of that.
It is possible to be a good communicator in some situations (e.g. when you write a blog post) and a bad communicator in other situations (e.g. when someone randomly interrupts you when you were worried about something else).
For example, when I talk, I am much less coherent, and my English sucks.
If I remember the details correctly (sorry, I am not going to read the entire thread again), this seems like a mistake that could be avoided in the future. -- Someone tried to make Nate happy by telling Kurt to do something for him; Nate didn’t ask for any help, but when an attempt was made regardless, he got angry at Kurt because he perceived the help as unreliable, worse than nothing. Kurt was hurt, because this wasn’t his idea in the first place, and he tried to communicate a problem with his task, unsuccessfully. -- I think a possible lesson is to just leave Nate alone, unless he explicitly asks for help, and even then think twice whether you chose the right person for the job. And maybe have someone managing your employees, whom they can ask for advice, if needed.
(Yes, I would prefer if Nate just magically stopped being angry at people who are trying to help, even if he is not satisfied with the outcome. But it is not wise to rely on magic to happen.)
More meta, when people have a bad experience with Nate (or anyone else), don’t ignore that fact. Stop and think about the situation.
If people felt hurt interacting with me, I would want to know it, get some advice how to prevent this outcome, and if the advice doesn’t feel actionable then at least how to avoid such people and/or situations. It doesn’t necessarily mean that someone is a bad person, sometimes people just rub each other the wrong way, but in such case there should be an option to avoid each other.