Some facts relevant to the question of whether we were close friends:
We spent a grand total of well under 200 total hours in each other’s company over the years 2014 − 2018 (the estimate is deliberately generous) with the bulk of that estimated time coming from a month of me mostly-by-myself using tools in his garage, but him occasionally coming out to work on his geodesic dome.
We did not at any point embark on any large projects together.
We did not at any point go on trips together, or have sleepovers, or schedule “let’s go grab dinner together.” We played Magic: the Gathering together once just the two of us (maybe five or six times with multiple others).
We did not at any point owe each other money.
We did spend a decent chunk of those 200 hours engaged in online discussion, often about norms and models of how-communities-work, typified by the Affordance Widths post.
We did not describe each other as friends, either to each other or to third parties.
To the extent that we would occasionally discuss heavy or sensitive or emotional topics, I spent well over half of that time aggressively challenging and disagreeing with his models and perspectives, and a large number of third parties can verify this.
The word “friend” is super motte-and-bailey vulnerable; people have an extremely wide range of what they mean by it. It’s certainly reasonable under that very wide umbrella for e.g. somebody at CFAR to have said something like “Oh, yeah, Brent and Duncan are friends” based on seeing us chat at CFAR workshop afterparties, or something? I invited him to an early Dragon Army experiment weekend along with 30 other people, for instance, though I did not invite him to join the experiment proper (and he very explicitly wanted to join it).
But I both was and continue to be objectively much more of a friend to one of the published victims, who has not believed that my interactions with Brent should cause them to trust me less or think that others should, either. I won’t summon that person here but if somebody absolutely must check I would ask that person to reach out to you, which they would likely do as a favor to me.
And even though I’m 2-5x more that-person’s-friend than I was Brent’s, I still wouldn’t describe my relationship to that person with a word as strong as “friend.” We are friendly acquaintances, occasional allies. We have some baseline trust. I doubt they would let me know if they were in the hospital. I doubt I would let them know if I was in the hospital.
So even though “friend” is defensible, “close friend” is objectively false.
As to questions of distancing yourself from people if they turn out to be abusers, I last spoke with Brent in person maybe a week and a half after the Medium posts went up, and last spoke with him online a few months after that (after substantially changing my relationship in ways that were publicly discussed; that post is from October but it was originally shared in a group of some ~50 rationalists not long after the situation blew up). I haven’t spoken to or heard from Brent since some time in 2018 EDIT: COVID messed with my sense of time, FB tells me I blocked Brent late in 2019; we weren’t chatting much in the lead-up, though.
People often like to say “X is relevant” when they expect that it will support their prior belief, but then X is strangely not relevant once it turns out to be contra their expectations.
Some facts relevant to the question of whether we were close friends:
We spent a grand total of well under 200 total hours in each other’s company over the years 2014 − 2018 (the estimate is deliberately generous) with the bulk of that estimated time coming from a month of me mostly-by-myself using tools in his garage, but him occasionally coming out to work on his geodesic dome.
We did not at any point embark on any large projects together.
We did not at any point go on trips together, or have sleepovers, or schedule “let’s go grab dinner together.” We played Magic: the Gathering together once just the two of us (maybe five or six times with multiple others).
We did not at any point owe each other money.
We did spend a decent chunk of those 200 hours engaged in online discussion, often about norms and models of how-communities-work, typified by the Affordance Widths post.
We did not describe each other as friends, either to each other or to third parties.
To the extent that we would occasionally discuss heavy or sensitive or emotional topics, I spent well over half of that time aggressively challenging and disagreeing with his models and perspectives, and a large number of third parties can verify this.
The word “friend” is super motte-and-bailey vulnerable; people have an extremely wide range of what they mean by it. It’s certainly reasonable under that very wide umbrella for e.g. somebody at CFAR to have said something like “Oh, yeah, Brent and Duncan are friends” based on seeing us chat at CFAR workshop afterparties, or something? I invited him to an early Dragon Army experiment weekend along with 30 other people, for instance, though I did not invite him to join the experiment proper (and he very explicitly wanted to join it).
But I both was and continue to be objectively much more of a friend to one of the published victims, who has not believed that my interactions with Brent should cause them to trust me less or think that others should, either. I won’t summon that person here but if somebody absolutely must check I would ask that person to reach out to you, which they would likely do as a favor to me.
And even though I’m 2-5x more that-person’s-friend than I was Brent’s, I still wouldn’t describe my relationship to that person with a word as strong as “friend.” We are friendly acquaintances, occasional allies. We have some baseline trust. I doubt they would let me know if they were in the hospital. I doubt I would let them know if I was in the hospital.
So even though “friend” is defensible, “close friend” is objectively false.
As to questions of distancing yourself from people if they turn out to be abusers, I last spoke with Brent in person maybe a week and a half after the Medium posts went up, and last spoke with him online a few months after that (after substantially changing my relationship in ways that were publicly discussed; that post is from October but it was originally shared in a group of some ~50 rationalists not long after the situation blew up). I haven’t spoken to or heard from Brent since some time in
2018EDIT: COVID messed with my sense of time, FB tells me I blocked Brent late in 2019; we weren’t chatting much in the lead-up, though.People often like to say “X is relevant” when they expect that it will support their prior belief, but then X is strangely not relevant once it turns out to be contra their expectations.
Great, thanks.