Yeah, no, initially, I simply asked: just in case, please don’t use [the information I shared it explicitly for the purpose of enabling Oliver to coordinate with the third party] except to coordinate with the third party, expecting “sure, no problem” in response.
Then, after hearing Oliver wouldn’t agree to confidentiality given that I haven’t asked him for it in advance, I tried to ask: okay, sure, if you have such a high cost of/principles relating to not telling other people things, please at least don’t try to tell people specifically for the purpose of harming the third party, making it a bad idea to have tried to coordinate. He then said that nope, he wouldn’t agree to even that partial confidentiality, because if, e.g., someone was considering whether it’s important to harm the third party now rather than later and telling them the information that I shared would’ve moved them towards harming the third party earlier, Oliver would want to share information with that someone so that they could harm the third party. (And also said he already told some people.)
(He ended up talking to the third party; but an opportunity to use the information adversarially did not turn up afaik.)
It’s plausible that he misunderstood what I was asking for throughout, but he had no intention of avoiding making it such that me trying to coordinate with him would have been a bad idea for me.
because if, e.g., someone was considering whether it’s important to harm the third party now rather than later and telling them the information that I shared would’ve moved them towards harming the third party earlier, Oliver would want to share information with that someone so that they could harm the third party.
No, I didn’t say anything remotely like this! I have no such policy! I don’t think I ever said anything that might imply such a policy. I only again clarified that I am not making promises about not doing these things to you. I would definitely not randomly hand out information to anyone who wants to harm the third party.
At this point I am just going to stop commenting every time you summarize me inaccurately, since I don’t want to spend all day doing this, but please, future readers, do not assume these summaries are accurate.
Then, after hearing Oliver wouldn’t agree to confidentiality given that I haven’t asked him for it in advance
I have clarified like 5 times that this isn’t because you didn’t ask in advance. If you had asked in advance I would have rejected your request as well, it’s just that you would have never told me in the first place.
don’t try to tell people specifically for the purpose of harming the third party
This is also not what you asked for! You said “I just ask you to not use this information in a way designed to hurt [third party]”, which is much broader. “Not telling people” and “not using information” are drastically different. I have approximately no idea how to commit to “not use information for purpose X”. Information propagates throughout my world model. If I end up in conflict with a third party I might want to compete with them and consider the information as part of my plans. I couldn’t blind myself to that information when making strategic decisions.
’Hypothetical scenario (this has not happened and details are made up):
Me and [name] are discussing the landscape of [thing] as it regards to Lightcone strategy. [name] is like “man, I feel like if I was worried that other people soon try to jump into the space, then we really should probably just back [a thing] because probably something will soon cement itself in the space”. I would be like “Oh, well, I think [third party] might do stuff”. Rafe is like “Oh, fuck, hmm, that’s bad”. I am like “Yep, seems pretty fucked. Plausibly we should really get going on writing up that ‘why [third party’s person] seems like a low-integrity dude’ post we’ve been thinking about”. [name] is like “Yeah, maybe. Does really seem quite bad if [third party’s person] tries to position himself here centrally. Actually, I think maybe [name] from CEA Comm health was working on some piece about [third party’s person]? Seems like she should know [third party’s person] is moving into the space, since it seems a bit more urgent if that’s happening”. I am like “Yep, seems right”.’
If you had asked in advance I would have rejected your request
You didn’t say that when we were talking about it! You implied that since I didn’t ask in advance, you are not bound by anything; you did mention “I can keep things confidential if you ask me in advance, but of course I wouldn’t accept a request to receive private information about [third party] being sketchy that I can only use to their benefit?”
(“Being sketchy” is not how I’d describe the information. It was about an idea that Oliver is not okay with the third party working on, but is okay with others working on, because he doesn’t like the third party for a bunch of reasons and thinks it’s bad if they get more power, as per my understanding.)
I did not and would not have demanded somehow avoiding propagating the information. If you were like, “sorry, I obviously can’t actually not propagate this information in my world model and promise it won’t reflect on my plans, but I won’t actively try to use outside of coordinating with the third party and will keep it confidential going forward”, that would’ve been great and expected and okay.
I asked to not apply effort to using the information against the third party. I didn’t ask to apply effort to not be aware of the information in your decision-making, to keep separate world-models, or whatever. Confidentiality with people outside your team and not going hard on figuring out how to strategically share or use this information to cause damage to the third party’s interests would’ve been understandable and acceptable.
I do not think it at all describes a policy of “if someone was trying to harm the third party, and having this information would cause them to do it sooner, then I would give them the information”. Indeed, it seems really very far away from that! In the above story nobody is trying to actively harm anyone else as far as I can tell? I certainly would not describe “CEA Comm Health team is working on a project to do a bunch of investigations, and I tell them information that is relevant to how highly they should prioritize those investigations” as being anything close to “trying to harm someone directly”!
You didn’t say that when we were talking about it!
No, I literally said “Like, to be clear, I definitely rather you not have told me”. And then later “Even if I would have preferred knowing the information packaged with the request”. And my first response to your request said “You can ask in-advance if I want to accept confidentiality on something, and I’ll usually say no”.
If you were like, “sorry, I obviously can’t actually not propagate this information in my world model and promise it won’t reflect on my plans, but I won’t actively try to use outside of coordinating with the third party and will keep it confidential going forward”, that would’ve been great and expected and okay.
Sure, but I also wouldn’t have done that! The closest deal we might have had would have been a “man, please actually ask in advance next time, this is costly and makes me regret having that whole conversation in the first place. If you recognize that as a cost and owe me a really small favor or something, I can keep it private, but please don’t take this as a given”, but I did not (and continue to not) have the sense that this would actually work.
but I won’t actively try to use outside of coordinating with the third party
Maybe I am being dense here, and on first read this sounded like maybe a thing I could do, but after thinking more about it I do not know what I am promising if I promise I “won’t actively try to use [this information] outside of coordinating with the third party”. Like, am I allowed to write it in my private notes? Am I allowed to write it in our weekly memos as a consideration for Lightcone’s future plans? Am I not allowed to think the explicit thought “oh, this piece of information is really important for this plan that puts me in competition with this third party, better make sure to not forget it, and add it to my Anki deck?
Like, I am not saying there isn’t any distinction between “information passively propagating” and “actively using information”, but man, it feels like a very tricky distinction, and I do not generally want to be in the business of adding constraints to my private planning and thought-processes that would limit how I can operate here, and relies on this distinction being clear to other people. Maybe other people have factored their mind and processes in ways they find this easy, but I do not.
“man, please actually ask in advance next time, this is costly and makes me regret having that whole conversation in the first place. If you recognize that as a cost and owe me a really small favor or something, I can keep it private, but please don’t take this as a given”
This would’ve worked!
(Other branches seem less productive to reply to, given this.)
Yeah, no, initially, I simply asked: just in case, please don’t use [the information I shared it explicitly for the purpose of enabling Oliver to coordinate with the third party] except to coordinate with the third party, expecting “sure, no problem” in response.
Then, after hearing Oliver wouldn’t agree to confidentiality given that I haven’t asked him for it in advance, I tried to ask: okay, sure, if you have such a high cost of/principles relating to not telling other people things, please at least don’t try to tell people specifically for the purpose of harming the third party, making it a bad idea to have tried to coordinate. He then said that nope, he wouldn’t agree to even that partial confidentiality, because if, e.g., someone was considering whether it’s important to harm the third party now rather than later and telling them the information that I shared would’ve moved them towards harming the third party earlier, Oliver would want to share information with that someone so that they could harm the third party. (And also said he already told some people.)
(He ended up talking to the third party; but an opportunity to use the information adversarially did not turn up afaik.)
It’s plausible that he misunderstood what I was asking for throughout, but he had no intention of avoiding making it such that me trying to coordinate with him would have been a bad idea for me.
(See also this comment.)
No, I didn’t say anything remotely like this! I have no such policy! I don’t think I ever said anything that might imply such a policy. I only again clarified that I am not making promises about not doing these things to you. I would definitely not randomly hand out information to anyone who wants to harm the third party.
At this point I am just going to stop commenting every time you summarize me inaccurately, since I don’t want to spend all day doing this, but please, future readers, do not assume these summaries are accurate.
I have clarified like 5 times that this isn’t because you didn’t ask in advance. If you had asked in advance I would have rejected your request as well, it’s just that you would have never told me in the first place.
This is also not what you asked for! You said “I just ask you to not use this information in a way designed to hurt [third party]”, which is much broader. “Not telling people” and “not using information” are drastically different. I have approximately no idea how to commit to “not use information for purpose X”. Information propagates throughout my world model. If I end up in conflict with a third party I might want to compete with them and consider the information as part of my plans. I couldn’t blind myself to that information when making strategic decisions.
Your message:
’Hypothetical scenario (this has not happened and details are made up):
Me and [name] are discussing the landscape of [thing] as it regards to Lightcone strategy. [name] is like “man, I feel like if I was worried that other people soon try to jump into the space, then we really should probably just back [a thing] because probably something will soon cement itself in the space”. I would be like “Oh, well, I think [third party] might do stuff”. Rafe is like “Oh, fuck, hmm, that’s bad”. I am like “Yep, seems pretty fucked. Plausibly we should really get going on writing up that ‘why [third party’s person] seems like a low-integrity dude’ post we’ve been thinking about”. [name] is like “Yeah, maybe. Does really seem quite bad if [third party’s person] tries to position himself here centrally. Actually, I think maybe [name] from CEA Comm health was working on some piece about [third party’s person]? Seems like she should know [third party’s person] is moving into the space, since it seems a bit more urgent if that’s happening”. I am like “Yep, seems right”.’
You didn’t say that when we were talking about it! You implied that since I didn’t ask in advance, you are not bound by anything; you did mention “I can keep things confidential if you ask me in advance, but of course I wouldn’t accept a request to receive private information about [third party] being sketchy that I can only use to their benefit?”
(“Being sketchy” is not how I’d describe the information. It was about an idea that Oliver is not okay with the third party working on, but is okay with others working on, because he doesn’t like the third party for a bunch of reasons and thinks it’s bad if they get more power, as per my understanding.)
I did not and would not have demanded somehow avoiding propagating the information. If you were like, “sorry, I obviously can’t actually not propagate this information in my world model and promise it won’t reflect on my plans, but I won’t actively try to use outside of coordinating with the third party and will keep it confidential going forward”, that would’ve been great and expected and okay.
I asked to not apply effort to using the information against the third party. I didn’t ask to apply effort to not be aware of the information in your decision-making, to keep separate world-models, or whatever. Confidentiality with people outside your team and not going hard on figuring out how to strategically share or use this information to cause damage to the third party’s interests would’ve been understandable and acceptable.
Yeah, I honestly think the above is pretty clear?
I do not think it at all describes a policy of “if someone was trying to harm the third party, and having this information would cause them to do it sooner, then I would give them the information”. Indeed, it seems really very far away from that! In the above story nobody is trying to actively harm anyone else as far as I can tell? I certainly would not describe “CEA Comm Health team is working on a project to do a bunch of investigations, and I tell them information that is relevant to how highly they should prioritize those investigations” as being anything close to “trying to harm someone directly”!
No, I literally said “Like, to be clear, I definitely rather you not have told me”. And then later “Even if I would have preferred knowing the information packaged with the request”. And my first response to your request said “You can ask in-advance if I want to accept confidentiality on something, and I’ll usually say no”.
Sure, but I also wouldn’t have done that! The closest deal we might have had would have been a “man, please actually ask in advance next time, this is costly and makes me regret having that whole conversation in the first place. If you recognize that as a cost and owe me a really small favor or something, I can keep it private, but please don’t take this as a given”, but I did not (and continue to not) have the sense that this would actually work.
Maybe I am being dense here, and on first read this sounded like maybe a thing I could do, but after thinking more about it I do not know what I am promising if I promise I “won’t actively try to use [this information] outside of coordinating with the third party”. Like, am I allowed to write it in my private notes? Am I allowed to write it in our weekly memos as a consideration for Lightcone’s future plans? Am I not allowed to think the explicit thought “oh, this piece of information is really important for this plan that puts me in competition with this third party, better make sure to not forget it, and add it to my Anki deck?
Like, I am not saying there isn’t any distinction between “information passively propagating” and “actively using information”, but man, it feels like a very tricky distinction, and I do not generally want to be in the business of adding constraints to my private planning and thought-processes that would limit how I can operate here, and relies on this distinction being clear to other people. Maybe other people have factored their mind and processes in ways they find this easy, but I do not.
This would’ve worked!
(Other branches seem less productive to reply to, given this.)