That explanation by Eliezer cleared things up for me. He really should have explained himself earlier. I actually had some vague understanding of what Eliezer was doing with his deletion and refusal to discuss the topic, but as usual, Eliezer's explanation make things that I thought I sort-of-knew seem obvious in retrospect.

And as Eliezer realizes, the attempt to hush things up was a mistake. Roko's post should have been taken as a teaching moment.