My X (Twitter) account: https://x.com/pythagoras5015
Old usernames that I had on LessWrong: pl5015, prometheus5015
Old username that I had on Twitter: prometheus5015 (see my reasons for changing it here: https://x.com/pythagoras5015/status/1860644689109569903)
My mistake. Fixed it. Thanks for pointing that out!
I think you make multiple valid points which are similar to the points I've made in my post, but I do think our stances differ in a few ways.
I think that you are certainly correct that psychosis, or a similar type of mental illness / disorder, is a plausible explanatory hypothesis for Annie making the claims that she has.
However, though I do recognize that the simplicity of a hypothesis is a boon to its plausibility, I do not share your belief that we have been unknowingly subsumed by the "MeToo world order", which has damaged our rationalism and obstructed our ability to recognize this as being obviously the simplest hypothesis. (Though perhaps this is a overly dramatic / inaccurate representation of your assertion.)
While I do agree that this post may encapsulate behavior representative of a person suffering from psychosis, or a similar mental illness, I see the hypothesis space as primarily dual, where mental illness / misrepresentation-of-reality-type hypotheses form one primary subspace, but there exists another primary subspace wherein the behavior detailed in this post is indeed representative of a person who has gone through the things which Annie has claimed she has.
I do appreciate your inclusion of quantitative rates; I think your analysis benefits from it.
Thanks!
Actually, right now, I believe that, based upon the information I currently have, it is improper for me to conclude that Sam Altman abused Annie Altman, and that the proper stance is I do not know if Annie Altman's claims are correct or not; therefore, it is only rational to hold Sam Altman innocent.
However -- I'm in the process of gathering more information. Once I've conducted research to a degree I consider satisfactory, I'd be happy to hear your reasoning if, at that point, our conclusions disagree. For now, I'll suggest that you wait until I finish up my research, though feel free to ignore this suggestion if you want :)
The points you make are valid. You also make a good point about the importance of additional context.
I think I may have miscommunicated myself to some extent, based on the fact that I largely agree with your reply here.
The most clear, and most general framing of my motives is this:
Hopefully this framing of mine is more reasonable. And thank you for the compliment - I am trying my best to conduct myself rationally :)
My motivation is pure. I am trying to (rationally) figure out the truth. Though, I'd be epistemologically naive if I expected you to believe me just because I told you "I'm a good person, trust me!".
Also -- I could care less about what people opine (without backing logical/rational arguments.) I could have chosen to do a big long rant with a bunch of clickbait-y quips and half-truthisms on X to try to jack up engagement and suck ad revenue out of X like a leach, but luckily I'm not an asshole (in my humble opinion, lol), so I came here instead. (Not to imply that you said that; I just say this more in an attempt to convey my motives and character.) I came to this site in particular because:
It seems to me, at this point, one of two things is true:
Yes, I know we can wonder about base rates and what mental illness we think she may likely have or not have. And such discussions are valid. But I am more interested in (more) concrete research, at the moment, which I'm still working on.
This post is not yet done.
Btw., you don't have to agree with my (developing) interpretations here. The thing I think is most relevant about this post is the collection of information I've assembled, which has nothing to do with my interpretation of it.
Update: While I don't consider this evidence of a widespread shadowbanning effort, some commenters on Hacker News claim that a post regarding Annie's claims that Sam sexually assaulted her at age 4 has been being repeatedly removed.
I have updated this post to include this information as well (c.f. item 3.a. in "What Annie has stated on her X account.")
Good point. I don't currently know that rate, but agree that it would be helpful in analyzing this matter.
Yes, I think you raise valid points. Given that Annie's (purported) sexual abuse occurred so long ago, I agree that it is unlikely that, at this point, direct evidence of Sam's (purported) sexual abuse of her would be able to gathered.
Deviating a bit from your reply to the more general question of "What direct evidence could be provided (e.g. by Annie) to corroborate the claims Annie is making?" -- I do think that a potentially useful piece of evidence that could be provided to corroborate (some of) Annie's claims would be proof that:
Sorry for the delayed response - yes, I think this kind of gets at the heart of the matter. I think, though I did a pretty good job with being rational in this post, and trying to make rational, unbiased claims from/using the information that exists, I could have been a bit more refined and clear-cut.
I honestly feel a bit bad, because this is an important issue, and I hope I didn't screw things up by (unintentionally) presenting things in a irrational or biased way. I'll try to be very rational and unbiased in this comment.
I think my statement that I was "trying to figure out the truth" in an earlier comment was misguided and imprecise. You were keen to notice this. In a situation like this, there are large amounts of uncertainty, and there is currently no proof of misconduct (that I've seen.)
I think what this post does is {provide a (relatively) accurate description of the state of affairs regarding Annie's claims.} I do feel pretty good about the way in which I presented the information relevant to this matter in this post. Though I don't want to necessarily "take shots" at Elizabeth Weil, whose nymag article provided basically the only significant written third-party acknowledgment of Annie's claims, I will say that I prefer the (hopefully, more) objective, straight-from-the-source, uncertainty-acknowledging approach I've taken here.
The key thing here is that, currently, the primary information we have is:
Let A = the event that Annie Altman, or (digital) media relating to her did indeed experience shadowbanning, low engagement, etc.
Let B = the event that Sam Altman caused A to occur.
Then
P(A ∧ B) ≤ P(A).
To me, it seems very hard to prove that one has been shadowbanned. To me, this would require proof of an arrangement between a "shadowbanning-requester" (e.g. Sam Altman) and the "shadowbanners" (e.g. developers or mods at Instagram, X, etc.), or direct evidence of actions taken and/or code written by mods, devs, etc. that shadowbanned Annie's content. In this matter, that has not been provided.
So, I think the main thing that this post has going for it is that it aggregates what is out there in a relatively objective/unbiased way. That is, it aggregates (many of) the claims Annie has made, and related media that exists on the Internet.