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All of KurtB's Comments + Replies

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KurtB30

In human interactions at any scale, it is net good to at least momentarily consider the Elephant and/or the Player, with very few exceptions.

Reply8211
Related Discussion from Thomas Kwa's MIRI Research Experience
KurtB159

I'm very happy to read this. I feel lucky that Lisa works at MIRI, and I feel major gratitude to her and everyone else who contributed behind the scenes.

Reply1
Related Discussion from Thomas Kwa's MIRI Research Experience
KurtB*8728

I have some replies to Nate's reply. 

Overview:

  • I’m not asking anyone to modify their personality at all. I mainly wish I had been warned about what was in store for me when I joined MIRI, and I want such warnings to be a visible part of Nate's reputation.
  • I feel some pressure to match Nate's conciliatory tone, but something feels incongruous about it. I'm concerned that people will read Nate's calm, kindly replies and come away with the wrong idea of how he presented himself at MIRI.
  • I find Nate’s additional context to be, well…missing some important con
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Reply5
Related Discussion from Thomas Kwa's MIRI Research Experience
KurtB*21661

Alright, I’ll say it.

I did office operations at MIRI from Sep 2017 to June 2018 as a contractor and it finally feels right to share. All views herein are my own and not meant to represent anyone else. I intended to write a few paragraphs here but ended up with several pages.

Okay, so...my gut wants me to shout, “He’s not simply overly blunt in math arguments! He’s mean and scary[1] toward ops workers! Doesn’t anyone notice this?! I feel like I’m taking crazy pills!” That’s my gut reaction. My reasoned words below will be longer and more nuanced[2].&nbs... (read more)

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lc*143

With Eliezer, my experience has been the opposite. When I showed up in Berkeley, people who knew Eliezer tripped over themselves to tell me how arrogant and difficult they found him. I’ve talked to him for 5-10 minutes on 5-10 occasions, and every single time he was somewhere between neutral and friendly.

I have only met Eliezer once for about ~60 minutes, but I had the same experience. We talked in a group about alignment, and even though he ended up repeating many concepts he had already written about extensively online, he failed to explain those conc... (read more)

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So8res180

Separately, a friend pointed out that an important part of apologies is the doer showing they understand the damage done, and the person hurt feeling heard, which I don't think I've done much of above. An attempt:

I hear you as saying that you felt a strong sense of disapproval from me; that I was unpredictable in my frustration as kept you feeling (perhaps) regularly on-edge and stressed; that you felt I lacked interest in your efforts or attention for you; and perhaps that this was particularly disorienting given the impression you had of me both from my ... (read more)

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Quinn*35-1

This comment's updates for me personally:

  • The overall "EA is scary / criticizing leaders is scary" meme is very frequently something I roll my eyes at, I find it alien and sometimes laughable when people say they're worried about being bold and brave cuz all I ever see are people being rewarded for constructive criticism. But man, I feel like if I didn't know about some of this stuff then I'm missing a huge piece of the puzzle. Unclear yet what I'll think about, say, the anon meta on forums after this comment sinks in / propagates, but my guess is it'll b
... (read more)
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5PoignardAzur
I'll make a tentative observation: it seems that you're still being euphemistic and (as you kind of note yourself) you're still self-censoring a bit. The words that you say are "he's mean and scary" and "he was not subject to the same behavioral regulation norms as everyone else". The words I would have said, given your description and his answer below is "he acts like an asshole and gets away with it because people enable him". I've known bosses that were mean and scary, but otherwise felt fair and like they made the best of a tough situation. That's not what you're describing. Maybe Nate is an amazing person in other ways, and amazingly competent in ways that make him important to work with, but. He sounds like a person with extremely unpleasant behavior.
So8res*7613

  1. Thanks for saying so!

  2. My intent was not to make you feel bad. I apologize for that, and am saddened by it.

    (I'd love to say "and I've identified the source of the problem and successfully addressed it", but I don't think I have! I do think I've gotten a little better at avoiding this sort of thing with time and practice. I've also cut down significantly on the number of reports that I have.)

  3. For whatever it's worth: I don't recall wanting you to quit (as opposed to improve). I don't recall feeling ill will towards you personally. I do not now think po

... (read more)
Reply632
TekhneMakre1412

This updated me, thank you. A fair amount, from "IDK, this sounds like it's fairly likely to mainly be just people being sensitive about blunt confrontational communication in a context where blunt confrontational communication is called for" to "Maybe that, but sure sounds a lot like Nate has a general disregard for fellows--maybe there's some internal story he has where his behavior would make sense if other people shared that story, but they don't and that should be obvious and he should have not behaved that way given that they don't".

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Raemon*154

(quick mod note confirming this is Kurt Brown who worked at MIRI)

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