memoir: Michael's mysterious ally

diff --git a/content/2023/a-hill-of-validity-in-defense-of-meaning.md b/content/2023/a-hill-of-validity-in-defense-of-meaning.md
index d8f7bd2..8a48cd5 100644 (file)
--- a/content/2023/a-hill-of-validity-in-defense-of-meaning.md
+++ b/content/2023/a-hill-of-validity-in-defense-of-meaning.md
@@ -206,7 +206,7 @@ As for the attempt to intervene on Yudkowsky—here I need to make a digression
 
 (If you are silent about your pain, _they'll kill you and say you enjoyed it_.)
 
-Unfortunately, a lot of other people seem to have strong intuitions about "privacy", which bizarrely impose constraints on what _I'm_ allowed to say about my own life: in particular, it's considered unacceptable to publicly quote or summarize someone's emails from a conversation that they had reason to expect to be private. I feel obligated to comply with these widely-held privacy norms, even if _I_ think they're paranoid and [anti-social](http://benjaminrosshoffman.com/blackmailers-are-privateers-in-the-war-on-hypocrisy/). (This secrecy-hating trait probably correlates with the autogynephilia blogging; someone otherwise like me who believed in privacy wouldn't be telling you this Whole Dumb Story.)
+<a id="privacy-constraints"></a>Unfortunately, a lot of other people seem to have strong intuitions about "privacy", which bizarrely impose constraints on what _I'm_ allowed to say about my own life: in particular, it's considered unacceptable to publicly quote or summarize someone's emails from a conversation that they had reason to expect to be private. I feel obligated to comply with these widely-held privacy norms, even if _I_ think they're paranoid and [anti-social](http://benjaminrosshoffman.com/blackmailers-are-privateers-in-the-war-on-hypocrisy/). (This secrecy-hating trait probably correlates with the autogynephilia blogging; someone otherwise like me who believed in privacy wouldn't be telling you this Whole Dumb Story.)
 
 So I would _think_ that while telling this Whole Dumb Story, I obviously have an inalienable right to blog about _my own_ actions, but I'm not allowed to directly refer to private conversations with named individuals in cases where I don't think I'd be able to get the consent of the other party. (I don't think I'm required to go through the ritual of asking for consent in cases where the revealed information couldn't reasonably be considered "sensitive", or if I know the person doesn't have hangups about this weird "privacy" thing.) In this case, I'm allowed to talk about emailing Yudkowsky (because that was _my_ action), but I'm not allowed to talk about anything he might have said in reply, or whether he did.
 

diff --git a/content/drafts/if-clarity-seems-like-death-to-them.md b/content/drafts/if-clarity-seems-like-death-to-them.md
index b275279..23aea20 100644 (file)
--- a/content/drafts/if-clarity-seems-like-death-to-them.md
+++ b/content/drafts/if-clarity-seems-like-death-to-them.md
@@ -307,10 +307,17 @@ I did think that Kelsey was mistaken about how much causality to attribute to Mi
 
 -------
 
-[TODO—
-  * Kelsey in meatspace tells me that Vassar has a benefactor that she can't name; I'm retarded enough to not infer that it's him and she was obfuscating for compliance
-  ...
-]
+Later, talking in person at "Arcadia", Kelsey told me that someone (whose identity she would not disclose) had threatened to sue over the report about Michael, so REACH was delaying its release for the one-year statute of limitations. As far as my interest in defending Michael went, I counted this as short-term good news (because the report wasn't being published) but longer-term bad news (because the report must be a hit piece if Michael's mysterious ally was trying to hush it).
+
+When I mentioned this to Michael on Signal on 3 August 2019, he replied:
+
+> The person is me, the whole process is a hit piece, literally, the investigation process and not the content. Happy to share the latter with you. You can talk with Ben about appropiate ethical standards.
+
+In retrospect, I feel dumb for not guessing that Michael's mysterious ally was Michael himself. I count this kind of situation as another reason to be [annoyed at how norms protecting confidentiality](/2023/Jul/a-hill-of-validity-in-defense-of-meaning/#privacy-constraints) distort information; Kelsey apparently felt obligated to obfuscate any names connected to potential litigation, which led me to the infer the existence of a nonexistent person (because I naïvely assumed that if Michael had threatened to sue, Kelsey would have said that). I can't say I never introduce this kind of disortion in my communications (for I, too, am bound by norms), but when I do, I feel dirty about it.
+
+As far as appropriate ethical standards go, I didn't particularly approve of silencing critics with lawsuit threats, even while I agreed with Michael that "the process is the punishment." I imagine that if the REACH wanted to publish a report about me, I would expect to defend myself in public, having faith that Speech would carry the day against a corrupt community center—or for that matter, against /r/SneerClub. 
+
+This is arguably one of my more religious traits. Michael and Kelsey are domain experts and probably know better.
 
 -------
 

diff --git a/notes/memoir-sections.md b/notes/memoir-sections.md
index 09fee3e..4f9846e 100644 (file)
--- a/notes/memoir-sections.md
+++ b/notes/memoir-sections.md
@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ slotted TODO blocks—
 ✓ Dolphin War finish
 ✓ lead-in to Sept. 2021 Twitter altercation
 ✓ out of patience email
-- Michael Vassar and the Theory of Optimal Gossip
+✓ Michael Vassar and the Theory of Optimal Gossip
 _ plan to reach out to Rick / Michael on creepy men/crazy men
 _ State of Steven
 _ reaction to Ziz
@@ -298,7 +298,7 @@ people to consult before publishing, for feedback or right of objection—
 _ Iceman
 _ Scott
 _ hostile prereader (April—if not, J. Beshir, Swimmer, someone else from Alicorner #drama)
-_ Kelsey
+_ Kelsey (what was that 1 year statute of limitations about??)
 _ NRx Twitter bro
 _ maybe SK (briefly about his name)? (the memoir might have the opposite problem (too long) from my hostile-shorthand Twitter snipes)
 _ Megan (that poem could easily be about some other entomologist named Megan) ... I'm probably going to cut that §, though