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Continuing the discussion from David Deutsch’s Gossip and Harassment Leadership:

This post was already very succinct and to the point, but I made a shorter bullet-points-style for myself. I thought it was a good post.

  • Link: https://curi.us/2562-david-deutschs-gossip-and-harassment-leadership
  • DD's Responsibility: DD actively gossips and lies about ET in places where it can't be observed. This is the root cause of most of the harassment.
    • Establishing that DD Gossips
      • DD has the general character of a mean gossip. See e.g. Curiosity – David Deutsch’s Gossip and Harassment Leadership
      • DD has directly tried to turn two current ET forum members against ET, and DD's close associates have done so as well.
        • Likely that ET knows about only a subset of such incidents.
      • Weird pattern of either non-interaction or people ghosting ET after some friendly discussion. Specifically comes up with people interested in CR. ET's best explanation is people are being told gossip.
      • LT shared examples of DD gossiping which she observed in email/IMs/IRL. Also said DD had negative attitude towards ET.
        • DD told someone an anon post was written by ET, implying ET's community is small/has sockpuppets.
          • Comment: I have some intuitive partial disagreement with this one but am having trouble articulating it well.
        • DD relied on friendship with ET to speculate more effectively about whether an anon poster was ET, violating privacy.
          • Comment: Violating privacy cuz he shared the speculation, not just because he speculated in his own mind, right?
        • DD said ET fans should be treated as sockpuppets even if not actually. This may have gotten ET fans harassed too.
      • DD has armed harassers with anti-ET ideas. E.g. AndyB echoed DD's idea that ET community has sockpuppets.
      • DD spent 5 years turning LT against ET. DD is father figure to LT. LT is dependent on DD for career/money/ideas/status and felt pressured.
    • Impact of DD's Gossip to LT
      • LT could have stopped harassment campaign after ET caught AndyB's sockpuppets due to her social status in CritRat community.
      • ET's personal friendship with DD and LT gives DD and LT credibility in spreading lies about ET and being believed.
      • DD is distant from fans and needs someone like LT to discreetly spread false lies to public.
      • Turning LT against ET took large effort for years since LT was big ET fan who resisted. Shows DD is willing to spend big effort in controlling/harming people.
      • DD encouraged LT and ET to become friends for a long time before it happened. That makes destroying that friendship especially mean.
      • LT tweeted a lot of stuff to undermine CF and alienate people from it.
        • They also attack Ayn Rand as a proxy for ET.
      • People (including person who was ultimately worse harasser, AndyB, when AndyB was still trying to learn from ET and before he went aggro) were reading LT's subtle attacks on ET, feeling torn about conflict between DD and ET communities, and wanting to talk about LT's attacks.
    • Conclusion
      • DD has spent 10+ years gossiping and making people hostile to ET. That makes him leader even though public actions have been few. Turning LT was biggest/most impactful example of gossip. Gossip -> hostility -> harassment.