memoir: Michael's mysterious ally

[Ultimately_Untrue_Thought.git] / content / drafts / if-clarity-seems-like-death-to-them.md

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@@ -307,10 +307,17 @@ I did think that Kelsey was mistaken about how much causality to attribute to Mi
 
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-[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).
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+When I mentioned this to Michael on Signal on 3 August 2019, he replied:
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+> 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.
 
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