If you still have legal concerns, please allow me to point out that an opinion based on disclosed facts (which is basically what your post was) is not defamatory. If you make your factual basis evident, and then make some inferences from it, you're in the clear.
If someone actually did come after you for this, there are a lot of freedom of press type organizations that would presumably be interested in representing you, and California has a strong anti-SLAPP statute that means that frivolous defamation lawsuits get stopped quickly in courts. If it got that far, having an email from the other side acknowledging that you are acting in good faith is also pretty much golden.
Thanks for writing this. It was enough to make me cancel my pre-order. I still feel like the product was within my risk/benefit allowance, but I don't want to support a company that is acting this way. If they're going to be selling a quasi-legal "probiotic," and want people to trust them, this is such a bad look. Trevor's post seemed totally fine and good-faith (except for how it talked about Aella as a "pornstar" which did seem misleading and weirdly intended to shame/discredit her). I hope Lumina rethinks this.
Agreed, the snipe at Aella for being a sex worker did not sit well with me. Aside from that, it seems like Trevor has stated his concerns, cited his evidence, and he originally gave the company an opportunity to reply in advance.
Trevor: I'd recommend you pick up the phone and just, like, talk it out with Aaron.
I think I'm a neutral-ish observer of this debate -- not in the sense of "unbiased", but in the sense of "biased towards Trevor and Aaron". I've invested in both of your companies, consider you both friends, and think you'll both do great things for the world. I also got the probiotic on my teeth, so am quite keen to learn whether this thing is useless or harmful.
All that said, Trevor, I think you're jumping the gun here. I already thought this with your original post on ineffectiveness, which on one hand asked important questions which I'm grateful for, but on the other (IMO) didn't give Aaron/Lumina enough time to respond. It calls to mind the recent Nonlinear drama and TracingWoodgrain's critiques of the post: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/bwtpBFQXKaGxuic6Q/effective-aspersions-how-the-nonlinear-investigation-went ?
And with this post, you're imputing motives to Aaron/Lumina, which make it harder for both you and them to think clearly about the issue. Reading Aaron's email, I don't interpret this as a threat of libel, but like, a serious good-faith effort at trying to bridge the gap. (Rob's reads as pretty angry, and I think he should have tried to cool off a bit instead of sending that, but idk people get emotional when you call them wrong and bad). This is quickly turning into a public spat which gets easily distorted when the parties involved just like, don't talk (or worse, talk defensively over text/public internet, which amplifies controversy). I really think hopping on a call with Aaron would defuse this a situation, give both of you the chance to express how you feel, and remember that you're both humans beings trying hard to help the world.
Austin, this is a ridiculous reply. Journalists reporting on pharmaceutical companies don't "just, like, talk it out." Aaron is acting on behalf of a for-profit drug company that is actively selling their drugs to consumers and Trevor has made credible accusations of ethical and safety issues. The *only* reasonable next action is for Aaron or his employees to publicly post facts that show that the issues that were raised are not, in fact, issues. If there were no real issues, this would be trivial for them to do. Trevor, in this case, hasn't done anything wrong. It's simply wild to suggest that he owes Lumina anything at all.
I don't know if you read the TracingWoodgrains post I read (or at least the first section of it); it does a great job of discussing journalistic ethics when reporting on possibly bad behavior. These issues are much muddier in the online blogosphere -- on one hand, Trevor doesn't consider himself a "journalist", I don't think; certainly he doesn't take a majority of his income from this profession; and shouldn't be expected to abide by its most limiting norms.
On the other hand, though: there are real harms that are done, which are very hard to reverse, when someone posts a critique or takedown. A piece of engagingly-written criticism may get virally shared around the world, while its retraction gets a tenth or less of the exposure. I think this is why society has defamation & libel laws in the first place, to recognize the societal cost of getting such things wrong.
In any case, I agree that Trevor "owes" Lumina little; but I think the discourse here would be clearer, and Trevor and Aaron would better understand each other, if they literally got on a call.
They did get on a call (see point 3), and the Lumina folk refused to record it, and they didn't make progress to defuse things. In fact, the Lumina side threatened legal action instead because... more questions were asked?
I think things would be "clearer" if Lumina was simply more open and honest about their approach, and responded to questions without threatening legal force.
Oh, I missed that; my bad and thanks for correcting. I was working off the previous post where it seems like they hadn't had the chance to talk at all. I'm glad they chatted, at least!
I think the thrust of my comments still stands, roughly "I feel like you two are escalating a negative-sum fight and misreading each other's motives; I think you'd understand more if you connected IRL."
I’m glad you mentioned my Nonlinear post; it saved me from doing the same. I don’t know the parties involved here and have friends who vouch for both Klee and the Lumina guys; I do have warm feelings towards many of the bloggers who covered Lumina. The accusation that they engaged in a quid pro quo (product for positive review) is a serious one that I know at least some of the involved parties emphatically and explicitly deny.
Entering a strictly adversarial frame (and the initial post certainly did) entails a responsibility to proactively make accusations ironclad. Editing later isn’t enough; being pretty sure isn’t enough. I think there are important questions about this whole thing, but they should be handled in measured, precise, responsible ways.
I have no basis upon which to judge the scientific claims and don’t claim any expertise there; in the edited-out portions and the allegations of quid pro quo I already see enough to make me wary of the post’s precision and willingness to overclaim. In addition, complaining about quick responses from Lumina-friendly people leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Public criticism that threatens someone’s reputation is the sort of thing that almost always draws quick, public responses from people who care. There is nothing sinister or bad about that whatsoever—it is a universal and natural occurrence, whether or not links were widely distributed on social media.
Anyway, I don’t see how Lumina’s replies could do anything but inflame the situation and I’m not coming here to defend those responses. My interest is solely in emphasizing that attacks need to proactively be ironclad, particularly when people raise serious concerns that threaten others’ reputations and work. I think it’s important that groups face scrutiny and this sort of work is important, but it being important is all the more reason for it to be handled with care.
Seconding Basta's comment, but also, didn't Trevor in this post describe attempting to do exactly that, talk things out? When someone (Aaron/Lumina) refuses to do that and then makes legal threats, it is reasonable to infer motivations for those actions.
There's a huge difference between "talking things out over email and public text posts" and "talking things out on a phone/video call" -- the latter provides so much more bandwidth, room for nuance, and ability to disentangle complex motivations which are all lost with the former. (I would guess this is a large part of why Aaron asked for a phone call.) I have myself often gotten into disagreements and fights with people online, then met people for a call (or in person!) and then realized they were very reasonable, kind, and good.
(As of this writing, both Trevor and Aaron are set to come to Manifest, the conference I'm organizing; I hope that if they don't find a way to resolve their disagreement beforehand, they'll be able to talk things out then)
Disclosure of bias: I've taken the Lumina product, know the founder IRL, and also have had a positive impression of Trevor Klee for years (mostly via some great posts linked by Scott Alexander and Byrne Hobart). This comment is unsolicited.
I read the anti-Lumina post last week and thought it was considerably better than the usual instance of internet criticism. It didn't much shift my estimate of whether Lumina works[1] and was wrong in parts, but it brought up important things. It started from different priors from mine about bodyhacking in general and this tech in particular. I happen to know and trust the founder, but Klee doesn't, and it's reasonable to be suspicious of This Weird (And Expensive) Trick That Doctors Won't Tell You.
It bugged me that the post was harsh and overconfident in its claims, though that's standard on the internet. I expect worse.
But it's easy for me to be sanguine—it's not my baby being attacked with mistaken guesses and uncharitable suspicion. It's natural to be angry, and I can imagine investors talking about lawsuits, and Aaron pushing back on that. And with that fresh in mind, I imagine him emailing Klee and bringing up pushing back on investors talking about lawsuits in contrast[2] to his position, meaning "I'm reasonable, I don't want to attack you, let's talk", but it being easily misinterpretable as a veiled threat.
(The threats in the Rob Williams email are of course unambiguous. Personally I wish people wouldn't leap to threats of lawsuits so quickly, nor lean into righteous anger so readily, but again, I get it. Someone attacks you unjustly, you get mad. It was reasonable for Johnny Depp to sue Amber Heard for inaccurately calling him abusive, or for the cave diver guy to sue Elon Musk for inaccurately calling him a pedophile.)
I think everyone involved is basically reasonable but regrettably human: Klee's prior about snake-oil-seeming schemes was reasonable (but wrong imo in this case), Lumina people's prior on the nefarious/negligent intentions of inaccurate internet attacks was reasonable (but Klee is actually good), and then all this happened.
[1] My estimate of whether the Lumina product works is approximately that of the Manifold market—works in theory, might work in practice, worth a shot, and I'm glad someone's finally working on it after this tech languished for decades. Manifold: https://manifold.markets/jacksonpolack/will-the-lumina-oral-probiotic-trea
Trivial point: "The other is from someone who doesn’t subscribe to my Substack, which is suspicious, because I didn’t share this post anywhere except to my subscribers." Your post was picked up by Marginal Revolution, so I expect thousands of people who are not subscribers have read it.
I might be the new commenter in question: I attempted to view the original post but I guess that given the timing, I wasn't able to find it, and upon digging only found the retracted version. Seeing that retraction reminded me a lot of a similar situation that has been escalating in another EA/rationalist arena, which is why I got annoyed and commented and later subscribed to follow the situation.
On reflection I probably don't know enough about this situation to helpfully weigh in. I just saw the parallels and didn't think about the differences. Trevor, lmk if you'd prefer I take that comment down. Sorry if I escalated tensions by taking out my own annoyance, I feel like deescalation is probably best for everyone, along the lines of Austin's comment.
FWIW, I left a critical comment on Trevor's initial post after seeing ~~the article~~ a link to Trevor's post on (IIRC) Hacker News. Nobody asked me to brigade the comments section.
Thank you for writing this.
If you still have legal concerns, please allow me to point out that an opinion based on disclosed facts (which is basically what your post was) is not defamatory. If you make your factual basis evident, and then make some inferences from it, you're in the clear.
If someone actually did come after you for this, there are a lot of freedom of press type organizations that would presumably be interested in representing you, and California has a strong anti-SLAPP statute that means that frivolous defamation lawsuits get stopped quickly in courts. If it got that far, having an email from the other side acknowledging that you are acting in good faith is also pretty much golden.
Thanks for writing this. It was enough to make me cancel my pre-order. I still feel like the product was within my risk/benefit allowance, but I don't want to support a company that is acting this way. If they're going to be selling a quasi-legal "probiotic," and want people to trust them, this is such a bad look. Trevor's post seemed totally fine and good-faith (except for how it talked about Aella as a "pornstar" which did seem misleading and weirdly intended to shame/discredit her). I hope Lumina rethinks this.
Agreed, the snipe at Aella for being a sex worker did not sit well with me. Aside from that, it seems like Trevor has stated his concerns, cited his evidence, and he originally gave the company an opportunity to reply in advance.
Glad to find your newsletter through all this. Seems right up my alley.
Trevor: I'd recommend you pick up the phone and just, like, talk it out with Aaron.
I think I'm a neutral-ish observer of this debate -- not in the sense of "unbiased", but in the sense of "biased towards Trevor and Aaron". I've invested in both of your companies, consider you both friends, and think you'll both do great things for the world. I also got the probiotic on my teeth, so am quite keen to learn whether this thing is useless or harmful.
All that said, Trevor, I think you're jumping the gun here. I already thought this with your original post on ineffectiveness, which on one hand asked important questions which I'm grateful for, but on the other (IMO) didn't give Aaron/Lumina enough time to respond. It calls to mind the recent Nonlinear drama and TracingWoodgrain's critiques of the post: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/bwtpBFQXKaGxuic6Q/effective-aspersions-how-the-nonlinear-investigation-went ?
And with this post, you're imputing motives to Aaron/Lumina, which make it harder for both you and them to think clearly about the issue. Reading Aaron's email, I don't interpret this as a threat of libel, but like, a serious good-faith effort at trying to bridge the gap. (Rob's reads as pretty angry, and I think he should have tried to cool off a bit instead of sending that, but idk people get emotional when you call them wrong and bad). This is quickly turning into a public spat which gets easily distorted when the parties involved just like, don't talk (or worse, talk defensively over text/public internet, which amplifies controversy). I really think hopping on a call with Aaron would defuse this a situation, give both of you the chance to express how you feel, and remember that you're both humans beings trying hard to help the world.
Austin, this is a ridiculous reply. Journalists reporting on pharmaceutical companies don't "just, like, talk it out." Aaron is acting on behalf of a for-profit drug company that is actively selling their drugs to consumers and Trevor has made credible accusations of ethical and safety issues. The *only* reasonable next action is for Aaron or his employees to publicly post facts that show that the issues that were raised are not, in fact, issues. If there were no real issues, this would be trivial for them to do. Trevor, in this case, hasn't done anything wrong. It's simply wild to suggest that he owes Lumina anything at all.
As soon as you publicly criticize someone, you owe them a strict duty towards proactive truth. Accusations need to be ironclad.
That would make journalism impossible. At least for many reasonable definitions of “ironclad”
I don't know if you read the TracingWoodgrains post I read (or at least the first section of it); it does a great job of discussing journalistic ethics when reporting on possibly bad behavior. These issues are much muddier in the online blogosphere -- on one hand, Trevor doesn't consider himself a "journalist", I don't think; certainly he doesn't take a majority of his income from this profession; and shouldn't be expected to abide by its most limiting norms.
On the other hand, though: there are real harms that are done, which are very hard to reverse, when someone posts a critique or takedown. A piece of engagingly-written criticism may get virally shared around the world, while its retraction gets a tenth or less of the exposure. I think this is why society has defamation & libel laws in the first place, to recognize the societal cost of getting such things wrong.
In any case, I agree that Trevor "owes" Lumina little; but I think the discourse here would be clearer, and Trevor and Aaron would better understand each other, if they literally got on a call.
I'm pretty confused by your position!
They did get on a call (see point 3), and the Lumina folk refused to record it, and they didn't make progress to defuse things. In fact, the Lumina side threatened legal action instead because... more questions were asked?
I think things would be "clearer" if Lumina was simply more open and honest about their approach, and responded to questions without threatening legal force.
Oh, I missed that; my bad and thanks for correcting. I was working off the previous post where it seems like they hadn't had the chance to talk at all. I'm glad they chatted, at least!
I think the thrust of my comments still stands, roughly "I feel like you two are escalating a negative-sum fight and misreading each other's motives; I think you'd understand more if you connected IRL."
Yeah totally fair.
I’m glad you mentioned my Nonlinear post; it saved me from doing the same. I don’t know the parties involved here and have friends who vouch for both Klee and the Lumina guys; I do have warm feelings towards many of the bloggers who covered Lumina. The accusation that they engaged in a quid pro quo (product for positive review) is a serious one that I know at least some of the involved parties emphatically and explicitly deny.
Entering a strictly adversarial frame (and the initial post certainly did) entails a responsibility to proactively make accusations ironclad. Editing later isn’t enough; being pretty sure isn’t enough. I think there are important questions about this whole thing, but they should be handled in measured, precise, responsible ways.
I have no basis upon which to judge the scientific claims and don’t claim any expertise there; in the edited-out portions and the allegations of quid pro quo I already see enough to make me wary of the post’s precision and willingness to overclaim. In addition, complaining about quick responses from Lumina-friendly people leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Public criticism that threatens someone’s reputation is the sort of thing that almost always draws quick, public responses from people who care. There is nothing sinister or bad about that whatsoever—it is a universal and natural occurrence, whether or not links were widely distributed on social media.
Anyway, I don’t see how Lumina’s replies could do anything but inflame the situation and I’m not coming here to defend those responses. My interest is solely in emphasizing that attacks need to proactively be ironclad, particularly when people raise serious concerns that threaten others’ reputations and work. I think it’s important that groups face scrutiny and this sort of work is important, but it being important is all the more reason for it to be handled with care.
Seconding Basta's comment, but also, didn't Trevor in this post describe attempting to do exactly that, talk things out? When someone (Aaron/Lumina) refuses to do that and then makes legal threats, it is reasonable to infer motivations for those actions.
There's a huge difference between "talking things out over email and public text posts" and "talking things out on a phone/video call" -- the latter provides so much more bandwidth, room for nuance, and ability to disentangle complex motivations which are all lost with the former. (I would guess this is a large part of why Aaron asked for a phone call.) I have myself often gotten into disagreements and fights with people online, then met people for a call (or in person!) and then realized they were very reasonable, kind, and good.
(As of this writing, both Trevor and Aaron are set to come to Manifest, the conference I'm organizing; I hope that if they don't find a way to resolve their disagreement beforehand, they'll be able to talk things out then)
Was the meeting in #3 of this post not your definition of such a phone call?
Disclosure of bias: I've taken the Lumina product, know the founder IRL, and also have had a positive impression of Trevor Klee for years (mostly via some great posts linked by Scott Alexander and Byrne Hobart). This comment is unsolicited.
I read the anti-Lumina post last week and thought it was considerably better than the usual instance of internet criticism. It didn't much shift my estimate of whether Lumina works[1] and was wrong in parts, but it brought up important things. It started from different priors from mine about bodyhacking in general and this tech in particular. I happen to know and trust the founder, but Klee doesn't, and it's reasonable to be suspicious of This Weird (And Expensive) Trick That Doctors Won't Tell You.
It bugged me that the post was harsh and overconfident in its claims, though that's standard on the internet. I expect worse.
But it's easy for me to be sanguine—it's not my baby being attacked with mistaken guesses and uncharitable suspicion. It's natural to be angry, and I can imagine investors talking about lawsuits, and Aaron pushing back on that. And with that fresh in mind, I imagine him emailing Klee and bringing up pushing back on investors talking about lawsuits in contrast[2] to his position, meaning "I'm reasonable, I don't want to attack you, let's talk", but it being easily misinterpretable as a veiled threat.
(The threats in the Rob Williams email are of course unambiguous. Personally I wish people wouldn't leap to threats of lawsuits so quickly, nor lean into righteous anger so readily, but again, I get it. Someone attacks you unjustly, you get mad. It was reasonable for Johnny Depp to sue Amber Heard for inaccurately calling him abusive, or for the cave diver guy to sue Elon Musk for inaccurately calling him a pedophile.)
I think everyone involved is basically reasonable but regrettably human: Klee's prior about snake-oil-seeming schemes was reasonable (but wrong imo in this case), Lumina people's prior on the nefarious/negligent intentions of inaccurate internet attacks was reasonable (but Klee is actually good), and then all this happened.
[1] My estimate of whether the Lumina product works is approximately that of the Manifold market—works in theory, might work in practice, worth a shot, and I'm glad someone's finally working on it after this tech languished for decades. Manifold: https://manifold.markets/jacksonpolack/will-the-lumina-oral-probiotic-trea
[2] Like the Contrasting concept from Crucial Conversations, where you bring up what the other person might worry about in order to allay their fears: https://www.sarahnilsson.org/learn/crucial-conversations/
Trivial point: "The other is from someone who doesn’t subscribe to my Substack, which is suspicious, because I didn’t share this post anywhere except to my subscribers." Your post was picked up by Marginal Revolution, so I expect thousands of people who are not subscribers have read it.
My mistake - looks like I was thinking of the wrong post
Yup, was about to say that.
I might be the new commenter in question: I attempted to view the original post but I guess that given the timing, I wasn't able to find it, and upon digging only found the retracted version. Seeing that retraction reminded me a lot of a similar situation that has been escalating in another EA/rationalist arena, which is why I got annoyed and commented and later subscribed to follow the situation.
On reflection I probably don't know enough about this situation to helpfully weigh in. I just saw the parallels and didn't think about the differences. Trevor, lmk if you'd prefer I take that comment down. Sorry if I escalated tensions by taking out my own annoyance, I feel like deescalation is probably best for everyone, along the lines of Austin's comment.
FWIW, I left a critical comment on Trevor's initial post after seeing ~~the article~~ a link to Trevor's post on (IIRC) Hacker News. Nobody asked me to brigade the comments section.
I was linked here from r/starslatecodex
!