(I will appreciate if you NEVER TELL ANYONE I SAID THIS, not even in confidence. And by "appreciate", I mean that if you ever do, I'll probably either leave the Internet forever or seek some sort of horrible revenge.)

Taken literally, this seems like kind of a fucked up thing to say to a friend. Or a stranger. Anyone really. Why would you say this? Why would you write this in an email and then send it, on purpose, under any circumstance?

scott clearly thought that it was important to get that message out. idk what precisely happened there, but i'll risk a guess that perhaps scott thought that he found a partner in crime, so to speak, and secrecy would help them both. adversary would just use info as is. maybe the biggest thing scott could get in terms of blackmail was flimsy "okay, but you are into this thing too" which won't be effective in all cases, or maybe he didn't even had that

if one person came out and spilled the beans, it'd suggest that there might be more people who didn't

[–] CinnasVerses@awful.systems 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I think Hallquist had a short-lived blog with criticisms of LessWrong and EA between his time on FreethoughtBlogs/Pantheos and his run for office and Medium blog. Possibly https://topherhallquist.wordpress.com/2015/08/17/reply-to-scott-alexander/ In the original Twitter post, Hallquist described Alexander as "a vague internet acquaintance at the time (when he sent the emails)" and it sounds like after 2014 Hallquist explored LW and EA and decided they were messed up. (Hallquist's post also suggests that if you want to sound like a bold contrarian, see what a median expert at a university think about a topic rather than reading blogs).

I like to remind myself that I see what happens online, but the offers of money and the sexual propositions probably mostly happen in person or between people who have met in person. So I don't know as much about the LessWrong or EA communities as I think.

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