Crémieux, j'accuse

qu'est-ce que le plagiat

dynomight.net/jaccuse

I don’t know how to internet, but I know you’re supposed to get into beefs. In the nearly five years this blog has existed, the closest I’ve come was once politely asking Slime Mold Time Mold, “Hello, would you like to have a beef?” They said, “That sounds great but we’re really busy right now, sorry.”

Beefing is a funny thing. Before we invented police and laws as courts, gossip was the only method human beings had to enforce the social compact. So we’re naturally drawn to beefs. And, as I’ve written before, I believe that even with laws and courts, social punishment remains necessary in many circumstances. The legal system is designed to supplement social norms, not replace them.

Beefs tend to get a lot of attention. I like attention. I hope I get credit when the world inevitably turns against ultrasonic humidifiers. But I don’t really want attention for beefing. I don’t have a “mission” for this blog, but if I did, it would be to slightly increase the space in which people are calm and respectful and care about getting the facts right. I think we need more of this, and I’m worried that society is devolving into “trench warfare” where facts are just tools to be used when convenient for your political coalition, and everyone assumes everyone is distorting everything, all the time.

Nevertheless, I hereby beef with Crémieux.

That’s the start of a recent thread from Crémieux on the left, and sections from a post I wrote in 2022 on the right. (You can read the tedious details for the rest of the thread here.)

Is this plagiarism?

I think so. And I don’t think it’s a close call.

Plagiarism is:

Presenting work or ideas from another source as your own, with or without consent of the original author, by incorporating it into your work without full acknowledgement.

And in particular:

Paraphrasing the work of others by altering a few words and changing their order, or by closely following the structure of their argument, is plagiarism if you do not give due acknowledgement to the author whose work you are using.

A passing reference to the original author in your own text may not be enough; you must ensure that you do not create the misleading impression that the paraphrased wording or the sequence of ideas are entirely your own.

Applying this definition requires some judgement. Crémieux took eleven (unattributed) screenshots from my posts, as well as the entire structure of ideas. But there was a link at the end. Would it be clear to readers where all the ideas came from? Is the link at the end “due acknowledgement”? I think few reasonable people would say yes.

There are also several phrases and sentences that are taken verbatim or almost verbatim. E.g. I wrote:

Aspartame is a weird synthetic molecule that’s 200 times sweeter than sucrose. Half of the world’s aspartame is made by Ajinomoto of Tokyo—the same company that first brought us MSG back in 1909.

And Crémieux wrote:

Aspartame is a sugary sweet synthetic molecule that’s 200 times sweeter than sucrose. More than half of the world’s supply comes from Ajinomoto of Tokyo, better known for bringing the world MSG.

This does not happen by accident. Crémieux seemed to understand this when former Harvard president Claudine Gay was accused of plagiarism. But I still consider this something of a technicality. It happens that Crémieux got sloppy and didn’t rephrase some stuff. But you could easily use AI to rephrase more and it would still be plagiarism.

Why complain?

I don’t understand twitter. Maybe this is normal there. But I understand rationalist-adjacent blogs.

If this was some random person, I’d probably let it go. But Crémieux presents as a member of my community. And inside that community, I feel comfortable saying this is Not Done. And if it is done, I expect an apology and a correction, rather than a long series of suspiciously practiced deflections.

I don’t expect this post will do much for my reputation. When I read it, I feel like I’m being a bit petty, and I should be spending my time on all the important things happening in the world. I think that’s what Crémieux is counting on: There’s no way to protest this behavior without hurting yourself in the process. But I’ve read Schelling, and I’m not going to play the game on that level.

I’d like to be known as a blogger with a quiet little community that calmly argues about control variables and GLP-1 trials and the hard problem of consciousness, not someone who whines about getting enough credit. But I’ve decided to take the reputational hit, because norms are important, and if you care about something, you have to be willing to defend it.