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If you are seeking help after leaving Temple’s toxic group, contact me at dh@dennishackethal.com. Upon review, I may fund therapy as well as legal efforts against Temple. You are not alone.

Since I published the first four articles of my exposé of disgraced writer Elliot Temple two months ago, there’s been an outpouring of support from many people he has hurt. Thank you, everyone.

Temple is the leader of an online forum and a bad, toxic person. But don’t take my word for it. In the quotes below, several former members describe their experience in his group, formerly known as ‘Fallible Ideas’ (FI), now the ‘Critical Fallibilism’ discussion forum. To protect them from retaliation, I am leaving out names as well as details that might identify people. I have also lightly edited the quotes to remove small idiosyncrasies (eg around punctuation) that could theoretically be used to correlate information. But just so my readers know that these are real quotes from real people, let me state that I could easily produce the original texts in court one day, if ordered to. In addition, I quote some public texts which lend additional credibility to the anonymous quotes.

Temple brags that he “can break anyone.” As a result, several of his former associates are traumatized and psychologically unable to deal with him effectively. Some of the quotes below reflect this. It has to stop. Temple must be held accountable.

For people who haven’t interacted with Temple, it can be difficult to understand just how toxic he is and how overwhelming an effect he has had on people. The following quotes should change that. They reflect roughly two decades of experiences various people have had with Temple since the early 2000s. Bold emphasis mine throughout.

[Elliot Temple] is a truly damaging vile person.

[T]he experience [in Temple’s group] was harrowing.

Temple certainly tried to break me.

[A]fter smearing me, riddling me with one-sided questions, and simultaneously ignoring my questions, he gave up and used his powers as administrator to simply block me from the group […].

That sounds similar to my experience last year when I reached out to Temple to see if we could reconcile. (Big mistake.) He ignored several of my questions while expecting me to answer his, then stopped talking when I didn’t answer them to his satisfaction.

[…] I may be interested in [a] support group – for the abuse I received on [Temple’s forum] Fallible Ideas, both as a proxy for the many bullies of the world, as well as for their own bullying itself.

[…] I can offer the testimony of the ill treatment I encountered […]

The next four quotes refer to a nasty ‘List of Fallible Ideas Evaders’ which Temple published in 2019, shaming 33 people “who had discussion contact with [Fallible Ideas] and then quit/evaded/lied/etc.” He claimed the purpose of the list was to figure out why people had left. (These quotes should help him figure it out.) In reality, the list had the effect of ‘othering’ former members and pressuring current members to remain in his group for fear of being publicly shamed next and incurring more emotional damage.

[…] I was name-called, blocked from posting, and then […] had my email published in an attempt to damage my reputation.

I don’t understand why they acted with such meanness and vindication, but I suppose they could have done even worse!

[H]ad I told him my real name […], only to later find it posted in ET’s [Elliot Temple’s] publicly shaming list of liars/evaders, etc., the emotional damage to me would have been worse than it was ([…] my involvement with FI [Fallible Ideas] was an unwanted detriment during [major life challenges] I had to navigate at the time).

[Elliot Temple is a] fanatic moron who happens to think I’m an “evader”.

I can certainly commiserate with others over the discomfort of being on the list of evaders and offer a listening ear to those who have been hurt.

Thanks to my efforts, Temple recently took down that awful list, even if it came at the cost of him writing more defamatory articles about me. I explain his defamatory tactics here.

[My experience in Temple’s group] was certainly unpleasant at times.

[Elliot Temple] lacked a lot of social calibration and civility. […] he was pretty unpleasant a lot of the time.

[Over the years, Temple’s] style [became] even more cold and vicious at times. Presumably because there weren’t other moderators involved, and because many of the community members were Elliot’s… followers? Disciples? Whatever you want to call them, they all tended to have a similar harsh and uncivil tone in arguments.

[…] Elliot and others tr[ied] to convince me that I should break up with my partner because they said all forms of romantic/sexual relationships are irrational and bad.

[…] I’m glad I didn’t listen to them, as that would have destroyed my life as I know it today […].

[Judging by the exposé,] Elliot has only gotten more toxic and cruel over time. He was always uncivil but I don’t remember him doing things like boasting about being able to “break” people in the time I spoke with him. Holy crap. That’s… I don’t even know what to say. When I knew him he always couched all of his hostile language in the guise of aloof rationality. Actively delighting in your ability to break someone is unhinged.

[P]articipating in Elliot’s various lists and forums was not good for me […].

Based on [Temple’s] actions, as well as his self-described attitude, he’s got an undeniable mean streak […].

I do not believe many if anyone would approach [Temple] let alone withstand more than one exchange […].

It’s true that many people could not muster the courage to stand up to a crybully like Temple. Dealing with people like him is exceptionally difficult but it can be done – and it must be done, if there’s to be any justice in this world. It’s important to get emotional support from friends and family, and also professional help (lawyers, therapists). Consuming art that inspires you to pursue greatness and justice helps, too.

In addition, the following quotes are already public, so I don’t consider it necessary to hide the authors’ names. I’ve given these quotes before but they bear repeating:

[A]ny project that one does decide to undertake will be less likely derailed or poisoned were [Temple] not involved.

Then there’s physicist David Deutsch, who (according to Temple) used to be Temple’s mentor. Deutsch replied to an email of Temple’s in 2011:

You’re entirely mistaken. I’m terrified, and will be unable to work for at least a day now. And who knows how long after that. Receiving an e-mail from you is sheer fear and revulsion before I even look at it.

Deutsch’s quote is emblematic of Temple’s effect on people’s psychology. Others feel similarly about receiving correspondence from him. I know because they have told me, and I’ve felt similarly in the past. Temple not only admits that he’s had this effect, he seems to consider it a feather in his cap:

[David Deutsch] is scared of my criticism. He can’t see me as someone who doesn’t matter who no one will listen to. In his mind, my critiques matter so much that it’s hard for him to write anything in public where I could see it and comment. LT [Lulie Tanett, a close friend of Deutsch’s] told me that this is why he basically hasn’t written anything since BoI [his latest book, The Beginning of Infinity, from 2011]. When he tries to write, he thinks of me and what criticism I might say, and he can’t deal with it.

Temple has had detrimental effects on my writing, too. I’m told there’s at least one other person who, like Deutsch, has experienced hangups around writing due to Temple. The effects on Deutsch are particularly sad and destructive because, as the father of quantum computation (among many other achievements), he is one of the smartest people who have ever lived. (I know Deutsch and collaborated with him for over two years to translate one of his books.) Imagine what else he could accomplish if he didn’t have any hangups due to Temple.

Anne B, another member of Temple’s ‘Fallible Ideas’, explains the group’s mentally crippling effect on her:

when I was younger I enjoyed feeling successful at doing things I was good at
I fear I’ll never get that feeling of being successful again now that I can see how far I am from ever succeeding at anything
[…] I seem unable to [enjoy making progress]

And:

I don’t feel free to only do the stuff I care about
when Elliot says that no one does X, Y and Z, and they should, I feel pressure to do X, Y and Z. there’s not enough time to do that stuff plus try to figure out what I want to do, if anything.

And:

[E]verything I do confirms to others and to myself that I can’t do anything right and will probably never get anywhere

In the context of her “Unhappiness with FI”, Anne B also heavily implied she was considering turning to “Drugs and/or alcohol” to deal with her distress (!). As I’ve written before, I am not aware that Temple ever tried to discourage Anne from turning to drugs. Instead, he seemed to consider Anne’s distress an opportunity to sell her something and make sure he’s not liable:

@AnneB unless you actually pay for advice, i have zero responsibility for any choice you make.

As awful as these quotes are, they only scratch the surface of Temple’s legacy of harm, which includes his systematic violation of mine and others’ privacy, his incessant attempts to ruin my reputation, his implicit threat to get me fired from my job, his repeated verbal abuse, his extensive disregard for copyright, his hypocritical ‘plagiarism’ (by his own standards) and even more.