Dennis Hackethal created a website, Veritula, based on my Critical Fallibilism (CF) philosophy, where he writes frequently about CF ideas. But he didn't credit me for my ideas. Instead, he falsely attributed my ideas to Karl Popper, which denies me credit, implies that I plagiarized Popper, confuses people about Popper's views and implies that other people, like Popperian author David Deutsch, misunderstood Popper. He's also written long attacks on me and made legal threats. Here's a timeline:
In 2018, Hackethal came to me as a student. He paid for me to personally teach him on calls. He joined my email discussion forum and chatroom. He tried to learn philosophy from me.
In 2019, Hackethal formed a lasting grudge against me. I believe it's because he saw himself as a very smart expert, and he wanted to be my friend and colleague, but he felt rejected by me. I removed him from a non-public chatroom because he was getting upset and I thought he would do better with slower-paced email discussions.
In 2020, Hackethal self-published a book, A Window on Intelligence: The Philosophy of People, Software, and Evolution – and Its Implications. I wrote a post saying it plagiarized me and David Deutsch. He hadn't disclosed that he was writing a book. I saw him as a beginner who was many years away from being able to write a good book, and the book didn't change my mind about that.
In 2020, regarding a sentence I said was plagiarized, Hackethal said "So yes, it looks like you did tell me that, in which case the right thing to do is to credit you.", then he refused to discuss more. Although I sent him a pre-publication draft of my blog post about plagiarism, he offered no objection to what I wrote, didn't deny plagiarizing me, and implied that he didn't care what I said and could get away with ignoring my complaints. Previously he'd told me, about himself, "It’s really hard to offend me." He also said he valued free speech and strong criticism.
In 2020, someone DDoSed my website shortly after I sent Hackethal the draft accusing him of plagiarism, before I published it.
In 2024, he stopped ignoring me. From his lawyers, I found out that he was really upset. He claimed I had wronged him. His lawyers tried to bully me into signing a 20-term contract requiring me to take down my plagiarism accusation and never say anything negative about Hackethal. They said his book didn't contain plagiarism but were unwilling to discuss it. They asked me to a sign a contract that would prohibit me from pointing it out if he ever plagiarized me in the future, but which had no terms to discourage plagiarism. I declined but offered to negotiate. He wouldn't negotiate or participate in mediation, but also didn't follow through on his threat to sue me; he and his lawyers just went silent.
In 2024, Hackethal created a website, Veritula, which I believe uses my Critical Fallibilism ideas without crediting me.
In 2025, eight months after having his lawyers ghost me, he publicly escalated, even though I hadn't written about him for years. He published long blog posts attacking and lying about me (over 35,000 words).
I didn't respond immediately to the blog attacks and Hackethal complained about the lack of response and kept attacking me. Then I responded and he complained that I had responded and kept attacking me. Then I didn't respond for seven months and he kept attacking me.
After rereading old chat logs where I said I don't share my photo online because I want privacy, he published photos of me (which he did not get from me) while calling me dangerous.
I didn't notice Veritula existed until after Hackethal attacked me in 2025. In recent weeks, Hackethal has written a lot more on Veritula without crediting me.
After my 2020 blog post about Hackethal's book, I didn't write a blog post about him again until early 2025 when I responded to his posts attacking me. Then, although he was trying to ruin my reputation, I tried to go back to ignoring him.
I'm responding now because I believe Veritula is extensively using my best ideas without crediting me. Also, showing restraint and being silent about many provocations failed to deescalate the situation.
I was surprised when Hackethal started attacking me after a four year break. Now I can see a potential purpose to the attacks: discrediting me makes it easier to use my ideas without attributing them to me. Turning people against me can prevent them from listening to my concerns. Slinging mud can muddy the waters and distract from intellectual issues like attribution.
Hackethal says I'm a cult leader, but he won't stay away from my philosophy ideas, which he seems to think are the world's best. He hired me to help him learn philosophy. I believe he's using CF ideas (without crediting CF) for Veritula in preference to Popper's or Deutsch's ideas. He had a grudge against me before my first public complaint about him, and he still has it six years later; he needs to get over it, leave me alone, stop studying my philosophy articles, and cite his sources.
More posts related to Hackethal:
- Dennis Hackethal's Website, Veritula, Is Worse than Plagiarism
- Dennis Hackethal Falsely Implied That Critical Fallibilism Plagiarizes Karl Popper
- Dennis Hackethal, Plagiarist
- Dennis Hackethal Threatened to Sue Me; Now He's Blogging about Me
- Responses to Dennis Hackethal about Crime and Threats
- Andy B Harassment and Four Strands
- Review of My Quotation Accuracy
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