3 ms·

I've been reading this guy off and on since he was Yvain on Less Wrong. This is a really fucking strange place to take a stand when his name has been public kn

I've been reading this guy off and on since he was Yvain on Less Wrong. This is a really fucking strange place to take a stand when his name has been public knowledge for...almost forever. The guy physically meets people at conventions and the like and introduces himself with his full name. It's been less of a secret than who The Stig (top gear) is. NYT may or may not be doing a big wrong here, but it's a fruitless act by [insert name here] given that his name always already public. Strangely emotional though he claims it's out of fear for his safety (which would have already been compromised.)

michaelkeenan 6y ago
That seems covered by this paragraph: "Some people want to kill me or ruin my life, and I would prefer not to make it too easy. I’ve received various death threats. I had someone on an anti-psychiatry subreddit put out a bounty for any information that could take me down (the mods deleted the post quickly, which I am grateful for). I’ve had dissatisfied blog readers call my work pretending to be dissatisfied patients in order to get me fired. And I recently learned that someone on SSC got SWATted in a way that they link to using their real name on the blog. I live with ten housemates including a three-year-old and an infant, and I would prefer this not happen to me or to them. Although I realize I accept some risk of this just by writing a blog with imperfect anonymity, getting doxxed on national news would take it to another level." Do you feel that that addresses your concerns? It seems reasonable to predict that he'd have more of those safety problems if the number of people who know his real name increases by 2+ orders of magnitude, and if it appears prominently on a website with a high rank on Google.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- arkades 6y ago
  > Do you feel that that addresses your concerns? Many of the responses critical of his decision seem to read as "Here's reason X that his decision is non-sensical, and I didn't read the actual link where he clearly and reasonably addresses reason X."
  - malwarebytess 6y ago
    That's pretty dismissive. I read what he said. I was not convinced. For him, this is an illogical, emotional, and disingenuous move. I fully believe this is about a personal slight by the reporter, who did not accede to his request. He's taking his ball home.
    - benchaney 6y ago
      I’d say the dismissiveness is well warranted since you are impugning Scott’s motives without justifying yourself, or any of your claims. If you make poor faith assumptions about others, you can hardly complain when others are dismissive of what your write.
      - malwarebytess 6y ago
        I think I've justified my opinion well enough. And I still hold it. I'm not concerned with people dismissing what I say on its merit, only presuming that because I wasn't convinced by his explanation that I hadn't read it which is dismissive.
        sixstringtheory 6y ago
        You said because he meets people in real life and gives his real name, he should have no problem with any person with the ability to read the NYT being able to connect the dots through the article between his employment and his personal ideas on his blog. His meatspace introductions necessarily have an upper limit, but the Internet will instantly and concurrently bring down the law of large numbers upon him, where every whack job sharing every dumb FB post about how he's evil will have an opportunity to ruin his life, his and his employer's work, the patients that depend on them, and/or the lives of his cohabitants in all the same ways. As someone who knows people who work in mental health I can assure you there are many security vectors available once someone's real identity hits the internet and social media. I'm talking about patients who are in hiding from pimps, abusive family or significant others. It's no different than using HTTPS or CORS to mitigate security threats. You're essentially saying that since my acquaintances in mental health go to a therapy conference or a trivia night at the bar, that their personal lives should be exposed to the entire world in perpetuity. You're essentially saying that any SaaS should leave their ports open to the world for every scanner and scammer to exploit.
OscarCunningham 6y ago
He only needs one-way anonymity. There aren't many problems with his blog readers searching for "scott alexander real name" and finding it. But there are problems if his patients search for "[real name] psychiatrist" and find his blog.
mudita 6y ago
Scott is less worried about his real name being known among readers of the blog, he mostly just wants it to be non-googleable to protect his professional identity. He has been consistent with this position since 2013, it was actually one of the main reasons he started Slatestarcodex. From his old LiveJournal: “Several people have suggested I move off LiveJournal because it has a negative prestige aura surrounding it and a lot of people are unwilling to read or link to LiveJournals. Further, one of the interviewers at one of the hospitals I visited found my blog and told me that if I got hired it would be unacceptable to have a blog that was easily traceable back to my real name. Even if I never talked about medicine on it, it's still probably not a good idea to have patients know too much about my personal life. Also, if I expressed any controversial political opinions (me? controversial political opinions? really?) it might bring someone into disrepute or something, or even offend patients and destroy the therapeutic relationship.” and “This blog is now closed and locked. Since part of the reason I closed it is to make myself less stalk-able, I'm not linking from here to the new blog. If you really want to know where it is, message or email me and I'll probably tell you.”

michaelkeenan 6y ago

That seems covered by this paragraph: "Some people want to kill me or ruin my life, and I would prefer not to make it too easy. I’ve received various death threats. I had someone on an anti-psychiatry subreddit put out a bounty for any information that could take me down (the mods deleted the post quickly, which I am grateful for). I’ve had dissatisfied blog readers call my work pretending to be dissatisfied patients in order to get me fired. And I recently learned that someone on SSC got SWATted in a way that they link to using their real name on the blog. I live with ten housemates including a three-year-old and an infant, and I would prefer this not happen to me or to them. Although I realize I accept some risk of this just by writing a blog with imperfect anonymity, getting doxxed on national news would take it to another level." Do you feel that that addresses your concerns? It seems reasonable to predict that he'd have more of those safety problems if the number of people who know his real name increases by 2+ orders of magnitude, and if it appears prominently on a website with a high rank on Google.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
arkades 6y ago
> Do you feel that that addresses your concerns? Many of the responses critical of his decision seem to read as "Here's reason X that his decision is non-sensical, and I didn't read the actual link where he clearly and reasonably addresses reason X."
- malwarebytess 6y ago
  That's pretty dismissive. I read what he said. I was not convinced. For him, this is an illogical, emotional, and disingenuous move. I fully believe this is about a personal slight by the reporter, who did not accede to his request. He's taking his ball home.
  - benchaney 6y ago
    I’d say the dismissiveness is well warranted since you are impugning Scott’s motives without justifying yourself, or any of your claims. If you make poor faith assumptions about others, you can hardly complain when others are dismissive of what your write.
    - malwarebytess 6y ago
      I think I've justified my opinion well enough. And I still hold it. I'm not concerned with people dismissing what I say on its merit, only presuming that because I wasn't convinced by his explanation that I hadn't read it which is dismissive.
      - sixstringtheory 6y ago
        You said because he meets people in real life and gives his real name, he should have no problem with any person with the ability to read the NYT being able to connect the dots through the article between his employment and his personal ideas on his blog. His meatspace introductions necessarily have an upper limit, but the Internet will instantly and concurrently bring down the law of large numbers upon him, where every whack job sharing every dumb FB post about how he's evil will have an opportunity to ruin his life, his and his employer's work, the patients that depend on them, and/or the lives of his cohabitants in all the same ways. As someone who knows people who work in mental health I can assure you there are many security vectors available once someone's real identity hits the internet and social media. I'm talking about patients who are in hiding from pimps, abusive family or significant others. It's no different than using HTTPS or CORS to mitigate security threats. You're essentially saying that since my acquaintances in mental health go to a therapy conference or a trivia night at the bar, that their personal lives should be exposed to the entire world in perpetuity. You're essentially saying that any SaaS should leave their ports open to the world for every scanner and scammer to exploit.

OscarCunningham 6y ago

He only needs one-way anonymity. There aren't many problems with his blog readers searching for "scott alexander real name" and finding it. But there are problems if his patients search for "[real name] psychiatrist" and find his blog.

mudita 6y ago

Scott is less worried about his real name being known among readers of the blog, he mostly just wants it to be non-googleable to protect his professional identity. He has been consistent with this position since 2013, it was actually one of the main reasons he started Slatestarcodex. From his old LiveJournal: “Several people have suggested I move off LiveJournal because it has a negative prestige aura surrounding it and a lot of people are unwilling to read or link to LiveJournals. Further, one of the interviewers at one of the hospitals I visited found my blog and told me that if I got hired it would be unacceptable to have a blog that was easily traceable back to my real name. Even if I never talked about medicine on it, it's still probably not a good idea to have patients know too much about my personal life. Also, if I expressed any controversial political opinions (me? controversial political opinions? really?) it might bring someone into disrepute or something, or even offend patients and destroy the therapeutic relationship.” and “This blog is now closed and locked. Since part of the reason I closed it is to make myself less stalk-able, I'm not linking from here to the new blog. If you really want to know where it is, message or email me and I'll probably tell you.”