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Can anyone please ELI5 what this is about? What does the phrase "Slate Star Codex" mean? Now that all his blog posts were gone, what topics had he generally wri

Can anyone please ELI5 what this is about? What does the phrase "Slate Star Codex" mean? Now that all his blog posts were gone, what topics had he generally written about that attracted so much attention?

bobmaxup 6y ago
https://web.archive.org/web/sitemap/https://slatestarcodex.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/sitemap/https://slatestarcodex.c... https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Scott_Alexander https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Scott_Alexander
- wizzwizz4 6y ago
  The RationalWiki article isn't very good – they've got an axe to grind against him. There's some information, but treat it like it came out of 4chan.
  - bobmaxup 6y ago
    Why?
    - wizzwizz4 6y ago
      I honestly don't know. RationalWiki seems to hate on anybody even vaguely associated with LessWrong, up to and including misrepresenting their ideas (or outright lying about what people have said and done) so they can more easily criticise them. Their articles are worth reading once, to get a list of Bad Things™ about a person or idea, which you can then filter down into actually true stuff at your leisure. It's frustrating, because some of the criticism is actually warranted, but they just fill such articles with so much banal nonsense, like "Scott Alexander criticised communism, but also studied something the USSR did… :thinking_face:" (paraphrased) that the signal-to-noise ratio approaches Uncyclopedia's. It's really frustrating, because the articles about topics they haven't got a bee in their bonnet about can actually be insightful introductions, beating out the Wikipedia articles. Nowadays, though, those are few and far between.
    - Viliam1234 6y ago
      RationalWiki (or more precisely its admin) has a strong opinion on which political opinions are the valid ones, and treats other political opinions as pseudoscience. Debating your political opponents is considered a bad thing, because you should not provide them platform to explain their beliefs. The proper way to discuss people who disagree with you is using the "snarky point of view" (yes, this is the official policy). Scott Alexander is the opposite extreme. He tries to find the good parts even in the Time Cube (yes, literally). Although Scott himself mostly has the usual liberal opinions, he does not enforce them in the comments; he usually only enforces civil behavior. The result is a highly intelligent forum where liberals talk to conservatives, Christians talk to atheists, etc., mostly in a friendly way, on a wide range of topics, some of them political, some not. Each of these styles is attractive to a different type of personality. Sadly, the former often have a problem with the latter.
IdiocyInAction 6y ago
He was a blogger who used to blog on controversial issues with somewhat heterodox opinions (not since 2017 anymore though) and generally blogged about interesting stuff, related to cognition and psychiatry; I was somewhat of a fan and thought he was a great writer. He attracted a large community, some of who were a bit, well, let's say "controversial", but it is also one of the most interesting communities I have ever encountered. He was part of the rationalist ideology/movement. He also wrote Unsong, which is a very interesting work of fiction and blogged about various other stuff.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
lhnz 6y ago
An archive of his blog can be found here: https://twitter.com/Altimor/status/1275539748686163968 https://twitter.com/Altimor/status/1275539748686163968 And a popular article was "I can tolerate anything except the outgroup" although I think the non-political articles are actually far better (e.g. "My IRB Nightmare": https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:VpJS0s4JYe4J:https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/29/my-irb-nightmare/ https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:VpJS0s...). One of my favourite articles is actually a work of fiction ("The Proverbial Murder Mystery": https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:KNe8IcEbMVAJ:https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/02/13/the-proverbial-murder-mystery/ https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:KNe8Ic...).
- mcphage 6y ago
  His short story “Sort by Controversial” was also quite excellent.
sillysaurusx 6y ago
Scott said that the NYT was going to publish a piece containing his real name, so he deleted his blog (slate star codex) which at this is point famous. Plot twist: Scott's real name has been easily findable for at least a year, based on his own words. So I don't understand why he went full nuclear. It's also an assumption by everybody that the NYT article was going to be a hit piece, even though there's no evidence of that whatsoever. It was simply going to contain his real name. Scott didn't want that. Therefore Scott deleted his entire 5-8 year history because the big bad NYT was going to do something that Scott didn't like that totally wouldn't impact his life anyway. Look, I'm a big proponent of anonymity. Heck, I was pseudonymous for years. Sometimes there are valid reasons. But often, it becomes a perpetual thing of "I'm doing this for the sake of doing it, not because people are out to get me." Scott also recently published a piece raising questions about racism (a good piece, worth reading, but nonetheless ruffled some feathers). So this is possibly a well-timed deflection move.
- kreetx 6y ago
  Read the single article on his blog, he is not anywhere near fully nuclear. He's just playing a fair game with them, helping NYT "be more considerate". What would they get from this real name policy anyway? Secondly, the content is not gone, just hidden (and probably reachable elsewhere).
  - mumblemumble 6y ago
    This paragraph puts it succinctly. Especially the last sentence: When I expressed these fears to the reporter, he said that it was New York Times policy to include real names, and he couldn’t change that. After considering my options, I decided on the one you see now. If there’s no blog, there’s no story. Or at least the story will have to include some discussion of NYT’s strategy of doxxing random bloggers for clicks.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
emiliobumachar 6y ago
Be warned that I didn't read the post I'm commenting on, site seems to have succumbed to the high load. what this is about? NYT was about to run a story about Scott and his blog. By policy, they'd reveal his real name, and they told him so in advance. Scott tried to negotiate, but that failed. So he took down the blog, sort of in protest. See https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/06/22/nyt-is-threatening-my-safety-by-revealing-my-real-name-so-i-am-deleting-the-blog/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/06/22/nyt-is-threatening-my-... What does the phrase "Slate Star Codex" mean? It's the blog title, an almost anagram of "Scott Alexander", missing the "n", doubling the "s". I don't think it has any deeper meaning. I won't address the final question on the content, others have summarised it.

bobmaxup 6y ago

https://web.archive.org/web/sitemap/https://slatestarcodex.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/sitemap/https://slatestarcodex.c... https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Scott_Alexander https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Scott_Alexander

wizzwizz4 6y ago
The RationalWiki article isn't very good – they've got an axe to grind against him. There's some information, but treat it like it came out of 4chan.
- bobmaxup 6y ago
  Why?
  - wizzwizz4 6y ago
    I honestly don't know. RationalWiki seems to hate on anybody even vaguely associated with LessWrong, up to and including misrepresenting their ideas (or outright lying about what people have said and done) so they can more easily criticise them. Their articles are worth reading once, to get a list of Bad Things™ about a person or idea, which you can then filter down into actually true stuff at your leisure. It's frustrating, because some of the criticism is actually warranted, but they just fill such articles with so much banal nonsense, like "Scott Alexander criticised communism, but also studied something the USSR did… :thinking_face:" (paraphrased) that the signal-to-noise ratio approaches Uncyclopedia's. It's really frustrating, because the articles about topics they haven't got a bee in their bonnet about can actually be insightful introductions, beating out the Wikipedia articles. Nowadays, though, those are few and far between.
  - Viliam1234 6y ago
    RationalWiki (or more precisely its admin) has a strong opinion on which political opinions are the valid ones, and treats other political opinions as pseudoscience. Debating your political opponents is considered a bad thing, because you should not provide them platform to explain their beliefs. The proper way to discuss people who disagree with you is using the "snarky point of view" (yes, this is the official policy). Scott Alexander is the opposite extreme. He tries to find the good parts even in the Time Cube (yes, literally). Although Scott himself mostly has the usual liberal opinions, he does not enforce them in the comments; he usually only enforces civil behavior. The result is a highly intelligent forum where liberals talk to conservatives, Christians talk to atheists, etc., mostly in a friendly way, on a wide range of topics, some of them political, some not. Each of these styles is attractive to a different type of personality. Sadly, the former often have a problem with the latter.

IdiocyInAction 6y ago

He was a blogger who used to blog on controversial issues with somewhat heterodox opinions (not since 2017 anymore though) and generally blogged about interesting stuff, related to cognition and psychiatry; I was somewhat of a fan and thought he was a great writer. He attracted a large community, some of who were a bit, well, let's say "controversial", but it is also one of the most interesting communities I have ever encountered. He was part of the rationalist ideology/movement. He also wrote Unsong, which is a very interesting work of fiction and blogged about various other stuff.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

lhnz 6y ago

An archive of his blog can be found here: https://twitter.com/Altimor/status/1275539748686163968 https://twitter.com/Altimor/status/1275539748686163968 And a popular article was "I can tolerate anything except the outgroup" although I think the non-political articles are actually far better (e.g. "My IRB Nightmare": https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:VpJS0s4JYe4J:https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/29/my-irb-nightmare/ https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:VpJS0s...). One of my favourite articles is actually a work of fiction ("The Proverbial Murder Mystery": https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:KNe8IcEbMVAJ:https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/02/13/the-proverbial-murder-mystery/ https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:KNe8Ic...).

mcphage 6y ago
His short story “Sort by Controversial” was also quite excellent.

sillysaurusx 6y ago

Scott said that the NYT was going to publish a piece containing his real name, so he deleted his blog (slate star codex) which at this is point famous. Plot twist: Scott's real name has been easily findable for at least a year, based on his own words. So I don't understand why he went full nuclear. It's also an assumption by everybody that the NYT article was going to be a hit piece, even though there's no evidence of that whatsoever. It was simply going to contain his real name. Scott didn't want that. Therefore Scott deleted his entire 5-8 year history because the big bad NYT was going to do something that Scott didn't like that totally wouldn't impact his life anyway. Look, I'm a big proponent of anonymity. Heck, I was pseudonymous for years. Sometimes there are valid reasons. But often, it becomes a perpetual thing of "I'm doing this for the sake of doing it, not because people are out to get me." Scott also recently published a piece raising questions about racism (a good piece, worth reading, but nonetheless ruffled some feathers). So this is possibly a well-timed deflection move.

kreetx 6y ago
Read the single article on his blog, he is not anywhere near fully nuclear. He's just playing a fair game with them, helping NYT "be more considerate". What would they get from this real name policy anyway? Secondly, the content is not gone, just hidden (and probably reachable elsewhere).
- mumblemumble 6y ago
  This paragraph puts it succinctly. Especially the last sentence: When I expressed these fears to the reporter, he said that it was New York Times policy to include real names, and he couldn’t change that. After considering my options, I decided on the one you see now. If there’s no blog, there’s no story. Or at least the story will have to include some discussion of NYT’s strategy of doxxing random bloggers for clicks.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

emiliobumachar 6y ago

Be warned that I didn't read the post I'm commenting on, site seems to have succumbed to the high load. what this is about? NYT was about to run a story about Scott and his blog. By policy, they'd reveal his real name, and they told him so in advance. Scott tried to negotiate, but that failed. So he took down the blog, sort of in protest. See https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/06/22/nyt-is-threatening-my-safety-by-revealing-my-real-name-so-i-am-deleting-the-blog/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/06/22/nyt-is-threatening-my-... What does the phrase "Slate Star Codex" mean? It's the blog title, an almost anagram of "Scott Alexander", missing the "n", doubling the "s". I don't think it has any deeper meaning. I won't address the final question on the content, others have summarised it.