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Slate Star Codex and Silicon Valley’s War Against the Media

• hirundo 6y ago
  > This plea ... in this case, it seemed to lend plausible deniability to what he surely knew would be taken as incitement. That's unfair given that the alternative was supine acceptance. He made a good faith attempt to amplify his reasonable criticism while leashing the inevitable jerks. Can the author of this article say as much? This is a formula to silence any popular speaker by association. Here's a dangerous person who listens to you, therefore you lose the right to complain in public.
  • zozbot234 6y ago
    I agree with the author that Scott definitely knew what was about to happen. He has consistently tried his best to "leash" his followers, but the response has been quite harsh nonetheless. And the whole SV + conservative politics vs. old media angle has made the situation even more intractable.
    • mst 6y ago
      Calling it "plausible deniability" implies that he condoned any negative results. I don't believe that to be true, and I do believe that if he'd made no comment at all about contacting the NYT, many - if not most - of the people who contacted them in an unconstructive fashion would have done so anyway. I do agree that Scott knew what was about to happen - but I think his attempt to guilt trip his followers into not doing it even though he knew it would probably be futile was genuine.
• atdrummond 6y ago
  So the playbook is to denigrate SSC by conflating his (granted, self-imposed) deplatforming with Srinivasan and Lorenz’ Twitter spat. Clever, likely effective, if not ethically and logically dubious.
  • Cenk 6y ago
    Taylor Lorenz is mentioned once in the article, in the 29th paragraph, as an example of “the heightened sensitivity on both sides” > At the end of last week, Srinivasan and the Times reporter Taylor Lorenz fell into their own public brawl; though it was not directly related to Alexander, it reflected the heightened sensitivity on both sides. Vice obtained leaked audio, from an invite-only app called Clubhouse, in which Srinivasan, who seems to believe that any critical coverage of a technologist must reflect a mistaken assumption, likened the media to a foreign interest: reliance on mainstream reporting, he said, is “outsourcing your information supply chain to folks who are disaligned with you.”
    • atdrummond 6y ago
      I’m aware - I read the article shortly after it went up. In a narrow reading of the article, I think this critique tracks. However, given the broader prominence of that particular digital debate and Lorenz’ unique success in centering the discussion online to this purported “SV war on media”, their Twitter situation exists as the girder for the broader arguments in the article.
• commandlinefan 6y ago
  Not that the NYT has any business printing somebody's name who doesn't want it to be printed, but I kind of feel like he had been looking for an excuse to shut down the blog for a while - it had been a long time since any of his posts really felt inspired like they were even a year ago. This gives him an excuse to make a clean break.
  • whatshisface 6y ago
    That theory directly contradicts his claim that he was considering continuing his blog under a different name.
    • EamonnMR 6y ago
      Maybe he already is and the internet hasn't found it yet.
    • gkoberger 6y ago
      No, it supports it. Why not use the excuse to shut it down, killing “SSC” forever. He’s no longer tied to those posts or opinions. And then he can create a new blog not linked to it at all, and start fresh.
    • nothal 6y ago
      You don't have to live by principles you raise espouse anonymously 24/7.
  • dondawest 6y ago
    I’m genuinely surprised that getting doxxed wasn’t part of his playbook. It’s not like he went to the greatest of lengths to hide his identity, Bay Area psychiatrists named Scott is a pretty small pool of people. This is pure speculation but my hunch is that the Scott Alexander of a few years ago wouldn’t care about being doxxed. I agree with your take on this. Become a well known writer on the internet and doom yourself to being forced to live by the principles you articulate. It gets claustrophobic and cognitively dissonant after a few years. I think he didn’t want to be married to the content he’d created forever, was looking for an excuse to shut down the blog, and when this NYT thing happened it was a blessing in disguise because it allowed him to shut it down without losing face. I think Scott Alexander would be very sympathetic to this line of reasoning too.
• mrkurt 6y ago
  Watching people who hate cancel culture try to cancel the NYT is hilarious. Watching them try to cancel individual NYT writers is gross. All because Scott Alexander retroactively decided his last name is private information and threw a tantrum.
  • atdrummond 6y ago
    Where is this canceling occurring? I saw quite a few people here, as well as the two SSC subreddits, going out of their way to encourage polite outreach to the editor and to avoid antagonizing the actual author. So far as to discourage the naming of the author. Not denying it may be happening, it just does not seem to jive with the majority response (in my bubble).
    • mrkurt 6y ago
      I'm not sure how directly the cancelling is affiliated with SSC, but the #ghostnyt hashtag is a pretty good cancellation motion. The only thing that's really reached my bubble has been outrage and cancellation, though. https://twitter.com/hashtag/ghostnyt https://twitter.com/hashtag/ghostnyt
      • whatshisface 6y ago
        "They tweeted something bad" -> "get them fired," is substantially different from, "the reporters working for this organization are dangerous," -> "don't talk to them." One is going on the offense, the other is defensive.
      • charia 6y ago
        I'm fairly sure that #ghostnyt was a reaction to the NYTimes airing of the Tom Cotton op-ed. I don't doubt that some SSC fans latched onto it, but I'd be surprised if even a third of those using #ghostnyt were from SSC aligned people.
      • lkbm 6y ago
        EDIT: Would work better if I spelled "NYT" correctly. Oops. Still looks like all SA tweets, though[1]. EDIT 2: Whoops, this was meant as a reply to charia's point. This reply about Scott Alexander appears to be the first usage[0]: https://twitter.com/ChrisSt41125908/status/1275557789415464962 https://twitter.com/ChrisSt41125908/status/12755577894154649... [0] https://twitter.com/search?q=until%3A2020-06-24%20since%3A2020-01-01%20%23ghostnyc&src=typed_query https://twitter.com/search?q=until%3A2020-06-24%20since%3A20... [1] https://twitter.com/search?q=until%3A2020-06-24%20since%3A2020-01-01%20%23ghostnyt&src=typed_query https://twitter.com/search?q=until%3A2020-06-24%20since%3A20...
• dvaun 6y ago
  If you enjoy reading SSC and want to show some form of support, consider adding your signature to the petition[0]. It's a small thing to do and only takes a little time to complete. [0]: https://www.dontdoxscottalexander.com/ https://www.dontdoxscottalexander.com/
  • cinntaile 6y ago
    An additional way to protest against their decision is to block nytimes.com on your devices. If you use adguard, nextdns or pihole this is easy to do. If a lot of people do this it will have a big impact, their links get posted a lot here on HN!
    • centimeter 6y ago
      My belief is that paywalled sources (NYT included) should not be allowed as HN links. It basically just clutters the front page with stuff I can't actually read.
    • anonms-coward 6y ago
      I don't think that will get the NYT to listen. A better idea is that if you are a subscriber, unsubscribe and give this as the reason. As recent history proves, the NYT truly listens to cancellations. A bunch of people running pihole, not so much for sure.
      • cinntaile 6y ago
        If you are a subscriber then a better signal would indeed be to unsubscribe rather than to block the site obviously, most of us probably aren't subscribers though. My guess is they're still earning some ad revenue from non-paying users, so reducing the number of readers should have an impact. I am aware that pihole users probably don't see the ads anyway. It might not make them listen, but I wouldn't underestimate the impact either. If they notice a drop in traffic from a big site like HN it might raise some eyebrows at least. At the same time you would have fewer people sharing the links to their other networks so you would get these second order effects as well. How big would this impact be? Hard to tell, only the nytimes would know for sure. I do feel that at least the people that signed the petition from above should stop using the nytimes. Actions speak louder than words after all.
• isoprophlex 6y ago
  NYT can talk a big talk but... if your source wants to remain anonymous, why still expose them? What a sorry excuse for journalism.
  • mc32 6y ago
    Yes and there’re examples of their making exceptions to their “rule” when they want to.
    • agentdrtran 6y ago
      One of the exceptions is Virgil Texas, whose real name is about five entries down when you google him, and Banksy, whose real name is on his wikipedia page.
  • cool_dude85 6y ago
    Nobody knows whether he is a "source" or the actual subject of the article or what.
  • charia 6y ago
    This is a mistake in the understanding of the situation. The NYTimes and all major press outlets anonymize sources. For example for this article, the NYTimes journalist gave people who spoke with him about SSC the choice to remain anonymous. The article was going to frame Scott as a subject. The real debate is if subjects of articles also deserve full anonymity. The NYTimes' policy is to generally not give subjects a right to anonymity. The New Yorker article author does bring up another article the NYTimes published about Chapo Trap House where host Virgil Texas was one of the subjects but also given anonymity. The question is if the decision not to give Scott anonymity as a subject despite others receiving it in recent history is one borne out of maliciousness, callousness, incompetence or a cultural disagreement between NYTimes reporter and an internet blogger.
    • Natsu 6y ago
      No, this part of the situation is both well known and already rebutted. Look at ggreer's comment up thread. They've made multiple exceptions to this policy in the past. The harm to Scott's patients and their ability to have continuity of care alone should outweigh any supposed interest in needing to know the man behind the pseudonym when the writing under the pseudonym is all that's relevant here.
• mediadude 6y ago
  >Alexander, whose role has been to help explain Silicon Valley to itself, was taken up as a mascot and a martyr in a struggle against the Times, which, in the tweets of Srinivasan, Graham, and others, was enlisted as a proxy for all of the gatekeepers—the arbiters of what it is and is not O.K. to say, and who is allowed, by virtue of their identity, to say it. Oh, the irony! The same journalists who report primarily, nowadays, on who next to be canceled due to "problematic" views they may have had years or decades ago now feel that _they_ are having their journalistic freedoms called into question. As though that would not _necessarily_ follow.
  • wwright 6y ago
    Could you point me to an era of journalism where it wasn't largely used to condemn certain figures over their words or actions?
    • stinkytaco 6y ago
      Largely used? A scan through my local paper, and frankly most of my experience, is that journalism is largely used to report the news. I'm not going to wade in on the moral debate here, but I count among the new stories in the first few pages today: 3 stories about a major storm that came through last night 1 story about changes to unemployment rules 1 story about a major conference being canceled due to travel restrictions 2 crime stories
      • wwright 6y ago
        "Largely" probably was the wrong word. The usage I describe will probably always be a minority, but my assumption is that it's been a relatively constant minority since journalism started. There's always an incentive to demonize and vilify someone somewhere.
      • agentdrtran 6y ago
        Local papers have had their already low budgets gutted and do not have the resources for in-depth investigative reporting.
• partingshots 6y ago
  Wow, this is pretty juicy. I’m surprised that this hasn’t gotten more traction on HN considering the community, plus with Paul Graham / Sam Altman having already directly spoken out in support. Does anyone have links to the Twitter threads mentioned in the articles? Twitter’s direct search querying is pretty terrible.
• mc32 6y ago
  A very drawn out low-spark attempt to whitewash the attempt by a NYT reporter to divulge (de-anonymize in their parlance) the person behind the blog by hiding behind speculation ('would the nyt really do that?') and semantics... Journalism continues to go downhill and doesn't have a way to stop the trend.
  • Natsu 6y ago
    You've heard of the thin blue line, well this is the thin grey line. There's no attempt to stop any downhill trend. If they wanted that, they'd write to inform and attempt to give all relevant facts. Instead, they curate what the public is allowed to be showed, happily trumping up juicy anonymous rumors one moment and then failing to report well-documented, relevant facts the next. They're losing because that information is getting out anyhow and every time it does, they lose a little more of the public trust. Gell-Mann amnesia remains in full effect, but a lot more people are simply unplugging. Legacy media is facing something much worse for them than a "war"--they're facing utter irrelevance as people figure out that they're mostly using unlinked online sources anyhow and we can completely bypass the middlemen. Constant outrage porn is terribly unhealthy for your heart, anyhow, and if you have any friends, you'll hear about anything big enough to be important anyhow and can look into the original sources (if any). I don't bother with science reporting at all, for example. I hear about anything worth noticing on HN or similar channels and then I read the actual scientific paper should I care to, rather than some journalist's half-baked summary thereof.
    • wutbrodo 6y ago
      > I don't bother with science reporting at all, for example. I hear about anything worth noticing on HN or similar channels and then I read the actual scientific paper should I care to, rather than some journalist's half-baked summary thereof. It's utterly shocking how often news articles summarize a paper incorrectly in some central, significant way. It's gotten to the point that, as you say, reading the paper and the comments on a sufficiently informed forum is my baseline for getting information about science one might care about. That's obviously a lot of work, so you can't do it for everything, but the second-place option is to accept that you're not informed about the topic and don't consider it worth informing yourself about. Reading science reporting is often literally worse than not being informed on the topic at all.
• TulliusCicero 6y ago
  > For one thing, the S.S.C. code prioritizes semantic precision, but Metz—if Alexander’s account is to be taken at its word—had proposed not to “doxx” Alexander but to de-anonymize him. Oh? From Wikipedia: > Doxing, or doxxing (from "dox", abbreviation of documents), is the Internet-based practice of researching and publicly broadcasting private or identifying information (especially personally identifying information) about an individual or organization. Yes, doxxing is normally associated with publishing addresses or phone numbers of people whose real names are already known, but de-anonymizing an anonymous blogger still sounds like a form of it.
  • atdrummond 6y ago
    It seems the goal lines have been moved to KiwiFarms’ brand of doxxing. As to whose ends that serves, I’ll leave as an exercise to the reader.
    • luckylion 6y ago
      Have they? The real name of anyone posting anonymously or under a pseudonym has always been the gold standard of doxxing. It's usually easy to go from full real name to business and private addresses, emails and phone numbers, especially when the person has a web presence, but also for anyone with a few bucks to spare who's happy to pay a data broker.
      • MattGaiser 6y ago
        Yes. Learning the addresses and phone numbers Is interesting mostly to a few people who want to actively harass the person. Everyone is hunting for the real name of an anonymous person.
      • Izkata 6y ago
        > The real name of anyone posting anonymously or under a pseudonym has always been the gold standard of doxxing. The word "doxx" comes from "documents" because it originally didn't refer to just a name, but an actual document listing out lots of personal information. Everything you mentioned afterwards and more.
• alex_young 6y ago
  Can you really be both a public figure and keep your identity hidden by way of asking? There’s a playbook for this. Look at Banksy for example. If you don’t want your identity out there it’s your job to protect it. Not the New York Times.
  • whatshisface 6y ago
    Banksy is an interesting example because the NYT probably does know who he is. It's not that much of a secret.
    • atlasunshrugged 6y ago
      Is it really obvious? I just skimmed the Wikipedia page and didn't see it - who is it?
      • jasonv 6y ago
        "Banksy is often assumed to be Robin..."
        • atlasunshrugged 6y ago
          lol duh, sorry and thanks.
    • 627467 6y ago
      Yeah, that's why now I want to know what NYT had to write about SSC that "required doxxing the source against their will".
  • modeless 6y ago
    Banksy's identity is right on his Wikipedia page for anyone who really wants to know. I think NYT and other media are keeping him "anonymous" by way of asking. They could easily publish his name if they wanted. Unlike SSC, Banksy seems to hold similar political views to NYT, so they have no problem playing along. The only truly anonymous public figure I'm aware of is Satoshi Nakamoto and I'm pretty sure that the only reason he stayed anonymous is that he died before he could be definitively found out.
• LatteLazy 6y ago
  Old medias war against new media more like...
• dilyevsky 6y ago
  Now that’s a hit piece
• Analemma_ 6y ago
  This article could've been a lot worse, but it still suffers from the mistake that the press is axiomatically good and anyone voicing upset at it must be evil and/or have something to hide. If you take that as a baseline assumption, instead of an empirical hypothesis that is looking increasingly shaky, then you're going to end up with an article like this one where the tone clearly conveys who you're supposed to sympathize with in a way that is not supported by the facts.
• cwp 6y ago
  This is fascinating. It's a New York take on the Bay Area take on New York. It's the Media take on the Tech take on Media. It's illuminating, and frustrating. I keep looking for some reflection, some attempt to learn something from another point of view. I'll have to read it again more closely.
  • dvtrn 6y ago
    I had a very similar take (probably not precise), and like you I'm about to start a second reading, to say "this is a fascinating read to me, personally" must come with the caveat lector that I'm not making any value judgements.
  • fmajid 6y ago
    Scott Alexander only recently moved to the Bay Area, and as a clinician, he is very unlikely to be associated with any tech companies, although many techies read his blog, of course. The NYT behavior here was despicable. Not quite Wen-Ho Lee yellow-baiting despicable, but despicable nonetheless. The New Yorker shares the same envious hatred of tech companies most of the New York media scene seems to evince, not surprisingly as their livelihoods are evaporating. That said, the reason this is happening is not tech companies, but the take-over of news companies by entertainment conglomerates, the replacement of actual reporting by infotainment goop, and the turning of reporting from a slightly disreputable working-class scrabble to a respectable profession for fancy liberal-arts college graduates who would never dream of being rude to their fellow classmates working in PR, law or other professions dedicated to preserving the status quo, let alone afflicting the comfortable.
    • Barrin92 6y ago
      >The New Yorker shares the same envious hatred of tech companies most of the New York media scene seems to evince, not surprisingly as their livelihoods are evaporating. You really got to love how thin-skinned all the tech bros here are if they even receive the tiniest amount of scrutiny. You legitimately sound like Donald Trump ranting about the "failing New York Times", mocking people's livelihood evaporating? What kind of comment is that? And how is the New Yorker "infotainment"? How is the NYT? The quality of reporting at either institution is the same it's always been, in fact they're doing better than they've done in a long time. What's wrong with a liberal-arts education or being a lawyer? They're defending the status quo? Who brought Theranos to public attention, or Epstein, or Weinstein or much of the behaviour of the current administration over the last few years? Not Scott Alexander or the tech sector, they're too busy running their ads or writing arcane blog posts about the dangers of feminism with comment sections full of racists.
• tripletao 6y ago
  What an ugly article. A couple quotes: > It remains possible that Alexander vaporized his blog not because he thought it would force Metz’s hand but because he feared that a Times reporter wouldn’t have to poke around for very long to turn up a creditable reason for negative coverage. The reporter is unaware that the Internet Archive exists? The content is obviously still readily available, so the reporter is either stupid or disingenuous. > For one thing, the S.S.C. code prioritizes semantic precision, but Metz—if Alexander’s account is to be taken at its word—had proposed not to “doxx” Alexander but to de-anonymize him. And no, the difference between "doxx" and "de-anonymize" is never explained. The practical lesson that I'd take here is that semi-anonymity doesn't exist. Alexander should either have written under his own name, or taken sufficient technical precautions to make doxxing by the NYT impossible. The higher-level lesson is that anyone expressing heterodox opinions is likely to write something that a reporter working for a mainstream outlet considers "a creditable reason for negative coverage". At that point, the reporter now seems happy to use whatever tools they have at their disposal to cause that person harm, with the implicit consent of the huge organization behind them. Probably this was always true to some extent, but I think it's getting worse.
  • NicolasGorden 6y ago
    It's disingenuous, he knows the blog posts are compiled into an ebook and says as much.
    • nullc 6y ago
      If you really want to paint SSC in a negative light the optimal tool isn't the posts-- it's the comments. Some of the posts were pretty cringe worthy but the comments were far more reliably cringe worthy.
      • zozbot234 6y ago
        Plenty of cringe worthy comments on HN, too. I mean, usually they're greyed out but still.
• AzzieElbab 6y ago
  Quite a war, media suffers heavy casualties. Oh wait it was just the blogger and his readers.
• MattGaiser 6y ago
  The problem is that the media has lost people’s trust that it is not going to get things badly wrong or dig up whatever it can on you in the interest of controversy. If people don’t know if something will be a hit piece, they need to respond as if it is. I’ve worked with some great and curious journalists. I’ve also known some who don’t care to understand the issues at hand. They just want to write about them.
• avsteele 6y ago
  Article fails to defend the NYT in any substantive way, and the writer makes obvious their biases with statements like: S.S.C. supporters on Twitter were quick to identify some of the Times’ recent concessions to pseudonymous quotation—Virgil Texas, a co-host of the podcast “Chapo Trap House,” was mentioned, as were Banksy and a member of ISIS—as if these supposed inconsistencies were dispositive proof of the paper’s secret agenda, rather than an ad-hoc and perhaps clumsy application of a flexible policy Obviously this isn't and either/or. The lumping together of all SSC supporters is another cheap rhetorical trick. In any case, no matter which of these views you hold, the examples show the policy could accommodate Scott's request for pseudonymity. Note too the lack of any real investigation or original reporting here; the author hasn't bother to talk to Metz? Additionally, it seems difficult to fathom that a professional journalist of Metz’s experience and standing would assure a subject, especially at the beginning of a process, that he planned to write a “mostly positive” story; although there often seems to be some confusion about this matter in Silicon Valley, journalism and public relations are distinct enterprises. This is just silly. How about you ask Metz? The cheap shot at all of Silicon Valley tips the hand too. This article is just more propaganda in the evolving war of words between SV and journalism.
  • zozbot234 6y ago
    > Note too the lack of any real investigation or original reporting here; the author hasn't bother to talk to Metz? The article specifically mentions that Metz did not want to be quoted directly; most likely, the author did talk to him. (Though, it's even less clear to me why Scott would want to lie about what Metz said, so I'm definitely inclined to trust Scott's account of the matter.)
    • nerfhammer 6y ago
      yea "Metz declined to comment on the record" is the author strongly hinting that he did talk to him off the record, and perhaps the author does have some idea what Metz' article would have ultimately been about. The author could have chosen to say "Metz declined to comment" which would have suggested this less.
  • 6y ago
• savanaly 6y ago
  I was a very loyal reader of SSC and thought I followed the "doxing" incident and fallout rather closely. I read numerous related blog posts about it and followed the discussion on the main remaining discussion space the community has, /r/slatestarcodex. Never once did I see the comments of said "Bay Area attorney" or Srinivasan, or see them discussed. It's certainly possible they were there and I missed them, but they weren't so important that it was impossible to miss them either. It's these ones the article focuses on because they went overboard in striking back at the NYT in a way not really consistent with the principles of Scott or SSC, in my opinion anyways. A shame this article is basically trying to use those few hotheads to tar and feather the whole community.
  • nerfhammer 6y ago
    basically you're saying you don't have the same twitter-centric experience of the world as the author of the piece apparently might
  • cowpig 6y ago
    My reading of the article, or at least the second half, is that there's a sort of culture war going on in which "old media" and "new media", journalists and SV, "grey" and "blue". I was more skeptical until I read the comments section here.
• samirillian 6y ago
  Am I the only one who feels like this is just posturing on both sides? SSC seems to want both fame and anonymity. The New York Times calling him controversial is more self fulfilling prophecy than truth. Both sides seem pretty absurd.
  • throwawaysea 6y ago
    I don't see the want of both fame and anonymity as being at odds with each other. For example, take Wikileaks.
• elipsey 6y ago
  Sigh. I think this article is holding Scott, and a core constituency of posters and meet up people, guilty by association with every rando on the internet, and also about half of the celebrities in the Bay area. "War against the media" strikes me as ridiculous hyperbole in this context. I have met some of these people in real life, and none of them expressed that attitude to me, nor any kind of utopian superiority. It seemed like they were just trying to live morally considered lives and improve themselves a little at a time if they could -- and maybe do a little networking. I think if Scott knew that his blog would get so big it would screw up his career and living arrangements, he probably wouldn't have published it in the first place. That might have been a lapse of judgment, but begging the NYT not to make him mainstream famous is hardly war on the media.
  • amznthrwaway 6y ago
    There are only two rational explanations here: 1) Scott Alexander wanted more attention, and he realized that deleting his site and blaming the NYT for it would garner dramatically more attention, creating opportunities that he wanted. He recognized that he could become a martyr to a certain group, and use that for future gains. 2) Scott Alexander is an absolute moron who did not foresee the Streisand Effect that he was going to cause. I personally do not think he is a moron. I think he is a manipulative sociopath who knew that people who agree with him on other matters would line up to create future opportunities for him if he pretended that his hand was forced. It saddens me that so many "smart" people fall for such transparent nonsense. There was no lapse of judgment. He is just a selfish sociopath. Nothing more.
    • dash2 6y ago
      I'm surprised you don't consider other possibilities, like that he was genuinely concerned about his real name being made known, for the reasons he stated. You don't address these. I'm also surprised that you feel able to diagnose someone you presumably don't know as a sociopath. This seem like hyperbole. Honestly, I don't think this post is up to YC standards.
    • cfcosta 6y ago
      What's your definition of smart? Left wing?
• ppod 6y ago
  "Personally I feel the Gray Tribe is just as annoying as the Gray Lady"/ "Well the important thing is that you've found a way to feel superior to both". https://xkcd.com/774/ https://xkcd.com/774/
• agentdrtran 6y ago
  Where is the outrage for doxxing when it happens to people at way more risk than scott alexander?
  • anonms-coward 6y ago
    It is there with folks who know about those people and feel connected to them. SSC has a lot of it's audience on HN. Hence you see the outrage here. People can't feel similarly outraged by every doxxing since they have limited time, energy, and emotional bandwidth. If people were forced to worry about issues just on their impact, a large number of kids are starving in Africa, and by that logic people shouldn't worry about anything else till they can do something about that.
  • devalgo 6y ago
    Care to link a few examples of "at risk" people doxxed by the NYT?
  • catherd 6y ago
    In my opinion the best reason people are interested in this situation is Scott Alexander is considered to be NOT someone who will unquestioningly ride an empty wave of reactionary outrage if it's pointed in an advantageous direction: People are hoping rational thought can be used to change norms when something bad happens. That's why this is interesting and different than a thousand other sad situations involving people who likely don't have the tools to solve it in that way.
• avivo 6y ago
  As someone who works at the intersection of technology and journalism, it hurts to see how many misunderstandings there are in these comments and elsewhere. The tech world (and HN in particular) deeply needs a solid explainer on how journalism works. So many misunderstandings! (Of course, many/most journalists also need an explainer about the tech world. And that is not to say that some of the more nuanced critiques on journalism or its implementation are not on point — as many journalists would agree! e.g. Jessica Lessin... and Taylor Lorenz https://twitter.com/Jessicalessin/status/1278332719974449152 https://twitter.com/Jessicalessin/status/1278332719974449152)
  • atdrummond 6y ago
    I’m willing to learn where I may be wrong. What specifically do you see that strikes you as off-base?
  • maverick2007 6y ago
    Tell us more! I'd be interested in reading that explainer on journalism if you have a good one to link to.
    • spikels 6y ago
      The first thing you need to understand is journalism is a business...
  • dvtrn 6y ago
    A little over a month ago someone asked what could be done to help with the spread of mis/disinformation present in media outlets and content providers. I suggested that more deliberate media literacy studies as an educational tool could possibly help. Your comment here reminded me of that, and I think it's just as relevant for this issue as it is other discussions reflecting on our relationship with media and journalism. The comment spawned quite a discussion at the time, if anyone is interested: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23323009 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23323009
  • dash2 6y ago
    I would definitely like to see such an explainer, if you want to write it.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• AzzieElbab 6y ago
  I've been reading the NewYorker for decades. And this article makes me realize 100M Spotify is paying for Joe Rogan podcast is actually a bargain. Old media is done, they do not have a business valuable outside of adds driven model, all they can fight for is the power to develop narrative(s). In other words, they are fighting for status
  • krelian 6y ago
    Can you elaborate on why this article drives you to think that? As someone with no stake in the issue (aware of LessWrong but not much else) I found it very interesting and well written and it made me want to immerse myself more in the rationalist community which I found appealing. There was definitely an angle to this piece, like any piece, but I found it only slightly unbalanced. The unbalance was situated at the judgement of SSC's action of deleting the blog which clearly the reporter didn't view favorably. Further thinking about it, I would not be surprised if the NewYorker writer collaborated with the NYT reporter on the piece. Taking in account when the blog deletion happened I don't see how the reporter could have done his research on the nature of the blog to such detail without the NYT reporter's material.
    • zozbot234 6y ago
      It's not that hard to do research wrt. the blog if you're a dedicated person; many people have made archives available.
    • zucker42 6y ago
      The problems with the article that I perceive: 1. It makes claims about the SSC readership and the rationalist community intended to invoke an emotional response with little verifiable evidence. > This plea conformed with the online persona he has publicly cultivated over the years—that of a gentle headmaster preparing to chaperone a rambunctious group of boys on a museum outing 2. It's overly general in how it addresses people involved; it tends to conflate very different people connected by little more than their professed belief in using evidence to make decisions and examining their preconceptions. Using a rationalist psychologist as representative of "Silicon Valley" is evidence of this point. I may be influenced by the fact the fact that I have a good friend who is an avowed rationalist and I don't believe the broad strokes generalizations in the article represented him. Also, it fails to grasp what I perceive as the main reason for Alexander's blog takedown, which I think is merely a game theory influenced attempt to prevent the NYT from printing his name, rather than anything more grand.
• motohagiography 6y ago
  The entire piece is an expression of an ideology digesting a perceived threat to itself and producing antibodies in the form of snide, cognitively limiting tropes. As an example of watching the beast in action, this is a truly valuable specimen. Highly recommend reading it as an example of the form.
  • bonchicbongenre 6y ago
    Thank you for this phrasing; it puts to words exactly how I feel about the tact used in this article.
  • adamsea 6y ago
    FYI I feel like the language you use is kind of dehumanizing - “the beast in action”, viruses and antibodies when talking about people and what they write, etc. Not saying that was your intent but wanted to share my impression. Don’t know if it’s just me or if others feels similarly.
    • motohagiography 6y ago
      When you look in to what that means, dehumanizing seems like a pretty serious accusation. While I can't help with your appeal for sympathy from others, I can offer that this post was about the logic of ideas, abstracted from the people who write them. Doing so treats the people you disagree with as equals, which is about as humanizing as it gets.
      • adamsea 6y ago
        I think it’s a spectrum and you are correct that on the far end of that spectrum is definitely some very bad stuff. Which is not where I think your comment is at all :). But because it’s a spectrum I think and hope my sharing how some of the language in your comment struck me is helpful. Lol the irony is I think that “the logic of ideas, abstracted away from the people that write them”, is in a literal sense, de-humanizing ;). Worth thinking about imho since the ideas we are talking about are about language and people and societies :).
• SquishyPanda23 6y ago
  > so the reporter is either stupid or disingenuous IMO your comment would be better without the ad-hominems > anyone expressing heterodox opinions is likely to write something that a reporter working for a mainstream outlet considers "a creditable reason for negative coverage" I get that you're angry, but this is unsubstantiated by anything you or the article says.
  • drchickensalad 6y ago
    I agree. Stupid and uninformed are quite different.
  • NhanH 6y ago
    Calling someone names is not ad-hominems. Saying that someone is wrong because of the aforementioned names would be ad-hominems, but the GP didn't do that.
    • DoofusOfDeath 6y ago
      As an aside, the book "The Art of Deception" by Nicolas Capaldi [0] provides a good rundown of some common logical fallacies. [0] https://www.amazon.com/Art-Deception-Introduction-Critical-Thinking/dp/159102532X https://www.amazon.com/Art-Deception-Introduction-Critical-T...
    • SquishyPanda23 6y ago
      Making a case against an article by calling the reporter names instead of making a case against the arguments in the article is exactly an ad hominem.
  • TulliusCicero 6y ago
    > ad-hominems That's not what an ad hominem is. The word you're looking for is "insult".
    • anoncareer0212 6y ago
      you're the 3rd reply saying this so I don't have much hope of fighting the crowd, but, this is pretty much as ad hominem as it gets. The reasoning provides two and only two options for which flaw the speaker exhibits as evidence for the argument
• bawana 6y ago
  What do you call a problem that's even more abstract than a 'first world problem'? A zeroth-world problem?
• kipply 6y ago
  skipped in the article, but the deleted website specifies that the purpose of deletion is partially to ensure that if the Times were to publish an article then they'd also have to answer as to why they needlessly endangered Scott's patients and housemates. "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."
• rachelshu 6y ago
  For all the other reasons that people on this site might hate this article, nevertheless it succeeds in doing the one thing that Scott asked of journalists: that they respect his pseudonym.
  • lliamander 6y ago
    Agreed, although I suspect things would have turned out poorly for the author if they had not.
    • reedwolf 6y ago
      What are a bunch of angry nerds gonna do?
      • lliamander 6y ago
        If they are so impotent, why hasn't the NYT published their article yet?
        • reedwolf 6y ago
          Not sure if you're familiar with how these major investigative articles are written, but something this big can take months to put together. Scott had his panicked meltdown the second this guy started asking questions, which was probably just the beginning of the investigation. You think the outfit that took down Weinstein cares about some SV tantrums?
          • lliamander 6y ago
            > Not sure if you're familiar with how these major investigative articles are written, but something this big can take months to put together. The article was supposed to drop a couple weeks ago, the same week Scott took down his blog (if I remember correctly). > Scott had his panicked meltdown the second this guy started asking questions, which was probably just the beginning of the investigation. Pretty sure that's false. > You think the outfit that took down Weinstein cares about some SV tantrums? Taking down Weinstein was a noble endeavor. Taking down Scott is not. If you think the concern is just limited to SV, you are not reading the room.
• seemslegit 6y ago
  > The mind-set of logical serenity, for all of the rationalists’ talk of “skin in the game” and their inclination to heighten every argument with a proposition bet, only obtains as long as their discussions feel safely confined to the realm of what they regard, consciously or otherwise, as sport. Contrast and compare with the New Yorker writers and readership who regard their own high-minded observational detachment as art, consciously or otherwise.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• haberman 6y ago
  > The Times, although its policy permits exceptions for a variety of reasons, errs on the side of the transparency and accountability that accompany the use of real names. S.S.C. supporters on Twitter were quick to identify some of the Times’ recent concessions to pseudonymous quotation—Virgil Texas, a co-host of the podcast “Chapo Trap House,” was mentioned, as were Banksy and a member of isis—as if these supposed inconsistencies were dispositive proof of the paper’s secret agenda, rather than an ad-hoc and perhaps clumsy application of a flexible policy. Had the issue been with Facebook and its contentious moderation policies, which are applied in a similarly ad-hoc and sometimes clumsy way, the reaction in Silicon Valley would likely have been more magnanimous. This is a weak defense. What is the actual rationale for doxxing a blogger over their vigorous objection? How do you actually justify this decision on the merits?
  • nkurz 6y ago
    My disagreement with this paragraph was with the implication that "these supposed inconsistencies were [intended as] dispositive proof of the paper’s secret agenda", as opposed to the more obvious accusation that there simply was no hard and fast real name policy: perhaps the reporter was mistaken that there were no exceptions allowed, or was not willing to make the case to his editor that anonymity was justified, or had already made the case and had explicitly been denied. Only the last two of these might fall under "secret agenda", and even then it's still more likely to be the opinion of one editor or one reporter than the agenda of the paper as a whole.
• cowpig 6y ago
  I was much more skeptical of this alleged culture war when reading this article than I am now that I've read the HN comments section.
• mcguire 6y ago
  "Alexander’s plea for civility went unheeded, and Metz and his editor were flooded with angry messages." Surprise! The rationalist community is made up of human beings after all.
  • nullc 6y ago
    I'm sure they were exceedingly efficient at constructing a convoluted pseudo-logical rational at how their abusive behaviour constituted a "winning" strategy.
  • gwern 6y ago
    Assuming you believe Metz and his editor, and note that "angry" is a pretty milquetoast adjective. Usually when people try to engage in nutpicking, they at least cite death threats, which are a dime a dozen online when people are really angry.
    • mcguire 6y ago
      I'm sure if they did, it's not from real rationalists.
• lliamander 6y ago
  > Until recently, I was a writer for the Times Magazine, and the idea that anyone on the organization’s masthead would direct a reporter to take down a niche blogger because he didn’t like paywalls, or he promoted a petition about a professor, or, really, for any other reason, is ludicrous; Niche? A blog that get's 600K page views a month and is highly regarded (aruably even moreso than the NYT) by numerous intellectuals and public figures? I will concede that perhaps no one would direct a reporter to take down Scott. However, that leaves open the possibility that they tend to hire the kind of people who would take on that initiative themselves. As Noam Chomsky once told a reporter "I'm sure you actually say what you believe, but you would not have your job if you believed differently". > For one thing, the S.S.C. code prioritizes semantic precision, but Metz—if Alexander’s account is to be taken at its word—had proposed not to “doxx” Alexander but to de-anonymize him What, pray tell, is the difference? > as if these supposed inconsistencies were dispositive proof of the paper’s secret agenda, rather than an ad-hoc and perhaps clumsy application of a flexible policy. They also have previously given anonymity to a psychiatrist political blogger for the exact reasons Scott asked for anonymity. I think there was really very little differences between Scott and this other blogger, but I'm sure we can all guess what those differences might be. > They have given safe harbor to some genuinely egregious ideas, and controversial opinions have not been limited to the comments. Merely arguing against neo-reactionaries (rather than banning the outright/deplatforming them) is considered providing "safe-harbor"? This is why the re-assurances of benign intent don't hold much water. > in which Alexander explored and upheld research into innate biological differences between men and women. (As it turned out, the Damore memo was written before the post, but there was a noticeable overlap between them.) If I recall correcty, that post was actually a sort of defense of Damore (or at least a response to Damore's detractors). > Many technologists and their investors believe that media coverage of their domain has become histrionic and punitive, scapegoating tech companies for their inability to solve extremely difficult problems, such as political polarization, that are neither of their own devising nor within their ability to solve. Not that I don't share skepticism of SV, but I see no self-reflection here on whether skepticism of corporate media is ever justified. -- At the very least the author didn't doxx Scott.
  • InfiniteRand 6y ago
    I found that line calling it Scott a niche blogger a little odd as well given that the article as a whole seems to be designed to establish the greater importance of Scott within the wider Silicon Valley and Rationalist communities. Unless those communities are just small little niche groups, but then why end with "Everyone has skin in the game, and the stakes are high."
• carapace 6y ago
  Burn the witch! No, burn the witch-burners! No, burn the witch-burner-burners! But then what about the witches? Burn them too or...? Okay, just burn people who burn any people! Er, doesn't that mean we have to burn ourselves? Why don't we just not burn anyone at all? Burn that guy! And so it goes...
• jdonaldson 6y ago
  It's clear that Alexander has tried to maintain a level of anonymity for good reason. This article shows how easy it is for any independent thinker to get pulled into a broader "us vs. them" conflict, and be at the mercy of the worst actors from each side.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• jeegsy 6y ago
  The wonders of language. Here you have a hit piece but worded ever so carefully as to seem neutral. Correct pandemic predictions or no, I still don't get why the media was interested in this blog in the first place. I have always enjoyed SSC because it reminded me of old (better?) internet. The conversations were intellectually stimulating (much like here), it wasn't on a soc-med platform and as the article mentioned, they are for the most part commited to civil discourse. Its imho everything you would want especially in this age of Stshows like fb and twatter. This is worth emphasizing. All these folks "worried" about our democracy because of the spread of disinfo on facebook should consider that this was a relatively small tight-knit community that had low risk of spreading outside. Yet the media still showed interest. This is getting ranty, I guess I'm just mad at the things we have to deal with.
• oconnor663 6y ago
  I think folks who feel like this is a hit piece need to watch out for the biases that Scott himself described in https://web.archive.org/web/20200619200544/https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/07/17/caution-on-bias-arguments https://web.archive.org/web/20200619200544/https://slatestar.... I don't want to assume that no one has done that accounting, but I want to highlight that it's important. Some scattered observations: > Alexander, in another widely circulated essay, published in 2018, has popularized an alternative heuristic—a partition between what he calls “mistake theorists” and “conflict theorists.” I think it speaks well of the piece that the author spent so much time on mistake theory vs conflict theory. To someone who isn't already an SSC reader, that's probably a pretty boring topic. But it's a big piece of context for what regular readers consider important and interesting. If I were writing a hit piece, or a clickbait piece, I don't think I would've made space for this. > By their own logic of gamesmanship, some of the positions they tolerate actually have to be extreme, because only a tolerance of a truly extreme position is costly—that is, something for which they might have to pay a price. This is an interesting take. I don't know if I fully agree with it, but at the same time I don't think it's shallow. > “Feels like tech pieces would benefit from pre- or at least post-publication peer review by experts in the field, namely the investors and engineers and founders”—in other words, the subjects of stories should be allowed to edit them. A case of one group misunderstanding the fundamental, traditional values of another group. I haven't thought before about how the "Gell-Mann amnesia problem" might be fundamentally at odds with journalistic objectivity. It's not just that journalists don't have the time or the background to understand technical topics -- it might be that sometimes one must not have that background in order to write about a subject objectively. Or maybe that's one way to be objective, which can work in cooperation with other ways. Who knows. Again, not sure if I totally agree, but it's an interesting observation.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• mcint 6y ago
  Here's an archive link instead, https://archive.vn/9jx43 https://archive.vn/9jx43
• haltingproblem 6y ago
  I am surprised that the New Yorker decided to publish this. While I admire SSC and Scott Alexander, I did not read SSC regularly or subscribe to even a significant majority of his views, this article is circling the wagons around the Times and the media establishment. The writer conveniently buries that he used to work at the NYT Magazine somewhere down in the article: "Until recently, I was a writer for the Times Magazine, and the idea that anyone on the organization’s masthead would direct a reporter to take down a niche blogger because he didn’t like paywalls, or he promoted a petition about a professor, or, really, for any other reason, is ludicrous; stories emerge from casual interactions between curious reporters and their overtaxed editors. Perhaps Metz was casting about for something on Silicon Valley’s good sense on the coronavirus, found Alexander’s post, and thought he’d look into it."
• arthurjj 6y ago
  This article lacks the self awareness or nuance that I was hoping for. I don't think there's a single part where the media is portrayed in a negative light. I think it's save purely by the author's prose. For example > "bear the classic markers of grandiosity: the conviction that they are at once potent and beleaguered" Is only applied to tech not journalism. But is so well written that you ignore that fact."Gray Lady against the Grey Tribe" is great turn of phrase and I hope it catches on.
• abvdasker 6y ago
  The beauty of the article is in exposing the fundamentally emotional, illogical reaction of the SSC's author and associated community. For a group that seems to value dispassionate rationality and intelligence as inherently morally good, their overreaction to this unpublished article is deliciously ironic. Instead of allowing the "marketplace of ideas" to play out, Scott Alexander decided to take his ball and go home. Ultimately discrediting the "rationalist" ideology was as easy as making them angry.
  • roryokane 6y ago
    As I understand your comment, you are arguing that according to Scott Alexander’s principles of free discourse, the New York Times publicizing Scott’s real name should be no different from a random online writer arguing a controversial view, e.g. neoreactionary views. Thus, you say that Scott’s objection to the New York Times publishing its article proves Scott’s hypocrisy, because he allows discussion of neoreactionism but not of his real name. I think that is an unfair comparison. Controversial ideas such as neoreactionism are part of the “marketplace of ideas” in that both arguments for them and arguments against them can be publicized. Someone who encounters a neoreactionary idea can research additional arguments for and against the idea and use those arguments to decide on their own position. Unlike an idea in a marketplace of ideas, publicizing Scott’s real name on nytimes.com, a site highly-ranked in search engines, is irrefutable. No matter how many people subsequently post to their own websites arguing that Scott’s real name shouldn’t be publicized, it wouldn’t change Google’s behavior of showing the New York Times article about Slate Star Codex when a psychiatric patient searches for “Scott Alexander [real name]”. Rather than two sides of a figurative ideological war fighting until the stronger idea proves the victor, publicizing Scott’s name would be one side leading the battle with a nuclear bomb. Additionally, Scott’s real name isn’t an idea that can be argued for or against, not is it relevant to the New York Times reporter’s ideas. Scott suggested in his takedown post that he wouldn’t object so strongly to his name being publicized if it were actually relevant to the article: > If someone thinks I am so egregious that I don’t deserve the mask of anonymity, then I guess they have to name me, the same way they name criminals and terrorists. This wasn’t that. By all indications, this was […] going to be a nice piece […]. Getting punished for my crimes would at least be predictable, but I am not willing to be punished for my virtues. Thus, Scott’s takedown of his blog does not prove hypocrisy or ‘[discredit] the “rationalist” ideology’. I also doubt that the takedown is an “emotional, illogical” action on Scott’s part (no comment on his community). As zucker42 suggested elsewhere in these comments, Scott’s takedown is probably “a game theory influenced attempt to prevent the NYT from printing his name”. Scott saw the upcoming NYT article’s inclusion of his name as a danger to his career and personal safety, and used his blog’s readership to threaten the NYT with bad PR if they followed through with that apparently-dangerous action. Seems reasonable to me. At worst, you could accuse Scott of overestimating the actual danger of the NYT’s action and thus threatening the NYT with a disproportionate amount of bad PR.
• nikisweeting 6y ago
  I'm saddened by reading most of the HN comments in this thread, the "war against the media" line seems to have actually inspired people to do that, instead of doing the right thing and calling it out as the exact kind of tribalistic nonsense that SSC is all about preventing.
• doe88 6y ago
  On another dimension it's maybe somehow a dig from The New Yorker to the NYT, there seem to be bad blood between them (e.g. Ben Smith's article on Ronan Farrow's writings).
• rayiner 6y ago
  Maybe Silicon Valley really should have a war against the media. Because right now the media is waging a one-sided war against Silicon Valley. Media coverage of tech has become almost uniformly negative—the way the media used to talk about fracking or Wall Street. Silicon Valley needs to realize that being somewhat liberal on social issues will not protect it from a media that has set its sights on the kind of intellectual and (little “l”) libertarianism that characterizes Silicon Valley.
  • abvdasker 6y ago
    One-sided? Have you seen what has happened to revenues of news publications since the advent of Google and Facebook? The idea that the tech sector is seriously threatened by the news media is silly. All this fretting about negative coverage basically amounts to persecutory delusion from what is easily the most powerful sector in the US economy.
• FancyPete 6y ago
  Newyorker's hot takes are lower quality than it's core offering of slowed down reporting about something big. This is no exception. The concluding paragraph seems the most telling. The author seems to simply throw his hands up and say, 'I don't know, this is all about power or media or culture or something.' I think people here are looking for a deep read of this, but my read is that the assignment didn't interest the reporter and he just tried to rush it.