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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
by 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 agoIt's disingenuous, he knows the blog posts are compiled into an ebook and says as much.
- nullc 6y agoIf 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 agoPlenty of cringe worthy comments on HN, too. I mean, usually they're greyed out but still.
- brokensegue 6y agoi think they mean comments by Scott Alexander on his own blog.
- AgentME 6y agoEthnonationalists and race realists aren't too popular here or defended by the people in charge.
- AnthonyMouse 6y agoWait until you hear about YouTube and Reddit.
- baddox 6y agoDoesn't that also mean the very act of "deleting" the blog is disingenuous? If deleting the blog doesn't meaningfully impede accessing the blog articles, then what's the point, other than drawing attention to the situation?
- WillPostForFood 6y agoIt obviously does meaningfully impede access. Delisted from google, all existing links broken. Viewablity of articles will be down 99.99%.
- basch 6y agoExactly. It's absolutely more than a stunt, despite it drawing its own kind of Barbara attention. Dedicated people will still be able to find it, but the lowest effort attackers wont put in the work to dig. It silences a chunk of outrage culture who will just move on to the next target, rather than investigate broken links.
- NicolasGorden 6y agoI never knew deleting anything automatically implied having no back ups. SSC even announced he had back ups. So... even for the assuming people out there he placed disclaimers. Yet more disingenuous statements.
- tripletao 6y agoIt's just the publicity stunt, leaving the NYT with the options to (a) drop the story, (b) omit a significant detail, or (c) report that he deleted the blog because they said they were going to doxx him. The story hasn't been published yet, so it's working so far. Short-term, this has probably net increased the visibility of Alexander's content (slightly less convenient to access, but much more attention), and I assume he expected that. The reporter can't actually believe that Alexander is trying to hide something horrible that he wrote, so the sentence I quoted can only be knowingly dishonest innuendo. That's why I said "ugly".
- 6y ago
- Tyr42 6y agoHe also quotes extensively from SSC, so he clearly has an archived version of it open.
- mjw1007 6y agoI wouldn't be surprised if a lot of this article is taken from Metz's proposed article (if it turns out that that never gets published).
- ajkjk 6y agoIt didn't strike me as ugly as all.
- zozbot234 6y agoIt's definitely a bit ugly (perhaps most clearly so wrt. SA's broadly sensible defense of Scott Aaronson being described as an angry "screed" against feminism) but overall, it's as fair a treatment of SSC as could appear in the elite media at this point.
- whatshisface 6y agoReading the Scott Aaronson affair described as being about the trouble of male nerds on the "dating market," was awfully ugly. Of course, this doesn't mean that the New Yorker has it out for "rationalists," it's just an example of the callous and not-exactly right coverage that subcultures usually get from the mainstream. The truth is that the Aaronson affair was that he had crippling anxiety when he was young, got mixed up with Judith Butler literature, and it didn't really help him. He never had any trouble finding a partner once his anxiety had resolved, so you really have to do some free word association to get from the reality to the description.
- baddox 6y agoIt seems to me that simplifying the entire Scott Aaronson affair was necessary, since it was just a brief part of this article. I thought their choice of simplification was reasonable and in good faith, but of course others might disagree (and unfortunately, whether we agree or disagree is likely to be effected by our overall level of agreement with the article).
- zozbot234 6y agoYou can simplify, and then you can say Scott wrote an angry "screed" that misrepresents 99% of feminists and ignores the plight of vulnerable women in its bourgeois defense of the privileged, nerdy intellectual class. (The article doesn't actually say "bourgeois", but the dogwhistles are crystal-clear.)
- JoblessWonder 6y agoFWIW, the Internet Archive is willing to remove content if you can prove you are the owner and request it using the proper methods.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- bluntfang 6y agoIt's so funny how this community falls squarely on the "Opt-out is bad!" side except for the internet archive!
- fmajid 6y agoThe Internet Archive provides an important historical archiving mission. Even when the content is made unavailable by express request from the owner, it is still preserved for future generations. This is not a frivolous purpose.
- recursive 6y agoAll purpose's defenders will claim that theirs is not frivolous.
- wizzwizz4 6y agoMeaning that no non-frivolous purpose exists?
- recursive 6y agoI'm not sure if it means that. I'm just sure that for each purpose, we can find someone that relies on it.
- AnthonyMouse 6y agoLet's try it this way. For any given website, more likely than not they would want the Internet Archive to archive it. For any given internet user, more likely than not they wouldn't want a website to track them for the purposes of advertising and price discrimination. This tells us what the defaults should be in each case, and let the exceptions change the setting if they want.
- memexy 6y ago-
- MattGaiser 6y agoIt is essentially a summary of their opinion.
- memexy 6y ago-
- zozbot234 6y ago> If you read his last letter he clearly intended to rile up his followers into a frenzy and get them to attack the reporter Um, unless you think Scott lied about what the reporter said, this is not a very sensible take. The blog takedown page reads like a factual account of what happened, and a request to direct any criticism towards the NYT's editors through the proper channels. He has never called for a mad frenzy or anything like that.
- memexy 6y ago-
- waon 6y agoScott encouraged people to raise objections in a civil way, and he really stressed that point. And yet both you and the article somehow accuse him of orchestrating a harassment campaign despite evidence to the contrary. Honest question, what else could he’ve done? Are you suggesting that he’s a villain for raising objections?
- memexy 6y ago-
- analyte123 6y agoParts of this read as a smoothed-over hit piece. An honest and comprehensive effort to rip apart and debunk neo-reactionary ideology is painted guilt-by-association style as "possibly legitimizing" or "describing" it. "[Exploring] and [upholding] research into innate biological differences between men and women" is "[giving] safe harbor to some genuinely egregious ideas". Asking people to politely contact the editor of a major newspaper is "incitement". Not to mention the sheer bravado of simultaneously claiming that everybody involved is a grandiose conspiracy theorist for being worried about being targeted and misrepresented by the news media, while doing all of the above and providing direct quotes that show them being targeted and misrepresented about whether they "recruit people for white supremacy" in the comment section. This is being a "professional journalist", but disputing this narrative is being "quarrelsome" and "agitated". The writer admits that "a reporter would want to make them pay for" tolerating extreme positions in order to show how those positions may be mistaken.
- TulliusCicero 6y agoIt's this, exactly. The author is clearly reaching to paint fairly innocuous actions in the most damning light possible.
- greenshackle2 6y agoI got the same impression. Even though it's couched in "respectful language", they really went out of their way to cover the half-dozen or so most cringe-worthy controversies to ever come out of SSC or SSC-adjacent spaces, whether it's relevant at all or not to the (very tenuous) point of the article. Like, you really have to bring up Roko's basilisk? What is the point, besides "look at how silly these Silicon Valley types are"? They present it like a central example of "Grey Tribe" discourse, when it's pretty fringe, even by LessWrong standards.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- analyte123 6y agoIt’s not that fringe, given the Elon Musk/Grimes connection: https://pagesix.com/2018/05/07/elon-musk-quietly-dating-musician-grimes/ https://pagesix.com/2018/05/07/elon-musk-quietly-dating-musi... But you’re right it’s not part of the “discourse” except mostly as a joke.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- catalogia 6y ago> The reporter is unaware that the Internet Archive exists? The content is obviously still readily available, so the reporter is either stupid or disingenuous. (Or both.)
- adamsea 6y agoCan someone
- DavidVoid 6y agoIt's interesting how the HN discussion here is far more critical of the article than the /r/slaterstarcodex discussion is [1]. (although that is a much smaller community.) [1] https://np.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/ho6g2b/slate_star_codex_and_silicon_valleys_war_against/ https://np.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/ho6g2b/slate...
- ajzinsbwbs 6y agoI’d say the article’s coverage of Scott and rationalism is fairly neutral, while its attitude toward Silicon Valley is negative. Seems like the reactions of the two communities are what you’d expect based on that.
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago> 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. He shows up in person to meetups and things like that, so that doesn't really work. Semi-anonymity works fine as long as there are cultural norms toward respecting it. Nothing really works if people with resources acting in bad faith decide they want to make your life hard.
- pvg 6y agoThe higher-level lesson is that anyone expressing heterodox opinions [...] I think the article both directly addresses this and also succinctly summarizes its tone: "[...] the stridency and hyperbole of the reactions of Alexander’s cohort to his cause bear the classic markers of grandiosity: the conviction that they are at once potent and beleaguered."
- tripletao 6y agoSorry, I'm not sure I understand. Where did you get the "potent and beleaguered" from my comment? Heterodox doesn't mean good or bad or strong or weak, just that it's outside the norm. Lots of heterodox ideas are bad and deserve only criticism and rebuttal, including many of Alexander's. They don't deserve doxxing from the NYT, though. The New Yorker reporter criticizes Alexander for calling on his audience to lobby the NYT not to publish his name, while ignoring entirely the much worse consequences that Alexander was likely to face from the NYT's own mob. I think it's hard to be that blind by accident, so I think it's deliberate, and that the proposed doxxing showed either an intent to harm Alexander or cheerful indifference to that harm. Do you disagree? Note that I'm asking whether the reporters were pleased to harm Alexander, not whether you think that harm was justified (i.e., whether you'd be pleased to as well). I insulted the New Yorker article and reporter, but I accompanied that with an argument for why they deserved it--I believe the article contained many false or misleading statements that tend to impugn Alexander's character. If my reasoning wasn't clear from my brief comment, I've explained it to exhaustion elsewhere in this thread. Your comment quotes from the article to insult mine ("stridency", "hyperbole", and "grandiosity" are all strongly negative terms), but with no such accompanying argument for why the insult should hold.
- adamsea 6y ago> I insulted the New Yorker article and reporter, but I accompanied that with an argument for why they deserved it This. It’s a really easy trap to fall into online, but, the whole idea of someone deserving an insult is, 99.9% of the time, toxic.
- 6y ago
- adamsea 6y agoI don’t think the article is saying that “negative coverage” would necessarily be warranted, just that it would exist, and be negative. I don’t think a hit piece would explain how some potentially controversial SST articles were either later qualified by the author, or, qualified by the author at the time of publishing. > The reporter is unaware that the Internet Archive exists? The content is obviously still readily available, so the reporter is either stupid or disingenuous. We would have to see what NY Times policy is on using The Internet Archive as a source. I don’t know, and, you didn’t go out of your way to find and share that information, so I think your conclusions are premature. Honestly the article didn’t seem ugly to me.
- tripletao 6y agoThe New Yorker reporter said "creditable reason". "Creditable" usually means "somewhat praiseworthy" so it's weird phrasing; but I interpret the praise as going to the reporter for finding it, implying that the reason would be good. Or perhaps the author actually meant "credible" (or the alternative definition of "creditable" that's a near-synonym), directly stating that it's justified. Either way, I don't see any implication that the negative coverage would be anything but warranted. Where are you getting that? As many other posters noted, there's also an e-book, and the article itself quoted from the blog. So are you asking me to prove the nonexistence of an NYT policy banning the use of any of those sources, despite the New Yorker somehow figuring it out? It's hard to prove a negative, but I could see what I could find online. But do you really think the burden of proof is on me here? Perhaps your impulse is to defend the New Yorker reporter here, and you think the burden of proof for accusing him (of false accusations against Alexander) should be high; but the reporter is accusing Alexander (of having written something that would be a "creditable reason" for negative coverage), so shouldn't the burden be on him? I didn't say the article was a hit piece, and I don't think it was one. Another poster called it a "smoothed-over hit piece", and that seems closer to me, a piece designed to leave both a negative impression and an impression that Alexander has been treated fairly.
- adamsea 6y agoSo, creditable also can mean “worthy of belief” which I think is more relevant. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/creditable https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/creditable But the very fact we are arguing over the meaning of a single word is, I think, kind of a signal of an anti-pattern, so to speak. It’s like bikeshedding over a single line of code. Sure, in certain cases that single line might be super important (part of an algorithm, performance critical, etc). Often however there’s a range of acceptable ways to write a single line of code and, if we want to analyze and understand a codebase, it only makes so much sense to spend so much time on that one line. There’s a lot more code to look at as well and to understand how something works or the intent of the author of the code we should look at individual lines in the context of the whole. Plus if we’re going to get that specific about individual words, then it’s even more important to be comprehensive and correct and not jump to one of several plausible meanings ;).