4 ms·

Parts 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-associa

Parts 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 ago
It's this, exactly. The author is clearly reaching to paint fairly innocuous actions in the most damning light possible.
greenshackle2 6y ago
I 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 ago
  It’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.
  - greenshackle2 6y ago
    Well, you're right, it's not fringe in the sense that no one knows about it, everyone has known about it for half a decade - taking it seriously is fringe.
    - thu2111 6y ago
      I wouldn't say everyone knows about it. In fact one of the most baffling and stupid aspects of the Basilisk is the strong belief it propagates that nobody should talk about the Basilisk.
      - greenshackle2 6y ago
        > the strong belief it propagates that nobody should talk about the Basilisk Looks like it didn't propagate very well. I'm a few degrees removed from the "rationalist community" and I heard about it years ago. Yudkowsky tried to prevent people from talking about it, which predictably backfired. The LessWrong wiki has an entry on the whole thing.
nonbirithm 6y ago
EDIT: I'm wrong, Scott Alexander is just his pen name. The article also calls the author "Scott _____" instead of just "the author of S.S.C.". Wasn't this exactly what he was trying to prevent with the NYT in the first place? So now other journalists feel like they have to step in and "doxx" him instead? And this New Yorker article ultimately got published in spite of all the controversy surrounding his identity. What kind of backlash is that going to generate? On top of the reaction to all the other veiled attacks on people in the article and irrelevant detours into "controversial" details about SSC and the rationalist community, etc. I don't see a good outcome to this at all. Maybe it says something if the people who put the most effort into overcoming bias and trying to foster reasoned conversation couldn't prevent all of this from blowing up as it did. Maybe it doesn't. I don't know. It's certainly ugly.
- pvg 6y ago
  You mean it calls him Scott Alexander? That's the public pseudonym he goes by.
  - nonbirithm 6y ago
    Oops, you're right. I edited my comment. Thanks.
- zozbot234 6y ago
  This article does not doxx Scott. SA is just his pen name.
dunkelheit 6y ago
One trick that I noticed that adds considerable amount of 'spin' while allowing the article to remain factually correct is to present positive things about the group as subjective - coming from the group itself (which paints them as self-serving and lacking self-awareness), vague 'some' or (even better) some negatively characterized person (which taints it as unreliable), but to describe negative stuff as if it is objective and factual. Some examples: "...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—but, in this case, it seemed to lend plausible deniability to what he surely knew would be taken as incitement." - ok, so his gentle manner is a "persona", but he "surely" incites his readers to harass journalists. "Slate Star Codex is often held up as an example of what the well-behaved Internet can look like—a secret orchard of fruitful inquiry." - note the passive voice. "Much of the support Alexander received was motivated simply by a love for his writing." - implies that the support was not founded on actual judgment of the situation. "On the blog, Alexander strives to set an example as a sensitive, respectful, and humane interlocutor..." - note the word 'strives'. To be fair, the rest of the sentence is genuine praise for his skill as a writer. "...the rationalists’ general willingness to pursue orderly exchanges on objectionable topics, often with monstrous people, remains not only a point of pride but a constitutive part of the subculture’s self-understanding." - note how willingness to pursue orderly exchanges (with people that are presented as objectively monstrous) is a subjective point of pride. Compare: "the business model of the Times has little to do with chasing “clicks,” per se, and, even if it did, no self-respecting journalist would conclude that the pursuit of clicks was best served by the de-anonymization of a "random blogger." - presented as a factual statement. "...a near-pathological commitment to the reinvention of the wheel, using the language of game theory to explain, with mathematical rigor, some fact of social life that anyone trained in the humanities would likely accept as a given." - why is this commitment pathological? Why is it as worthless as presented? "These conversations, about race and genetic or biological differences between the sexes, have rightfully drawn criticism from outsiders." - why was this criticism rightful? "The rationalists regularly fail to reckon with power as it is practiced, or history as it has been experienced, and they indulge themselves in such contests with the freedom of those who have largely escaped discrimination." - fairly standard accusations of privilege presented as facts. "there is some evidence to support the idea that he, like anyone, is wont to sacrifice rigor in moments of passion." - presented as a statement supported by evidence. Similarly, concerns and worries of the group are presented as subjective, over-reacting and reaching into conspiracy theory territory. By contrast, worries that the group itself is problematic are presented as legitimate. And of course 'rationalists' are consistently presented as low-status dorks, but I guess it is the usual New Yorker snobbery and not something nefarious.

TulliusCicero 6y ago

It's this, exactly. The author is clearly reaching to paint fairly innocuous actions in the most damning light possible.

greenshackle2 6y ago

I 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 ago
It’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.
- greenshackle2 6y ago
  Well, you're right, it's not fringe in the sense that no one knows about it, everyone has known about it for half a decade - taking it seriously is fringe.
  - thu2111 6y ago
    I wouldn't say everyone knows about it. In fact one of the most baffling and stupid aspects of the Basilisk is the strong belief it propagates that nobody should talk about the Basilisk.
    - greenshackle2 6y ago
      > the strong belief it propagates that nobody should talk about the Basilisk Looks like it didn't propagate very well. I'm a few degrees removed from the "rationalist community" and I heard about it years ago. Yudkowsky tried to prevent people from talking about it, which predictably backfired. The LessWrong wiki has an entry on the whole thing.

nonbirithm 6y ago

EDIT: I'm wrong, Scott Alexander is just his pen name. The article also calls the author "Scott _____" instead of just "the author of S.S.C.". Wasn't this exactly what he was trying to prevent with the NYT in the first place? So now other journalists feel like they have to step in and "doxx" him instead? And this New Yorker article ultimately got published in spite of all the controversy surrounding his identity. What kind of backlash is that going to generate? On top of the reaction to all the other veiled attacks on people in the article and irrelevant detours into "controversial" details about SSC and the rationalist community, etc. I don't see a good outcome to this at all. Maybe it says something if the people who put the most effort into overcoming bias and trying to foster reasoned conversation couldn't prevent all of this from blowing up as it did. Maybe it doesn't. I don't know. It's certainly ugly.

pvg 6y ago
You mean it calls him Scott Alexander? That's the public pseudonym he goes by.
- nonbirithm 6y ago
  Oops, you're right. I edited my comment. Thanks.
zozbot234 6y ago
This article does not doxx Scott. SA is just his pen name.

dunkelheit 6y ago

One trick that I noticed that adds considerable amount of 'spin' while allowing the article to remain factually correct is to present positive things about the group as subjective - coming from the group itself (which paints them as self-serving and lacking self-awareness), vague 'some' or (even better) some negatively characterized person (which taints it as unreliable), but to describe negative stuff as if it is objective and factual. Some examples: "...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—but, in this case, it seemed to lend plausible deniability to what he surely knew would be taken as incitement." - ok, so his gentle manner is a "persona", but he "surely" incites his readers to harass journalists. "Slate Star Codex is often held up as an example of what the well-behaved Internet can look like—a secret orchard of fruitful inquiry." - note the passive voice. "Much of the support Alexander received was motivated simply by a love for his writing." - implies that the support was not founded on actual judgment of the situation. "On the blog, Alexander strives to set an example as a sensitive, respectful, and humane interlocutor..." - note the word 'strives'. To be fair, the rest of the sentence is genuine praise for his skill as a writer. "...the rationalists’ general willingness to pursue orderly exchanges on objectionable topics, often with monstrous people, remains not only a point of pride but a constitutive part of the subculture’s self-understanding." - note how willingness to pursue orderly exchanges (with people that are presented as objectively monstrous) is a subjective point of pride. Compare: "the business model of the Times has little to do with chasing “clicks,” per se, and, even if it did, no self-respecting journalist would conclude that the pursuit of clicks was best served by the de-anonymization of a "random blogger." - presented as a factual statement. "...a near-pathological commitment to the reinvention of the wheel, using the language of game theory to explain, with mathematical rigor, some fact of social life that anyone trained in the humanities would likely accept as a given." - why is this commitment pathological? Why is it as worthless as presented? "These conversations, about race and genetic or biological differences between the sexes, have rightfully drawn criticism from outsiders." - why was this criticism rightful? "The rationalists regularly fail to reckon with power as it is practiced, or history as it has been experienced, and they indulge themselves in such contests with the freedom of those who have largely escaped discrimination." - fairly standard accusations of privilege presented as facts. "there is some evidence to support the idea that he, like anyone, is wont to sacrifice rigor in moments of passion." - presented as a statement supported by evidence. Similarly, concerns and worries of the group are presented as subjective, over-reacting and reaching into conspiracy theory territory. By contrast, worries that the group itself is problematic are presented as legitimate. And of course 'rationalists' are consistently presented as low-status dorks, but I guess it is the usual New Yorker snobbery and not something nefarious.