7 ms·

It's hard to explain but his intention in much of his writing was coded. He would consistently use certain keywords and phrases to make certain associations and

by memexy 6y ago

It's hard to explain but his intention in much of his writing was coded. He would consistently use certain keywords and phrases to make certain associations and when you follow through the logic it becomes very sinister (in fact the comments would take his ideas to their natural conclusion and I did not like what was in the comments and the people that were writing them). If he did not intend his followers to attack anyone then he should not have named anyone or put any kind of contact information in his post. Only someone that deliberately wants people to contact and pressure the editor would have used the language that he did. He created plausible deniability by saying "he doesn't want anyone to be harmed" and then in the next sentence listed contact information with "suggestions". If you really wanted a civil discussion, would you have used the type of language that he did?

yorwba 6y ago
> his intention in much of his writing was coded. He would consistently use certain keywords and phrases to make certain associations and when you follow through the logic it becomes very sinister. You mean I've been reading SSC wrong all this time and missed out on secret messages encoded in kabbalistic puzzles?
- memexy 6y ago
  There is always subtext. There is no need for mystical allusions. You are welcome to go back and re-read his writing with a more critical eye and decide for yourself what you notice.
  - Frampy 6y ago
    Proof I was right - you don't like SA therefore his writing is bad and it has a secret evil message (never mind you couldn't even understand his point when you tried to write like him in another thread) and a 'critical' reading would validate your view, which is entirely unfalsifiable.
    - memexy 6y ago
      Which of my points is unfalsifiable? And where did I try to write like him?
      - Frampy 6y ago
        Your attempt to rewrite the 'when I was young and stupid' excerpt, where you missed half the point of the piece, excised most of the words and declared him clearly not a good writer. Despite his writing being the reason he was even getting a nyt profile in the first place. It can't be that his writing speaks to people in a way you don't get, he's obviously a bad writer and all of those public intellectuals who are supporting him are... Not critical enough? As for unfalsifiable, you claim there are dog whistles in every second sentence SA writes, and dog whistles are, by definition, unfalsifiable. You can claim anyone can see it if they look critically enough because if someone suggests they have looked critically and found nothing, you can simply claim they didn't do it right and mosey on. Dog whistles are also, by the way, fundamentally incompatible with the principle of good faith you claim to want to prosper. It's an interesting conceit, I'll give you that.
        memexy 6y ago
        > As for unfalsifiable, you claim there are dog whistles in every second sentence SA writes, and dog whistles are, by definition, unfalsifiable. You can claim anyone can see it if they look critically enough because if someone suggests they have looked critically and found nothing, you can simply claim they didn't do it right and mosey on. Dog whistles are also, by the way, fundamentally incompatible with the principle of good faith you claim to want to prosper. It's an interesting conceit, I'll give you that. I don't know what a "dog whistle" is or what it's used for. I explained exactly what I meant by "coded" and I made a point about emotionally charged language by rewriting quoted texts to demonstrate good writing vs bad writing. It's all clearly stated in all my posts. You are welcome to actually quote me and demonstrate directly instead of mis-directing and mis-characterizing what I said / wrote as being a "dog whistle".
        6y ago
  - mst 6y ago
    If "critical eye" means you're attempting to read his work through a critical theory lens then it would have been helpful had you mentioned that in advance so that those of us using other lenses could've been aware that you were doing so. Much confusion might thereby have been avoided.
    - memexy 6y ago
      It's incumbent upon whoever is confused to ask clarifying questions instead of making insinuations about the inadequacy of the person making the argument. If you were confused then you should have asked clarifying questions instead of arguing with incomplete information.
      - mst 6y ago
        So are you operating on a critical theory lens or not?
        memexy 6y ago
        I don't know what critical theory is and what it is used for. I use basic reasoning and back up what I say. I used the word critical as in "critical thinking" (unrelated to any actual academic theory of criticality). It's quite simple really. I'm not motivated to make a point other than clarify my own reasoning and I expect the same in return. When someone doesn't return the favor and act in kind then I assume they're operating in bad faith and they have no intention of making an actual argument to clarify but instead they seek to obscure and confuse. You have demonstrated several times and very clearly you were not interested in a reasoned argument even though I gave you the benefit of the doubt by outlining what I thought and engaged every one of your examples in good faith. You did no such thing and went out of your way to shape and bias the discourse in your favor. So I'm no longer interested in arguing with you or making any more attempts to clarify my reasoning. If you want to engage further then you can reach me by email or on keybase. I'm no longer interested in being a prop for your performance in front of a group.
        6y ago
- lyssa17 6y ago
  Yes, actually. It's a theme that Scott is annoyingly fond of, in his fiction and non-fiction. Unsong is entirely about kabbalistic puzzles as you know. Scott and others before him were enamored with the ideas of Leo Strauss. You can read more about Strauss' ideology of hidden truths that only the brilliant and/or worthy can perceive at the link below. Scott Alexander uses the Kolmogorov post to have plausible deniability for his discussion of "race science". There's a reason writing "HBD" was banned in the comments section and it's that it was giving the game away to too many people. (discussion of HBD is not banned, it's simply not permitted for that string to appear - i wonder why that might be) http://bactra.org/weblog/algae-2014-06.html#drury-on-strauss http://bactra.org/weblog/algae-2014-06.html#drury-on-strauss Have you missed this post? http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/10/23/kolmogorov-complicity-and-the-parable-of-lightning/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/10/23/kolmogorov-complicity-a...
  - zozbot234 6y ago
    > There's a reason writing "HBD" was banned in the comments section The reason is that most people who casually reference "HBD" have no idea what they're talking about, and end up grossly misrepresenting the actual science as cover for unrelated ideas like ethno-nationalism or bigoted views about other groups. Tabooing "HBD" is a legitimate way of forcing everyone to unpack whatever it is that they actually have in mind; in many ways, it is the opposite of playing dog whistle politics.
    - memexy 6y ago
      I don't know what HBD is, care to explain?
      - zozbot234 6y ago
        "I don't know what HBD is, care to explain?" Yup, pretty much.
        memexy 6y ago
        > "I don't know what HBD is, care to explain?" > Yup, pretty much. How do you propose I respond to your answer? I asked for clarification and you replied with a troll response. How would you respond if I did the same?
nkurz 6y ago
I think he put in the contact information because he very much did want people to contact the NYT, and for them to make clear their displeasure with the policies of the organization. I think his genuine hope was that this would cause them to change their policies in the future, both for him and for others. So yes, he wants to "pressure the editor", but in a manner that is applicable to their job rather than as any sort of personal attack. > If you really wanted a civil discussion, would you have used the type of language that he did? Maybe, it depends on how aware I was of my audience. If my intended audience was the primary public posters on SSC, I can see saying just what he said. If I remembered in my fluster that 98% of the readers who never post might react differently, then probably not. If you picture Scott (as I do) as a really bright semi-autist who communicates online primarily with self-declared "rationalists", it doesn't seem impossible that he might forget in the heat of the moment (this had to be a stressful decision for him) that some percentage of his audience is going to interpret his words counter to his stated intent, even if that intent is real. (I appreciate your response, by the way. I don't think you needed to delete your earlier comments. Yeah, they'll be flagged and downvoted, then we'll vouch for them to recover them and vote them back up. As long as you try to phrase things politely, there are enough people here who'll stand up for you even if we disagree with your conclusion.)
- memexy 6y ago
  I appreciate your response as well. I deleted the original comments not because of the downvotes but because I noticed I was attracting discussions I did not want to participate in. I think your interpretation is valid but I still think his writing caused harm even if it was inadvertent and someone should have pointed these things out to him much sooner but the SSC echo chamber did not allow for dissenting opinions so it had to be NYT journalist to make these things obvious to him and he did not respond well.
mst 6y ago
> It's hard to explain but his intention in much of his writing was coded. He would consistently use certain keywords and phrases to make certain associations and when you follow through the logic it becomes very sinister. This reads to me like "his words were perfectly polite but I've decided that he must have intended a certain subtext and the subtext I believe that he intended is evil". Which ... I mean, you can certainly claim that, but when you're talking about the writings of somebody who used a lot of words to do his best to make his meaning clear in the text, accusation-via-subtext at least needs some sort of evidence to be a reasonable thing to do. > If he did not intend his followers to attack anyone then he should not have named anyone or put any kind of contact information in his post. The complaints form and the relevant editor are precisely how feedback is supposed to be given to news organisations. Some publications have a "Public Editor" position to handle such things, in which case they should have been contacted instead, but the NYT axed that position a while back.
- memexy 6y ago
  I don't think his words were polite, in fact I think it was quite the opposite. If I wanted a civil discussion I would not have listed any contact information about anyone. I would have said, "I am archiving the blog until further notice because I need to think about what kind of content should be made publicly available because words have power and it's important to think about what information and inferences we make available to others through those words".
  - mst 6y ago
    That seems like an "I would have said" based on your assumption that those "inferences" are the subtext that you believe to exist. I continue to believe that Scott did not believe any such subtext existed, so that would make no sense from his point of view. I'm also unsure why you believe that providing the contact information of the correct person to contact given an issue with a potential article to be published by their department is a bad thing. Are you sure you're not just starting with a belief that Scott is malicious and then reasoning backwards to find a way that his actions in this case could have been malicious? I'm quite probably missing something, but I find myself unable to follow your logic any other way.
mst 6y ago
It is notable that, having dicussed things at length, memexy's postition was refined from "coded writing" and "very sinister" to > Then there are better ways to make those arguments. which, yes, there quite possibly are. There are always better ways to make any given argument. But memexy's claim that Scott's work was bad because > I don't need to argue for freedom of speech and equal rights and justice for all because in my world those are givens. fails, in my opinion, to understand that there are many people for whom, sadly, those things aren't givens and that arguing that they should be is a lot of Scott's thing. I would love to live in a world where those things are givens. I appreciate Scott for making principled arguments for why, ideally, we would live in a world where those things are givens, and I appreciate Scott for, however imperfectly, trying to move us towards such a world as best he can. (note, this is my (opinionated) summary of the thread that ensued from my sibling comment; if unsure whether I've captured things accurately, please read that whole thread and draw your own conclusions)
- memexy 6y ago
  I did not make such a concession and I'm quoting you so the record is clear (quote is from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23786584 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23786584) > I [mst] am entirely fine with you [memexy] believing that there are better ways to make those arguments - in fact, given any specific argument is almost certain to be imperfect, one would assume that there are. > But I [mst] would note that "there are better ways to make those arguments" is quite a distance from your original position. You [mst] made that conclusion, I did not. So I would appreciate it if you refined the phrasing to properly reflect the understanding that you are reaching the conclusion, not me. I will also note the sophistic device being used here by mst of jumping up the thread to shortcircuit the evaluation of the actual evidence. This is quite deceptive. My actual final response (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23786943 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23786943) is now hidden away behind "more" button and unlikely to be visible so posting it here for visibility. -- Yes, and you [mst] provided an example of such associations with "youth", "stupidity", "anger", "fear", "transphobia", "homophobia", "atrocity", "anger at others", "anger with self", "dislike of others", "opposition to others", etc. > When I was young and stupid, I used to believe that transgender was really, really dumb. That they were looking for attention or making it up or something along those lines. > And then I grew older and wiser and learned – hey, transgender isn’t stupid at all, they have very important reasons for what they do and go through and I was atrociously wrong. And I said a mea culpa. > The point is not "accepting people different than me", it's "having suitable principles to still fight in favour of people I might otherwise rightly or wrongly dislike". > You completely removed the part where he not only didn't act antagonistically towards them but actively opposed other people doing so as well. What word other than "sinister" would you use to characterize the cluster of words I quoted which are implicit in the writing I quoted? --

by memexy 6y ago

yorwba 6y ago

> his intention in much of his writing was coded. He would consistently use certain keywords and phrases to make certain associations and when you follow through the logic it becomes very sinister. You mean I've been reading SSC wrong all this time and missed out on secret messages encoded in kabbalistic puzzles?

memexy 6y ago
There is always subtext. There is no need for mystical allusions. You are welcome to go back and re-read his writing with a more critical eye and decide for yourself what you notice.
- Frampy 6y ago
  Proof I was right - you don't like SA therefore his writing is bad and it has a secret evil message (never mind you couldn't even understand his point when you tried to write like him in another thread) and a 'critical' reading would validate your view, which is entirely unfalsifiable.
  - memexy 6y ago
    Which of my points is unfalsifiable? And where did I try to write like him?
    - Frampy 6y ago
      Your attempt to rewrite the 'when I was young and stupid' excerpt, where you missed half the point of the piece, excised most of the words and declared him clearly not a good writer. Despite his writing being the reason he was even getting a nyt profile in the first place. It can't be that his writing speaks to people in a way you don't get, he's obviously a bad writer and all of those public intellectuals who are supporting him are... Not critical enough? As for unfalsifiable, you claim there are dog whistles in every second sentence SA writes, and dog whistles are, by definition, unfalsifiable. You can claim anyone can see it if they look critically enough because if someone suggests they have looked critically and found nothing, you can simply claim they didn't do it right and mosey on. Dog whistles are also, by the way, fundamentally incompatible with the principle of good faith you claim to want to prosper. It's an interesting conceit, I'll give you that.
      - memexy 6y ago
        > As for unfalsifiable, you claim there are dog whistles in every second sentence SA writes, and dog whistles are, by definition, unfalsifiable. You can claim anyone can see it if they look critically enough because if someone suggests they have looked critically and found nothing, you can simply claim they didn't do it right and mosey on. Dog whistles are also, by the way, fundamentally incompatible with the principle of good faith you claim to want to prosper. It's an interesting conceit, I'll give you that. I don't know what a "dog whistle" is or what it's used for. I explained exactly what I meant by "coded" and I made a point about emotionally charged language by rewriting quoted texts to demonstrate good writing vs bad writing. It's all clearly stated in all my posts. You are welcome to actually quote me and demonstrate directly instead of mis-directing and mis-characterizing what I said / wrote as being a "dog whistle".
        6y ago
- mst 6y ago
  If "critical eye" means you're attempting to read his work through a critical theory lens then it would have been helpful had you mentioned that in advance so that those of us using other lenses could've been aware that you were doing so. Much confusion might thereby have been avoided.
  - memexy 6y ago
    It's incumbent upon whoever is confused to ask clarifying questions instead of making insinuations about the inadequacy of the person making the argument. If you were confused then you should have asked clarifying questions instead of arguing with incomplete information.
    - mst 6y ago
      So are you operating on a critical theory lens or not?
      - memexy 6y ago
        I don't know what critical theory is and what it is used for. I use basic reasoning and back up what I say. I used the word critical as in "critical thinking" (unrelated to any actual academic theory of criticality). It's quite simple really. I'm not motivated to make a point other than clarify my own reasoning and I expect the same in return. When someone doesn't return the favor and act in kind then I assume they're operating in bad faith and they have no intention of making an actual argument to clarify but instead they seek to obscure and confuse. You have demonstrated several times and very clearly you were not interested in a reasoned argument even though I gave you the benefit of the doubt by outlining what I thought and engaged every one of your examples in good faith. You did no such thing and went out of your way to shape and bias the discourse in your favor. So I'm no longer interested in arguing with you or making any more attempts to clarify my reasoning. If you want to engage further then you can reach me by email or on keybase. I'm no longer interested in being a prop for your performance in front of a group.
        6y ago
lyssa17 6y ago
Yes, actually. It's a theme that Scott is annoyingly fond of, in his fiction and non-fiction. Unsong is entirely about kabbalistic puzzles as you know. Scott and others before him were enamored with the ideas of Leo Strauss. You can read more about Strauss' ideology of hidden truths that only the brilliant and/or worthy can perceive at the link below. Scott Alexander uses the Kolmogorov post to have plausible deniability for his discussion of "race science". There's a reason writing "HBD" was banned in the comments section and it's that it was giving the game away to too many people. (discussion of HBD is not banned, it's simply not permitted for that string to appear - i wonder why that might be) http://bactra.org/weblog/algae-2014-06.html#drury-on-strauss http://bactra.org/weblog/algae-2014-06.html#drury-on-strauss Have you missed this post? http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/10/23/kolmogorov-complicity-and-the-parable-of-lightning/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/10/23/kolmogorov-complicity-a...
- zozbot234 6y ago
  > There's a reason writing "HBD" was banned in the comments section The reason is that most people who casually reference "HBD" have no idea what they're talking about, and end up grossly misrepresenting the actual science as cover for unrelated ideas like ethno-nationalism or bigoted views about other groups. Tabooing "HBD" is a legitimate way of forcing everyone to unpack whatever it is that they actually have in mind; in many ways, it is the opposite of playing dog whistle politics.
  - memexy 6y ago
    I don't know what HBD is, care to explain?
    - zozbot234 6y ago
      "I don't know what HBD is, care to explain?" Yup, pretty much.
      - memexy 6y ago
        > "I don't know what HBD is, care to explain?" > Yup, pretty much. How do you propose I respond to your answer? I asked for clarification and you replied with a troll response. How would you respond if I did the same?

nkurz 6y ago

I think he put in the contact information because he very much did want people to contact the NYT, and for them to make clear their displeasure with the policies of the organization. I think his genuine hope was that this would cause them to change their policies in the future, both for him and for others. So yes, he wants to "pressure the editor", but in a manner that is applicable to their job rather than as any sort of personal attack. > If you really wanted a civil discussion, would you have used the type of language that he did? Maybe, it depends on how aware I was of my audience. If my intended audience was the primary public posters on SSC, I can see saying just what he said. If I remembered in my fluster that 98% of the readers who never post might react differently, then probably not. If you picture Scott (as I do) as a really bright semi-autist who communicates online primarily with self-declared "rationalists", it doesn't seem impossible that he might forget in the heat of the moment (this had to be a stressful decision for him) that some percentage of his audience is going to interpret his words counter to his stated intent, even if that intent is real. (I appreciate your response, by the way. I don't think you needed to delete your earlier comments. Yeah, they'll be flagged and downvoted, then we'll vouch for them to recover them and vote them back up. As long as you try to phrase things politely, there are enough people here who'll stand up for you even if we disagree with your conclusion.)

memexy 6y ago
I appreciate your response as well. I deleted the original comments not because of the downvotes but because I noticed I was attracting discussions I did not want to participate in. I think your interpretation is valid but I still think his writing caused harm even if it was inadvertent and someone should have pointed these things out to him much sooner but the SSC echo chamber did not allow for dissenting opinions so it had to be NYT journalist to make these things obvious to him and he did not respond well.

mst 6y ago

> It's hard to explain but his intention in much of his writing was coded. He would consistently use certain keywords and phrases to make certain associations and when you follow through the logic it becomes very sinister. This reads to me like "his words were perfectly polite but I've decided that he must have intended a certain subtext and the subtext I believe that he intended is evil". Which ... I mean, you can certainly claim that, but when you're talking about the writings of somebody who used a lot of words to do his best to make his meaning clear in the text, accusation-via-subtext at least needs some sort of evidence to be a reasonable thing to do. > If he did not intend his followers to attack anyone then he should not have named anyone or put any kind of contact information in his post. The complaints form and the relevant editor are precisely how feedback is supposed to be given to news organisations. Some publications have a "Public Editor" position to handle such things, in which case they should have been contacted instead, but the NYT axed that position a while back.

memexy 6y ago
I don't think his words were polite, in fact I think it was quite the opposite. If I wanted a civil discussion I would not have listed any contact information about anyone. I would have said, "I am archiving the blog until further notice because I need to think about what kind of content should be made publicly available because words have power and it's important to think about what information and inferences we make available to others through those words".
- mst 6y ago
  That seems like an "I would have said" based on your assumption that those "inferences" are the subtext that you believe to exist. I continue to believe that Scott did not believe any such subtext existed, so that would make no sense from his point of view. I'm also unsure why you believe that providing the contact information of the correct person to contact given an issue with a potential article to be published by their department is a bad thing. Are you sure you're not just starting with a belief that Scott is malicious and then reasoning backwards to find a way that his actions in this case could have been malicious? I'm quite probably missing something, but I find myself unable to follow your logic any other way.

mst 6y ago

It is notable that, having dicussed things at length, memexy's postition was refined from "coded writing" and "very sinister" to > Then there are better ways to make those arguments. which, yes, there quite possibly are. There are always better ways to make any given argument. But memexy's claim that Scott's work was bad because > I don't need to argue for freedom of speech and equal rights and justice for all because in my world those are givens. fails, in my opinion, to understand that there are many people for whom, sadly, those things aren't givens and that arguing that they should be is a lot of Scott's thing. I would love to live in a world where those things are givens. I appreciate Scott for making principled arguments for why, ideally, we would live in a world where those things are givens, and I appreciate Scott for, however imperfectly, trying to move us towards such a world as best he can. (note, this is my (opinionated) summary of the thread that ensued from my sibling comment; if unsure whether I've captured things accurately, please read that whole thread and draw your own conclusions)

memexy 6y ago
I did not make such a concession and I'm quoting you so the record is clear (quote is from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23786584 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23786584) > I [mst] am entirely fine with you [memexy] believing that there are better ways to make those arguments - in fact, given any specific argument is almost certain to be imperfect, one would assume that there are. > But I [mst] would note that "there are better ways to make those arguments" is quite a distance from your original position. You [mst] made that conclusion, I did not. So I would appreciate it if you refined the phrasing to properly reflect the understanding that you are reaching the conclusion, not me. I will also note the sophistic device being used here by mst of jumping up the thread to shortcircuit the evaluation of the actual evidence. This is quite deceptive. My actual final response (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23786943 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23786943) is now hidden away behind "more" button and unlikely to be visible so posting it here for visibility. -- Yes, and you [mst] provided an example of such associations with "youth", "stupidity", "anger", "fear", "transphobia", "homophobia", "atrocity", "anger at others", "anger with self", "dislike of others", "opposition to others", etc. > When I was young and stupid, I used to believe that transgender was really, really dumb. That they were looking for attention or making it up or something along those lines. > And then I grew older and wiser and learned – hey, transgender isn’t stupid at all, they have very important reasons for what they do and go through and I was atrociously wrong. And I said a mea culpa. > The point is not "accepting people different than me", it's "having suitable principles to still fight in favour of people I might otherwise rightly or wrongly dislike". > You completely removed the part where he not only didn't act antagonistically towards them but actively opposed other people doing so as well. What word other than "sinister" would you use to characterize the cluster of words I quoted which are implicit in the writing I quoted? --