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This was already explained so many times at Hacker News, at least three times by myself. Here is another attempt: If you are a reader of Slate Star Codex, and

This was already explained so many times at Hacker News, at least three times by myself. Here is another attempt: If you are a reader of Slate Star Codex, and you google for e.g. "Scott Alexander, psychiatrist", you can find that his real identity is Alex Salamander. Scott was always okay with this, because he trusts his readers. (Yeah, maybe he regrets it now.) But if you are a patient looking for a psychiatrist, and you google for "Dr. Alex Salamander", Scott doesn't want you to find Slate Star Codex. Because... that's obviously not a good thing to read for people who are depressed, or paranoid, or whatever. NYT publishing an article containing "Alex Salamander" and "Slate Star Codex" together, would obviously put SSC into top google results for "Alex Salamander". Which is what Scott is trying to prevent. Does it make more sense now? tl;dr: google for Scott Alexander, find Alex Salamander = okay; google for Alex Salamander, find Scott Alexander = not okay (By the way, his real name is not Alex Salamander, I just made it up now to make the example easier to read.)

Barrin92 6y ago
>NYT publishing an article containing "Alex Salamander" and "Slate Star Codex" together, would obviously put SSC into top google results for "Alex Salamander". Which is what Scott is trying to prevent. Does it make more sense now? Yeah that makes total sense, I understand why he doesn't want that. But this doesn't really mean a journalist shouldn't divulge it if the journalist thinks using his name is in the public interest. (which in itself is a case-by-case judgement of course, but using people's real names who engage in public discourse is quite common). That was my earlier point, if both your real name and your pseudonym are out there and connected, you don't really have a right or even a really reasonable expectation to not turn up in a Google search result. That said I have a different suspicion. He may be simply afraid that his patients feel betrayed when they find out he's been blogging about them in the past, and they might be uncomfortable with the content they find on the site, even if in anonymized form.

Barrin92 6y ago

>NYT publishing an article containing "Alex Salamander" and "Slate Star Codex" together, would obviously put SSC into top google results for "Alex Salamander". Which is what Scott is trying to prevent. Does it make more sense now? Yeah that makes total sense, I understand why he doesn't want that. But this doesn't really mean a journalist shouldn't divulge it if the journalist thinks using his name is in the public interest. (which in itself is a case-by-case judgement of course, but using people's real names who engage in public discourse is quite common). That was my earlier point, if both your real name and your pseudonym are out there and connected, you don't really have a right or even a really reasonable expectation to not turn up in a Google search result. That said I have a different suspicion. He may be simply afraid that his patients feel betrayed when they find out he's been blogging about them in the past, and they might be uncomfortable with the content they find on the site, even if in anonymized form.