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Silicon Valley’s Safe Space

• ChrisLovejoy 6y ago
  Looks like a bit of a hit piece to me...
• yesenadam 6y ago
  Such a badly-written, mean-spirited article. A typical paragraph has a few ominous claims, which, when you read the links, aren't supported at all, nor connected in the way they're suggested to. Such as : > In one post, he aligned himself with Charles Murray, who proposed a link between race and I.Q. in “The Bell Curve.” In another, he pointed out that Mr. Murray believes Black people “are genetically less intelligent than white people.” And when you read the linked page[0], what Scott writes concerning Murrary seems perfectly inoffensive. He divides political views into quadrants, Competitive/Collective vs Optimistic/Pessimistic, then says "The only public figure I can think of in the [Collective + Pessimistic quadrant] with me is Charles Murray." This is what is described as aligning himself with Murray. The paragraph makes Scott sound like a flaming racist. It's just totally dishonest writing. It's hard to believe they're arguing in good faith there, but who knows. The anonymity thing seems to have been well and truly discarded – flung in his face, more like. What did he do to them to deserve such treatment, such contempt? I did get one laugh, out of: > “[Rationalists] are basically just hippies who talk a lot more about Bayes’ theorem than the original hippies,” said Scott Aaronson [0] https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/05/23/three-great-articles-on-poverty-and-why-i-disagree-with-all-of-them/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/05/23/three-great-articles-o...
  • toiletfuneral 6y ago
    Uh Scott also says he believes poverty is not a result of exploitation but culture or genetics soooooo
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    • karaterobot 6y ago
      His arguments are always interesting to read, even when I disagree with them -- in that spirit, could you link to the essay where he says this?
    • coldtea 6y ago
      Uh, he can believe whatever he wants on the matter, that doesn't make him a racist, sooooo.... When was it a "solved" finding that poverty is a result of exploitation? Or that culture and/or genetics don't also play a role, perhaps a big one? That's how science works, by making hypothesis, examining things, and coming to conclusions, popular or not. And a scientist/thinker is allowed to have different conclusions than others, if they can point to specific theories and numbers that support their thesis.
    • AnthonyMouse 6y ago
      > Uh Scott also says he believes poverty is not a result of exploitation but culture or genetics soooooo Regardless of whether he said this, what gives you the impression that it isn't true? There are several studies showing a link between genetics and intelligence. This absolutely does not imply that all black people are less intelligent than all white people. It tends to imply that Ashkenazi Jews have some statistical genetic advantage over other "white people" and that if you then average them into the group "white people" the correlation persists against other arbitrarily defined groups. This is obviously about as far from the argument that Nazis want to make as you can imagine. Meanwhile, how could culture not affect outcomes in the aggregate? Would you really expect that all of the same outcomes would obtain for people who make different choices?
      • simondw 6y ago
        > This is obviously about as far from the argument that Nazis want to make as you can imagine Without wading in too far here, I want to point out that picking a slightly different "master race" is no better.
        • tuesdayrain 6y ago
          Science shouldn't be politicized like that. It bothers me how no one has an issue accepting the fact that different ethnic groups have different average heights, blood types, propensity for diseases, etc. But if someone dares suggest that not every group in the world has exactly equal average IQ scores, their career is over.(https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/01/science/watson-dna-genetics-race.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/01/science/watson-dna-geneti...). It's not about picking a master race. It's about objectively observing the world as it is, not how you might want it to be.
          • yesenadam 6y ago
            Watson in that article seems to be doing more than merely suggesting "that not every group in the world has exactly equal average IQ scores": > In 2007, Dr. Watson, who shared a 1962 Nobel Prize for describing the double-helix structure of DNA, told a British journalist that he was “inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa” because “all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours, whereas all the testing says, not really.” > Moreover, he added, although he wished everyone were equal, “people who have to deal with black employees find this not true.”
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    • Tenoke 6y ago
      >Uh Scott also says he believes poverty is not a result of exploitation but culture or genetics soooooo You sure he didn't say that poverty is part-hereditary rather than what you are saying? First, most if not all of the left believe it is hereditary - rich people's kids staying richer and vice versa. Second, he definitely never says exploitation or culture do not come into it.
  • jeofken 6y ago
    According to far right pro-white publication Wikipedia, intelligence is highly heritable - now it says “above 80%” but a recent version of this article said 80-84%. A so called hate fact
  • vasilipupkin 6y ago
    Exactly, the whole piece seems designed to allege nebulous, nefarious indirect ties that somehow lead magically from Silicon Valley to bad things
    • prezjordan 6y ago
      I certainly wouldn’t describe regular email correspondence (including messages about strategy) as a nebulous, indirect tie
      • vasilipupkin 6y ago
        I’m not sure what you a referring to. I’ve been reading the blog for years, I have never seen anything “bad” on it, I’ve seen ideas that can be debated.
        • SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
          The source article describes an incident where Balaji Srinivasan was emailing Curtis Yarvin about how to stop the media from reporting on the links between Yarvin's ideology and prominent tech figures such as Srinivasan. I'm unhappy about the guilt by association, because that really doesn't have much to do with Scott Alexander, but a prominent VC trying to kill news stories which might embarrass him is pretty noteworthy.
          • refenestrator 6y ago
            If a guy named Balaji Srinivasan has to defend himself against accusations of white supremacy.. maybe he has a point and is right to push back?
            • prezjordan 6y ago
              You are the first person to use the phrase "white supremacy" in this entire thread.
  • matthewdgreen 6y ago
    > And when you read the linked page[0], what Scott writes concerning Murrary seems perfectly inoffensive. He divides political views into quadrants, Competitive/Collective vs Optimistic/Pessimistic, then says "The only public figure I can think of in the [Collective + Pessimistic quadrant] with me is Charles Murray." This is what is described as aligning himself with Murray. Well there's some more in that paragraph you quote. He then goes on to say "Neither he nor I would dare reduce all class differences to heredity, and [Murray] in particular has some very sophisticated theories about class and culture." (Emphasis kept from the original.) Which I think the NYT writer reads as being at least a partial endorsement of Murray's belief that some class differences reduce to heredity. I do too, since this seems roughly in line with what I understand from Scott's writing. It is also true that Murray takes that idea farther and goes in some directions I find to be both scientifically unsupported and inflammatory. You can agree or disagree with the NYT here, I don't care. But I think you should quote more from that paragraph before you characterize it.
    • coldtea 6y ago
      He also aligns himself with dozen of other thinkers he agree with and mentions them. Why isolate some particular name, if not to imply "here's a racist"?
      • underyx 6y ago
        Because if the Proud Boys believe in gravity, evolution, and fascism, only one of these three is newsworthy.
        • SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
          The source article is pretty explicit about its goal: it's trying to inform readers on how a specific group of people think, which is important because many powerful people are in that group. Describing only the parts of their ideology that are "newsworthy", the parts that are strange or shocking to a typical NYT reader, is going to present a picture so distorted that it ends up being simply false. It would be like a human interest story that studiously refused to mention anything normal about the subject.
  • coldtea 6y ago
    >Such a badly-written, mean-spirited article. The same attributes applies to most of current "hollier than thou" cancel articles. The principle of charity is totally lost, anything that an idiot can misread as offensive is labeled as so, and offensiveness itself is potrtrayed as the biggest crime. The NYT is worse a rag than the National Enquirer, because at least the second is not perceived as some objective and quality source (and doesn't influence politics, or help setup trillion dollar wars and mass carnage).
    • whoooooo123 6y ago
      Not to get too Jordan Peterson-ey but I really think this is the result of postmodern, social-constructionist ideology spreading through the humanities. If there's no such thing as objectivity and all truth claims are just manifestations of who has power then there's no need for journalists to strive for objectivity and everything you publish is just another salvo in the war against dominant power structures. If social constructionism is true then you're no longer a neutral conduit for facts, you're a culture warrior shaping reality with your words. There's no debate, no 'marketplace of ideas', only dominant discourses and power differentials, and your moral duty as a journalist is not to debate bad ideas, expose them, or allow the reader to make up their own minds, for that only gives oxygen to harmful discourses; instead you must destroy bad ideas through any means necessary, no matter how dishonest (and dishonesty isn't a real thing anyway because there's no such thing as true and false, only that which advances the power of a given group and that which weakens it.) This nonsense is now the reigning ideology among humanities departments at our elite schools and outlets like the NYT are increasingly staffed by young graduates who have been indoctrinated into this cult; is it any wonder that the NYT has gone off the fucking deep end?
      • zozbot234 6y ago
        The ironic and surprising development lately is just how thoroughly this "postmodern, social-constructionist ideology" is being adopted by the socially-conservative right. It's hard to describe the Qanon cult with its surprising and outlandish "claims" about liberal Democrats, Hollywood etc. etc. as anything other than a concious parody of the view that "there's no such thing as objectivity and all truth claims are just manifestations of who has power" in the "war against dominant power structures". The "culture war" does not obviously favor one side!
  • dqv 6y ago
    As to that second part... >... In another, he pointed out that Mr. Murray believes Black people “are genetically less intelligent than white people.” What article (as of right now, there is no link)? What is up with journalists not bothering to cite claims like these?
    • lovecg 6y ago
      It’s this one https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/06/21/against-murderism/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/06/21/against-murderism/ He’s using him as an example to make another point - he could have just as easily used Hitler there or anyone else. Quite a stretch to call this an endorsement of any kind.
      • ahepp 6y ago
        The first link is the endorsement, the second suggests he knew what he was endorsing.
  • jseliger 6y ago
    It's just totally dishonest writing. It's hard to believe they're arguing in good faith there, but who knows. Reminds me of pg's recent tweet: "'The New York Times says...' doesn't have anything like the force it did 20 years ago." https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1359879895736852482?s=20 https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1359879895736852482?s=20 A few weeks ago I gave up and cancelled my subscription. They do have some good-seeming original reporting, but I think about Gell-Mann Amnesia for too many articles.
    • sflicht 6y ago
      The crossword puzzle also remains pretty good, with only a smattering of social justice themed clues once every few days.
      • thisiszilff 6y ago
        The cooking section, I think, is the biggest winner for them these days.
        • jkestner 6y ago
          Both of those have subscriptions independent of the paper, and I gladly pay them. (Though if you like spices, at least double the amounts in the Asian recipes.) I also pay for the digital newspaper. Just as I subscribe to certain local papers only for a particular investigative reporter or basketball beat writer, there are parts of the NYT I find valuable and others that make me want to cancel. It'd be nice if I could 'tip' part of my subscription to the writers of the articles that I really liked.
  • a1369209993 6y ago
    > It's hard to believe they're arguing in good faith there, but who knows. Well, Hanlon's Razor suggests they're just incompentent, but that seems like more of a "98% confidence has been refuted at General Relativity" kind of thing.
• mlthoughts2018 6y ago
  Wow this is low, spastic garbage, even for the New York Times. Trying to drum up weak, tacked-on “sources” to compare Slate Star Codex with a forum inviting fringe hate groups is absolutely pathetic.
• pyentropy 6y ago
  Maybe I'm bitter and biased because I like SSC, but based on the author's social media profiles and his new book description, he's purely jealous that he wasn't allowed to be the man to "expose" SSC and how LessWrong and SSC played role in some events in his upcoming AI book "Genius Makers" (jeez what a name...).
• iagovar 6y ago
  This article could be a Tweet.
  • coldtea 6y ago
    And a tweet from Trump or a Karen, at that...
• throwawaysea 6y ago
  Just a reminder, the New York Times threatened to doxx the author of Slate Star Codex and was heavily criticized for it. They also seem to exercise a double standard in this regard: https://reason.com/2020/06/24/slate-star-codex-dox-scott-alexander-new-york-times/ https://reason.com/2020/06/24/slate-star-codex-dox-scott-ale...
  • yesenadam 6y ago
    > They also seem to exercise a double standard in this regard: Thanks, that's a good article, but doesn't seem to support your claim of a double standard: > Some will no doubt describe this double standard as an example of political bias, but it's probably better described as garden-variety sloppiness. It seems more likely that the Times does not have consistent standards here, and editors alternate between fostering over-reliance on anonymous sources and forbidding the practice. i.e. not a "double standard", but no standard.
    • throwawaysea 6y ago
      Yes I’m aware the article offers that opinion towards the end, but that’s just their opinion. I linked the article primarily because it describes the two incidents (the facts without the opinionated judgment). To me it is still a double standard, a result of the NYT’s left leaning bias (https://www.allsides.com/media-bias/media-bias-ratings https://www.allsides.com/media-bias/media-bias-ratings).
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• mchusma 6y ago
  The New York times has really gone downhill. What are people liking these days? Washington Post?
  • md2020 6y ago
    I agree it’s gone downhill, I’m finding it really bizarre and somewhat sad to watch. It seems to me the pillars of legacy media like the NYT realized in the past decade they’re going to be outdone by newer internet-native ways of obtaining information (Substack, Twitter, etc. which do have their own issues), and their recent wave of SV tech industry bashing reeks of desperation. I’m not sure what’s going to rise to replace the idea of a “Paper of record”. Balaji is big on the idea of a “ledger of record” on some blockchain, but implementation difficulties aside, I’m skeptical that such a system would really solve the problem here.
    • SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
      Does there need to be a replacement? It's my understanding that it's always been this way in for example the UK; they have well-regarded newspapers pushing out strong reporting (as the NYT continues to do), but there's no expectation that the papers won't be biased. In many ways, it could be healthier for a society to not have outlets that everyone uncritically trusts.
      • noir_lord 6y ago
        In some ways that is certainly true, I don't unconditionally trust any newspaper published here. However we also have the problem that is the "Daily Mail" which is a truly vile publication - which I read because it keeps me informed on what a significant chunk of the population of my country thinks. We don't really have any truly decent news sources left or right wing, they've all moved to click bait nonsense and "reaction pieces" to something someone said on Twitter - I suspect because it's cheap. The best of the bunch in terms of what I consider classical journalism is probably The Guardian (which is biased) and as long as you avoid it's opinion section (bleh) is a reasonably decent paper. Honestly the best you can do to remain an informed citizen is read a bunch of them and look at what is not been said by each.
• dfraser992 6y ago
  "Slate Star Codex was a window into the psyche of many tech leaders building our collective future. Then it disappeared" I did not read TFA because I know I'd just be ticked off - the hoopla and sloppy reporting around GME trying to fit it all into a simplistic narrative really was quite annoying and has caused me to revise my understanding of modern day journalism. My opinion is that "the journalist" in a lot of cases wrote things up in a simplistic way so that they could understand it for themselves - or they just slapped something together in an ad hoc fashion following all the other lemmings - or the intent was to spew more propaganda about whatever they think is important. All this has convinced me the "Right" do have a bit of a good point about the MSM being sloppy, unfair, and trying to control the public's interpretation of reality (not that the "Right" are correct about much of anything...) But whatever happened to trying to really comprehend all the different angles to a story? Or understanding the worldview of the subject? That takes a lot of work aka empathy and the economics of the MSM nowadays precludes that, I guess. Louis Theroux and Adam Curtis are the antithesis of this sort of journalist. Geez... the implied connotation of this lede makes it quite obvious the angle taken on this topic was predetermined just like Scott feared. It all fits in with the general fad going on now about how Big Tech is so evil now and out to enslave everyone. I've been in this industry for 30 years and yes there are problems, but just like with any other technology or shift in society. A mutant version of capitalism is the real problem now but you'll never see the MSM writing articles about that. I'm not even a Rationalist or part of that community; I read SSC occasionally when a topic came up that I am interested in. In general, I think they are a bit short sighted and blinkered in a lot of respect - though the angle taken is useful. To really grok something, you have to look at all of the angles and to believe only 'this angle' is the real Truth is stupid. The idea that SSC was the coffeehouse for "many tech leaders" is really .... I want to say ludicrous but that is perhaps too strong of a word. Not all engineers are autistic robots. Counterpoint: Zuckerberg has a degree in psychology so he can't automatically be lumped in the Rationalist community; he certainly knew from the beginning he was building a digital Skinner box and how people would behave given the right stimuli.
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  • AngrySkillzz 6y ago
• blhack 6y ago
  If you read this article and know the types of things that Scott writes, remember this experience and try to imagine how many other nytimes outrage articles are similarly full of lies.
  • sokoloff 6y ago
    Exactly. See also: Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/65213-briefly-stated-the-gell-mann-amnesia-effect-is-as-follows-you https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/65213-briefly-stated-the-ge...
    • konjin 6y ago
      That is not incompetence. This is a hatchet job. Stop giving malicious actors the benefit of the doubt.
  • karaterobot 6y ago
    In some real way, Gell-Mann amnesia sustains the entire news industry. We have to believe there is a central, reliable source of news somewhere out there, despite so much evidence to the contrary.
    • np- 6y ago
      My ultimate problem is that once this fact becomes apparent to people, many of them tend to go down the rabbit hole of getting what they perceive as the "real" news from blogs/forum posts/opinionated tweets/random guy with a youtube channel. As in, the eventual consequence to mass media having poor rigorous standards of reporting is that people will migrate to sources that have even poorer standards. TBH, I don't really know what the solution to the problem is.
      • arduanika 6y ago
        Personally I think I've arrived at a place where I'm wary of Gell-Mann Amnesia both with the established sources, and with the conspiracy rabbit holes. I've seen both NYT and "alt" news say things that are straight-up incorrect about facts that I know from my own experience, in my own domains of knowledge, so I'm not going to trust either blindly. I'm left trying to piece together from various sources of different slants, at different points on the established/fringe spectrum. This is harder than taking a side, but I want to believe it's worth it. Btw, I'm not trying to draw a simple equivalency here. "Thinking for yourself" isn't as easy as saying "both sides distort" and plotting a naive midpoint between extremes. You have to read everything critically.
• djohnston 6y ago
  s/But in late June of last year, when I approached Mr. Siskind to discuss the blog, it vanished./But in late June of last year, when I doxxed Mr. Siskind, it vanished./ FTFY I love the diffusion of responsibility via the passive voice. Oh it "just disappeared." I hope big tech buries the NYT.
  • syoc 6y ago
    While I read SSC and agree that this article is lacking to say the least I think NYT has every right to publish it. Rationalist movements, other areas for though and discussion, I welcome main stream media to talk even more about it. Maybe they will see that there is a huge opportunity on the table. I do however not, in any way, hope that "big tech" buries a news house. Even for a, not very good written and mean spirited, article. Especially one trying to bring public light on where a lot of very influential people get a lot of their ideological beliefs from. That would be a horrible precedent.
    • djohnston 6y ago
      To be clear, I didn't mean bury in a reactionary way to this piece, or do anything to actively inhibit NYT's ability to publish what they want. I meant provide alternative means to publish/access information that strip these news houses of their power, as they are just as full of it as anyone else.
    • raverbashing 6y ago
      I think that if you're not a public figure and/or have a reason to not be anonymous (accused of a crime, etc) then you should be allowed to remain anonymous. The NYT publishing threat was gratuitous
    • paganel 6y ago
      > I do however not, in any way, hope that "big tech" buries a news house. I'm by no way a fan of big tech but NYT has diverged quite sensibly from being a "news house" in the last few years.
      • 6y ago
• yanderekko 6y ago
  I for one look forward to the erosion of the unholy axis of massive tech monopolies and hall monitor journalists that we've seen rise in the past few years as the latter begin to overreach and demand the cancellation of Silicon Valley darlings like Scott. With Trump out of the picture tech figures will realize that the burden (both financial and psychological) of complying to ever-ratcheting demands of performative wokeness is not worth bearing.
• sradman 6y ago
  The NYTimes precipitated the Slate Star Codex controversy [1]: > Slate Star Codex was launched in 2013, and was taken down by its author on June 23, 2020, due to fears of having his full name published in an upcoming piece by the New York Times. I’m assuming this article is the delayed result from the NYTimes. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slate_Star_Codex#Controversy_over_potential_revelation_of_full_name https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slate_Star_Codex#Controversy_o...
• optimalsolver 6y ago
  For some reason, Rationalistas thought they could intimidate the NYT, the very same outfit that took down Weinstein, into backing down by sending mean tweets. Maybe these guys aren't as galaxy-brained as they imagine.
  • coldtea 6y ago
    >the very same outfit that took down Weinstein You make it sound like a heroic effort. The "very same outfit that jumped on the Weinstein affair that got national interest and attracked lots of ad impressions" would be a better description. It's easy to "take down" a rapist film producer everybody and their dog were already piling up against and the whole nation hated. His money/connections/lawyers/threats were as good as dead by that time.
    • optimalsolver 6y ago
      The NY Times story was the catalyst for Weinstein's firing and eventual arrest.
      • coldtea 6y ago
        It's easy to be the catalyst for the firing and arrest of a rapist. Did the NYT manage to sell this as some "heroic" Watergate-level journalism on their part?
        • brown9-2 6y ago
          They won a Pulitzer Prize for the reporting and stories they broke about Weinstein: https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/new-york-times-reporting-led-jodi-kantor-and-megan-twohey-and-new-yorker-reporting-ronan https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/new-york-times-reporting-le... * For explosive, impactful journalism that exposed powerful and wealthy sexual predators, including allegations against one of Hollywood’s most influential producers, bringing them to account for long-suppressed allegations of coercion, brutality and victim silencing, thus spurring a worldwide reckoning about sexual abuse of women.* https://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-year/2018 https://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-year/2018 The idea that it was “easy” to report these stories is hard to believe when he was able to abuse women for decades without publicity.
• Lazare 6y ago
  Given the rather enormous of time and attention spent on it, not to mention the vast amounts of heated debate it had already spawned, I'd sort of assumed the NYT would either publish a really, really solid article or (more likely) just spike it and try and forget the entire thing had ever happened. After all, given that the NYT was now so much a part of the story, writing anything good would be pretty hard. But no, kudos to them, they found a third way: Just write a poorly written article that alternates between interjecting disconnected ideas and making vague attempts at guilt by association, and carefully ignore anything inconvenient. > He denounced the neoreactionaries, the anti-democratic, often racist movement popularized by Curtis Yarvin. But he also gave them a platform. His “blog roll” — the blogs he endorsed — included the work of Nick Land, a British philosopher whose writings on race, genetics and intelligence have been embraced by white nationalists. So he denounced the works of one person who believes bad things, but he also linked to a second person, who may or may not believe bad things, but is liked by a third group of people who also believe bad things, so...logically...that must mean he actually does...support the first person? Despite denouncing them, because he didn't link to them, which proves...something...? It feels weird even writing this argument down. If you link to someone who supports X, then you're actually supporting every other person who has ever supported X? Link to a pro-vegan website, you must support every terrible ideology that has had at least one vegetarian supporter? What a depressing waste of everyone's time.
  • prezjordan 6y ago
    I had absolutely no problem reading this as SSC denouncing Yarvin, but platforming other prominent members of the neoreactionary movement.
    • Lazare 6y ago
      Yes, I had no problem reading the reporter's words that way either, which is the exact thing I'm complaining about. :) Bluntly: Which prominent member of the neoreactionary movement was allowed to guest blog at SSC? Because if the answer is "none", then I think it's clear he did not do any such thing.
      • 6y ago
• tomjen3 6y ago
  So it appears that the NYT actually went ahead and published that attack job on Scott. I had hoped that they had choosen to forget it, but no. Hopefully this will be what we remember as the legacy of the NYT. Pointlessly destroying things out a shear inability to create it themselves.
• coldtea 6y ago
  NYT is the same rag that published as "news" and helped expel a girl from college, because when she was 15, after passing her driving exam, she was caught on video bragging "I can drive, n..." (addressed to no-one, meant as a boast). https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/26/us/mimi-groves-jimmy-galligan-racial-slurs.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/26/us/mimi-groves-jimmy-gall... To me that's 1000 times more offensive and hideous than using the n-word by yourself, and the scum of the earth that wrote and posted that article (and those that expelled the girl), should be ousted from society.
  • high_derivative 6y ago
    Agreed and I think what consumers should do is vote with their wallets and attention: - Cancel NYT subscriptions - Subscribe to independent journalists and writers on Substack or via other means - Flag NYT articles
    • leesalminen 6y ago
      I subscribed to Glenn Greenwald the day he left The Intercept. I don’t really read his writings nor do I necessarily agree with what he say to say all the time. But, I really like the idea of supporting individual journalists with $. Hopefully others can see Glenn’s success in this model and try it out themselves.
      • mattdotc 6y ago
        You're supporting someone whose writings you don't read after he left in a big hissy fit because his editors tried to edit him. Got it. A lot of folks might soon be discovering why editors are actually important. There's value in having another party check your work, challenge your assumptions, and question your claims. This process is not blanket censorship, but Glenn would have you think so.
        • leesalminen 6y ago
          I think the public should be challenging assumptions and questioning claims. Advocating for an “editor” aka “gatekeeper” is a form of elitism in that it assumes an editor will be “better” at challenging assumptions than the public at large. While you may find many instances where that is true, it’s not good for public discourse to be boxed into a frame of discourse decided by the ivory tower types. My current financial support for Glenn has nothing to do with him. It has to do with the funding model of journalism. He’s just the first one I came across to try it, so I’m supportive.
• autarch 6y ago
  As others have noted, this is a good time to think about Gell-Mann amnesia effect. Here's some points in the article that I think are particularly sketchy that others haven't yet noted ... > He denounced the neoreactionaries, the anti-democratic, often racist movement popularized by Curtis Yarvin. But he also gave them a platform. His “blog roll” — the blogs he endorsed — included the work of Nick Land, a British philosopher whose writings on race, genetics and intelligence have been embraced by white nationalists. Take a look at Slate Star Codex (SSC) in The Wayback Machine on January 1, 2020 - https://web.archive.org/web/20200101140213/https://slatestarcodex.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20200101140213/https://slatestar... The Blog Roll is on the left side. It's a long list of weirdly categorized links without any additional annotation. Nick Land's is "Xenosystems" (which now appears to be defunct). I think calling this an "endorsement" is really stretching things here. Scott wrote about the neoreactionary movement on SSC more than once, and it's quite clear he _does not_ endorse those viewpoints (which to be fair, the article does say). But given that he wrote about the topic repeatedly, it's no surprise he linked to a prominent neoreactionary blog. Presumably, he trusted his readers to come to their own conclusions about the content on the linked blogs. And he also probably assumed that readers would realize this _wasn't_ an endorsement, given his own writing on the neoreactionary movement. If I told you that you should read Marx's Communist Manifesto after telling you at length that I think Communism is terrible, am I endorsing Communism? Or am I telling you to read this because I think you should learn more about Communism, and not just from me? > I did a Google search for Scott Alexander and one of the first results I saw in the auto-complete list was Scott Alexander Siskind. This is one of the sketchiest things in the article. Scott made it clear that his primary concern was that his patients and potential employers might associate him with his blog. So if you're a patient googling your new psychiatrist, would you google their first and middle name (a middle name you might not even know)? Or would you google "Scott Siskind"? Of course you'd do the latter! So the question is whether googling "Scott Siskind" would get you to SSC. I'd love to go back in time and check this. I'd also love to know if Cade Metz tried this and what result he got. I would note that if I google "Scott Siskind" right now, I do get results related to SSC, but that's because Scott after Scott gave up his pseudonymity on Astral Codex Ten, the Wikipedia page for SSC was updated to include Scott's full name. I'm sure there are more similarly sketchy parts of the article that others will note.
• tomp 6y ago
  Is this the article that cause Scott to delete Slate Star Codex? Shame on NYT.
• jancsika 6y ago
  Never read Slate Star Codex before. Took the link to an entry on metoo[1]: 1. Starts with a thought experiment based on statistics from various sources. 2. Has a parenthetical paragraph about gay male harassment, also with statistics. 3. Makes a speculative conclusion inside the parenthetical, never mentioning the famous metoo case of Terry Crews, the media coverage of which argues against said conclusion. Can someone tell me if the other articles follow this pattern of building from first principles without having first done due diligence on a given topic? [1] https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/12/04/against-overgendering-harassment/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/12/04/against-overgendering-... Edit: clarification
  • sanderjd 6y ago
    I would say it is not uncommon for his articles to build from first principles, but also not uncommon for them to be based on due diligence. One general problem with this NYT article is that SSC is ... a lot of words, and is not easily categorizable, so pretty much any treatment of it in an article like this is going to be superficial and unable to find some cohesive narrative that captures truth. Instead it chooses one cohesive narrative, which is inevitably incredibly incomplete.
    • jancsika 6y ago
      > I would say it is not uncommon for his articles to build from first principles, but also not uncommon for them to be based on due diligence. Thanks. With that in mind-- and with a proud and explicit rejection of the idiotic repostings of the Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect here on HN-- I'll do my due diligence and read some of the other postings, too. As far as this article I stumbled upon wrt metoo-- I think it stands as a good example of how not to write an even-handed analysis for a general audience. Relying on a thought experiment without mentioning that there's an extant well-known case leads the astute reader to believe the author hasn't devoted adequate study to the subject.
  • joveian 6y ago
    Your #3 is only one of a bunch of things wrong with that paragraph :(. This seems much worse than his earlier posts that I read, mostly a couple of years earlier IIRC. Not sure if that is typical of his more recent writing or not. But yes, I would say that is exactly the pattern, long arguments from first principles leaving out obvious counterarguments or mentioning them but dismissing them without understanding the argument. Obviously when discussing complex topics it is impossible to mention everything, but he seems to often fail to understand the most common objections against what he is arguing.
• civilized 6y ago
  It's interesting how many of the article's claims, often quite vague, are unsupported by any quotes or citations. For example, Metz claims that social justice "voices who might push back were kept at bay" on SSC, but provides no clarification of what he means by this or how it was accomplished. Peculiar choice not to justify with source material when the topic is a public blog with public comments.
  • konjin 6y ago
    Kept at bay means were not given moderator and administration privileges, unlike say reddit where saying retarded gets you banned from dozen of subs. Which is hilarious since automod doesn't check if it was used as a verb or adjective.
    • robin21 6y ago
      Your post has been downvoted because you used the R-word. Did you not get the memo from the NYT journalist recently?
      • konjin 6y ago
        Retard also means to slow down something. That the people outraged over words are illiterate isn't a big surprise.
• argonaut 6y ago
  On the "doxxing" controversy, it’s odd to see people who are supposedly in favor of free speech advocate for what is essentially the "right" to be publicly forgotten (since Scott’s real name was already public knowledge due to some of his past writings that were under his real name). Free speech and the right to be forgotten are in direct conflict.
  • ed25519FUUU 6y ago
    While I largely agree with you, the motivations of doxxing is almost always to threaten someone into silence, and to chill others who might be considering opening their own mouths.
  • Smaug123 6y ago
    Well, it's not the right to be forgotten. It's the right not to have a major news outlet trumpet your name. There's still a conflict between "the NYT has the right to identify me" and "I have the right to say what I want pseudonymously", but the conflict is more nuanced than the one between between "the NYT has the right to identify me" and "I have the right to be forgotten".
  • kodah 6y ago
    > Free speech and the right to be forgotten are in direct conflict. I don't think so. The right to free speech is a right the government to say what you want without consequences from the government beyond certain limited criteria. The right to be forgotten is a personal right where a person can decide they want certain information removed after a period of time. I consider this more a personal protection in a world where people have issues realizing that felons have paid for their crimes, that peoples views can change over time, etc...
  • chordalkeyboard 6y ago
    I haven’t seen anyone frame the issue as a right. I’ve seen people argue that there was no public interest in publishing Siskind’s legal name and that it was unethical.
    • 6y ago
• A12-B 6y ago
  I guess hackernews users really like slatestar codex
  • agentdrtran 6y ago
    tech guys are basically the core audience of rationalism/SLC
  • carapace 6y ago
    FWIW, I didn't like slatestar codex, but I still find this piece really slimy.
• neural_thing 6y ago
  My take: it doesn't actually quote SSC, what a failure. https://howthehell.substack.com/p/nyt-ssc-quoting https://howthehell.substack.com/p/nyt-ssc-quoting
  • yesenadam 6y ago
    That is awesome, thank you! (A page full of amazing prose samples from SSC)
    • remarkEon 6y ago
      Yes, those are great, and makes you realize that NYT not quoting SSC was intentional, because it would nuke the narrative they're trying to build. Edit: here's an example, that's pretty instructive. From NYT: >That week, a Google employee named James Damore wrote a memo arguing that the low number of women in technical positions at the company was a result of biological differences, not anything else — a memo he was later fired over. [Emphasis added] But that isn't what Damore said, and you can go google and read the memo yourself, which NYT doesn't link for you, because it would directly contradict their framing.
  • ardy42 6y ago
    > My take: it doesn't actually quote SSC, what a failure. > https://howthehell.substack.com/p/nyt-ssc-quoting https://howthehell.substack.com/p/nyt-ssc-quoting Am I reading that right? It complains the article didn't actually quote SSC, then contradicts itself by listing ten actual quotes from SSC that are in the article, and then lists ten other quotes that he happens to particularly like (one of which is a dreamlike thing that appears to be from some fiction). I kinda get the impression the author of that blog post would have been satisfied with nothing less than something that read like it was written by an enthusiastic fan.
    • PoignardAzur 6y ago
      > then contradicts itself by listing ten actual quotes from SSC that are in the article Hum, your definition of quote is very generous to the NYT, given than most of the 10 list items you mention are four words long or less.
• moultano 6y ago
  Seems like if you're going to write about something a lot of people find a lot of value in, you at least owe it to your readership to explain why they find it valuable.
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
• jdkee 6y ago
  FTA: “ The voices also included white supremacists and neo-fascists. The only people who struggled to be heard, Dr. Friedman said, were “social justice warriors.” ” This is a disingenuous take but it does fit the current NYT narrative of opposing speech (and venues) the editors disapprove of.
• ed25519FUUU 6y ago
  This article grossly overplays the importance of such places. Back in the day these types of discussions were commonplace, even on the internet. Now that the internet is increasingly sanitized of opposing speech, and the media serves as the arbiter of allowed discussion topics and (most importantly) allowed thought, communities like this just stick out. They say this is an important and unusual place, but really what they mean is that it’s a different place than what’s allowed. Even their use of language like “neo-fascist” is telling. As if labeling people a regular fascist doesn’t inflict the same type of cultural damage it used to have...
  • fullshark 6y ago
    Wouldn't that make it more important? Given you believe the media is scrubbing the internet of these types of conversations? I don't follow.
• myWindoonn 6y ago
  A solid article trying to understand exactly what is so important about Rationalism that it must be hidden and treated as a gnostic induction into a mystery religion. Note that the author did the courtesy of not mentioning Roko's Basilisk. Clearly they do understand that some things shouldn't be talked about. But they don't think that any of the writers mentioned here deserve to avoid public scrutiny.
  • solveit 6y ago
    I find this comment ironic
    • myWindoonn 6y ago
      Don't worry about the Basilisk. It can't exist, because Newcomb's Paradox is unphysical. Specifically, Newcomb's Paradox is incompatible with a feature of quantum mechanics, Bell's Inequality [0][1][2] which makes it impossible for predictors to fully control how a person will actually choose to act. We could even imagine special "Conway's Coins" which can be flipped like normal coins [3] whenever a person wants a little randomness and wants to be confident that they are not being controlled by a Predictor or Basilisk. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell%27s_theorem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell%27s_theorem [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kochen%E2%80%93Specker_theorem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kochen%E2%80%93Specker_theorem [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_will_theorem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_will_theorem [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coin_flipping https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coin_flipping
      • Smaug123 6y ago
        Dear heavens, the situation is excruciating. I believe your argument to be fundamentally unsound, but I also believe it's extremely bad manners to discuss infohazards. It feels even worse than the normal "someone is Wrong On The Internet"!
        • carapace 6y ago
          It's okay, today is Opposite Day.
• smoldesu 6y ago
  It's ironic that a paid publication is deriding someone who posted articles for free. It's even more ironic that the paid article is considerably worse than the free stuff.
• A12-B 6y ago
  > “Because they decided they were more rational than other people, they trusted their own internal judgment.” This is my core criticism of those who call themselves rationalists. You don't have to call yourself that, you can just be rationalist. But when you adopt the cult-like mentality of rationalism it becomes very ironic indeed.
  • ta8645 6y ago
    Everyone believes they are being rational. Failing to recognize that and calling oneself a rationalist is often just code for "my values and priorities are more important than those others put forth".
• vinceguidry 6y ago
  Having followed SSC for a number of years in the mid-2010s, I eventually just started drifting away. The so-called Grey Tribe is really just toxicity that's managed to talk itself into self-unawareness. Case in point, quoted from the article: > The main reason computer scientists, mathematicians and other groups were predominantly male was not that the industries were sexist, he argued, but that women were simply less interested in joining. This is exactly the sort of thing you manage to convince yourself of when you don't want to be a part of the people calling themselves the good guys, but also don't want to throw in with the sorts of people comfortable with being called the bad guys. Everybody in the Blue Tribe is going to precisely see the toxic nature of this statement. Women aren't interested in joining because of the sexist nature of the industries. Reversing the order of the causation is making excuses for sexism and is itself sexist. The New York Times does not have to explain this to its audience. They already know. All they really have to do is list the cavalcade of toxicity that the community produced and everybody who has been in the Blue Tribe for years will know the score, and people like me who were actually a part of it and drifted away from the Grey Tribe to join the Blue Tribe are nodding their heads. Now, this is Hacker News, this community is very close to the SSC one, so I know a lot of people aren't going to take this well. But the Grey Tribe really isn't a nice place to be, and the sooner you can realize this, the sooner you can find actual political heft in the world. Contrarian logic sucks. Rationalism isn't all it's cracked up to be. It sucks all the life out of the air for minorities. When you state a contrarian opinion like it's fact, like it should be considered because you're the one saying it, and the reason you're stating it is none other than you don't like all those nasty SJWs, you're denying the lived experience of all the people out there who spent their lives being one of those oppressed minorities. All of those girls who hide their gender from their gaming pals. All those Black Americans who discover that the tech landscape doesn't reward knowledge and talent as much as it does the right race and skin color. It may be a little better in the tech industry than it might be, say, in the construction industry, but to pretend these things don't exist or aren't as important as what your mind sees as bigger is, well, toxic. And it's the cornerstone of the Grey Tribe mindset.
  • zozbot234 6y ago
    > The main reason computer scientists, mathematicians and other groups were predominantly male was not that the industries were sexist, he argued, but that women were simply [emphasis added] less interested in joining. This is not a fair summary of the argument. There's nothing "simple" about the pipeline problem, and what 'grey tribe' folks object to is not the rather generic claim that "the industry is sexist" (since there are in fact plenty of problematic practices in the tech industry that may adversely impact women) but the rather more specific argument that discrimination in hiring practices/educational admissions/etc. is to blame for the imbalance. Clearly, there's quite a bit of evidence against that proposed mechanism.
• godelzilla 6y ago
  >The voices also included white supremacists and neo-fascists. NYTimes never misses a chance to promote these people.
• api 6y ago
  > They were “easily persuaded by weird, contrarian things,” said Robin Hanson, a professor of economics at George Mason University who helped create the blogs that spawned the Rationalist movement. “Because they decided they were more rational than other people, they trusted their own internal judgment.” The article as a whole is meh, but that quote made skimming it worthwhile. I've never been impressed by the "rationalist" community around SSC, LessWrong, Overcoming Bias, etc., but I've really struggled to put my finger on it. This gets pretty damn close. The whole sphere struck me from the beginning (way before present controversies) as a big circle jerk of smart people trying to impress each other. The standard issue rationalist flex is to pick a contrarian point of view and invent an extremely novel argument for it. Bonus points if it skirts close to something controversial or taboo, but doesn't quite cross the line. Then an endless thread of discussion can ensue where all the participants have an opportunity to flex by either agreeing or taking apart the argument. Problem is: I never got the sense that anything was being accomplished, nor that the ideas coming out of these places stood up when dragged out of their bubbles and examined in the context of the wider world and the wider sphere of human experience. The first thing that really put me off was the whole idea of runaway super-intelligent AI. Please, please, please for the love of g-d study some biology. Dunning-Krueger is a worn out meme but I think the idea of it applies well to CS people talking about intelligence (as opposed to glorified statistical regression) without knowing anything about biology, which is the only existing example of an intelligent system. The neo-racist ("human biodiversity") and neoreactionary stuff just put me off further. When it emerged it didn't surprise me one bit that it came from those circles. Contrarian? Check. Controversial? Check. Elitist? Check. In the end I started thinking of it as an online cult, sort of a really high-brow companion to the 'chans. I guess the hierarchy goes: rationalist sphere > 'chan culture > Qanon.
  • Tenoke 6y ago
    Hanson is very pro-Scott and funnily enough much more contrarian and sucked into what the nyt would think of as questionable beliefs based on analysis than Scott is. Quoting him like this is downright amusing and only just dishonest enough to push you towards having a negative opinion without being 'wrong'.
  • Noos 6y ago
• ceilingcorner 6y ago
  The NY Times has become such a petty, gossip ridden rag that it’s frankly embarrassing. I am personally angry about it, because I grew up in a tiny town, viewing the Times with admiration as a representative of the “cultured” world. What a disappointment.
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• Cyberthal 6y ago
  HN has realized that Woke comes for them. To which I can only comment: kek.
• mdoms 6y ago
  It is just astounding to me what has happened to NYT over the past 5 years. They used to be a reliable source of good information and widely regarded as the paper of record. Now they have obliterated their own credibility by getting involved in a ridiculous, dangerous culture war.
• lovecg 6y ago
  Nowhere in the NYT article it explains the real problem Scott had with them publishing his name. It’s not the forward search (SSC -> real name) that’s the issue, it’s the reverse search (real name -> SSC). Before the NYT article his patients would mostly not be able to find his blog; after the article it’s one of the first results that comes up. The fact that the article does not go into this is very dishonest as I’m sure Scott made this argument to the reporter.
  • Noos 6y ago
    eh...to be honest Scott should have known that he couldn't have kept it up forever. he should have made plans to either be SSC or not; it was apparent it was way too big to expect it to be a side gig he does. Scott was dishonest to himself as well. When you get quoted by writers in the NYT and your concepts become part of the lexicon of a rather wealthy intellectual movement, its a bit too late to wonder about if you can keep the day job.
    • h0l0cube 6y ago
      Seems like he'll be okay: > He gave the blog a new title: Astral Codex Ten. He hinted that Substack paid him $250,000 for a year on the platform. And he indicated the company would give him all the protection he needed. > In his first post, Mr. Siskind shared his full name.
• bosswipe 6y ago
  Y'all can attack the messenger, make light of it, dismiss it, but fact is that antidemocratic forces in America are gaining funding, influence and power. There is an honest to goodness conspiracy among powerful silicon valley elites led by Thiel to spread these ideas and subvert our democracy. With slogans like "we're a republic not a democracy", and justification for policies like voter suppression and gerymandering they've succeeded in shifting the overton window and convincing many Republicans that democracy is bad. These are dangerous ideas that will lead to violence. I am personally willing to die for democracy.
  • whoooooo123 6y ago
    > slogans like "we're a republic not a democracy" What? This isn't a slogan, it's a basic statement of comprehension about how the American system is designed. Admittedly it's a very pedantic distinction that doesn't matter in casual conversation but it's still a fact
    • bosswipe 6y ago
      Its not pedantic, it's a lie meant to confuse and prime people against democracy. A republic is a form of democracy. What those that push the slogan dont tell you is that they don't want a republic either, what they really want is a theocracy or some kind of corporate dictatorship. EDIT: This comment is heavily down voted, I would appreciate a reply as to what's wrong with it. Do people disagree that a republic is a form of democracy?
      • naniwaduni 6y ago
        The American system was designed from the outset, on every front, to indirect the preferences of the "people" through multiple layers of middlemen with firmly bounded accountability to those they purport to represent. This is, in the popular consciousness, the salient difference between Athenian democracy and the Roman republic. It is no longer a popular design, and one that we've been slowly walking back over the history of the union, through general adoption of popular vote to choose electors, direct election of senators, &c.. Nevertheless, the design's legacy persists in all corners of the federal government, so the principle actually does have a lot of explanatory power when trying to make sense of it, even if for no other reason than trying to figure out which parts you want to demolish.
• sjg007 6y ago
  Great article. There’s definitely something there. It reads like the beginning of a good New Yorker article. There’s definitely a relationship between rationalism, objectivism and libertarianism. It seems to afflict the captains of industry. And in this case it’s Silicon Valley’s turn. Yep definitely something there, probably a book too. After all It’s a marketplace of ideas.
• tptacek 6y ago
  It feels like Balaji Srinivasan and Sam Altman are taking much bigger hits in this article than Scott Alexander is.
  • scarmig 6y ago
    It's an odd article. I think Cade Metz wanted to write a broadly positive piece on SSC; the theatrics from last year generated some bad blood with the NYT; and the editors wanted a more negative piece. So Cade gave them one, even though his heart really wasn't in it and he wasn't really interested in putting Scott on blast.
    • tptacek 6y ago
      Or the article was never really about putting Alexander on blast, and was always really about the broader SSC phenomenon, how it connects to the NRX psychos, and how that's just a hop or two away from SFBA power centers. That seems like an NYT article, more than a long profile about an obscure psychiatrist with a popular blog.
      • chordalkeyboard 6y ago
        > Or the article was never really about putting Alexander on blast, and was always really about the broader SSC phenomenon, how it connects to the NRX psychos, and how that's just a hop or two away from SFBA power centers. That seems like an NYT article, more than a long profile about an obscure psychiatrist with a popular blog. It does seem characteristic of NYT to think that “people discussing things on the internet” is something Very Serious People should be Concerned With.
        • tptacek 6y ago
          I'm sorry, I don't know what you mean.
          • deleted 6y ago
            [deleted]
• ta8645 6y ago
  And these are the people who are supposed to protect us from "disinformation"? The fact that the NYT can publish an article like this with a straight face just proves why we need freedom of speech as much as ever. Our once-trusted institutions have lost a sense of propriety and commitment to the truth.
• Androider 6y ago
  From the article: Mr. Srinivasan said they could not let that kind of story gain traction. “If things get hot, it may be interesting to sic the Dark Enlightenment audience on a single vulnerable hostile reporter to dox them and turn them inside out with hostile reporting sent to their advertisers/friends/contacts,” Mr. Srinivasan said in an email viewed by The New York Times
  • thesausageking 6y ago
    I've generally sided with Balaji in his feud with the NYTimes, but that's a pretty damning thing to say. Even more concerning now that a16z has its own media organization and is basically trying to cut out existing media like the NYTimes.
    • Tenoke 6y ago
      It is and I can believe him saying that, but then so many things in that article are misrepresented and the hate by now for Balaji by the NYT big enough that I wouldn't be surprised if with context the next sentence is 'Of course, I actually wouldn't wish that even on my enemies' or something.
    • mst 6y ago
      I'm increasingly of the opinion that Balaji deserves the NYT almost as much as the NYT deserves Balaji.
• andrew_ 6y ago
  It's wild to see the NYT publish tabloid pieces.
• kvee 6y ago
  Here's a link to view the article without generating page views for the NYT: https://archive.is/0Ghdl https://archive.is/0Ghdl
• mensetmanusman 6y ago
  It was taken down because of this sentence: “ The allure of the ideas within Silicon Valley is what made Scott Alexander, who had also written under his given name, *** ***, and his blog essential reading.” Was it worth it NYT?
• mensetmanusman 6y ago
  The NYTs embracing woke culture has been a disaster.
• horns4lyfe 6y ago
  I kind of wish NYT would post an annual list of all the wrongthink material that that their journalists think is too dangerous for a pleb like me to engage with. It would fill my reading list for years.
• 6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
  This is a terrible take on SSC, but even weirder is the attempt to connect it to big tech. The narrative aspects of this seem pulled out of thin air and the quotes appear to be wildly out of date, appearing to be from before SSC went down. Given NYT’s and presumably this author‘s part of the story, the presentation here crosses the line all the way to either intentionally or negligently disingenuous. Like other commenters here, I hope now that Trump’s out of office, it becomes less taboo on the left to talk about how poor a job mainstream media does.
• soheil 6y ago
  For anyone who has seen enough rotten articles from this particular organization https://www.blocknyt.com/ https://www.blocknyt.com/
• horns4lyfe 6y ago
  Well I had never heard of this before, but now I want to read the blog. So, I guess thanks NYTimes.
• hsod 6y ago
  HN has become a forum largely devoted to media criticism. We should change the motto to “ethics in journalism”
• Kye 6y ago
  The SSC subreddit is also discussing this: https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/lixeor/why_slate_star_codex_is_silicon_valleys_safe_space/ https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/lixeor/why_... and https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/liz5wk/silicon_valleys_safe_space_nyt_publishes_its/ https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/liz5wk/sili...
  • Terretta 6y ago
    As is MetaFilter, connecting SSC to HN, two communities with “Engineer’s Disease”: https://www.metafilter.com/190454/The-New-York-Times-vs-Slate-Star-Codex https://www.metafilter.com/190454/The-New-York-Times-vs-Slat... https://ask.metafilter.com/297591/Origin-of-the-term-Engineers-Disease https://ask.metafilter.com/297591/Origin-of-the-term-Enginee...
• jariel 6y ago
  Step 1: find a group or movement Step 2: find the individual in that group of movement who says something crazy Step 3: make them the defacto face of the group, make the group about them, take everything out of context. Step 4: ignore everything else. Step 5: threaten individuals with doxxing them unless they stop talking about things you don't want them to talk about [1] Step 6: promotion to editor [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slate_Star_Codex https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slate_Star_Codex
• steele 6y ago
  Lots of "fine people on both sides" rationalizing here in these comments. There were social and professional consequences for prejudice before "cancel culture" was full-throated wailed from atop privilege mountain. Rebranding the combination of 'reverse racism', 'dangerous time for men', & 'free speech' as a form of McCarthyism is so ludicrously transparent. Maybe it doesn't feel obvious in anti-intellectual edgy enclaves, but it's farcical to the majority of people that are too polite to remind that consequences for antisocial behavior has always existed.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• nemo44x 6y ago
  This is where we are today: it’s national news to report on a now defunct blog that believes in liberal discourses and methods of discovering truth, or as close as we can get to it. And then of course try and discredit it as heretical since some people we think are racist or their ideas may drop into the discussion from time to time.
• micimize 6y ago
  > In his first post, Mr. Siskind shared his full name. Absolutely incredible way to end this article, as if him "sharing" his full name had nothing to do with the whole fiasco: > I wanted to protect my privacy, but I ended up with articles about me in New Yorker, Reason, and The Daily Beast. I wanted to protect my anonymity, but I Streisand-Effected myself, and a bunch of trolls went around posting my real name everywhere they could find. I wanted to avoid losing my day job, but ended up quitting so they wouldn't be affected by the fallout. I lost a five-digit sum in advertising and Patreon fees. – https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/still-alive https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/still-alive
• rovolo 6y ago
  I'd like to dive in to one of the specifics. It's easy to disagree about which values people hold when you don't back up those assertions. From the NYT article: > He described some feminists as something close to Voldemort, the embodiment of evil in the Harry Potter books. This isn't very informative because feminism has become such a generic broad brush label. Feminists of different eras believe different things because the people identifying as feminist changes, and people change their opinions. "Feminism" now basically means you're talking about sex/gender issues and you think some of those issues are hurting women. Both the trans-exclusionary and trans-inclusive communities will identify as "feminist" because they are both discussing sex/gender issues, and they both think the other side is hurting women in particular. Your opinion about the various sides depend heavily on the specifics of what those sides are advocating for. With that said, now let's look at what Alexander's article says: > And the people who talk about “Nice Guys” – and the people who enable them, praise them, and link to them – ~~are blurring the already rather thin line between “feminism” and “literally Voldemort”~~ EDIT: ARE TOTALLY GREAT, NO NEED TO TAKE THIS ONE SENTENCE OUT OF CONTEXT AND TRY TO SPREAD IT ALL OVER THE INTERNET. Yeah, calling people "Voldemort" is a super minor aspect of the article he wrote. Let's examine the context, which is his analysis of the "Nice Guy" label. This is my summary of his article (which he has conveniently divided into 7 sections): 1) He describes one guy who's poor as setup for his complaints about the "Nice Guy" label. He says the worst response to someone complaining they're poor is as follows: > You keep whining about how “unfair” it is that you can’t get a good job. “But I’m such a hard worker.” No, actual hard workers don’t feel like they’re entitled to other people’s money just because they ask nicely. 2) He describes a terrible guy with 5 ex-wives whom he abused, beat, and cheated on. He asserts that people complaining about not having a girlfriend despite being a "Nice Guy" are mystified because they're nicer than this terrible guy who's had lots of sex. 3) He quotes 5 articles talking about "Nice Guys". He asserts that the "Nice Guy" label unfairly maligns many men who are legit nice guys. (I believe the harassment he's discussing is mostly the mocking on the "Nice Guys of OKCupid" blog, but it seems like there's a bunch of subtext about other instances which he doesn't link to or discuss.) 4) Alexander quotes "Barry" (IDK who this is) who says "I feel my ability to enjoy complaining about my single state has been ruined by MRAs and anti-feminists." Alexander says that the "Nice Guy" label predates the "manosphere", so it can't be a response to bad behavior by men. In reality, feminists are acting like people in the manosphere because: > People were coming up with reasons to mock and despise men who were sad about not being in relationships years before the manosphere even existed. 5) Alexander says the manosphere exists because women are being mean, and the "Nice Guy" label is one instance of women abusing men. He says that shitty male behavior is radicalization caused by feminists verbally abusing genuinely nice guys. 6) He states that "Nice Guys" aren't trying to date for just sex because otherwise they'd just hire a prostitute. Everybody deserves companionship and pair-bonding, and feminists complaining about "Nice Guys" are denying these dudes needs which friendship can't fulfill. 7) He concludes his article by saying that virtuous people can have trouble dating, and unvirtuous people can do a great job dating. That seems unfair, and the manosphere is doing right by saying "yes that's unfair" but feminists are doing wrong by saying "Nice Guys are a problem". I hope you find this summary accurate. It should give enough context for people who would agree with this article to follow along with why I think this is a shitty take. Alexander isn't doing a enlightened analysis of the "Nice Guy" label because he never acknowledges that the articles are complaining about the men who say they are "Nice Guys" because they are in fact not nice. One of the articles he cites (Feministe) addresses this very criticism: > As discussions like this happen, inevitably someone gets defensive about the idea that “Nice Guys” are really assholes in disguise, because there are plenty of guys (and girls) who are actually very decent and respectful, just perhaps too shy to make the first move, and so on, and that they may appear to be “Nice Guys” even when they’re not. … I dated a “Nice Guy” for a while. It was suffocating. I never felt like I could relax and just be myself around him, because he had constructed some kind of idealized version of me, and that was who he was dating. He was also damned hard to get rid of. He just blunders through a 7-section article complaining about dating without once addressing whether the "Nice Guys" the women are complaining about are actually being nice.
• anxman 6y ago
  This is more like the NYPostTimes
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• AzzieElbab 6y ago
  You could infer depth of the entire article from the very first paragraph where author whines about verbosity of a blog. These people are not smart
• RightTail 6y ago
  archive link for those that dont want to sign up
  • RightTail 6y ago
    https://archive.is/xxDnY https://archive.is/xxDnY
• maxkwallace 6y ago
  There's almost nothing productive in this article so let's try not to amplify its reach by talking about it too much on public social media. Best way to respond to this is to ignore it.
  • twic 6y ago
    Unfortunately, this comment is now on the third page!
• abvdasker 6y ago
  It's incredible how defensive the comments on Hacker News seem to be about this article given how moderate and dry its tone is. Seeing people on here so bent out of shape over such a relatively pithy article is a bit telling frankly. I have to think the article wouldn't have made such a splash if it didn't touch on something deeper in the SV/Rationalist crowd.
  • Frazmatazz 6y ago
    They don't like it when other people practice free speech. These responses seem amazingly emotional and not particularly rational.
• Peritract 6y ago
  > The voices also included white supremacists and neo-fascists. The only people who struggled to be heard, Dr. Friedman said, were “social justice warriors.” They were considered a threat to one of the core beliefs driving the discussion: free speech. This is an age-old refrain and I am honestly surprised that people keep viewing it as a reasonable position. It's exactly the same line that Parler tried to peddle, along with every online community that eventually - shock horror - turns out to be a platform for hate rather than 'rational' thought. Free speech is important, and should be defended. When your version of 'free speech' is only extended to alt-right ideals, you're not arguing in good faith for free speech.
  • at_a_remove 6y ago
    Free speech is important, but the current threat to free speech largely comes from the social justice sector, which loves to mock it as Freeze Peach. To use their very own rationalizations against them, they are quite well-represented elsewhere and therefore do not "need" to be heard there. It is both practical and -- one might dare hope -- instructive for the left to have to struggle for a little free speech, as the empathy upon which they pride themselves is quite selective; finally, they might understand what it is like to have their voices systematically erased.
    • robin21 6y ago
      > Freeze Peach Learn something new every day.
      • Terretta 6y ago
        See the MetaFilter (MeFi) discussion on this same article: https://www.metafilter.com/190454/The-New-York-Times-vs-Slate-Star-Codex https://www.metafilter.com/190454/The-New-York-Times-vs-Slat...
        • zrkrlc 6y ago
          Wow, I keep being surprised that MeFi is still a thing.
• tunesmith 6y ago
  The main general thing I don't like about this is the continued and increasing conflation of rationalism with stuff like libertarianism, alt-right, or that weird paragraph about rationalists being a bunch of polyamorous hippies. The general thinking behind Bayesianism - being honest about where you're coming from, listening to counterpoints, and allowing your beliefs to change from evidence - is hardly partisan. Same with free speech. You'd think the W.H. Auden branch of free speech defenders were an endangered species, when they're really not - they're just not reading alt-right blogs and screaming about being canceled.
• anm89 6y ago
  I would generally reserve HN as a space worthy of more nuanced opinions than this but in this case there is one response that feels appropriate. Fuck the nyt. That entire dumpster fire can hopefully fizzle out shortly. Slatestar codex was some of the most interesting content I've read in my life. In comparison, I've never read anything in the nyt that compares to "I Can Tolerate Anything Except The Outgroup" or "Meditations on Moloch" or "The Toxoplasma of Rage" so in my mind the single most consequential thing that publication has done is to silence something of higher quality than itself out of fear.
  • turtleboughs 6y ago
    The notion that an armchair diletante is producing "the most interesting content you've read in your life" speaks volumes here. I'm sure it's interesting to you, but that hardly makes it interesting to anyone outside that cloistered worldview. The fact that he echoes your own personal feelings of entitlement count for something I suppose. But that something is not a good thing, per se.
  • stjohnswarts 6y ago
    They'll just become another leftist media site if they keep listening to their "woke" reporters banning good experienced editors who obviously aren't racists.
• bryan0 6y ago
  Scott Aaronson blogged about the article: https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=5310 https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=5310 > Reading this article, some will say that they told me so, or even that I was played for a fool. And yet I confess that, even with hindsight, I have no idea what I should have done differently, how it would’ve improved the outcome, or what I will do differently the next time. Was there some better, savvier way for me to help out? For each of the 14 points listed above, were I ever tempted to bang my head and say, “dammit, I wish I’d told Cade X, so his story could’ve reflected that perspective”—well, the truth of the matter is that I did tell him X! It’s just that I don’t get to decide which X’s make the final cut, or which ideological filter they’re passed through first.
• Simulacra 6y ago
  A great deal has been written about the public fear of government, but I contend that we now face a period where people are equally afraid of the media. I have not read one good reason for the NY Times to have published this man's true identity, and I fear what could happen if you did anger the media. They have almost as much power as the government: While they can't handcuff and put you in prison, they can destroy everything else about your life; or change it for the better, the power is there.
• zuhayeer 6y ago
  Read here: https://nyts.link/https:/www.nytimes.com/2021/02/13/technology/slate-star-codex-rationalists.html https://nyts.link/https:/www.nytimes.com/2021/02/13/technolo...
• InstantCapital 6y ago
  G͇͇͇͇͇͇͇͇͇͇͇͇͇͇͇͇͇͇͇͇͇͇͇͇͇͇͇͇͇͇͇͇͇͇͇͇͇͇͇͇͇͇͇͇͇͇͇͇͇͇͇͇͇͇͇͇͇͇͇͇͇͇͇͇͇͇̏̏̏̏̏̏̏̏̏̏̏̏̏̏̏̏̏̋̋̋̋̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿ood times
• throwawaysea 6y ago
  And now The Verge is doing the dirty work of the New York Times by amplifying their sloppy hit piece as well: https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/13/22281796/go-read-this-slate-star-codex-silicon-valley-nytimes-blog https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/13/22281796/go-read-this-sla... This isn't surprising because The Verge very regularly takes cheap shots at anyone who does not align with their progressive bias - that includes Silicon Valley rationalists.