8 ms·

I haven't seen any other HN posts about him. But I think the reason he is "in the news" is that NYT decided to dox him for failing to ban badthinkers.

ketamine__ 6y ago
He already published his identity. NYT didn't dox him and he later admitted be overreacted. Why does he deserve anonymity anyway? I don't get it. Edit: Nice to see I'm downvoted for pointing out the facts. I guess I'm a "badthinker" too.
- chipsa 6y ago
  NYT decided to dox him. He decided that they were going to do so regardless of what he did, upended his own life to minimize the damage that'd occur when his name got released, and did so, in order to ensure that his real name and his pseudonym got linked on his own terms, not theirs. If NYT didn't decide to dox him, the entire second paragraph wouldn't have happened. He deserved pseudonymity for the same reason you or I deserve pseudonymity.
  - ketamine__ 6y ago
    > NYT decided to dox him. Scott published his identity long ago. Scott doxed himself I guess? > He deserved pseudonymity for the same reason you or I deserve pseudonymity. Why? Because you say so?
    - notadev 6y ago
      What is your first and last name?
    - dang 6y ago
      Would you please stop perpetuating this tedious flamewar? Not perpetuating flamewars, and especially not perpetuating them by getting nastier as you go along, is more important than how right you are or feel you are. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
      - ketamine__ 6y ago
        I don't understand why you are insulting me. I've been nothing but respectful towards others and have posted proof of my claims. The people being nasty are the others responding to my comments. Am I responsible for them? Obviously this is a touchy subject for some on here because Sam Altman and many other YC alums love this man. Does that mean I can't post a critical comment?
        dang 6y ago
        I certainly didn't mean to insult you! It's just that this is a classic flamewar topic that has been argued to death many times, and your comments in this thread were feeding the flamewar more than anyone else's I saw, both in quantity, and in quality—specifically, pushing increasingly toward hostility. Hostility is the opposite direction to the curious conversation we want here. Sam, YC, et. al., have nothing to do with this—it's just bog-standard HN moderation. If you don't believe me, here are 5,000 examples: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20flame&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que....
  - ardy42 6y ago
    > NYT decided to dox him. Not really. "Doxing" [1] is from message board culture, but the NYT is not some poster on a message board. To expect them to abide by message board law in their newspaper as if they're just a poster on reddit is like expecting an American to live by Chinese law and custom in America. [1] At least in the sense of using someone's real name.
- beaconstudios 6y ago
  > Why does he deserve anonymity anyway? I don't get it. Why does he need to "deserve" anonymity? If you have something already and someone wants to take it away, don't you need to justify why you're taking that thing away? His stated reason he wanted to remain pseudonymous is that, even though it was easy to go from his online to his real life identity, the NYT article would make it easy to go in the other direction - and that enabling his present and previous patients (he's a psychiatrist, so they're not always the most stable people) to discover his online persona would jeopardise his career.
  - ketamine__ 6y ago
    > Why does he need to "deserve" anonymity? If you have something already and someone wants to take it away, don't you need to justify why you're taking that thing away? That still doesn't answer my question. Sounds very abstract like you are trying to evade answering the question. He didn't have anonymity. He already published his name. Someone that publishes their name doesn't deserve anonymity, correct? > and that enabling his present and previous patients (he's a psychiatrist, so they're not always the most stable people) to discover his online persona would jeopardise his career. He already admitted he was overreacting on this point.
    - beaconstudios 6y ago
      > That still doesn't answer my question. Sounds very abstract like you are trying to evade answering the question. I don't think your question merits answering, because framing anonymity as something one has to "deserve" makes no sense to me. Saying it needs to be "deserved" suggests it's a privilege granted to people for some merit, rather than the default on the internet until someone either surrenders it willingly, or in this case, has it stripped by another party - so it's akin to privacy in that way. Does anyone "deserve" privacy? Silly question really. > He didn't have anonymity. He already published his name. Someone that publishes their name doesn't deserve anonymity, correct? As far as I'm aware, he only published his full name after he knew the article was going up. > He already admitted he was overreacting on this point. I can still see how he would initially be worried. Shining a light on someone known for looking into controversial topics and then following it up with "by the way this is his name and he lives in such-and-such town" is vaguely threatening, and inviting people who read the article and decide he's a Nazi or something to mess with his real life.
- zarkov99 6y ago
  The NYT just published a hit piece on him, exactly as he predicted. Whatever faith you might still have on the NYT is misplaced. They have become nothing but a band of vengeful, dishonest crooks, bent on secreting poison and fomenting hate. https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/statement-on-new-york-times-article https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/statement-on-new-york-...
  - ketamine__ 6y ago
    And then Scott's followers harassed the writers. Did Scott predict that too? I never claimed to have any faith in the NYT. I just think the pity party is overdone. Scott threw a tantrum and then backtracked.
    - zarkov99 6y ago
      Pity party? What are you talking about? Whatever you think of Scott, what was done to him was disgraceful and an abuse of power and the vengeful hit piece is utterly dishonest. For anyone who cares, it is beyond dispute that the NYT is a diseased institution that should be excised from society before it corrupts it further. Why you would choose to attack Scott rather than show indignation at the NYT is incomprehensible to me.
      - ketamine__ 6y ago
        Scott published his name himself. So when he claims he has been wronged for something he himself has done, yes, it is a pity party. I'm only discussing the facts.
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
  - SurfingToad 6y ago
    The NYT still has a staff consisting of some of the most excellent writers and reporters of our time. That said, they have definitely been wobbling in the editorial compartement lately. They're overcorrecting as if they've lost their balance (and they probably have). I think the most exciting way to look at the situation is that no one is really to blame. There are some fucky emergent collective dynamics about, acting like some mythical monster with hapless individuals as its neurons. A grasshopper never chooses to become a locust; it transforms into one when there are too many grasshoppers at the same place bumping into each other. It's no longer an individual. It's part of the swarm. And with the swarm comes destruction. There's a tendency for cults to suddenly become destructive. Like they've become Harlon Ellis' AI that has no mouth and must scream. Cursed with sudden uncontrollable sentience, it seeks revenge. The Rajneesh movement and Aum Shinrikyo both carried out biological warfare. And you can see these destructive tendencies in most cults, for some reason. And now, literally connected in a globe-spanning network we see cult-like behavior take on a whole new dimension. The editorial staff at NYT obviously wants to make good, honest decisions and carry out an important social mission to the benefit of us all. But what if it's not their choice anymore? What if there are collective dynamics that supersede individual agency? (I do not mean to say that the NYT operates as a cult; it's more that we might be witnessing the sort of dynamics we traditionally see in cults play out across the social media landscape at large.)
- parsimo2010 6y ago
  He was a practicing psychiatrist and felt that having his identity public could interfere with his practice. He has since quit practicing (edit: nope, he quit for a short while and has started his own practice), but at the time I felt it was a legitimate reason. With that said, I don’t think the NYT did anything legally wrong, but it’s kind of a bad look for a newspaper that loves to claim their moral righteousness. It can’t be illegal to say a person’s real name and say what they do as a side gig/hobby. But if someone asks you not to do it, then it’s not cool to do it. It’s not like he’s a movie celebrity constantly putting himself in the public eye. He made a pretty solid effort too keep his internet persona separate from his day job, and most of us feel like that should be respected. But he did overreact, as he admitted. If he had just kept his mouth shut the NYT article probably wouldn’t have had too many readers and his nuclear option probably attracted more attention.
pavlov 6y ago
His identity was offered upfront by the automatic suggestion box on Google Search. Did Google dox him?
- gkoberger 6y ago
  Chicken and egg. His identity was only relevant because NYT was going to reveal it, so he had to quit his job and temporarily shut down his blog.
  - ketamine__ 6y ago
    NYT was going to reveal something that everyone already knew because Scott published his identity himself? The guy overreacted. I'm guessing he has some difficulty processing emotions based on his actions and later statements.
    - kortilla 6y ago
      No, I think you’re confused on the order of events. His identity was absolutely not easily revealed. The NYT reporter managed to find his identity and then told him they would dox him as part of the story. This is when he took down slatestar and we first heard about this (many months back). In reaction, some pleasant netizens took it upon themselves to dox him as much as possible. He then ended up having to quit his job as a psychiatrist and returned to writing full time.
      - ketamine__ 6y ago
        Scott published his own identity. That was his choice. Do you disagree with that? Is there some unwritten rule on the internet that you are anonymous as long as it's kinda a little bit difficult to figure it out? He quit his job and started another business by using his notoriety. If his life truly was in danger he would have retired. Instead he's trying to make money from his followers with a new business!
        6y ago
heavyset_go 6y ago
The man published his own blog posts under his real name in a book[1]. If anybody doxed him, it was himself. [1] https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Technological_Singularity/wtQkDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=scott+siskind&printsec=frontcover https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Technological_Singu...
- mlthoughts2018 6y ago
  I am saddened to see how much effort you went to in order to copy / paste this example everywhere in this thread. It isn’t relevant and has no connection to Scott’s efforts to stay anonymous nor the NYT’s malicious behavior by not respecting his request. You’ve pasted this everywhere for nothing. It doesn’t contribute to the discussion or count as evidence for anything. It’s just a completely disconnected and irrelevant piece of trivia that you are trying to astroturf onto the discussion as though it had any credible reason to be considered relevant (it does not).

ketamine__ 6y ago

He already published his identity. NYT didn't dox him and he later admitted be overreacted. Why does he deserve anonymity anyway? I don't get it. Edit: Nice to see I'm downvoted for pointing out the facts. I guess I'm a "badthinker" too.

chipsa 6y ago
NYT decided to dox him. He decided that they were going to do so regardless of what he did, upended his own life to minimize the damage that'd occur when his name got released, and did so, in order to ensure that his real name and his pseudonym got linked on his own terms, not theirs. If NYT didn't decide to dox him, the entire second paragraph wouldn't have happened. He deserved pseudonymity for the same reason you or I deserve pseudonymity.
- ketamine__ 6y ago
  > NYT decided to dox him. Scott published his identity long ago. Scott doxed himself I guess? > He deserved pseudonymity for the same reason you or I deserve pseudonymity. Why? Because you say so?
  - notadev 6y ago
    What is your first and last name?
  - dang 6y ago
    Would you please stop perpetuating this tedious flamewar? Not perpetuating flamewars, and especially not perpetuating them by getting nastier as you go along, is more important than how right you are or feel you are. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - ketamine__ 6y ago
      I don't understand why you are insulting me. I've been nothing but respectful towards others and have posted proof of my claims. The people being nasty are the others responding to my comments. Am I responsible for them? Obviously this is a touchy subject for some on here because Sam Altman and many other YC alums love this man. Does that mean I can't post a critical comment?
      - dang 6y ago
        I certainly didn't mean to insult you! It's just that this is a classic flamewar topic that has been argued to death many times, and your comments in this thread were feeding the flamewar more than anyone else's I saw, both in quantity, and in quality—specifically, pushing increasingly toward hostility. Hostility is the opposite direction to the curious conversation we want here. Sam, YC, et. al., have nothing to do with this—it's just bog-standard HN moderation. If you don't believe me, here are 5,000 examples: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20flame&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que....
- ardy42 6y ago
  > NYT decided to dox him. Not really. "Doxing" [1] is from message board culture, but the NYT is not some poster on a message board. To expect them to abide by message board law in their newspaper as if they're just a poster on reddit is like expecting an American to live by Chinese law and custom in America. [1] At least in the sense of using someone's real name.
beaconstudios 6y ago
> Why does he deserve anonymity anyway? I don't get it. Why does he need to "deserve" anonymity? If you have something already and someone wants to take it away, don't you need to justify why you're taking that thing away? His stated reason he wanted to remain pseudonymous is that, even though it was easy to go from his online to his real life identity, the NYT article would make it easy to go in the other direction - and that enabling his present and previous patients (he's a psychiatrist, so they're not always the most stable people) to discover his online persona would jeopardise his career.
- ketamine__ 6y ago
  > Why does he need to "deserve" anonymity? If you have something already and someone wants to take it away, don't you need to justify why you're taking that thing away? That still doesn't answer my question. Sounds very abstract like you are trying to evade answering the question. He didn't have anonymity. He already published his name. Someone that publishes their name doesn't deserve anonymity, correct? > and that enabling his present and previous patients (he's a psychiatrist, so they're not always the most stable people) to discover his online persona would jeopardise his career. He already admitted he was overreacting on this point.
  - beaconstudios 6y ago
    > That still doesn't answer my question. Sounds very abstract like you are trying to evade answering the question. I don't think your question merits answering, because framing anonymity as something one has to "deserve" makes no sense to me. Saying it needs to be "deserved" suggests it's a privilege granted to people for some merit, rather than the default on the internet until someone either surrenders it willingly, or in this case, has it stripped by another party - so it's akin to privacy in that way. Does anyone "deserve" privacy? Silly question really. > He didn't have anonymity. He already published his name. Someone that publishes their name doesn't deserve anonymity, correct? As far as I'm aware, he only published his full name after he knew the article was going up. > He already admitted he was overreacting on this point. I can still see how he would initially be worried. Shining a light on someone known for looking into controversial topics and then following it up with "by the way this is his name and he lives in such-and-such town" is vaguely threatening, and inviting people who read the article and decide he's a Nazi or something to mess with his real life.
zarkov99 6y ago
The NYT just published a hit piece on him, exactly as he predicted. Whatever faith you might still have on the NYT is misplaced. They have become nothing but a band of vengeful, dishonest crooks, bent on secreting poison and fomenting hate. https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/statement-on-new-york-times-article https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/statement-on-new-york-...
- ketamine__ 6y ago
  And then Scott's followers harassed the writers. Did Scott predict that too? I never claimed to have any faith in the NYT. I just think the pity party is overdone. Scott threw a tantrum and then backtracked.
  - zarkov99 6y ago
    Pity party? What are you talking about? Whatever you think of Scott, what was done to him was disgraceful and an abuse of power and the vengeful hit piece is utterly dishonest. For anyone who cares, it is beyond dispute that the NYT is a diseased institution that should be excised from society before it corrupts it further. Why you would choose to attack Scott rather than show indignation at the NYT is incomprehensible to me.
    - ketamine__ 6y ago
      Scott published his name himself. So when he claims he has been wronged for something he himself has done, yes, it is a pity party. I'm only discussing the facts.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
- SurfingToad 6y ago
  The NYT still has a staff consisting of some of the most excellent writers and reporters of our time. That said, they have definitely been wobbling in the editorial compartement lately. They're overcorrecting as if they've lost their balance (and they probably have). I think the most exciting way to look at the situation is that no one is really to blame. There are some fucky emergent collective dynamics about, acting like some mythical monster with hapless individuals as its neurons. A grasshopper never chooses to become a locust; it transforms into one when there are too many grasshoppers at the same place bumping into each other. It's no longer an individual. It's part of the swarm. And with the swarm comes destruction. There's a tendency for cults to suddenly become destructive. Like they've become Harlon Ellis' AI that has no mouth and must scream. Cursed with sudden uncontrollable sentience, it seeks revenge. The Rajneesh movement and Aum Shinrikyo both carried out biological warfare. And you can see these destructive tendencies in most cults, for some reason. And now, literally connected in a globe-spanning network we see cult-like behavior take on a whole new dimension. The editorial staff at NYT obviously wants to make good, honest decisions and carry out an important social mission to the benefit of us all. But what if it's not their choice anymore? What if there are collective dynamics that supersede individual agency? (I do not mean to say that the NYT operates as a cult; it's more that we might be witnessing the sort of dynamics we traditionally see in cults play out across the social media landscape at large.)
parsimo2010 6y ago
He was a practicing psychiatrist and felt that having his identity public could interfere with his practice. He has since quit practicing (edit: nope, he quit for a short while and has started his own practice), but at the time I felt it was a legitimate reason. With that said, I don’t think the NYT did anything legally wrong, but it’s kind of a bad look for a newspaper that loves to claim their moral righteousness. It can’t be illegal to say a person’s real name and say what they do as a side gig/hobby. But if someone asks you not to do it, then it’s not cool to do it. It’s not like he’s a movie celebrity constantly putting himself in the public eye. He made a pretty solid effort too keep his internet persona separate from his day job, and most of us feel like that should be respected. But he did overreact, as he admitted. If he had just kept his mouth shut the NYT article probably wouldn’t have had too many readers and his nuclear option probably attracted more attention.

pavlov 6y ago

His identity was offered upfront by the automatic suggestion box on Google Search. Did Google dox him?

gkoberger 6y ago
Chicken and egg. His identity was only relevant because NYT was going to reveal it, so he had to quit his job and temporarily shut down his blog.
- ketamine__ 6y ago
  NYT was going to reveal something that everyone already knew because Scott published his identity himself? The guy overreacted. I'm guessing he has some difficulty processing emotions based on his actions and later statements.
  - kortilla 6y ago
    No, I think you’re confused on the order of events. His identity was absolutely not easily revealed. The NYT reporter managed to find his identity and then told him they would dox him as part of the story. This is when he took down slatestar and we first heard about this (many months back). In reaction, some pleasant netizens took it upon themselves to dox him as much as possible. He then ended up having to quit his job as a psychiatrist and returned to writing full time.
    - ketamine__ 6y ago
      Scott published his own identity. That was his choice. Do you disagree with that? Is there some unwritten rule on the internet that you are anonymous as long as it's kinda a little bit difficult to figure it out? He quit his job and started another business by using his notoriety. If his life truly was in danger he would have retired. Instead he's trying to make money from his followers with a new business!
      - 6y ago

heavyset_go 6y ago

The man published his own blog posts under his real name in a book[1]. If anybody doxed him, it was himself. [1] https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Technological_Singularity/wtQkDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=scott+siskind&printsec=frontcover https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Technological_Singu...

mlthoughts2018 6y ago
I am saddened to see how much effort you went to in order to copy / paste this example everywhere in this thread. It isn’t relevant and has no connection to Scott’s efforts to stay anonymous nor the NYT’s malicious behavior by not respecting his request. You’ve pasted this everywhere for nothing. It doesn’t contribute to the discussion or count as evidence for anything. It’s just a completely disconnected and irrelevant piece of trivia that you are trying to astroturf onto the discussion as though it had any credible reason to be considered relevant (it does not).