3 ms·

No one forced him to write about patients in a public blog nor write a public blog, he is a grown-up and he made that choice. He made efforts to be a public per

by mola 6y ago

No one forced him to write about patients in a public blog nor write a public blog, he is a grown-up and he made that choice. He made efforts to be a public persona, but he can't grasp the fact that once he is a public persona, he cannot choose to be private regarding that public persona. It's not like the piece went and delved in to his personal life unrelated to his writings. They just said he is writing that blog. This is well within ethical journalism standards. The whole drama around it is a result of Scott rallying his followers to feel as if he has been done some wrong. You lose your privacy the moment you do things in public. We should definitely have the right to keep certain things private but not the thing we make public. Expecting otherwise is a very childish expectation. (Childish as in: the world revolves around you, and you get to decide the rules)

vinay427 6y ago
> No one forced him to write about patients in a public blog nor write a public blog, he is a grown-up and he made that choice. I'm not sure how this addresses the first paragraph of the parent comment. Their point was that he didn't do much of this, and it wasn't the problem Scott raised which was (paraphrasing the comment) about patients developing a personal relationship with him through his ideas expressed on the blog.
- mola 6y ago
  So why write a blog if this is a problem. If he is a psychiatrist and considers this an issue, he shouldn't have chosen to become a public persona. But, that is exactly what he chose to do. He himself says that his blog is only psuedo anonymous and it's easy to find out who he is. So it's a risk he knowingly took, the fact that his name is known is on him, not NYT.
  - vinay427 6y ago
    Right, I would agree with this.
TheDong 6y ago
Japanese copyright law has an interesting idea here. The author of a copyrighted piece has a few "moral rights", and one of those rights is the right of "authorship", which is specifically the choice of how their name is connected to the piece (i.e. whether their real name is used, a pseudonym is used, etc). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_Japan#Author's_rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_Japan#Author'... In Japan, the law might have protected Scott. I think the japanese law makes a bit of sense. The NYT article was about the pseudonym, "Scott Alexander", not about the real person. Scott has consistently represented the blog as being authored by that pseudonym. The NYT piece was only about the blog and that pseudonym, not about him as a person, so it seems like it's pretty meaningless to bring up his real name in the first place.
- mola 6y ago
  Perhaps it's meaningless, but fully within their purview.
jessaustin 6y ago
Who is 'mola'? She seems to want to air her opinions publicly, yet I can't figure out her real name?! Get NYT on the case!
strken 6y ago
The question here is why the NYT felt it necessary to publish his name. They unquestionably had the legal right to do it, much like they unquestionably have the legal right to write a smear piece about HN with your full name, age, and city of residence... but why would they do that? The world does not revolve around you or I, but in general the people in it operate according to some kind of goal or motivation, and I am baffled by what the author of the NYT article felt he was achieving. He started by writing a story about a man who was consistently right about certain aspects of covid before the authorities, somehow started a fight with his subject, and ended up publishing a poorly written hatchet job with zero info about covid, coincidentally earning Scott quarter of a million dollars. What the hell did he want out of all this? What did he gain, what did he give his readers, what journalistic values did he uphold?

by mola 6y ago

vinay427 6y ago

> No one forced him to write about patients in a public blog nor write a public blog, he is a grown-up and he made that choice. I'm not sure how this addresses the first paragraph of the parent comment. Their point was that he didn't do much of this, and it wasn't the problem Scott raised which was (paraphrasing the comment) about patients developing a personal relationship with him through his ideas expressed on the blog.

mola 6y ago
So why write a blog if this is a problem. If he is a psychiatrist and considers this an issue, he shouldn't have chosen to become a public persona. But, that is exactly what he chose to do. He himself says that his blog is only psuedo anonymous and it's easy to find out who he is. So it's a risk he knowingly took, the fact that his name is known is on him, not NYT.
- vinay427 6y ago
  Right, I would agree with this.

TheDong 6y ago

Japanese copyright law has an interesting idea here. The author of a copyrighted piece has a few "moral rights", and one of those rights is the right of "authorship", which is specifically the choice of how their name is connected to the piece (i.e. whether their real name is used, a pseudonym is used, etc). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_Japan#Author's_rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_Japan#Author'... In Japan, the law might have protected Scott. I think the japanese law makes a bit of sense. The NYT article was about the pseudonym, "Scott Alexander", not about the real person. Scott has consistently represented the blog as being authored by that pseudonym. The NYT piece was only about the blog and that pseudonym, not about him as a person, so it seems like it's pretty meaningless to bring up his real name in the first place.

mola 6y ago
Perhaps it's meaningless, but fully within their purview.

jessaustin 6y ago

Who is 'mola'? She seems to want to air her opinions publicly, yet I can't figure out her real name?! Get NYT on the case!

strken 6y ago

The question here is why the NYT felt it necessary to publish his name. They unquestionably had the legal right to do it, much like they unquestionably have the legal right to write a smear piece about HN with your full name, age, and city of residence... but why would they do that? The world does not revolve around you or I, but in general the people in it operate according to some kind of goal or motivation, and I am baffled by what the author of the NYT article felt he was achieving. He started by writing a story about a man who was consistently right about certain aspects of covid before the authorities, somehow started a fight with his subject, and ended up publishing a poorly written hatchet job with zero info about covid, coincidentally earning Scott quarter of a million dollars. What the hell did he want out of all this? What did he gain, what did he give his readers, what journalistic values did he uphold?