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The hit piece is dramatic, but does it matter? 10 years ago I used to read the weekend NYTimes as a ritual, now I don't know anyone who bothers and would even b

The hit piece is dramatic, but does it matter? 10 years ago I used to read the weekend NYTimes as a ritual, now I don't know anyone who bothers and would even be a bit suspicious of someone who did because their social and professional lives have become a game of musical chairs of denunciations. I don't think defending interesting writing on controversial topics needs a defense, it just needs privacy. His conclusion is sufficient. "But something about the internet is making people into infantile conformists with no taste or appreciation for the life of the mind and frankly I’m sick of it."

OskarS 6y ago
The fact that you would be suspicious of someone who regularly reads The New York Times says more about you than it does people who read The New York Times.
- motohagiography 6y ago
  One could think that, but if I said we could rationally form insights into someones psychological make up by going through their pornHub history, few would disagree, and yet if I imply their choice of lifestyle pornography yields similar tells, it's just me? I'm not sure I'd agree. :) Like any symbolic luxury good, it's an expression of alignment to what someone perceives to be power. It signals their beliefs about the world. Do they just enjoy it? Sure, but they enjoy it because it reinforces the story they tell themselves about their identity. It's like if they read USA Today or even Slate Star Codex. Today's NYT is written to arouse sentiments I prefer to keep at arms length.
  - PragmaticPulp 6y ago
    One of my least favorite trends in rationalist communities is taking extremely weak signals and using mental gymnastics to amplify those signals into some more dramatic conclusion. Apply overt formal writing style combined with some cleverly disguised fallacies (“few would disagree...”) and the piece has an air of faux sophistication and manufactured consensus. Meanwhile, you’re arguing that you can draw sweeping conclusions about a person simply because they read a certain publication. Ironic, given the rationalist community’s original embrace of exploring a wide array of perspectives and writings rather than letting pre-conceived biases dominate one’s thinking. I think you’re projecting your own habit of tying your identity to the material you read. Plenty of people read NYT articles without aligning themselves with the NYT, without thinking of themselves as part of the NYT community, and without building an identity around being an NYT reader. Plenty of people read NYT articles even though they disagree with them. Simply reading the NYT doesn’t turn someone into a self-described NYT person in the way that many people thinking reading SSC turns them into a rationalist.
  - OskarS 6y ago
    Again, the fact that you compare reading the New York Times to PornHub says a lot more about you that it does anyone else. You're less rational than you think.
- PragmaticPulp 6y ago
  Rationalist communities were fun when they were more about exploring ideas from different angles and less about identifying as a group with superior thoughts and beliefs. It’s ironic that rationalists spend so much energy criticizing people who won’t tolerate the out group, while simultaneously being intolerant of what they define as the out group.
  - wizzwizz4 6y ago
    New communities will appear. Perhaps not ones as international, but that's okay; smaller groups can be better, because they're less vulnerable to evaporative cooling of beliefs; the group just disbands when people start leaving. When groups get into happy death spirals, it's often easier to just start a new one.
Bakary 6y ago
The irony is that non-conformist thinkers tend to sound similar after a while. The guiding thread is that they place value on being controversial and non-conformist for its own sake. I can understand the emotional draw of it and have been subject to it myself, but because they define themselves in opposition to the mainstream, they can never really escape its orbit. Just like Satanists draw crosses upside down instead of new symbols, and hipsters dress the same way.
- PragmaticPulp 6y ago
  The real irony is that the rationalist community’s strong reaction to this article as propelled it to a level of popularity that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise. Without the months of speculation and build-up and the seeming desire for everyone to write their own nit-picks of what the article got wrong (while deliberately ignoring what it might have gotten right), this article likely wouldn’t have received much traction at all.
  - Bakary 6y ago
    I'm probably heavily projecting my own personal flaws here, but I've come to believe that the driving force behind that community is to feel smart and be recognized as such in some public forum. Therefore their strategic thinking was compromised from the start in this particular instance. There was no chance of them collectively deciding to follow your proposition.
    - coldtea 6y ago
      Perhaps it was not about "strategic thinking" to achieve some end goal, but about denouncing what they feel is wrong? Besides, I don't see any "let's stragetically be hush about it, so the article goes unnoticed" ever working. The mere publishing of the article, with no reaction, would be enough to have personal consequences for the blogger. At least with the big commotion, the shittiness of NYT publishing it has come under scutiny too. So the reaction might be strategically good too.
      - 6y ago
throwanem 6y ago
I don't know that I'd call it a ritual, but I skim the NYT front and "World" pages daily, weekend or otherwise, because I like to think it helps me keep track of which way the wind is blowing, and among US media I'm pretty sure that, most days, the NYT blows hardest. Timing aside - and does timing matter as much now as it did back when news papers were still a thing? - Metz's article carefully doesn't say, but very strongly implies, that SSC and its community serve as a "transmission belt" using privileged access to trendsetters in the tech industry to deliver fascist ideas into that industry's main stream of thought. Will that become part of the post-Russiagate narrative being developed around the industry as a whole, not least by the NYT itself? I don't know. But it could. And, as someone who wishes for nothing more than to have a time portal open from 2347 into his living room just long enough for a history of the 20th century to fall out, this is the sort of stuff I find really interesting and diverting to think about. edit: On reflection, one wonders what the NYT's perspective on Hacker News would be. I think there's a reasonable chance we'll get to find out. And that would be interesting, too!
- FFRefresh 6y ago
  What incentive would the NYT (or similar media outlets) have to NOT imply that Hacker News is supportive home to white supremacists, racists, fascists, right-wing extremists, and rampant sexism? (outside of whether they find HN the right interesting target or not) There are no standards or penalties for using logical fallacies in media writing. As a journalist, all you need to do is craft your wording to imply a connection to be able to smear your target (or to make a nice click-worthy article with hot-takes). Here's a few different tactics that you can use: -does your target have at least 1 or 2 members of its community who have said something outside the norms of the present? -is there anybody who is within 2-3 degrees of relationship between the leadership at the site that sometimes say things outside the norms of the present? -are there members of the community who are part of another community that doesn't have sufficient equal representation along identity lines? (i.e. this is a tech community, tech underrepresents some minorities, therefore, this site is racist) -does the racial/gender makeup of the community not align with the broader US population?
- motohagiography 6y ago
  This idea of which way the wind is blowing is accurate for me as well. I used to read the FT and Economist for a similar reason which was 'this is what people who make business decisions use as their level of understanding.' What changed is that the views in them no longer had any durable meaning or predictive power. The necessary ingredient in news has always been conflict, this is what makes a story a story, but when you can fabricate infinite conflict by applying a hyperbolic (ideological) lens to some second hand facts, it (cheaply) produces an approximation of news, but without any importance or value because the conflict is manufactured. So-called "fake news," was less about fabricated events so much as it was about fake conflict. Net-net, dropping mainstream news some years ago has improved my overall quality of life tremendously.
klyrs 6y ago
> [I] would even be a bit suspicious of someone who did... Am I reading this right, that you'd consider dissociating from somebody over their associations... because their associations include news sources that discuss dissociation on the basis of one's associations?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
karaterobot 6y ago
To me, it matters in the following way: I still know more people who trust the NYT than who flat out don't trust it. Even among those who have grown slightly weary (and wary) of it, there's still a weight to the brand name they just can't shake off. It's been the paper of record for their entire lives. So, if someone's only exposure to Alexander is him being called a racist in the gray lady, it unfortunately makes it harder to get them to read his fascinating, thoughtful, sometimes atonal, occasionally dubious, always worth thinking about articles.
- pseudalopex 6y ago
  I read SSC for years. I still like his writing about psychiatry. They didn't call him a racist. They pointed out where he aligned himself with racists and where he didn't. They left out him saying he likes eugenics.[1] [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20200228054021/https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/12/08/a-something-sort-of-like-left-libertarianism-ist-manifesto/#comment-23688 https://web.archive.org/web/20200228054021/https://slatestar...

OskarS 6y ago

The fact that you would be suspicious of someone who regularly reads The New York Times says more about you than it does people who read The New York Times.

motohagiography 6y ago
One could think that, but if I said we could rationally form insights into someones psychological make up by going through their pornHub history, few would disagree, and yet if I imply their choice of lifestyle pornography yields similar tells, it's just me? I'm not sure I'd agree. :) Like any symbolic luxury good, it's an expression of alignment to what someone perceives to be power. It signals their beliefs about the world. Do they just enjoy it? Sure, but they enjoy it because it reinforces the story they tell themselves about their identity. It's like if they read USA Today or even Slate Star Codex. Today's NYT is written to arouse sentiments I prefer to keep at arms length.
- PragmaticPulp 6y ago
  One of my least favorite trends in rationalist communities is taking extremely weak signals and using mental gymnastics to amplify those signals into some more dramatic conclusion. Apply overt formal writing style combined with some cleverly disguised fallacies (“few would disagree...”) and the piece has an air of faux sophistication and manufactured consensus. Meanwhile, you’re arguing that you can draw sweeping conclusions about a person simply because they read a certain publication. Ironic, given the rationalist community’s original embrace of exploring a wide array of perspectives and writings rather than letting pre-conceived biases dominate one’s thinking. I think you’re projecting your own habit of tying your identity to the material you read. Plenty of people read NYT articles without aligning themselves with the NYT, without thinking of themselves as part of the NYT community, and without building an identity around being an NYT reader. Plenty of people read NYT articles even though they disagree with them. Simply reading the NYT doesn’t turn someone into a self-described NYT person in the way that many people thinking reading SSC turns them into a rationalist.
- OskarS 6y ago
  Again, the fact that you compare reading the New York Times to PornHub says a lot more about you that it does anyone else. You're less rational than you think.
PragmaticPulp 6y ago
Rationalist communities were fun when they were more about exploring ideas from different angles and less about identifying as a group with superior thoughts and beliefs. It’s ironic that rationalists spend so much energy criticizing people who won’t tolerate the out group, while simultaneously being intolerant of what they define as the out group.
- wizzwizz4 6y ago
  New communities will appear. Perhaps not ones as international, but that's okay; smaller groups can be better, because they're less vulnerable to evaporative cooling of beliefs; the group just disbands when people start leaving. When groups get into happy death spirals, it's often easier to just start a new one.

Bakary 6y ago

The irony is that non-conformist thinkers tend to sound similar after a while. The guiding thread is that they place value on being controversial and non-conformist for its own sake. I can understand the emotional draw of it and have been subject to it myself, but because they define themselves in opposition to the mainstream, they can never really escape its orbit. Just like Satanists draw crosses upside down instead of new symbols, and hipsters dress the same way.

PragmaticPulp 6y ago
The real irony is that the rationalist community’s strong reaction to this article as propelled it to a level of popularity that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise. Without the months of speculation and build-up and the seeming desire for everyone to write their own nit-picks of what the article got wrong (while deliberately ignoring what it might have gotten right), this article likely wouldn’t have received much traction at all.
- Bakary 6y ago
  I'm probably heavily projecting my own personal flaws here, but I've come to believe that the driving force behind that community is to feel smart and be recognized as such in some public forum. Therefore their strategic thinking was compromised from the start in this particular instance. There was no chance of them collectively deciding to follow your proposition.
  - coldtea 6y ago
    Perhaps it was not about "strategic thinking" to achieve some end goal, but about denouncing what they feel is wrong? Besides, I don't see any "let's stragetically be hush about it, so the article goes unnoticed" ever working. The mere publishing of the article, with no reaction, would be enough to have personal consequences for the blogger. At least with the big commotion, the shittiness of NYT publishing it has come under scutiny too. So the reaction might be strategically good too.
    - 6y ago

throwanem 6y ago

I don't know that I'd call it a ritual, but I skim the NYT front and "World" pages daily, weekend or otherwise, because I like to think it helps me keep track of which way the wind is blowing, and among US media I'm pretty sure that, most days, the NYT blows hardest. Timing aside - and does timing matter as much now as it did back when news papers were still a thing? - Metz's article carefully doesn't say, but very strongly implies, that SSC and its community serve as a "transmission belt" using privileged access to trendsetters in the tech industry to deliver fascist ideas into that industry's main stream of thought. Will that become part of the post-Russiagate narrative being developed around the industry as a whole, not least by the NYT itself? I don't know. But it could. And, as someone who wishes for nothing more than to have a time portal open from 2347 into his living room just long enough for a history of the 20th century to fall out, this is the sort of stuff I find really interesting and diverting to think about. edit: On reflection, one wonders what the NYT's perspective on Hacker News would be. I think there's a reasonable chance we'll get to find out. And that would be interesting, too!

FFRefresh 6y ago
What incentive would the NYT (or similar media outlets) have to NOT imply that Hacker News is supportive home to white supremacists, racists, fascists, right-wing extremists, and rampant sexism? (outside of whether they find HN the right interesting target or not) There are no standards or penalties for using logical fallacies in media writing. As a journalist, all you need to do is craft your wording to imply a connection to be able to smear your target (or to make a nice click-worthy article with hot-takes). Here's a few different tactics that you can use: -does your target have at least 1 or 2 members of its community who have said something outside the norms of the present? -is there anybody who is within 2-3 degrees of relationship between the leadership at the site that sometimes say things outside the norms of the present? -are there members of the community who are part of another community that doesn't have sufficient equal representation along identity lines? (i.e. this is a tech community, tech underrepresents some minorities, therefore, this site is racist) -does the racial/gender makeup of the community not align with the broader US population?
motohagiography 6y ago
This idea of which way the wind is blowing is accurate for me as well. I used to read the FT and Economist for a similar reason which was 'this is what people who make business decisions use as their level of understanding.' What changed is that the views in them no longer had any durable meaning or predictive power. The necessary ingredient in news has always been conflict, this is what makes a story a story, but when you can fabricate infinite conflict by applying a hyperbolic (ideological) lens to some second hand facts, it (cheaply) produces an approximation of news, but without any importance or value because the conflict is manufactured. So-called "fake news," was less about fabricated events so much as it was about fake conflict. Net-net, dropping mainstream news some years ago has improved my overall quality of life tremendously.

klyrs 6y ago

> [I] would even be a bit suspicious of someone who did... Am I reading this right, that you'd consider dissociating from somebody over their associations... because their associations include news sources that discuss dissociation on the basis of one's associations?

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

karaterobot 6y ago

To me, it matters in the following way: I still know more people who trust the NYT than who flat out don't trust it. Even among those who have grown slightly weary (and wary) of it, there's still a weight to the brand name they just can't shake off. It's been the paper of record for their entire lives. So, if someone's only exposure to Alexander is him being called a racist in the gray lady, it unfortunately makes it harder to get them to read his fascinating, thoughtful, sometimes atonal, occasionally dubious, always worth thinking about articles.

pseudalopex 6y ago
I read SSC for years. I still like his writing about psychiatry. They didn't call him a racist. They pointed out where he aligned himself with racists and where he didn't. They left out him saying he likes eugenics.[1] [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20200228054021/https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/12/08/a-something-sort-of-like-left-libertarianism-ist-manifesto/#comment-23688 https://web.archive.org/web/20200228054021/https://slatestar...