6 ms·

Beigeness, or How to Kill People with Bad Writing: The Scott Alexander Method

high_derivative 6y ago
A submission comment since this is very long: Like many hn readers, I personally enjoy Scott Alexander's writing. This is a rather scathing but very long criticism of his style, so I thought it may make for interesting discussion here. I am trying to make up my mind - OP started with some observations about his style which I found partially relevant, but then derailed into something that seemed motivated more by political disagreement.
- user-the-name 6y ago
  Did you read the article to the end?
  - high_derivative 6y ago
    Yes - I felt it went into a lot of conjecture about certain events and Scott's responsibility/involvement (and very polarising interpretation of these events). I found that less useful and it would have probably been better to separate arguments.
    - user-the-name 6y ago
      So what is the "political disagreement" there?
- wpietri 6y ago
  As somebody who has never liked Siskind's writing, I found this clarifying as to why. Like Sandifer, I think Siskind is absurdly wordy in a way that's murky. And I don't think you can separate the politics from that. What Siskind is up to is thoroughly political and intentionally so. Also intentional is the murk, because it provides him deniability and helps lull an audience into listening to things that plainly stated they would find revolting.
amadeuspagel 6y ago
> Does anything straightforwardly emerge from these examples? Do they reveal anything about the nature of tolerance? No, Alexander's point is precisely that tolerance might be more complex then it appears. This is what happens when someone who is used to pieces with ten straightforward examples of the outgroup being bad encounters an actual attempt to understand and think about something.
- user-the-name 6y ago
  Let me tell you for absolutely sure, the author is not, in any way, somebody used to "pieces with ten straightforward examples". I mean, the very next sentence after the list of those is "This is an extremely unusual and heterogenous group of texts. This is not, in and of itself, a problem; writing lengthy essays that swerve among heterogenous groups of topics is kind of my jam."
- phnofive 6y ago
  > Alexander's point is precisely that tolerance might be more complex then it appears. That is a patently obvious claim for which anecdotes appearing to support that conclusion - but implying another - are provided. Why do you think he chose those examples? How is tolerance more complex? What should be done to change how we approach it, if anything? Put another way, it’s a valid rational argument against the status quo, but without any alternatives suggested, it is a purposeless one - we all know we could do better at anything.
Arnt 6y ago
Reading this reminded me of of big reason that I really like Slate Star Codex: When Scott disagrees with someone, he describes that person's opinions fairly. Scott would summarise David Duke's writing in such a way that David Duke himself would say that's a fair summary, and only then disagree. Maybe that's being "rather more receptive to neo-nazi rhetoric" to quote that eruditorumpress page, and maybe it is. Maybe today's etiquette is best regarded as that which most people to doday. So when Scott doesn't misquote or put strawmen into anyone's mouths, he's just out of touch. A few lines down from the "rather more" quote is a statement that Scott "is someone who […] openly advocates eugenics." He is? I hadn't noticed. Scott would have inserted quotations to support such statement. Which may be out of touch and may make him seem receptive &c, but I like it.
- WaltGisnep 6y ago
  Ironically, you haven't actually fairly described or interacted with the points of this person you disagree with. And you even quoted them out of context to misrepresent them as not providing quotations of Scott openly advocating eugenics, when they did exactly that just a few paragraphs after the line you quote.
  - Arnt 6y ago
    Well, I'm sorry if the quotations are misleading. I find it difficult to insert long quotations on HN, while making them look like quotations. So I tried to pick good, representative but short ones. Could you show me how you would do it? Post something and insert long enough quotations (from the part I partly quoted) that they are fair and representative, and still clearly look like quotations?
    - WaltGisnep 6y ago
      Asking me to show you seems like a troll question
      - Arnt 6y ago
        I know. It's an honest question though. Look at my blog and see how trollish I am, if you want. I wonder whether the difficulty of quoting extensively contributes to the sometimes too polarised tone on HN. As far as I can tell it's ~impossible to do civilised things like quoting two paragraphs, emphasising the key parts and appending "emphasis mine". Try it, and IME people will be unable to tell the quoted parts from your own. It's a magnet for misunderstandig due to lack of markup. The best I've been able to do is to keep quotations down to a line or a little more than that, so that both quotation marks are clearly visible at the same time. But that shortness opens the quotation to people saying "taken out of context", no matter how much I try to pick fairly. "The best that I've been able to do" ≠ "the best that can be done".
phnofive 6y ago
> I would like to begin by stressing how deeply miserable I am to be back on this beat. [...] Since people seem to love pointing out that Neoreaction a Basilisk does not actually talk about Scott Siskind, aka Scott Alexander, here’s another goddamn essay. The author certainly didn’t owe anyone another article, but it would be nice if there was a point to it beyond pointing out Scott’s obvious and consistent reluctance to reach falsifiable conclusions or express more than weakly held opinions. Isn’t all philosophical writing, good or bad, vague?
- wpietri 6y ago
  No. Bad philosophical writing is vague. Sometimes even good philosophical writing is difficult or murky, because the author is grappling with concepts novel enough that it's hard to find ways to express them. But the best is quite clear. As an example, read Frankfurt's "On Bullshit", which takes an under-examined topic and adds significant clarity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Bullshit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Bullshit And there's definitely a point beyond what you claim. It's that Siskind is intentionally obscure because he's hiding something: low quality arguments leading to disturbing conclusions. And Siskind is quite aware that's he's intentionally hiding what he's up to. He's even admitted it privately: https://twitter.com/ArsonAtDennys/status/1362153191102677001 https://twitter.com/ArsonAtDennys/status/1362153191102677001
  - phnofive 6y ago
    Apologies for my brevity, but that was my point. The author’s foregone conclusion appears to be that since his conclusions are bad, so too must be his reasoning; rationalism is rhetorical by nature, so deconstructing it this way isn’t going to convince anyone who didn’t already agree. I’d love to see a takedown of some of those linked and earnest statements - though I suppose folks can be close-minded about “facts” as well (statistics can’t lie, right? /s)
    - WaltGisnep 6y ago
      >The author’s foregone conclusion appears to be that since his conclusions are bad, so too must be his reasoning I don't think that's accurate at all. She explicitly states that she's critiquing his reasoning and spends the vast majority of the essay doing that. Although it's worth pointing out that a conclusion being incorrect is good evidence for either the reasoning or the premises of an argument being incorrect.
finnthehuman 6y ago
When a writer opens 10k words by moaning, and not even moaning in an entertaining way, I have no time in my life for this. I read enough of this to see that they're setting up to criticize the way someone is presenting an argument. The few attempts at self awareness to the irony does not fix anything. It just makes it all the more tedious.

A submission comment since this is very long: Like many hn readers, I personally enjoy Scott Alexander's writing. This is a rather scathing but very long criticism of his style, so I thought it may make for interesting discussion here. I am trying to make up my mind - OP started with some observations about his style which I found partially relevant, but then derailed into something that seemed motivated more by political disagreement.

user-the-name 6y ago
Did you read the article to the end?
- high_derivative 6y ago
  Yes - I felt it went into a lot of conjecture about certain events and Scott's responsibility/involvement (and very polarising interpretation of these events). I found that less useful and it would have probably been better to separate arguments.
  - user-the-name 6y ago
    So what is the "political disagreement" there?
wpietri 6y ago
As somebody who has never liked Siskind's writing, I found this clarifying as to why. Like Sandifer, I think Siskind is absurdly wordy in a way that's murky. And I don't think you can separate the politics from that. What Siskind is up to is thoroughly political and intentionally so. Also intentional is the murk, because it provides him deniability and helps lull an audience into listening to things that plainly stated they would find revolting.

amadeuspagel 6y ago

> Does anything straightforwardly emerge from these examples? Do they reveal anything about the nature of tolerance? No, Alexander's point is precisely that tolerance might be more complex then it appears. This is what happens when someone who is used to pieces with ten straightforward examples of the outgroup being bad encounters an actual attempt to understand and think about something.

user-the-name 6y ago
Let me tell you for absolutely sure, the author is not, in any way, somebody used to "pieces with ten straightforward examples". I mean, the very next sentence after the list of those is "This is an extremely unusual and heterogenous group of texts. This is not, in and of itself, a problem; writing lengthy essays that swerve among heterogenous groups of topics is kind of my jam."
phnofive 6y ago
> Alexander's point is precisely that tolerance might be more complex then it appears. That is a patently obvious claim for which anecdotes appearing to support that conclusion - but implying another - are provided. Why do you think he chose those examples? How is tolerance more complex? What should be done to change how we approach it, if anything? Put another way, it’s a valid rational argument against the status quo, but without any alternatives suggested, it is a purposeless one - we all know we could do better at anything.

Arnt 6y ago

Reading this reminded me of of big reason that I really like Slate Star Codex: When Scott disagrees with someone, he describes that person's opinions fairly. Scott would summarise David Duke's writing in such a way that David Duke himself would say that's a fair summary, and only then disagree. Maybe that's being "rather more receptive to neo-nazi rhetoric" to quote that eruditorumpress page, and maybe it is. Maybe today's etiquette is best regarded as that which most people to doday. So when Scott doesn't misquote or put strawmen into anyone's mouths, he's just out of touch. A few lines down from the "rather more" quote is a statement that Scott "is someone who […] openly advocates eugenics." He is? I hadn't noticed. Scott would have inserted quotations to support such statement. Which may be out of touch and may make him seem receptive &c, but I like it.

WaltGisnep 6y ago
Ironically, you haven't actually fairly described or interacted with the points of this person you disagree with. And you even quoted them out of context to misrepresent them as not providing quotations of Scott openly advocating eugenics, when they did exactly that just a few paragraphs after the line you quote.
- Arnt 6y ago
  Well, I'm sorry if the quotations are misleading. I find it difficult to insert long quotations on HN, while making them look like quotations. So I tried to pick good, representative but short ones. Could you show me how you would do it? Post something and insert long enough quotations (from the part I partly quoted) that they are fair and representative, and still clearly look like quotations?
  - WaltGisnep 6y ago
    Asking me to show you seems like a troll question
    - Arnt 6y ago
      I know. It's an honest question though. Look at my blog and see how trollish I am, if you want. I wonder whether the difficulty of quoting extensively contributes to the sometimes too polarised tone on HN. As far as I can tell it's ~impossible to do civilised things like quoting two paragraphs, emphasising the key parts and appending "emphasis mine". Try it, and IME people will be unable to tell the quoted parts from your own. It's a magnet for misunderstandig due to lack of markup. The best I've been able to do is to keep quotations down to a line or a little more than that, so that both quotation marks are clearly visible at the same time. But that shortness opens the quotation to people saying "taken out of context", no matter how much I try to pick fairly. "The best that I've been able to do" ≠ "the best that can be done".

phnofive 6y ago

> I would like to begin by stressing how deeply miserable I am to be back on this beat. [...] Since people seem to love pointing out that Neoreaction a Basilisk does not actually talk about Scott Siskind, aka Scott Alexander, here’s another goddamn essay. The author certainly didn’t owe anyone another article, but it would be nice if there was a point to it beyond pointing out Scott’s obvious and consistent reluctance to reach falsifiable conclusions or express more than weakly held opinions. Isn’t all philosophical writing, good or bad, vague?

wpietri 6y ago
No. Bad philosophical writing is vague. Sometimes even good philosophical writing is difficult or murky, because the author is grappling with concepts novel enough that it's hard to find ways to express them. But the best is quite clear. As an example, read Frankfurt's "On Bullshit", which takes an under-examined topic and adds significant clarity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Bullshit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Bullshit And there's definitely a point beyond what you claim. It's that Siskind is intentionally obscure because he's hiding something: low quality arguments leading to disturbing conclusions. And Siskind is quite aware that's he's intentionally hiding what he's up to. He's even admitted it privately: https://twitter.com/ArsonAtDennys/status/1362153191102677001 https://twitter.com/ArsonAtDennys/status/1362153191102677001
- phnofive 6y ago
  Apologies for my brevity, but that was my point. The author’s foregone conclusion appears to be that since his conclusions are bad, so too must be his reasoning; rationalism is rhetorical by nature, so deconstructing it this way isn’t going to convince anyone who didn’t already agree. I’d love to see a takedown of some of those linked and earnest statements - though I suppose folks can be close-minded about “facts” as well (statistics can’t lie, right? /s)
  - WaltGisnep 6y ago
    >The author’s foregone conclusion appears to be that since his conclusions are bad, so too must be his reasoning I don't think that's accurate at all. She explicitly states that she's critiquing his reasoning and spends the vast majority of the essay doing that. Although it's worth pointing out that a conclusion being incorrect is good evidence for either the reasoning or the premises of an argument being incorrect.

finnthehuman 6y ago

When a writer opens 10k words by moaning, and not even moaning in an entertaining way, I have no time in my life for this. I read enough of this to see that they're setting up to criticize the way someone is presenting an argument. The few attempts at self awareness to the irony does not fix anything. It just makes it all the more tedious.