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Given the title of this piece, I was surprised to find yet another piece about Scott Alexander. I've read a few of his essays, but never regularly, and I wouldn
by exmadscientist 6y ago
Given the title of this piece, I was surprised to find yet another piece about Scott Alexander. I've read a few of his essays, but never regularly, and I wouldn't claim to be a follower or a fan. So I'm pretty much the target audience for a takedown of his work: I know who he is, I'm not on "his team", and I try to stay open-minded.
With that in mind, this article is borderline unreadable (ironic in light of the title?) and seems to be almost purely preaching to the choir. I do admit I stopped partway through, because I didn't think I'd get anything more out of it. For a takedown to be really effective, I think you've got to give your target the benefit of the doubt... then show that they're still wrong. I don't see that here. I didn't really find anything worth my time.
- sdenton4 6y agoThe core point here is that Siskind's default mode is a Gish-gallop of sloppy reasoning, spread over essays of 10k+ words to avoid criticism. I'm happy to have an essay that actually does the close reading to take these apart. It means I can say the short version ('SSC is tendentious hot air that calls itself 'rationalist' mainly to lend weight to its insipid viewpoint') and point to the long version.