4 ms·
I think his spiel has been that while blog readers could trivially find out his real name, but his patients could not (searching 'scott siskind' wouldn't bring
by pliny 6y ago
I think his spiel has been that while blog readers could trivially find out his real name, but his patients could not (searching 'scott siskind' wouldn't bring up his blog in the first n page of results), until this association was made in the NYT. If you search that now the first two results are the wiki for SSC and the NYT stories, and if you look in the wiki for SSC you'll see that his real name was kept off of it (despite weekly-ish edits attempting to re-add his name) up until the NYT story.
- sbilstein 6y agoi get that point but still it is a little tough to buy. When I lived in the Bay Area (until 2019), the only psychiatry office that accepts medical insurance upfront is the PCPA. As a software engineer living in Oakland wanting to use my company health insurance I saw Scott on the list at Walnut Creek. I remember immediately thinking "bay area psych, Scott Alexander, oh my god what if i got an appointment with this dude?" I never made the appointment because it would have been really difficult to separate the writing from the person. However, that is on him! Plenty of mental health professionals blog and see patients.
- pseudalopex 6y agoSearching for Scott Siskind would find people discussing his pseudonymous writing.