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"Influencing" covers a lot of things that don't seem equivalent to me. If he were swapping investment advice with Sam Altman, discussing the future of AI with P

"Influencing" covers a lot of things that don't seem equivalent to me. If he were swapping investment advice with Sam Altman, discussing the future of AI with Paul Graham, playing around on jetpacks with Elon Musk - sure, that's a mover and shaker, and in order to be properly informed on the tech industry you'd need to know who he is. On the other hand, if Sam Altman and Paul Graham regularly made small talk with a barista at a coffee shop near YC headquarters, it would be strange and invasive for the NYT to put a spotlight on her against her will and identify her as a woman with the ear of Silicon Valley elites. And I'd argue that's a much closer analogy to what's happening here. It doesn't seem (again, as far as has been reported) that he had any concrete personal relationship with any VCs or tech executives.

acdha 6y ago
A widely cited public blog which those people have referenced seems a lot closer to the public end of the spectrum than talking to a barista, especially when you consider that the topics covered have a significant public interest. It’s not like arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin – for example, topics like gender or racial differences create a pretty legitimate area of interest when you think about how many people run or work at SV companies influenced by the people named, or use systems designed by them — the flip side to talk about eating the world is that the rest of the world is going to be watching closely.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  I'd point to those topics as perfect examples of why pseudonymous debate is valuable. In the modern US, most subcultures have a standard perspective on race and gender and ostracize people who don't agree with it. So if everyone has to fear that their opinions might be promoted to the national spotlight, there's a huge range of thought that the public will never get to see at all. Consider affirmative action for a concrete example. It consistently loses at the ballot box in even the most left-leaning states, but it's incredibly rare to hear a left-wing case for why we might not want it, because in the Internet age, anyone who presents such a case is putting their career and social circle in significant jeopardy. This kind of mismatch between what people think and what they can say is deeply unhealthy for our political environment, and I think pseudonymous blogging is a very important outlet to alleviate that.
  - wpietri 6y ago
    If something is written pseudonymously, we can't possibly know whether it is a "left-wing case". It's just an argument. If you want that argument to be situated, given context and weight, then you at best need mediated anonymity, where a trusted source like a newspaper verifies pertinent context without exposing an actual identity. But there's good reason that's quite rare. So we end up pretty quickly back at people needing to own their words when they try to influence the public. That's especially true on a topic like race in America. The most prominent people who wanted to intercede on race anonymously were the KKK. And they make especially clear why there's no broad moral obligation to preserve the anonymity of people trying to act publicly while concealing their identity.

acdha 6y ago

A widely cited public blog which those people have referenced seems a lot closer to the public end of the spectrum than talking to a barista, especially when you consider that the topics covered have a significant public interest. It’s not like arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin – for example, topics like gender or racial differences create a pretty legitimate area of interest when you think about how many people run or work at SV companies influenced by the people named, or use systems designed by them — the flip side to talk about eating the world is that the rest of the world is going to be watching closely.

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
I'd point to those topics as perfect examples of why pseudonymous debate is valuable. In the modern US, most subcultures have a standard perspective on race and gender and ostracize people who don't agree with it. So if everyone has to fear that their opinions might be promoted to the national spotlight, there's a huge range of thought that the public will never get to see at all. Consider affirmative action for a concrete example. It consistently loses at the ballot box in even the most left-leaning states, but it's incredibly rare to hear a left-wing case for why we might not want it, because in the Internet age, anyone who presents such a case is putting their career and social circle in significant jeopardy. This kind of mismatch between what people think and what they can say is deeply unhealthy for our political environment, and I think pseudonymous blogging is a very important outlet to alleviate that.
- wpietri 6y ago
  If something is written pseudonymously, we can't possibly know whether it is a "left-wing case". It's just an argument. If you want that argument to be situated, given context and weight, then you at best need mediated anonymity, where a trusted source like a newspaper verifies pertinent context without exposing an actual identity. But there's good reason that's quite rare. So we end up pretty quickly back at people needing to own their words when they try to influence the public. That's especially true on a topic like race in America. The most prominent people who wanted to intercede on race anonymously were the KKK. And they make especially clear why there's no broad moral obligation to preserve the anonymity of people trying to act publicly while concealing their identity.