3 ms·

Maybe you should point out what you mean by "attacking" a person? I assume they were "attacking" (as in disagreeing with?) the belief sets of Scott Aaronson an

Maybe you should point out what you mean by "attacking" a person? I assume they were "attacking" (as in disagreeing with?) the belief sets of Scott Aaronson and Scott Alexander as outlined in their blogs?

cubefox 3y ago
They tried to cancel them for being considerers of heretical thoughts. In every time period of the past there have been things which were taboo to discuss, which were outside the Overton window. There is no reason to believe our times are different in this regard. That's why intellectually honest people should engage by engaging with arguments themselves, whatever they may be, not by engaging in cancellation and character assassination.
- staticman2 3y ago
  I don't know enough about those two bloggers to comment in a fair manner, but I'll just say I don't think the distinction between arguments and character assassinations is as clear as you are drawing it. If I think people born on a tuesday have no souls based on deductive reasoning, and invite likeminded folks to spread the word, is that an argument or a character assassination? I would say the latter, someone else might say the former.
  - throw10920 3y ago
    > I don't think the distinction between arguments and character assassinations is as clear as you are drawing it. It's certainly very clear in this case that the NYT conducted a character assassination of Scott Alexander, so I don't know why you're making this argument.
throw10920 3y ago
> I assume they were "attacking" (as in disagreeing with?) the belief sets of Scott Aaronson and Scott Alexander as outlined in their blogs? You assume wrong. The NYTimes article on Scott Alexander (I haven't read the one on Scott Aaronson) attacked his character in addition to his beliefs. Oh, and they doxxed him, which is categorically different than pointing out that RationalWiki does profiling and ad-hominem attacks.

cubefox 3y ago

They tried to cancel them for being considerers of heretical thoughts. In every time period of the past there have been things which were taboo to discuss, which were outside the Overton window. There is no reason to believe our times are different in this regard. That's why intellectually honest people should engage by engaging with arguments themselves, whatever they may be, not by engaging in cancellation and character assassination.

staticman2 3y ago
I don't know enough about those two bloggers to comment in a fair manner, but I'll just say I don't think the distinction between arguments and character assassinations is as clear as you are drawing it. If I think people born on a tuesday have no souls based on deductive reasoning, and invite likeminded folks to spread the word, is that an argument or a character assassination? I would say the latter, someone else might say the former.
- throw10920 3y ago
  > I don't think the distinction between arguments and character assassinations is as clear as you are drawing it. It's certainly very clear in this case that the NYT conducted a character assassination of Scott Alexander, so I don't know why you're making this argument.

throw10920 3y ago

> I assume they were "attacking" (as in disagreeing with?) the belief sets of Scott Aaronson and Scott Alexander as outlined in their blogs? You assume wrong. The NYTimes article on Scott Alexander (I haven't read the one on Scott Aaronson) attacked his character in addition to his beliefs. Oh, and they doxxed him, which is categorically different than pointing out that RationalWiki does profiling and ad-hominem attacks.