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I Am Deleting the Blog

slatestarcodex.com

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Re: I Am Deleting the Blog

#341

Post by alexashka »

Uhrheber wrote: post #75

I stopped trusting reporters about 35 years ago, when I personally witnessed an occurrence, where a reporter was at the scene, and later read what he had written about it in the newspaper. It had practically nothing to do with what really happened, but was written in a way that most of their readers would most likely expect and endorse. I was still very young then, but it opened my eyes, and from then on, I mostly st…

You know what's even more sad? Journalists on average, are more intelligent than an average human being.

An average journalist distorts the truth knowingly and is a scumbag. An average person parrots lies and is convinced of them, and if you point it out, he/she'll be upset with you.

This is how religions continue even in the face of the best thinkers for centuries, coming up with the most considerate, foolproof arguments for why it's bullshit. At some point we have to ask: do people even want to be able to tell truth apart from bullshit, or do they just want to be led and told what to do by someone they like?

Re: I Am Deleting the Blog

#343

Post by KVFinn »

Tenoke wrote: post #328
sov wrote: post #322

Unfortunate, for sure. The NYT has no real reason to post his name (as far as I'm aware--the tone of the article could affect that conclusion), so I'm not really sure why they'd dig their heels in here. Though, he really does post a lot of personal and identifying information on his blog--literally any motivated party could find his name very easily. I thought "maybe he doesn't want his real name to link to his blog…

>I thought "maybe he doesn't want his real name to link to his blog if a patient googles it"--but, it already does that. In fact, it's a suggested search in google! That's not true. I just searched his real name and I get results about him but none of them are SSC-related at least on the first pages. Maybe your customized results lead to that or maybe you are including Scott Alexander or SSC in the search - either wa…

>>I thought "maybe he doesn't want his real name to link to his blog if a patient googles it"--but, it already does that. In fact, it's a suggested search in google!

>That's not true. I just searched his real name and I get results about him but none of them are SSC-related at least on the first pages. Maybe your customized results lead to that or maybe you are including Scott Alexander or SSC in the search - either way most patients googling him wouldn't see SSC at all.

I get slatestarcodex as the fourth google autocomplete suggestion when I search "Scott RealLastName" but I don't get SSC in the first page of results. And the third autocomplete suggestion is Alexander. Incognito mode of course.

Re: I Am Deleting the Blog

#344

Post by Recursing »

Tenoke wrote: post #328
sov wrote: post #322

Unfortunate, for sure. The NYT has no real reason to post his name (as far as I'm aware--the tone of the article could affect that conclusion), so I'm not really sure why they'd dig their heels in here. Though, he really does post a lot of personal and identifying information on his blog--literally any motivated party could find his name very easily. I thought "maybe he doesn't want his real name to link to his blog…

>I thought "maybe he doesn't want his real name to link to his blog if a patient googles it"--but, it already does that. In fact, it's a suggested search in google! That's not true. I just searched his real name and I get results about him but none of them are SSC-related at least on the first pages. Maybe your customized results lead to that or maybe you are including Scott Alexander or SSC in the search - either wa…

If I click on the first google image result from a search for his real name in an "incognito" window, I see plenty of stuff about SSC and rationalists https://i.imgur.com/0hWxzp3.png

Re: I Am Deleting the Blog

#345

Post by adsche »

Uhrheber wrote: post #75

I stopped trusting reporters about 35 years ago, when I personally witnessed an occurrence, where a reporter was at the scene, and later read what he had written about it in the newspaper. It had practically nothing to do with what really happened, but was written in a way that most of their readers would most likely expect and endorse. I was still very young then, but it opened my eyes, and from then on, I mostly st…

Genuine question, how do you (or others) check the facts? Where do you get facts from?

Re: I Am Deleting the Blog

#346

Post by flak48 »

manuform wrote: post #313
Fiveplus wrote: post #129

Seeing all this negative press about NYT (their website's weird trackers) and spotting increasingly more propaganda articles in their editorial section in the recent past, I am now going to stop my NYT subscription. The last thing they deserve is my money.

Same here, I'm trying to cancel now and they actually don't have a one click to stop the subscription.

Other comments on this thread are suggesting switching the mode of payment to PayPal which let's you cancel instantly. Or credit card chargebacks if you can document that you exhausted reasonable efforts to ask NYT to cancel the subscription

Re: I Am Deleting the Blog

#347

Post by [deleted] »

sov wrote: post #322

Unfortunate, for sure. The NYT has no real reason to post his name (as far as I'm aware--the tone of the article could affect that conclusion), so I'm not really sure why they'd dig their heels in here. Though, he really does post a lot of personal and identifying information on his blog--literally any motivated party could find his name very easily. I thought "maybe he doesn't want his real name to link to his blog…

[deleted]

Re: I Am Deleting the Blog

#348

Post by Grollicus »

choeger wrote: post #256

GDPR for the win. In Europe you could demand to be deleted from all databases at the time. You could demand them not to disclose any personal information without your consent. If they do regardless (and newspapers tend to think they are above data protection issues sometimes) you could sue them. They might have to pay enormous sums for deliberately not complying. I don't think that you would pocket that money, but yo…

The GDPR is somewhat restricted for public figures as there is a "legitimate interest" in reporting about them.

As Scott did publish his own name I don't think the GDPR would be a very sharp sword in this case.

Re: I Am Deleting the Blog

#349

Post by Tenoke »

Recursing wrote: post #344
Tenoke wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I thought "maybe he doesn't want his real name to link to his blog if a patient googles it"--but, it already does that. In fact, it's a suggested search in google! That's not true. I just searched his real name and I get results about him but none of them are SSC-related at least on the first pages. Maybe your customized results lead to that or maybe you are including Scott Alexander or SSC in the search - either wa…

If I click on the first google image result from a search for his real name in an "incognito" window, I see plenty of stuff about SSC and rationalists https://i.imgur.com/0hWxzp3.png

An image of EY is hardly something that will alert your average patient. They'll just think it's an irrelevant result like a bunch of the other stuff that shows up. I do admit, if you are already familiar with the rationalist community, you will figure it out based on that. Anyway, that takes more leaps than the top result being an article from the NYT about SSC.

On 'All' I at least get 0 rationalist results or autocompletes with his name. I do get them if I google Scott Alexander but he doesn't feature Alexander in the professional results and I doubt patients know that's his middle name.

Re: I Am Deleting the Blog

#350

Post by wolfgke »

npstr wrote: post #111

Similar effect when reading the news on a topic that one is an expert in - they usually get it incredibly wrong. And then you turn the page and read the next article completely forgetting how bad the reporting actually is - there is no reason to assume they do a better job on topics that one is not an expert in! I think this bias had a name but I can't remember it.

> Similar effect when reading the news on a topic that one is an expert in - they usually get it incredibly wrong.

This is the argument behind the Gell-Mann amnesia effect:

https://www.epsilontheory.com/gell-mann-amnesia/

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