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I Am Deleting the Blog

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Re: I Am Deleting the Blog

#451

Post by throwaway4666 »

strken wrote: post #449
throwaway4666 wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay but what does this have to do with the thread? Scott isn't being silenced, he's shutting down his blog out of concern that his relationship with his patients may be jeopardized if they could look him up on the NYT. (Whether he's justified I'm not qualified to say as I'm not a psychiatrist.) What's the hidden truth, controversial opinion or super secret insight at stake here?

Scott's coronavirus articles were reliably ahead of the media. He was early with insights such as the insufficiencies of the flattening the curve model, the efficacy of masks, and warning it could become a pandemic. These opinions are now mainstream. He gave them a platform earlier than the media did, because he was more open to being wrong and to exploring heterodox ideas, but also applied research and rigour when w…

I don't get your point. People are going to roast Scott because he got things right about covid? What does this have to do with his relationship with his patients?

Re: I Am Deleting the Blog

#452

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 »

nojs wrote: post #438
gringoDan wrote: post #394

Reading this made me think of two essays I've recently revisited. 1. The Sound of Silence, by Jessica Livingston Three years ago she argued that the smartest people are silencing themselves because the downside risk of being attacked for (misinterpretations of) their opinions are too high. People are wary of sharing useful information outside of trusted circles, which serves to consolidate power with insiders – those…

Where can one go to learn these controversial truths? I would love to see a list of these facts that apparently only insiders can talk about. Are they literally so confronting/offensive that they don’t exist on the internet?

I am going to respond with a paraphrasing of a well known quote about one such truth. The truth is that you are a slave in a prison without walls where prisoner never dreams of escaping.

They exist, but the woke crowd is purging them hard now. Any moment now I expect Columbus city to be renamed.

Re: I Am Deleting the Blog

#453

Post by war1025 »

artsyca wrote: post #418
gringoDan wrote: post #394

Reading this made me think of two essays I've recently revisited. 1. The Sound of Silence, by Jessica Livingston Three years ago she argued that the smartest people are silencing themselves because the downside risk of being attacked for (misinterpretations of) their opinions are too high. People are wary of sharing useful information outside of trusted circles, which serves to consolidate power with insiders – those…

I'd say this forum is exactly this. How often have I self censored because I just don't want the downvotes?

I read somewhere that downvotes are capped to -4 and it made me much less likely to self-censor when I felt like I had a valid point.

I know that the people who disagree with me outnumber those that agree, but the way that the upvotes bounce up and down tells me there are more people out there that agree with me than I would have assumed.

(Plus I think I've only made it down to -4 once or twice)

Re: I Am Deleting the Blog

#454

Post by jahaja »

SuoDuanDao wrote: post #446
jahaja wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you guys really feel that you're on the right side of history by harassing an investigative journalist?

Yes. Doxxing people whose only crime is producing good but complex content for the world to enjoy is cyberbullying. If bullies are on the right side of history I have no interest in the metric.

Doxxing, what? What do you think journalism is? It's very common for controversial authors with a very wide reach to be "revealed" and investigated? How do you know that this is "cyber bullying" after just reading one side of the story?

People seem have lost all sense of objectivity due to some sort of idolatry.

Re: I Am Deleting the Blog

#455

Post by Aeolun »

artsyca wrote: post #418
gringoDan wrote: post #394

Reading this made me think of two essays I've recently revisited. 1. The Sound of Silence, by Jessica Livingston Three years ago she argued that the smartest people are silencing themselves because the downside risk of being attacked for (misinterpretations of) their opinions are too high. People are wary of sharing useful information outside of trusted circles, which serves to consolidate power with insiders – those…

I'd say this forum is exactly this. How often have I self censored because I just don't want the downvotes?

I do this, but generally the comment wouldn’t have added much to the discussion in that case anyway.

Re: I Am Deleting the Blog

#456

Post by TheRealDunkirk »

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…

Many, many years ago, I was the foreman on a murder trial in our little town. In the jury selection process, the public defender -- a good, respected, local attorney -- asked the first candidate pool if they had read about the murder in the local paper. Almost everyone had. Then he asked if any of them had ever had a story written about them, or, say, their business, in this local paper. Three or four people raised their hand. Then he simply asked, "Did they get it right?" Everyone shook their head. Everyone laughed, and he moved on. Point made. That was my eye-opener.

Re: I Am Deleting the Blog

#457

Post by apatters »

dilandau wrote: post #410
gringoDan wrote: post #394

Reading this made me think of two essays I've recently revisited. 1. The Sound of Silence, by Jessica Livingston Three years ago she argued that the smartest people are silencing themselves because the downside risk of being attacked for (misinterpretations of) their opinions are too high. People are wary of sharing useful information outside of trusted circles, which serves to consolidate power with insiders – those…

Both of those are right on point, and match my observations within my own circles. For me stallmans cancellation was a big turning point. I'm using a pseudonym everywhere now. I can't risk someone pulling up a comment or post years from now and using it to ruin my reputation or career, simply because i may have voiced an unpopular or controversial opinion that did not age well. It seems, too, that making jokes is ver…

It's undoubtedly more dangerous to be critical of the mainstream narrative now than it was 10-20 years ago.

There's an alt right author called Vox Day (and I'm a little afraid to be referencing him here) who makes the following argument: if mainstream thought becomes increasingly constricted, and disagreeing with it becomes increasingly dangerous, people will do one of two things. Either they'll self-censor, or they'll "flip the switch" and just go totally anti-mainstream, because it's safer to associate and identify with people who won't get them fired for their opinions. The greater the censorship and fear, the more people will "flip" in a search for safety.

Now he is alt right and he has a vested interest in portraying the ascendancy of the alt right as inevitable, but the point is nonetheless logical, and quite disturbing. It may be that punishing moderately "wrong" speech will ultimately drive moderates into the waiting arms of the extreme right, where they won't be judged so harshly for their errors. Moreover if the purity spiral [1] theory is correct, this phenomenon may be hard to stop, because punishing people for their dissenting speech is an effective way to gain status in many communities!

[1] https://unherd.com/2020/01/cast-out-how-knitting-fell-into-a...

Re: I Am Deleting the Blog

#458

Post by dTal »

ve55 wrote: post #3
perditus wrote: post #2

This was in a piece specifically about the blog that was going to be positive, which makes this all the more inexplicable.

A lot of political extremists hate people like Scott, and it has caused him a lot of trouble in the past. This is why anonymity is more important now than ever, because just writing a scientific blog about interesting topics can make you the target of witch hunts designed to ruin your life and kill you. It's hard to describe how bad these things can get out of nowhere without having been through some of it or seeing…

What kind of "people like Scott", and what kind of political extremists?

I see a dead comment has cited "racial science" and "conservatives", seemingly out of nowhere. Has Scott written something "controversial" that I missed? Something that would offend the left wing?

If so, I can well believe that NYT would take it into their heads to write a semi-hit-piece on someone they perceive to be some sort of Jordan Peterson type.

Re: I Am Deleting the Blog

#459

Post by fny »

throwaway4666 wrote: post #435
gringoDan wrote: post #394

Reading this made me think of two essays I've recently revisited. 1. The Sound of Silence, by Jessica Livingston Three years ago she argued that the smartest people are silencing themselves because the downside risk of being attacked for (misinterpretations of) their opinions are too high. People are wary of sharing useful information outside of trusted circles, which serves to consolidate power with insiders – those…

Okay but what does this have to do with the thread? Scott isn't being silenced, he's shutting down his blog out of concern that his relationship with his patients may be jeopardized if they could look him up on the NYT. (Whether he's justified I'm not qualified to say as I'm not a psychiatrist.) What's the hidden truth, controversial opinion or super secret insight at stake here?

This is pretty easy. Scott does have controversial opinions at times. He uses a pseudonym to make them public without fear of that impinging on his life and work.

So yes. He's being silenced because he cannot enjoy speaking publicly without fear of retribution.

Re: I Am Deleting the Blog

#460

Post by dudul »

shinigami wrote: post #425
artsyca wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say this forum is exactly this. How often have I self censored because I just don't want the downvotes?

Exactly, downvotes hurt so much!

Downvotes don't hurt, but I wonder how many people here would stick around if HN forced all users to use their real names. How many people would instantly self-censored or completely change the way they share opinion and respond.
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