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I Am Deleting the Blog

slatestarcodex.com

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Re: I Am Deleting the Blog

#741

Post by maxwelljoslyn »

FeepingCreature wrote: post #330
maxwelljoslyn wrote: post #21

I clicked on this expecting it to be Scott Alexander blogging about somebody else getting doxxed. I flipped like a boat when I realized what I was reading. Holy shit! I was just in SSC's Open Thread a few hours ago opening comment permalinks in tabs to respond to them. That NYT writer should be fired. I hope Scott recovers soon. SSC is my favorite place on the Web.

> That NYT writer should be fired. I don't think this is a "that one writer" issue; I don't think Scott is saying this is a "that one writer" issue. Any such choice is down to newspaper-wide policy.

> I don't think this is a "that one writer" issue.

I think the problems with journalism are bigger than this one writer. Simultaneously, I would like to see NYT take a stance against its writers doing what this one did to Scott.

> I don't think Scott is saying this is a "that one writer" issue.

Point taken, but I didn't claim to speak for him.

> Any such choice is down to newspaper-wide policy.

Agreed. I wrote another comment in response to 'rachelshu, adjusting my original comment to something more reflecting my actual views.

Re: I Am Deleting the Blog

#742

Post by DataGata »

zajio1am wrote: post #577

I have been reading Slate Star Codex for a long time and consider it a source of many great texts, but i do not really get this step from Scott Alexander. Term 'doxxing' is a loaded term that may describe both revealing private information and revealing personal information researchable from public sources. While the former is condemnable, the later is more neutral and part of basic journalist work, especially if the…

> the later is more neutral and part of basic journalist work, especially if the exposed is a public persona.

This is where the problem comes in-- best practice on the Internet is to let people who want to be anonymous stay anonymous. This is analog world culture butting into digital world culture, and in this case _digital world culture is right_, and also a case of the NYTimes being hypocritical.

The guy who wrote the NYTimes Resistance piece is allowed to stay anonymous, but a guy who writes about the efficacy of different depression medications isn't? [0]

It's ridiculous.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/05/opinion/trump-white-house...

Re: I Am Deleting the Blog

#744

Post by michaelkeenan »

malwarebytess wrote: post #721

I've been reading this guy off and on since he was Yvain on Less Wrong. This is a really fucking strange place to take a stand when his name has been public knowledge for...almost forever. The guy physically meets people at conventions and the like and introduces himself with his full name. It's been less of a secret than who The Stig (top gear) is. NYT may or may not be doing a big wrong here, but it's a fruitless a…

That seems covered by this paragraph:

"Some people want to kill me or ruin my life, and I would prefer not to make it too easy. I’ve received various death threats. I had someone on an anti-psychiatry subreddit put out a bounty for any information that could take me down (the mods deleted the post quickly, which I am grateful for). I’ve had dissatisfied blog readers call my work pretending to be dissatisfied patients in order to get me fired. And I recently learned that someone on SSC got SWATted in a way that they link to using their real name on the blog. I live with ten housemates including a three-year-old and an infant, and I would prefer this not happen to me or to them. Although I realize I accept some risk of this just by writing a blog with imperfect anonymity, getting doxxed on national news would take it to another level."

Do you feel that that addresses your concerns? It seems reasonable to predict that he'd have more of those safety problems if the number of people who know his real name increases by 2+ orders of magnitude, and if it appears prominently on a website with a high rank on Google.

Re: I Am Deleting the Blog

#745

Post by savanaly »

coderunner wrote: post #649

What does he normally write about? It seemed to be a pretty popular blog but I never dug into the content and now the content is offline.

If all you're interested in is a list of topics he wrote about, the table of contents on that page serves that function reasonably well. Some of the links in it are even live because they are to places he wrote other than SSC.

I. Rationality and Rationalization

II. Probabilism

III. Science and Doubt

IV. Medicine, Therapy, and Human Enhancement

V. Introduction to Game Theory

VI. Promises and Principles

VII. Cognition and Association

VIII. Doing Good

IX. Liberty

X. Progress

XI. Social Justice

XII. Politicization

XIII. Competition and Cooperation

[0] https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/vwqLfDfsHmiavFAGP/the-librar...

Re: I Am Deleting the Blog

#746

Post by hackissimo123 »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #31
seven4 wrote: post #4

Edit: I'm 50:50 on whether they take the negative press hit of publishing this anyway. If they publish without name included - everyone still finds out the name of the "flippant" writer. If they don't it just concedes that their attitude was wrong to begin with. They are in a tough spot now - hard to feel sorry for them given the asympathetic position they assumed. ~~~ SlateStarCodex shutting down in direct response…

> why despite legitimate concerns are your writers comfortable doxxing people? This is especially important to ask when a big complaint of the NYT staff about the Tom Cotton is editorial was that it was directly endangering their safety. Apparently the NYT does not have the same concern about other’s safety.

Or, as with much else in the woke lexicon[1], they don't use the word "safety" in the way that most people understand it.

[1] https://newdiscourses.com/translations-from-the-wokish/

Re: I Am Deleting the Blog

#747

Post by tomjakubowski »

nickthemagicman wrote: post #665
fullshark wrote: post #641

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that decision was worse than a sign that they have given in to market forces. They have given in to internal activists who have no desire to learn, think, or report the truth, merely use the paper as a weapon for social change.

That's Matt Taiabbis proposition too. https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-news-media-is-destroying-i...

A response:

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/taibbi-cotton-fre...

Re: I Am Deleting the Blog

#748

Post by [deleted] »

michaelkeenan wrote: post #744
malwarebytess wrote: post #721

I've been reading this guy off and on since he was Yvain on Less Wrong. This is a really fucking strange place to take a stand when his name has been public knowledge for...almost forever. The guy physically meets people at conventions and the like and introduces himself with his full name. It's been less of a secret than who The Stig (top gear) is. NYT may or may not be doing a big wrong here, but it's a fruitless a…

That seems covered by this paragraph: "Some people want to kill me or ruin my life, and I would prefer not to make it too easy. I’ve received various death threats. I had someone on an anti-psychiatry subreddit put out a bounty for any information that could take me down (the mods deleted the post quickly, which I am grateful for). I’ve had dissatisfied blog readers call my work pretending to be dissatisfied patients…

[deleted]

Re: I Am Deleting the Blog

#749

Post by PatrolX »

This is a very dumb move on his part.

He just went from "big interesting blog" to "very suspicious behavior".

Think about it from a reporter's perspective, they were about to write about an interesting blog, and suddenly the blog gets deleted because his real name will be revealed. Well, that's a pretty big reaction, so big we can't ignore it. The reporter's first question now will be "Wow, what's he trying to cover up?"

One thing is certain, reporters are now trying to dig up the thing that they're imagining he's trying to cover up.

And maybe he does have something to hide given his irrational behavior, who knows?

This won't end now until reporters find something, and they're gonna go to great lengths to find something.

Re: I Am Deleting the Blog

#750

Post by OscarCunningham »

malwarebytess wrote: post #721

I've been reading this guy off and on since he was Yvain on Less Wrong. This is a really fucking strange place to take a stand when his name has been public knowledge for...almost forever. The guy physically meets people at conventions and the like and introduces himself with his full name. It's been less of a secret than who The Stig (top gear) is. NYT may or may not be doing a big wrong here, but it's a fruitless a…

He only needs one-way anonymity. There aren't many problems with his blog readers searching for "scott alexander real name" and finding it. But there are problems if his patients search for "[real name] psychiatrist" and find his blog.
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