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I Am Deleting the Blog

slatestarcodex.com

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Re: I Am Deleting the Blog

#931

Post by closeparen »

alecbenzer wrote: post #605
kerkeslager wrote: post #543

Damn. I've been reading Slate Star Codex for a long time, and he's always been one of the most insightful voices on the internet. I'm really sorry to see him go. After reading this, I looked up NYT's policy of using real names, and it turns out this isn't the worst time that the NY Times has done this[1]. I've long said that if you want to know who an organization serves, see where its money comes from. The NY Times…

The implication being that the NYT wants to use real names to drive clicks and appease advertisers?

Generally it's anonymous sources who tell the wild and not-necessarily-true stories that drive clicks. A policy limiting their use is intended to make the publication more sober. But that's supposed to happen by just not printing the story. Outing people who don't want to be outed is something else.

Re: I Am Deleting the Blog

#932

Post by philwelch »

smsm42 wrote: post #847
mshron wrote: post #642

I am genuinely baffled how Scott Alexander's post has turned into hundreds and hundreds of comments on cancel culture, as if it was anything near the #1 reason why he'd be in danger if his name was revealed. Being famous is dangerous in every era, doubly so in an era where anybody unhinged basically has access to the same level of information you used to need a private investigator to get. Tim Ferris said it well: "T…

Scott has been harassed by cancellers for years. It's a well-documented history, which was a serious issue for him and led to banning culture war topics in SSC-affiliated reddit section. There are still people and AFAIK organized communities on Reddit that target him. There were calls to his employers to get him fired and to friends to get them socially shunned. Now imagine how much more of this one would get if thei…

> There are still people and AFAIK organized communities on Reddit that target him.

Though one of the more wholesome things I've seen is when I visited that subreddit you're referring to and the consensus seemed to be that doxxing Scott was not justified.

Re: I Am Deleting the Blog

#933

Post by philwelch »

esperent wrote: post #591
cousin_it wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen moral fashions. What's happening now is bigger, rarer and worse. It's known as a "purity spiral" (Haynes), "mass movement" (Hoffer), "political religion" (Voegelin).

Living outside the US and watching what's going on (ok, it's not just the US, but it is just a few countries) is like watching a friend's slow motion descent into madness. It's pitiful and sad, and I feel powerless to do anything about it. At the same time, so long as I stay away from news and social media, I'm pretty much unaffected. Society in the various countries I've spent time in over the last few years (Irelan…

Most of the discourse motivating what's going on is in the English language, so perhaps that's a factor.

Re: I Am Deleting the Blog

#934

Post by kbenson »

kerkeslager wrote: post #923
derefr wrote: post #727

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am genuinely baffled how Scott Alexander's post has turned into hundreds and hundreds of comments on cancel culture, as if it was anything near the #1 reason why he'd be in danger if his name was revealed. People in comments sections (doesn’t matter which) don’t really “react to” or “engage with” the article very often. What they’re really doing is being reminded by the article of some thought that’s been affecti…

This is pretty true on Hacker News. I engaged with the post as if I were in a conversation with the original author, not by posting here, but by sending an email to the original author. I can't help but think that this effect isn't what I want from this community, however. I want reasoned discussion that helps me to see issues from various points of view, but instead I get a bunch of uninformed opinions from people w…

> I can't help but think that this effect isn't what I want from this community, however. I want reasoned discussion that helps me to see issues from various points of view, but instead I get a bunch of uninformed opinions from people who didn't even read the thing they're opining on.

Some of the absolute best discussions I've read and sometimes participated in on HN have been tangents or inconsequential to the article they were attached to. I would miss those types of discussion sorely if they were gone.

There are tools to help manage this though. You can collapse comment threads, and if you find a particular vein of discussion not really to your liking, I suggest doing that so you can focus on what you do enjoy (and others can do the same, even if the items they read and ignore are entirely different than yours).

Personally, since these comments aren't the comments of the article in question (usually. Sometimes they just refer you here!), I think of it less as comments to the author when posting here, and more like a discussion in a group examining that article. Sort of like a book group, where people splinter into subgroups to have discussions that interest them, and even those that failed to read the book might find a place to contribute.

Re: I Am Deleting the Blog

#935

Post by deleuze »

Scott Alexander uses "hyper-rational critism" to push race science that borders on straight on bigotry. Even worse, he's allowed a community to build around him that views iq heritability as the main essentialist frame with which to view the world. This kind of mindset is unfortunately common in technology spaces, and the world will only be better as these kinds of people are pushed out of the overton window.

Re: I Am Deleting the Blog

#936

Post by monkeycantype »

ysavir wrote: post #471
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?

Why are you afraid of downvotes? There's little reason to self-censor due to an internet currency. And I wouldn't say the forum is "exactly this" unless you're saying that downvotes are on par with getting "fired, ostracized, imprisoned, or killed."

This is a really interesting question. I know I - and most of us - seem to have a sensitivity to negative social responses, that it's own freestanding emotional response, it's not linked directly to any pragmatic connection to the consequences of that response. Which is why in a mass society, where that avoidance response is not well matched to consequences that sociopathy becomes a superpower.

I often find myself thinking that we either need to create a healthier mechanism for finer grained social consequences at a mass scale, or accept that the future belongs to sociopaths and cancel culture.

Re: I Am Deleting the Blog

#937

Post by radford-neal »

deleuze wrote: post #935

Scott Alexander uses "hyper-rational critism" to push race science that borders on straight on bigotry. Even worse, he's allowed a community to build around him that views iq heritability as the main essentialist frame with which to view the world. This kind of mindset is unfortunately common in technology spaces, and the world will only be better as these kinds of people are pushed out of the overton window.

"...he's allowed a community to build around him that views iq heritability as the main essentialist frame with which to view the world"

This is complete nonsense. Anyone who has read SSC knows that both Scott Alexander's posts and the comments cover a very wide range of topics. Occasional mentions of scientific views of human biology that don't fit your ideological preconceptions are a dominant part of the blog/community only in your distorted perceptions.

Re: I Am Deleting the Blog

#938

Post by doubleunplussed »

Apocryphon wrote: post #830

Surprised that P.Z. Myers is such a critic of SSC https://twitter.com/pzmyers/status/1275381580182073346

I'm not. PZ Myers was on the Atheism+ side of the schism in online Atheism in 2011 (from which my pseudonym derives), and Scott was firmly on the other side. They've been on opposite sides of the culture war since either of them became aware of it.

But even if you didn't know that ancient history, Myers is orthodox progressive, Scott is heterodox. They're natural enemies.

Re: I Am Deleting the Blog

#939

Post by Apocryphon »

doubleunplussed wrote: post #938
Apocryphon wrote: post #830

Surprised that P.Z. Myers is such a critic of SSC https://twitter.com/pzmyers/status/1275381580182073346

I'm not. PZ Myers was on the Atheism+ side of the schism in online Atheism in 2011 (from which my pseudonym derives), and Scott was firmly on the other side. They've been on opposite sides of the culture war since either of them became aware of it. But even if you didn't know that ancient history, Myers is orthodox progressive, Scott is heterodox. They're natural enemies.

Funny how an anti-ideology that purports to be not a religion but rather the absence of religion would spawn so many schisms and holy wars.

Re: I Am Deleting the Blog

#940

Post by doubleunplussed »

EE84M3i wrote: post #501

Anyone that cared to try already knew Scott's real name. It was a simple Google dork away because of bad opsec from the beginning.

It's harder the other way around: starting with his real name and finding slatestarcodex, which is what he's concerned about since his patients will be googling his real name.

Now, for me google autocompletes "scott $REALNAME slatestarcodex", but it's not clear whether that is personalsied to me since I'm an avid slatestarcodex reader and have been googling this all over the place.

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