This article could've been a lot worse, but it still suffers from the mistake that the press is axiomatically good and anyone voicing upset at it must be evil and/or have something to hide. If you take that as a baseline assumption, instead of an empirical hypothesis that is looking increasingly shaky, then you're going to end up with an article like this one where the tone clearly conveys who you're supposed to sympathize with in a way that is not supported by the facts.
Slate Star Codex and Silicon Valley’s War Against the Media
21–30 of 584 posts
Re: Slate Star Codex and Silicon Valley’s War Against the Media
#22Not that the NYT has any business printing somebody's name who doesn't want it to be printed, but I kind of feel like he had been looking for an excuse to shut down the blog for a while - it had been a long time since any of his posts really felt inspired like they were even a year ago. This gives him an excuse to make a clean break.
I’m genuinely surprised that getting doxxed wasn’t part of his playbook. It’s not like he went to the greatest of lengths to hide his identity, Bay Area psychiatrists named Scott is a pretty small pool of people.
This is pure speculation but my hunch is that the Scott Alexander of a few years ago wouldn’t care about being doxxed. I agree with your take on this. Become a well known writer on the internet and doom yourself to being forced to live by the principles you articulate. It gets claustrophobic and cognitively dissonant after a few years. I think he didn’t want to be married to the content he’d created forever, was looking for an excuse to shut down the blog, and when this NYT thing happened it was a blessing in disguise because it allowed him to shut it down without losing face.
I think Scott Alexander would be very sympathetic to this line of reasoning too.
Re: Slate Star Codex and Silicon Valley’s War Against the Media
#23> For one thing, the S.S.C. code prioritizes semantic precision, but Metz—if Alexander’s account is to be taken at its word—had proposed not to “doxx” Alexander but to de-anonymize him. Oh? From Wikipedia: > Doxing, or doxxing (from "dox", abbreviation of documents), is the Internet-based practice of researching and publicly broadcasting private or identifying information (especially personally identifying informatio…
It seems the goal lines have been moved to KiwiFarms’ brand of doxxing. As to whose ends that serves, I’ll leave as an exercise to the reader.
Re: Slate Star Codex and Silicon Valley’s War Against the Media
#24Watching people who hate cancel culture try to cancel the NYT is hilarious. Watching them try to cancel individual NYT writers is gross. All because Scott Alexander retroactively decided his last name is private information and threw a tantrum.
Where is this canceling occurring? I saw quite a few people here, as well as the two SSC subreddits, going out of their way to encourage polite outreach to the editor and to avoid antagonizing the actual author. So far as to discourage the naming of the author. Not denying it may be happening, it just does not seem to jive with the majority response (in my bubble).
I'm not sure how directly the cancelling is affiliated with SSC, but the #ghostnyt hashtag is a pretty good cancellation motion. The only thing that's really reached my bubble has been outrage and cancellation, though.
Re: Slate Star Codex and Silicon Valley’s War Against the Media
#25Watching people who hate cancel culture try to cancel the NYT is hilarious. Watching them try to cancel individual NYT writers is gross. All because Scott Alexander retroactively decided his last name is private information and threw a tantrum.
I think the Harper's letter[0] being viciously attacked on the left is what's hilarious. There are no conservatives remaining in the left media, so they have to find new enemies among each other. This is textbook witch hunt / McCarthyism stuff. I just keep eating popcorn and watching it unfold! [0] https://harpers.org/a-letter-on-justice-and-open-debate/
I don't understand why it's necessary to bring this up or its relation at all with SSC or the New Yorker piece.
Re: Slate Star Codex and Silicon Valley’s War Against the Media
#26This is fascinating. It's a New York take on the Bay Area take on New York. It's the Media take on the Tech take on Media. It's illuminating, and frustrating. I keep looking for some reflection, some attempt to learn something from another point of view.
I'll have to read it again more closely.
Re: Slate Star Codex and Silicon Valley’s War Against the Media
#27Not that the NYT has any business printing somebody's name who doesn't want it to be printed, but I kind of feel like he had been looking for an excuse to shut down the blog for a while - it had been a long time since any of his posts really felt inspired like they were even a year ago. This gives him an excuse to make a clean break.
That theory directly contradicts his claim that he was considering continuing his blog under a different name.
Maybe he already is and the internet hasn't found it yet.
Re: Slate Star Codex and Silicon Valley’s War Against the Media
#28What an ugly article. A couple quotes:
> It remains possible that Alexander vaporized his blog not because he thought it would force Metz’s hand but because he feared that a Times reporter wouldn’t have to poke around for very long to turn up a creditable reason for negative coverage.
The reporter is unaware that the Internet Archive exists? The content is obviously still readily available, so the reporter is either stupid or disingenuous.
> For one thing, the S.S.C. code prioritizes semantic precision, but Metz—if Alexander’s account is to be taken at its word—had proposed not to “doxx” Alexander but to de-anonymize him.
And no, the difference between "doxx" and "de-anonymize" is never explained.
The practical lesson that I'd take here is that semi-anonymity doesn't exist. Alexander should either have written under his own name, or taken sufficient technical precautions to make doxxing by the NYT impossible.
The higher-level lesson is that anyone expressing heterodox opinions is likely to write something that a reporter working for a mainstream outlet considers "a creditable reason for negative coverage". At that point, the reporter now seems happy to use whatever tools they have at their disposal to cause that person harm, with the implicit consent of the huge organization behind them. Probably this was always true to some extent, but I think it's getting worse.
Re: Slate Star Codex and Silicon Valley’s War Against the Media
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
Where is this canceling occurring? I saw quite a few people here, as well as the two SSC subreddits, going out of their way to encourage polite outreach to the editor and to avoid antagonizing the actual author. So far as to discourage the naming of the author. Not denying it may be happening, it just does not seem to jive with the majority response (in my bubble).
I'm not sure how directly the cancelling is affiliated with SSC, but the #ghostnyt hashtag is a pretty good cancellation motion. The only thing that's really reached my bubble has been outrage and cancellation, though. https://twitter.com/hashtag/ghostnyt
"They tweeted something bad" -> "get them fired," is substantially different from, "the reporters working for this organization are dangerous," -> "don't talk to them." One is going on the offense, the other is defensive.
Re: Slate Star Codex and Silicon Valley’s War Against the Media
#30Quite a war, media suffers heavy casualties. Oh wait it was just the blogger and his readers.