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Slate Star Codex and Silicon Valley’s War Against the Media

newyorker.com

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Re: Slate Star Codex and Silicon Valley’s War Against the Media

#151

Post by eqvinox »

elipsey wrote: post #55

Sigh. I think this article is holding Scott, and a core constituency of posters and meet up people, guilty by association with every rando on the internet, and also about half of the celebrities in the Bay area. "War against the media" strikes me as ridiculous hyperbole in this context. I have met some of these people in real life, and none of them expressed that attitude to me, nor any kind of utopian superiority. I…

More: of course it never occurs to the author that NYT readers could include a similar number of randos who might just have taken enough prior offense to run off and be "unfriendly" to Scott. Physically in his face.

Re: Slate Star Codex and Silicon Valley’s War Against the Media

#152

Post by memexy »

jdminhbg wrote: post #143
memexy wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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> If you read his last letter he clearly intended to rile up his followers into a frenzy and get them to attack the reporter that was going to write the piece. He didn't even name the reporter in his last post, much less ask people to attack him.

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Re: Slate Star Codex and Silicon Valley’s War Against the Media

#153

Post by zozbot234 »

arwhatever wrote: post #36
commandlinefan wrote: post #3

Not 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 detected the same shift in blog content, but figured (or, assumed) it was due to caution given the current political and social climate, more than lack of inspiration.

Yes, the blog author did say as much. The idea that he would want to take his whole blog down because he wasn't feeling "inspired" seems preposterous.

Re: Slate Star Codex and Silicon Valley’s War Against the Media

#154

Post by finnthehuman »

elipsey wrote: post #55

Sigh. I think this article is holding Scott, and a core constituency of posters and meet up people, guilty by association with every rando on the internet, and also about half of the celebrities in the Bay area. "War against the media" strikes me as ridiculous hyperbole in this context. I have met some of these people in real life, and none of them expressed that attitude to me, nor any kind of utopian superiority. I…

>I think this article is holding Scott, and a core constituency of posters and meet up people, guilty by association with every rando on the internet, and also about half of the celebrities in the Bay area.

Tying Scott and Silicon Valley together is another case where I simply do not understand the way reporters/journos draw cultural ties, boundaries, allegiances, and opposition.

It's like looking at twitter to form an opinion about the market for a product instead of doing market research. Voiced opinions from the type of people to voice their opinions on twitter are insanely different than the purchase habits of the population. But every day some journo is acting like Twitter is a useful cultural barometer.

My (not too confident) assessment is that Scott and whatever amalgamation of "tech" / "the internet" they're lumping in with him are just people that look like the pre-iPhone internet era: online often, and willing to venture into open communication for the sake of the ideas and discussion. That happens to weigh toward computery jobs, where reading (and sometimes writing) online resources are large part of the job and competitors openly collaborate online.

Re: Slate Star Codex and Silicon Valley’s War Against the Media

#155

Post by bluntfang »

JoblessWonder wrote: post #63
tripletao wrote: post #28

What 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…

FWIW, the Internet Archive is willing to remove content if you can prove you are the owner and request it using the proper methods.

It's so funny how this community falls squarely on the "Opt-out is bad!" side except for the internet archive!

Re: Slate Star Codex and Silicon Valley’s War Against the Media

#156

Post by nerfhammer »

zozbot234 wrote: post #84
avsteele wrote: post #39

Article fails to defend the NYT in any substantive way, and the writer makes obvious their biases with statements like: S.S.C. supporters on Twitter were quick to identify some of the Times’ recent concessions to pseudonymous quotation—Virgil Texas, a co-host of the podcast “Chapo Trap House,” was mentioned, as were Banksy and a member of ISIS—as if these supposed inconsistencies were dispositive proof of the paper’s…

> Note too the lack of any real investigation or original reporting here; the author hasn't bother to talk to Metz? The article specifically mentions that Metz did not want to be quoted directly; most likely, the author did talk to him. (Though, it's even less clear to me why Scott would want to lie about what Metz said, so I'm definitely inclined to trust Scott's account of the matter.)

yea "Metz declined to comment on the record" is the author strongly hinting that he did talk to him off the record, and perhaps the author does have some idea what Metz' article would have ultimately been about. The author could have chosen to say "Metz declined to comment" which would have suggested this less.

Re: Slate Star Codex and Silicon Valley’s War Against the Media

#157

Post by dvtrn »

avivo wrote: post #85

As someone who works at the intersection of technology and journalism, it hurts to see how many misunderstandings there are in these comments and elsewhere. The tech world (and HN in particular) deeply needs a solid explainer on how journalism works. So many misunderstandings! (Of course, many/most journalists also need an explainer about the tech world. And that is not to say that some of the more nuanced critiques…

A little over a month ago someone asked what could be done to help with the spread of mis/disinformation present in media outlets and content providers. I suggested that more deliberate media literacy studies as an educational tool could possibly help.

Your comment here reminded me of that, and I think it's just as relevant for this issue as it is other discussions reflecting on our relationship with media and journalism.

The comment spawned quite a discussion at the time, if anyone is interested: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23323009

Re: Slate Star Codex and Silicon Valley’s War Against the Media

#158

Post by waon »

memexy wrote: post #123
zozbot234 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you read his last letter he clearly intended to rile up his followers into a frenzy and get them to attack the reporter Um, unless you think Scott lied about what the reporter said, this is not a very sensible take. The blog takedown page reads like a factual account of what happened, and a request to direct any criticism towards the NYT's editors through the proper channels. He has never called for a mad frenzy…

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Scott encouraged people to raise objections in a civil way, and he really stressed that point. And yet both you and the article somehow accuse him of orchestrating a harassment campaign despite evidence to the contrary. Honest question, what else could he’ve done? Are you suggesting that he’s a villain for raising objections?

Re: Slate Star Codex and Silicon Valley’s War Against the Media

#159

Post by nkurz »

memexy wrote: post #99
MattGaiser wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is essentially a summary of their opinion.

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> he clearly intended to rile up his followers into a frenzy and get them to attack the reporter that was going to write the piece

I find this an interesting reaction. Could you defend "clearly intended"? I feel familiar with Scott's writing, and familiar with his audience, and I think his clear intention was exactly what he said --- "please be polite" and "I will be very sad if you are a jerk".

I could understand if you said "I took it to mean" or "He should have been aware that some people would take it to mean", but what gives you the confidence to say "clearly intended"? Are you sure you're familiar enough with his writing and his audience to make this claim?

Re: Slate Star Codex and Silicon Valley’s War Against the Media

#160

Post by cowpig »

savanaly wrote: post #41

I was a very loyal reader of SSC and thought I followed the "doxing" incident and fallout rather closely. I read numerous related blog posts about it and followed the discussion on the main remaining discussion space the community has, /r/slatestarcodex. Never once did I see the comments of said "Bay Area attorney" or Srinivasan, or see them discussed. It's certainly possible they were there and I missed them, but th…

My reading of the article, or at least the second half, is that there's a sort of culture war going on in which "old media" and "new media", journalists and SV, "grey" and "blue".

I was more skeptical until I read the comments section here.

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