I was much more skeptical of this alleged culture war when reading this article than I am now that I've read the HN comments section.
Slate Star Codex and Silicon Valley’s War Against the Media
161–170 of 584 posts
Re: Slate Star Codex and Silicon Valley’s War Against the Media
#162As 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…
Tell us more! I'd be interested in reading that explainer on journalism if you have a good one to link to.
The first thing you need to understand is journalism is a business...
Re: Slate Star Codex and Silicon Valley’s War Against the Media
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
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!
The Internet Archive provides an important historical archiving mission. Even when the content is made unavailable by express request from the owner, it is still preserved for future generations. This is not a frivolous purpose.
Re: Slate Star Codex and Silicon Valley’s War Against the Media
#164What 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…
It didn't strike me as ugly as all.
Funnily enough, the slatestarcodex thread on this article agrees with you. I found this one comment extremely illustrative of the dynamics in this current thread:
>Overall, I’m pretty impressed by this article. It’s the sort of thing I could see myself aspiring to write. It spends ample time presenting SSC in its own terms, touches on enough of the major touchstones and obscurities of the blog to indicate a serious examination of it, and is precise and restricted in its criticisms. I appreciated in particular the attention it paid to the specific quirks of rationalist subculture rather than trying to lump it in as part of something it isn’t, and the way it (accurately) called out the people who were looking more for a war with the media and were willing rovers use Scott as a convenient casus belli.[0]
[0]https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/ho6g2b/slat...
Re: Slate Star Codex and Silicon Valley’s War Against the Media
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
Personal information that Scott Alexander _already published_ was going to be republished. He's published all his own personal info repeatedly for years. Deleting a site you've posted on thousands of times is a quality tantrum.
You can consider it an over-reaction. But calling it a tantrum, using that specific word, really highlights your flared emotions. When people resort to value laden language instead of more objective, reasonable language, it says a lot about their mindset. On the actual subject, scale and magnitude are issues that most rational beings consider. His avoiding people knowing his name on scale makes sense. Our society in…
> You can consider it an over-reaction.
An over-reaction is by definition the result of an emotional response. Pretending that it's not is being just as emotional even if they're pretending to be objective.
> Our society in general has even codified this difference in law by separating 'public figures' from 'private individuals'.
Scott Alexander is far more likely to be on the side of a public figure than a private individual, given the laws we've seen and the way these things play out in court. An example of such a thing is the Sandy Hook school shooting where the parents are considered public figures and not private individuals despite them being thrust into the public spotlight through no action of their own. Note that this codified difference in law matters primarily for defamation cases.
Re: Slate Star Codex and Silicon Valley’s War Against the Media
#166Earlier quoted context omitted.
It didn't strike me as ugly as all.
It does strike me as ugly because there's just one "off" piece after the other. The thing about hiding posts from reporters while they know there's an ebook. Saying the NYT "isn't about clicks" while most of the news industry is drowning. Arguing that "de-anonymizing" Scott shouldn't be a problem because it was easy for them to do. Arguing that Scott should've expected unruly people to contact the NYT while drawing a…
> NYT "isn't about clicks" while most of the news industry is drowning.
No need to generalize from the state of the media as an industry; NYT is a public company so their balance sheet is public. Here's their latest 10-Q, doesn't look like drowning to me.
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0000071691/000007169...
Re: Slate Star Codex and Silicon Valley’s War Against the Media
#167Earlier quoted context omitted.
Doesn't that also mean the very act of "deleting" the blog is disingenuous? If deleting the blog doesn't meaningfully impede accessing the blog articles, then what's the point, other than drawing attention to the situation?
It's just the publicity stunt, leaving the NYT with the options to (a) drop the story, (b) omit a significant detail, or (c) report that he deleted the blog because they said they were going to doxx him. The story hasn't been published yet, so it's working so far. Short-term, this has probably net increased the visibility of Alexander's content (slightly less convenient to access, but much more attention), and I assu…
> The reporter can't actually believe that Alexander is trying to hide something horrible that he wrote
It might be a little farfetched, but no moreso than Alexander's own reasoning for deleting the blog. I think it's a little much to call the whole article "ugly" because of that.
Re: Slate Star Codex and Silicon Valley’s War Against the Media
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
He's not an anonymous blogger. He's forthcoming with personal information. He's published his full name multiple times (even on his own blog). It's not doxing.
> He's published his full name multiple times (even on his own blog). I'm almost certain this is untrue. Are you possibly mistaking his pseudonym "Scott Alexander" for this full name? If not, and you understand that Scott and Alexander are his first and middle names, could you please provide a link to an example of where he has published his last name on his blog (or at this point, on the relevant archive.org page)?…
I'm cool with saying "revealed".
I don't want to link directly to it because I think it's kind of an asshole thing to do, but you can find a last name on a bunch of posts on Raikoth.net in archive.org. He reposted most that without the reveal on SSC.
Re: Slate Star Codex and Silicon Valley’s War Against the Media
#169Earlier quoted context omitted.
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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…
It's hard to explain but his intention in much of his writing was coded. He would consistently use certain keywords and phrases to make certain associations and when you follow through the logic it becomes very sinister (in fact the comments would take his ideas to their natural conclusion and I did not like what was in the comments and the people that were writing them).
If he did not intend his followers to attack anyone then he should not have named anyone or put any kind of contact information in his post. Only someone that deliberately wants people to contact and pressure the editor would have used the language that he did. He created plausible deniability by saying "he doesn't want anyone to be harmed" and then in the next sentence listed contact information with "suggestions".
If you really wanted a civil discussion, would you have used the type of language that he did?
Re: Slate Star Codex and Silicon Valley’s War Against the Media
#170"Alexander’s plea for civility went unheeded, and Metz and his editor were flooded with angry messages."
Surprise! The rationalist community is made up of human beings after all.