Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

newyorker.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 584 posts

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

#181

Post by DavidVoid »

cwp wrote: post #26

This 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.

As a European whose exposure to SV's culture and politics has mainly been through HN and similar sites, it definitely was a fascinating read.

Apart from some unfair points (the definition of doxxing for example), I think it was a pretty reasonable old media take on SV tech libertarianish viewpoints. It's a political and cultural disagreement that I don't think has a clear-cut "good" and "bad" side, but it's certainly an interesting back-and-forth discussion to follow.

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

#182

Post by dash2 »

cwp wrote: post #26

This 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.

Agreed. I think there's a lot of overreaction in these comments. Yes, the writer has his own point of view, but he tries pretty hard to be fair and balanced, and I learnt a lot from reading it.

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

#183

Post by emiliobumachar »

emiliobumachar wrote: post #173
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.

Scott, answering to a different question: "I’m not sure what kind of evidence you want me to give. But if you want, you can confirm with Cade that I begged him, at great length, many times, over the course of days, not to use my real name in the article. I gave him a warning that I would delete the blog if he used my real name, in order to pressure him to reconsider, and I only deleted the blog after he refused." htt…

Additionally, this is a much less clean break than "blah blah blah thank you all blah blah blah new projects blah blah blah goodbye" would be. Also, the NYT could have backed down on the spot and he would be expected to put the blog back up.

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

#184

Post by joshuamorton »

nkurz wrote: post #135
mrkurt wrote: post #88

Earlier 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 don't follow him, but many of his early blog posts were posted under his full name. He changed that eventually, but it was the case for a while (I say third hand).

I'm unsure if that was before or after the slatestarcodex domain name.

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

#185

Post by dash2 »

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…

I would definitely like to see such an explainer, if you want to write it.

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

#186

Post by bonchicbongenre »

motohagiography wrote: post #95

The entire piece is an expression of an ideology digesting a perceived threat to itself and producing antibodies in the form of snide, cognitively limiting tropes. As an example of watching the beast in action, this is a truly valuable specimen. Highly recommend reading it as an example of the form.

Thank you for this phrasing; it puts to words exactly how I feel about the tact used in this article.

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

#187

Post by waon »

memexy wrote: post #172
waon wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

-

He was pointing to the appropriate channel for reporting such an issue. How else do you think people can signal objections? At least not by writing in their own diaries for sure.

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

#188

Post by eqvinox »

paulgb wrote: post #166
eqvinox wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

I said I was lazy, didn't I? :)

Feel free to ignore that item.

…

But actually… that sheet also says that $51 million of their revenue is from digital advertising, down from $55.5 million a year ago. It's 11.5% of their total revenue, down from 12.7%. Not a huge problem but… it's still a business consideration.

And let's not forget zest and sensationalism can sell subscriptions and print media too. (Publishing the full name would at least have counted as "zest" IMHO, if not full-on sensationalism.)

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

#189

Post by nkurz »

haberman wrote: post #149

> The Times, although its policy permits exceptions for a variety of reasons, errs on the side of the transparency and accountability that accompany the use of real names. 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 i…

My disagreement with this paragraph was with the implication that "these supposed inconsistencies were [intended as] dispositive proof of the paper’s secret agenda", as opposed to the more obvious accusation that there simply was no hard and fast real name policy: perhaps the reporter was mistaken that there were no exceptions allowed, or was not willing to make the case to his editor that anonymity was justified, or had already made the case and had explicitly been denied. Only the last two of these might fall under "secret agenda", and even then it's still more likely to be the opinion of one editor or one reporter than the agenda of the paper as a whole.

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

#190

Post by wizzwizz4 »

tshaddox wrote: post #114
TulliusCicero wrote: post #12

> 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 to me that the level of "privateness" of the information is relevant. Obviously just saying the real name of a famous person who goes by a pseudonym is not considered doxxing. This article claims that his full name "can be ascertained with minimal investigation," and Scott's own blog deletion announcement seemed to agree. Where precisely to draw that line is an area where we can reasonably disagree.

It does take more than a little investigation (or, at least, used to).
Post reply on HN