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

201–210 of 584 posts

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

#201

Post by DubiousPusher »

adventured wrote: post #127
DubiousPusher wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Banksy seems to hold similar political views to NYT, so they have no problem playing along. Genuinely curious of your basis for this. As far as I can tell SSC and most rationalist adjacents are basically neo-libs which the NYT has been a bastion of for decades.

> and most rationalist adjacents are basically neo-libs which the NYT has been a bastion of for decades. That New York Times no longer exists and hasn't for well over a decade.

I do not follow. The paper seems to be basically the same as it has been for almost a century, an institution which essentially does the work of the news from the perspectives and prejudices of its North Eastern upper middle class constituency and which gives wide deference to institutions which it deems qualified such as the military, civil service and certain NGOs.

But I am open to the idea that my interpretation is missing something.

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

#202

Post by joshuamorton »

ggreer wrote: post #101
alex_young wrote: post #13

Can you really be both a public figure and keep your identity hidden by way of asking? There’s a playbook for this. Look at Banksy for example. If you don’t want your identity out there it’s your job to protect it. Not the New York Times.

Even when a subject's legal name is known, the NYT regularly uses a pen name or pseudonym to protect their identity. Here are some examples: - Virgil Texas, co-host of the Chapo Trap House podcast: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/29/us/politics/bernie-sander... - Vermin Supreme, performance artist: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/30/us/politics/libertarians-... - Drag queens such as Lil Miss Hot Mess, Sister Roma, an…

> Even when a subject's legal name is known, the NYT regularly uses a pen name or pseudonym to protect their identity. Here are some examples:

I don't think using the examples of performing artists is a good one. Vermin and the Drag queens don't use pseudonyms to protect their identities any more than Beyonce (a stage name that is a part of her legal name, as in SSC's case) or Lady Gaga (a stage name) use those names for "protection" or privacy. They aren't really, they're branding.

In fact, from the draq queen article you cite:

> “I started a big fuss,” said Sister Roma, whose legal name is Michael Williams. “Then Facebook called me and offered to organize a meeting.”

It's a direct counterexample.

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

#203

Post by DoofusOfDeath »

NhanH wrote: post #119
SquishyPanda23 wrote: post #102

> so the reporter is either stupid or disingenuous IMO your comment would be better without the ad-hominems > anyone expressing heterodox opinions is likely to write something that a reporter working for a mainstream outlet considers "a creditable reason for negative coverage" I get that you're angry, but this is unsubstantiated by anything you or the article says.

Calling someone names is not ad-hominems. Saying that someone is wrong because of the aforementioned names would be ad-hominems, but the GP didn't do that.

As an aside, the book "The Art of Deception" by Nicolas Capaldi [0] provides a good rundown of some common logical fallacies.

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Art-Deception-Introduction-Critical-T...

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

#204

Post by tripletao »

baddox wrote: post #167
tripletao wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What do you mean? Alexander said himself that he was doing this as a protest and publicity stunt, and he seems to have taken no actions beyond that publicity stunt to make the content less available (e.g., he hasn't (yet) requested deletion from the Internet Archive). His words and actions seem entirely consistent to me, so I'm not sure why you doubt him.

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

#205

Post by catalogia »

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…

> The reporter is unaware that the Internet Archive exists? The content is obviously still readily available, so the reporter is either stupid or disingenuous.

(Or both.)

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

#206

Post by zozbot234 »

amznthrwaway wrote: post #118
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…

There are only two rational explanations here: 1) Scott Alexander wanted more attention, and he realized that deleting his site and blaming the NYT for it would garner dramatically more attention, creating opportunities that he wanted. He recognized that he could become a martyr to a certain group, and use that for future gains. 2) Scott Alexander is an absolute moron who did not foresee the Streisand Effect that he…

Scott is extremely popular in the rationalist community (second only to EY and possibly RH), and has a sizeable following outside of it. He doesn't need to "pretend[] that his hand was forced" to get any sort of "future opportunities" he might want; he just needs to ask. This whole kerfuffle doesn't exactly help him, even from that POV.

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

#207

Post by falcor84 »

bluntfang wrote: post #155
JoblessWonder wrote: post #63

Earlier 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!

I don't think this is disingenuous. Unlike pretty much every other player scraping the internet, the Internet Archive is a transparent non-profit that has relatedly proven itself to be squarely on the side of the public. I think it's very reasonable to treat them as the exception.

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

#208

Post by darawk »

baddox wrote: post #96
NicolasGorden wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's disingenuous, he knows the blog posts are compiled into an ebook and says as much.

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?

No. Read Scott's own reasoning on the situation here:

https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/06/22/nyt-is-threatening-my-...

In short, he's not worried about dedicated antagonists finding him. He's worried about his psychiatric patients finding his blog, and that interfering with his relationships with them. Deleting the blog makes it moderately more difficult for them to do that.

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

#209

Post by chippy »

mrkurt wrote: post #4

Watching 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.

In the US currently it appears that "cancel" equates to "criticize". There's no nuance possible, seems to me, so why bother?

It's no wonder so many people are not playing the game. Equally so it's telling that "silence equals consent" is the reaction to people checking out of the game - the invested players and GMs really don't like people not playing along.

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

#210

Post by mst »

zozbot234 wrote: post #124
baddox wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to me that simplifying the entire Scott Aaronson affair was necessary, since it was just a brief part of this article. I thought their choice of simplification was reasonable and in good faith, but of course others might disagree (and unfortunately, whether we agree or disagree is likely to be effected by our overall level of agreement with the article).

You can simplify, and then you can say Scott wrote an angry "screed" that misrepresents 99% of feminists and ignores the plight of vulnerable women in its bourgeois defense of the privileged, nerdy intellectual class. (The article doesn't actually say "bourgeois", but the dogwhistles are crystal-clear.)

I confess that any description of anything that uses the word "screed" will tend to seem to me to be in bad faith. Largely because every time I've dug into the origins of such a description, it has indeed been in bad faith.
Post reply on HN