It's clear that Alexander has tried to maintain a level of anonymity for good reason. This article shows how easy it is for any independent thinker to get pulled into a broader "us vs. them" conflict, and be at the mercy of the worst actors from each side.
Slate Star Codex and Silicon Valley’s War Against the Media
231–240 of 584 posts
Re: Slate Star Codex and Silicon Valley’s War Against the Media
#232Re: Slate Star Codex and Silicon Valley’s War Against the Media
#233What 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.
Agreed. A handful of sentences were completely unfair, and they've been rightly criticized in other comments.
But it's a very long piece, and the majority of it came off as reserved and even-handed.
I've seen hit pieces, this is not one of them.
Re: Slate Star Codex and Silicon Valley’s War Against the Media
#234Earlier quoted context omitted.
Parts of this read as a smoothed-over hit piece. An honest and comprehensive effort to rip apart and debunk neo-reactionary ideology is painted guilt-by-association style as "possibly legitimizing" or "describing" it. "[Exploring] and [upholding] research into innate biological differences between men and women" is "[giving] safe harbor to some genuinely egregious ideas". Asking people to politely contact the editor…
I got the same impression. Even though it's couched in "respectful language", they really went out of their way to cover the half-dozen or so most cringe-worthy controversies to ever come out of SSC or SSC-adjacent spaces, whether it's relevant at all or not to the (very tenuous) point of the article. Like, you really have to bring up Roko's basilisk? What is the point, besides "look at how silly these Silicon Valley…
It’s not that fringe, given the Elon Musk/Grimes connection: https://pagesix.com/2018/05/07/elon-musk-quietly-dating-musi...
But you’re right it’s not part of the “discourse” except mostly as a joke.
Re: Slate Star Codex and Silicon Valley’s War Against the Media
#235Not 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.
The kolmogorov complicity post was arguably an announcement that he felt it necessary to do so.
Re: Slate Star Codex and Silicon Valley’s War Against the Media
#236Sigh. 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…
I think it reads like Gonzo journalism without the self awareness of a writer like Hunter S. Thompson.
Too many narratives being constructed from coincidence, because a narrative is more enjoyable to write and read than a set of coincidences.
Re: Slate Star Codex and Silicon Valley’s War Against the Media
#237Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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 ful…
> 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.
But it's a business consideration that exactly supports the claim that NYT isn't about clicks and, in fact, that dependence on click-driven ad revenue is a declining focus of NYT and similar media outlets.
Re: Slate Star Codex and Silicon Valley’s War Against the Media
#238Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why publish something you wouldn't want your patients to read?
Psychiatrists want perfect isolation, so that they can treat everyone from far right nuts to far left nuts to plain unsalted nuts. The only way to do that would be to publish nothing, and surely you must agree that at least some psychiatrists must be cursed with good writing skills and something to say.
> Psychiatrists want perfect isolation
Publishing under your real first names, and letting people know where you work, is pretty far from "perfect isolation", isn't it?
He's not stupid. Why did he chose such a terrible pseudonym?
Re: Slate Star Codex and Silicon Valley’s War Against the Media
#239What 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's interesting how the HN discussion here is far more critical of the article than the /r/slaterstarcodex discussion is [1]. (although that is a much smaller community.) [1] https://np.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/ho6g2b/slate...
I’d say the article’s coverage of Scott and rationalism is fairly neutral, while its attitude toward Silicon Valley is negative. Seems like the reactions of the two communities are what you’d expect based on that.
Re: Slate Star Codex and Silicon Valley’s War Against the Media
#240> 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.
> ad-hominems That's not what an ad hominem is. The word you're looking for is "insult".
The term I'm looking for is ad hominem.
"this term refers to a rhetorical strategy where the speaker attacks the character, motive, or some other attribute of the person making an argument rather than attacking the substance of the argument itself."
tripletao chose to attack the character of a journalist instead of engaging with the arguments.