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

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

#341

Post by neonate »

mrkurt wrote: post #300
nkurz wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, I presumed by "his blog" you were referring to Slate Star Codex. Yes, if one includes his earlier internet presences (which I don't think are mentioned in the linked article?) I'm willing to believe he has at times posted his full name, and that if you are willing to dig through some links, you can associate his current writings with those older writings. I think that at some point about a decade ago, as his medi…

That's fair. The only real reason I disagree with you (and probably him) is he _did_ continue to publish personal information. Enough to identify him, even without the last name. If someone repeatedly reveals their own first/middle name, location, and occupation, I think it's silly to call "we'll publish your last name" doxing. It seems like he might have just freaked out over a series of poor choices and didn't real…

Here's a different take. I tried a few times over the last years to figure out his last name, and failed. I didn't spend much time on it, but there was definitely a barrier there. Had the NYT published it, not only would that barrier have disappeared, but a large spotlight would suddenly have been shone on the name, and probably an onslaught of much-higher-profile internet articles about him/it, and quite possibly a large scandal. We're getting a bit of that with things like this New Yorker piece, but it's probably nothing compared to what it would have been if the NYT article had named him and the blog had stayed up. You seem to be arguing that not much would have changed since his name was a poorly kept secret anyhow. I think that has to be wrong. Tons would have changed. There has been a minor avalanche of attention as it is, and probably like a lot of casual readers, I know his name now. But deleting the blog was maybe a good way to prevent the minor avalanche from turning into a major one. Of course, that doesn't mean that his stated reasons for deleting the blog were his real reasons. My thought was that he was looking for an out anyhow and this was a good pretext, though that theory isn't consistent with participating in an NYT profile to begin with (edit: unless he realized partway through the NYT process that it wasn't going to be in his interests to go through with it).

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

#342

Post by anoncareer0212 »

tripletao wrote: post #295
anoncareer0212 wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This whole thing flummoxes me and honestly I don't care enough to speculate on it. I do believe that's a reasonable explanation for his behavior, and most definitely reasonable enough that I don't need to accuse the writer of bad faith. When I first heard about it on Twitter two weeks, there was a ton of angry mob behavior and unfounded assertions over a non-anonymous writer's claim that he was going to be made non-a…

Since you don't propose a third possibility, it seems like you just didn't like my language? If I wrote "the reporter is either unaware that widely-available backups of the blog exist (despite apparently quoting from one in this story), or trying to create public speculation that something damaging about Alexander might be true when he knows it to be false", then would you agree with me?

> it seems like you just didn't like my language?

yes, that is why this thread exists. grandparent of grandparent telling you that you would have won significantly more hearts and minds by skipping the attacks

> Since you don't propose a 3rd possibility

n.b. off the top, the whole problem here is you're reasoning about this like you're omniscient because theres a finite # of logic gates, but we're human and know there isn't a finite number of possibilities, so it's nails on a chalkboard in what otherwise is a coherent argument

I affirmed the 3rd (n.b. of many!) possibility you offered already, so I won't waste your time by reaffirming it

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

#343

Post by cinntaile »

anonms-coward wrote: post #120
cinntaile wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An additional way to protest against their decision is to block nytimes.com on your devices. If you use adguard, nextdns or pihole this is easy to do. If a lot of people do this it will have a big impact, their links get posted a lot here on HN!

I don't think that will get the NYT to listen. A better idea is that if you are a subscriber, unsubscribe and give this as the reason. As recent history proves, the NYT truly listens to cancellations. A bunch of people running pihole, not so much for sure.

If you are a subscriber then a better signal would indeed be to unsubscribe rather than to block the site obviously, most of us probably aren't subscribers though. My guess is they're still earning some ad revenue from non-paying users, so reducing the number of readers should have an impact. I am aware that pihole users probably don't see the ads anyway. It might not make them listen, but I wouldn't underestimate the impact either. If they notice a drop in traffic from a big site like HN it might raise some eyebrows at least. At the same time you would have fewer people sharing the links to their other networks so you would get these second order effects as well. How big would this impact be? Hard to tell, only the nytimes would know for sure. I do feel that at least the people that signed the petition from above should stop using the nytimes. Actions speak louder than words after all.

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

#344

Post by lliamander »

wutbrodo wrote: post #336
lliamander wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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! Are there one or two insights you could share that would make this article seem less bad than many people here perceive it to be? > And that…

> these individuals give me the impression that they trust SSC more than the NYT Anyone who's read both and trust the NYT more has severe reading comprehension issues... Note that "trust" here doesn't mean "their conclusion is definitely correct". It means trusting what's on the surface of the article: that descriptions of linked-to references aren't completely fabricated or misrepresentative, that some baseline leve…

> Note that "trust" here doesn't mean "their conclusion is definitely correct"

Totally agree.

> This isn't quite the apples-to-apples criticism that it appears

Fair, but I have have two responses to that.

The first is that the ability to discover and access high quality writers (not just Scott) directly means that the NYT brand has less value.

The second is that people increasingly feel that NYT has an agenda (not merely a bias) that colors the quality of their reporting.

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

#345

Post by reedwolf »

lliamander wrote: post #278
reedwolf wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are a bunch of angry nerds gonna do?

If they are so impotent, why hasn't the NYT published their article yet?

Not sure if you're familiar with how these major investigative articles are written, but something this big can take months to put together.

Scott had his panicked meltdown the second this guy started asking questions, which was probably just the beginning of the investigation.

You think the outfit that took down Weinstein cares about some SV tantrums?

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

#346

Post by wutbrodo »

lliamander wrote: post #344
wutbrodo wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> these individuals give me the impression that they trust SSC more than the NYT Anyone who's read both and trust the NYT more has severe reading comprehension issues... Note that "trust" here doesn't mean "their conclusion is definitely correct". It means trusting what's on the surface of the article: that descriptions of linked-to references aren't completely fabricated or misrepresentative, that some baseline leve…

> Note that "trust" here doesn't mean "their conclusion is definitely correct" Totally agree. > This isn't quite the apples-to-apples criticism that it appears Fair, but I have have two responses to that. The first is that the ability to discover and access high quality writers (not just Scott) directly means that the NYT brand has less value. The second is that people increasingly feel that NYT has an agenda (not me…

Sure, I don't think either of those contradict what I'm saying. I have about as low an opinion of the NYT as possible, and have for years. I just wanted to temper my criticism by saying that it'd be more difficult for them to attain trustworthiness than Scott, even if they were run and staffed with intelligence and integrity.

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

#347

Post by finnthehuman »

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…

>the writer makes obvious their biases with statements like

Your refutations of the writers points on the surface level is still too charitable. The New Yorker writer knows very damn well that Metz could have just been lying to Scott about the real name "policy" and lying about the purpose of the piece in an effort to make Alexander cooperative.

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

#348

Post by zozbot234 »

dunkelheit wrote: post #340
analyte123 wrote: post #109

Earlier 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…

One trick that I noticed that adds considerable amount of 'spin' while allowing the article to remain factually correct is to present positive things about the group as subjective - coming from the group itself (which paints them as self-serving and lacking self-awareness), vague 'some' or (even better) some negatively characterized person (which taints it as unreliable), but to describe negative stuff as if it is ob…

> One trick that I noticed that adds considerable amount of 'spin' while allowing the article to remain factually correct is to present positive things about the group as subjective

It's a bit ironic that you would say that, even as others have complained that the "subjective" presentation is just weasel words and fake balance, i.e. saying "Some people think X." when you really really want to say "X." At least when the author is stating things directly from their POV ("News media is totally not chasing for clicks, honest!") it's clear that it's their own stance.

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

#349

Post by TulliusCicero »

anoncareer0212 wrote: post #337
TulliusCicero wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it's not. An ad hominem is saying, "your character sucks, therefore your argument must be wrong", or focusing your attack mostly on their character rather than any line of reasoning. Throwing in an insult here and there may be poor form, but that does not an ad hominem make. Especially when the character attack is a result of the line if reasoning you're making. If your whole argument is, "between X and Y and Z, w…

Its not :/ I'm curious what would happen if you looked up the definition of ad hominem and showed me how the excerpt doesn't match the definition

That's not how it works. It's on the party making the assertion to have proof. So far, the "yes that's an ad hominem" side seems disinclined to provide any evidence or engage directly.

Anyway, from Wikipedia's explanation:

> Typically 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. This avoids genuine debate by creating a diversion to some irrelevant but often highly charged issue.The most common form of this fallacy is "A makes a claim x, B asserts that A holds a property that is unwelcome, and hence B concludes that argument x is wrong".

Note that "rather" in the explanation. It's a matter of substituting character attack for reasoning critique. "Based on their shitty reasoning, I conclude that they're real dumb" is not an ad hominem in the least, it does not fit the definition, the causation has to go the other way.

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

#350

Post by TulliusCicero »

anoncareer0212 wrote: post #338
astine wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might prefer a looser definition of ad-hominem, but I think that the technical definition holds value. This looser definition reads like a means of implying that the poster's intent was different that what it was.

It is mildly humorous that we've gotten this far in and you're telling me "hm I don't like the definition in the dictionary, we should pick something more technical" (???) I have a CS and law degree and IMHO the divide here is the CS people tend to believe "ad hominem" has a technical definition beyond, well, the definition

> "(of an argument or reaction) directed against a person >> rather You seem to have missed the operative word there: rather.

Saying that someone's argument is bad so they must be real dumb means you're saying "A (the reasoning attack) implies B (character attack)", not "B (character attack) means I don't have to even bother with A". The latter is an ad hominem, the former is not.

An ad hominem here would be, "jesus I already know this author is so dumb/bad that I don't even have to bother addressing any of their arguments". "This author's reasoning is awful, so clearly they're dumb/bad" is simply not the same thing.

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