Slate Star Codex and Silicon Valley’s War Against the Media • Hacker News Board

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

#361

Post by anoncareer0212 » Thu, Jul 09, 2020, 10:14 PM UTC

TulliusCicero wrote: post #358

astine wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It took me a moment to realize that the poster is trying to use a different definition of ad-hominem which isn't actually a logical fallacy. He's just criticizing the fact that the OP is bothering to criticize article's author at all . Personally, I don't like that usage because it cheapens the definition of ad-hominem and makes it harder to call someone out when they make an actual logical fallacy.

It's a sort of bait and switch tactic. They're relying on the notion that an ad hominem attack is a logical fallacy, which everyone agrees is bad, an invalid method of argument. Except that they're using a uselessly vague definition of ad hominem that amounts to "any insult", which is extra stupid because we already have a word for that: insult. So why even use the Latin, then, other than to make yourself sound fancy…

Please try to be civil - accusing people of lying to win an argument is bad faith and doesn't belong on HN.

You may also note that having a "word for that already" is also called a "synonym", and we don't accuse people of bait and switch, misrepresentation, being uselessly vague, and making themselves sound fancy because they say "synonym"

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

#362

Post by lliamander » Thu, Jul 09, 2020, 10:16 PM UTC

wutbrodo wrote: post #346

lliamander wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I don't think we are in contradiction either. I think what I'm simply clarifying is why I am making the comparison. One point I am trying to make is that there is a shift in how some people (particularly some influential people) consume information.

I'm not simply criticizing the NYT, I'm saying that it is being replaced (as the authoritative voice on current affairs) by user curated lists of independent writers.

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

#363

Post by sangnoir » Thu, Jul 09, 2020, 10:16 PM UTC

tripletao wrote: post #131

baddox wrote: post #96

Earlier 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 story hasn't been published yet, so it's working so far.

How very optimistic of you. In my mind, it just changed the status of the story from "almost ready for publishing" to "Developing" - the action of taking down the blog and the words of the various parties are definitely news-worthy. The story can no longer be about one guy; the NYT will need a bigger canvas, and more time to work on it.

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

#364

Post by mst » Thu, Jul 09, 2020, 10:18 PM UTC

memexy wrote: post #333

mst wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"certain patterns" is still not an outline so it's hard for me to pick a set of posts. But let's go with this one: https://web.archive.org/web/20200202214359/https://slatestar... since I suspect that will comfortably draw out our underlying disagreements (and if you don't know who Phedre no Delauney is, the Kushiel's Dart novels are fantastic and you've missed out).

andrewprock already found an example and I agree with his assessment. If you have snippets that you think are worthwhile then feel free to post them. Associating assassination with people, even as a question, is sinister. A polite and kind person would not make that association or even ask the question because it implants the idea in the reader's mind and they start thinking antagonistically towards certain groups th…

Let me quote perhaps the most important part of the essay and the part that I believe truly defines this ethos.

-- begin quote

When I was young and stupid, I used to believe that transgender was really, really dumb. That they were looking for attention or making it up or something along those lines.

Luckily, since I was a classical liberal, my reaction to this mistake was – to not bother them, and to get very very angry at people who did bother them. I got upset with people trying to fire Phil Robertson for being homophobic even though homophobia is stupid. You better bet I also got upset with people trying to fire transgender people back when I thought transgender was stupid.

And then I grew older and wiser and learned – hey, transgender isn’t stupid at all, they have very important reasons for what they do and go through and I was atrociously wrong. And I said a mea culpa.

But it could have been worse. I didn’t like transgender people, and so I left them alone while still standing up for their rights. My epistemic structure failed gracefully. For anyone who’s not overconfident, and so who expects massive epistemic failure on a variety of important issues all the time, graceful failure modes are a really important feature for an epistemic structure to have.

-- end quote

I read the humility and desire to not to harm even when you're wrong inherent in that passage as the exact opposite of "peacocking intelligence" - and I find your choice to use PUA terminology to describe the behaviour to be either unintentionally gross or deliberately unkind depending on whether or not you were aware that was what you were doing.

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

#365

Post by TulliusCicero » Thu, Jul 09, 2020, 10:21 PM UTC

anoncareer0212 wrote: post #359

TulliusCicero wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

Please try to be civil, things like "That's not how this works, you give the definition and example" and "So far, the "yes that's an ad hominem" side seems disinclined to provide any evidence or engage directly." are factually untrue and ad hominem, we're downthread from me doing exactly that. I'll hang up and listen.

Okay, I'll try to refrain from that where it's unwarranted. That's a fair critique. Though you didn't address my argument here.

You seem to be thinking that that definition means that a character attack at literally any point in an essay or report constitutes an ad hominem. It's not: the 'rather' implies a substitution, where the character attack essentially is the reasoning used.

If I do an investigative report on a campaigning politician, detailing that he once beat his wife, neglected his kids, cheated on his taxes, etc. and then concluded that "his morals appear to be rather severely in question", that's a character attack, but it's not an ad hominem.

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

#366

Post by anoncareer0212 » Thu, Jul 09, 2020, 10:21 PM UTC

astine wrote: post #321

TulliusCicero wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dear God, the number of people who think any kind of insult constitutes an ad hominem would be hilarious if it wasn't so depressing. Ad hominem means you're replacing a reasoning based argument with character attacks. Throwing in character attacks on top of a reasoning based argument -- especially when the insults are just used as a conclusion -- is not what an ad hominem is. This is important, because the fact that…

It took me a moment to realize that the poster is trying to use a different definition of ad-hominem which isn't actually a logical fallacy. He's just criticizing the fact that the OP is bothering to criticize article's author at all . Personally, I don't like that usage because it cheapens the definition of ad-hominem and makes it harder to call someone out when they make an actual logical fallacy.

I'm not "trying to use" a "different definition" - I used the dictionary definition as a reasonable middle ground, and you keep using dehumanizing language as if I'm not here as well, and repeatedly asserting I'm trying to trick you, when the difference here is fairly simple and clear to you. Be well.

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

#367

Post by astine » Thu, Jul 09, 2020, 10:23 PM UTC

anoncareer0212 wrote: post #353

astine wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have to be particularly astute to know that the term 'ad-hominem' refers to a particular informal logical fallacy. ( https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fallacies/ , fallacy 13) The definition used in Webster is a more colloquial definition based on usage. English dictionaries usually take a descriptivist rather than prescriptivist approach to their work. However, that usage is based on a misusage of the ear…

I cannot believe you went ad hominem and wrote all that to justify making up a definition for ad hominem because you're not happy with the dictionary definition. Be well, sir. I'll try to digest later, not in the mood when it starts off with "ah HA my interlocutor is being intentionally obtuse , that explains why they believe in dictionaries! If I just tell them that, I'm sure it'll be convincing!" Edit: Alas, it app…

"Alas, it appears I can no longer read it, got flagged. Must have been even worse than the bit I did read :/ "

Nope, that was the only unfriendly thing I said. Just turn on showdead if you want to read it.

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

#368

Post by TulliusCicero » Thu, Jul 09, 2020, 10:24 PM UTC

anoncareer0212 wrote: post #361

TulliusCicero wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a sort of bait and switch tactic. They're relying on the notion that an ad hominem attack is a logical fallacy, which everyone agrees is bad, an invalid method of argument. Except that they're using a uselessly vague definition of ad hominem that amounts to "any insult", which is extra stupid because we already have a word for that: insult. So why even use the Latin, then, other than to make yourself sound fancy…

Please try to be civil - accusing people of lying to win an argument is bad faith and doesn't belong on HN. You may also note that having a "word for that already" is also called a "synonym", and we don't accuse people of bait and switch, misrepresentation, being uselessly vague, and making themselves sound fancy because they say "synonym"

> accusing people of lying to win an argument is bad faith

I didn't do that. I accused someone of using a cheap -- though fairly common -- type of rhetorical trick. It's a form of motte and bailey, which is itself a logical fallacy.

Is accusing someone of using a logical fallacy against the rules of HN as well? Would be ironic in the current context.

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

#369

Post by memexy » Thu, Jul 09, 2020, 10:26 PM UTC

mst wrote: post #364

memexy wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

andrewprock already found an example and I agree with his assessment. If you have snippets that you think are worthwhile then feel free to post them. Associating assassination with people, even as a question, is sinister. A polite and kind person would not make that association or even ask the question because it implants the idea in the reader's mind and they start thinking antagonistically towards certain groups th…

Let me quote perhaps the most important part of the essay and the part that I believe truly defines this ethos. -- begin quote When I was young and stupid, I used to believe that transgender was really, really dumb. That they were looking for attention or making it up or something along those lines. Luckily, since I was a classical liberal, my reaction to this mistake was – to not bother them, and to get very very an…

Yes. I was aware of my characterization and the word peackocking (to make a vainglorious display; strut like a peacock) was used before it was co-opted by PUA community (https://www.dictionary.com/browse/peacocking).

Let's rewrite that paragraph and use fewer emotionally charged words.

--

As a younger person I thought transgenderism was about seeking attention. But being trained in the liberal arts I decided to question this assumption and not act antagonistically towards them because of my personal interpretation of their situation.

As I got older I realized my initial assumption about attention seeking was incorrect and I took responsibility for and corrected my beliefs.

I guess it could have turned out differently if I hadn't been trained in the liberal arts. So I'm glad my training included keeping an open mind and accepting people different from me and with different life circumstances.

--

Same exact content, none of the emotional baggage and vainglory.

Notice all the words I took out because I knew they would elicit negative reactions in the reader: stupid, dumb, mistake, very very angry, upset, homophobic. He repeated those words enough times that a perceptive reader would have picked up on the subtext of him trying to distance himself from those negatively valenced words. He's not trying to educate the reader, he's trying to put distance between himself and certain associations. That's why it's not good writing. It's about him, it's not about the reader. And in his attempt to "peacock" he's putting associations into the reader's mind that are detrimental to the reader's thought processes all the while elevating himself as a paragon of goodness. As the term "peacock" suggests, his writing is vainglorious.

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

#370

Post by arthurjj » Thu, Jul 09, 2020, 10:29 PM UTC

This article lacks the self awareness or nuance that I was hoping for. I don't think there's a single part where the media is portrayed in a negative light. I think it's save purely by the author's prose.

For example

> "bear the classic markers of grandiosity: the conviction that they are at once potent and beleaguered"

Is only applied to tech not journalism. But is so well written that you ignore that fact."Gray Lady against the Grey Tribe" is great turn of phrase and I hope it catches on.