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

#411

Post by AlchemistCamp » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 1:09 AM UTC

mrkurt wrote: post #168

nkurz wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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'm cool with saying "revealed". I don't want to link directly to it because I think it's kind of an asshole thing to do, but you can find a last name on a bunch of posts on Raikoth.net in archive.org. He reposted most that without the reveal on SSC.

> I don't want to link directly to it because I think it's kind of an asshole thing to do, but you can find a last name on a bunch of posts on

Telling the internet where to find his last name in the comment above was "an asshole thing to do", IMO. Especially given the security concerns mentioned in this article, I just don't see any good coming from making it easier for people to find him in the physical world.

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

#412

Post by commandlinefan » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 1:09 AM UTC

jeremysalwen wrote: post #360

baddox wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems at best a very narrow sense of "doxxing." If his name is for all practical purposes already public, and he just does not want readers of a specific newspaper to see his name mentioned, does that really count as "doxxing?"

It's not for all practical purposes public. I'm very tech literate and google-literate, and I have tried multiple times to find his name, and was unable to.

Um, I know his name but by accident. Why are you trying to track this guy down?

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

#413

Post by abvdasker » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 1:11 AM UTC

The beauty of the article is in exposing the fundamentally emotional, illogical reaction of the SSC's author and associated community. For a group that seems to value dispassionate rationality and intelligence as inherently morally good, their overreaction to this unpublished article is deliciously ironic. Instead of allowing the "marketplace of ideas" to play out, Scott Alexander decided to take his ball and go home.

Ultimately discrediting the "rationalist" ideology was as easy as making them angry.

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

#414

Post by waon » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 1:19 AM UTC

psds2 wrote: post #283

waon wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

He pointed to several channels including a twitter account, phone number and email. Are all of these channels equally appropriate ways to pursue civil discourse with the appropriate parties? Also, he only asked followers to be polite in parenthesis after this. Parenthesis are used for afterthoughts and explanations that deviate from the main topic. They also generally follow punctuation but the SSC blog post followed…

> He pointed to several channels including a twitter account, phone number and email. Are all of these channels equally appropriate ways to pursue civil discourse with the appropriate parties?

Um, yes? How does using any of these methods turn civil discourse into harassment?

> Also, he only asked followers to be polite in parenthesis after this

That's a real twist. He wouldn't want to sound like he assumes his readers are rude people, would he?

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

#415

Post by memexy » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 1:24 AM UTC

waon wrote: post #414

psds2 wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He pointed to several channels including a twitter account, phone number and email. Are all of these channels equally appropriate ways to pursue civil discourse with the appropriate parties? Also, he only asked followers to be polite in parenthesis after this. Parenthesis are used for afterthoughts and explanations that deviate from the main topic. They also generally follow punctuation but the SSC blog post followed…

> He pointed to several channels including a twitter account, phone number and email. Are all of these channels equally appropriate ways to pursue civil discourse with the appropriate parties? Um, yes? How does using any of these methods turn civil discourse into harassment? > Also, he only asked followers to be polite in parenthesis after this That's a real twist. He wouldn't want to sound like he assumes his reader…

His suggestion wasn't civil and I already wrote why so I'm just going to quote the answer I already gave

> I don't think his words were polite, in fact I think it was quite the opposite. If I wanted a civil discussion I would not have listed any contact information about anyone. I would have said, "I am archiving the blog until further notice because I need to think about what kind of content should be made publicly available because words have power and it's important to think about what information and inferences we make available to others through those words".

The fact that he didn't do that means he did not have such intentions. There is now evidence for an actual harassment campaign against the journalists.

Here is the link and the quote

(https://mobile.twitter.com/eigenrobot/status/128066344682499...)

> Community message, pls share around as you like

> If you have spoken with C_de M_tz, or if he has reached out to you, since the day that Scott took down Slate Star Codex: there may be something you can do to help

> Please feel free to reach out to me by DM and I can fill you in

The coded message is referring to the original journalist. I don't understand how people can look at all this evidence and still think the rationalist community isn't acting in bad faith when there is actual evidence on twitter of actual coordination among its members for a harassment campaign.

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

#416

Post by mst » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 1:28 AM UTC

memexy wrote: post #407

mst wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is notable that, having dicussed things at length, memexy's postition was refined from "coded writing" and "very sinister" to > Then there are better ways to make those arguments. which, yes, there quite possibly are. There are always better ways to make any given argument. But memexy's claim that Scott's work was bad because > I don't need to argue for freedom of speech and equal rights and justice for all becaus…

I did not make such a concession and I'm quoting you so the record is clear (quote is from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23786584 ) > I [mst] am entirely fine with you [memexy] believing that there are better ways to make those arguments - in fact, given any specific argument is almost certain to be imperfect, one would assume that there are. > But I [mst] would note that "there are better ways to make those a…

I said "refined", not "concession".

I have explicitly encouraged poeple to read the rest of the thread.

Your choice to characterise my doing so as a "sophistic device" and "deceptive" is your own.

I continue to encourage people who are unsure if my attempted summary is appropriate to read the whole of the original thread and draw their own conclusions.

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

#417

Post by memexy » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 1:31 AM UTC

mst wrote: post #416

memexy wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did not make such a concession and I'm quoting you so the record is clear (quote is from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23786584 ) > I [mst] am entirely fine with you [memexy] believing that there are better ways to make those arguments - in fact, given any specific argument is almost certain to be imperfect, one would assume that there are. > But I [mst] would note that "there are better ways to make those a…

I said "refined", not "concession". I have explicitly encouraged poeple to read the rest of the thread. Your choice to characterise my doing so as a "sophistic device" and "deceptive" is your own. I continue to encourage people who are unsure if my attempted summary is appropriate to read the whole of the original thread and draw their own conclusions.

If you really wanted people to read the whole thread you would not have shortcircuited the process and replied upstream. That is what I mean by sophistic and deceptive. It was disingenuous of you to assume I would approve. You should have asked if you wanted to summarize my points and we could have come to an agreement but instead you did something (posting upstream and summarizing and pretending to speak for me) to derail the conversation and actual conclusion (which was actually inconclusive).

I was civil throughout this discussion and I don't appreciate how you ended it.

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

#418

Post by waon » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 1:37 AM UTC

Frampy wrote: post #385

waon wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Suppose I have a big following. Suppose I know that some of those followers are prone to exaggerating some things that I "suggest". If you know those two facts, would you have written the same letter? By your standards, any form of activism is a harassment campaign unless you can control the actions of every single individual in your group. I see this line of argument a lot recently, but frankly it’s nonsense. > Ev…

Yeah, that's how the left operates now. There are no facts, the only truth is they only operate in good faith and their opponents only operate in bad faith. Therefore anything they say or do is just and anything their opponents say or do is evil. Peaceful marches become nazi rallies while arsonist riots are stirring protests. Scott Alexander is nice to the point of stupidity, but he is the enemy therefore his actions…

What you argue for matters as much as how you do it. I don't see anything wrong with criticizing people who advocate for racism. Peaceful marches for racism doesn't make racism just, you know.

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

#419

Post by memexy » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 1:37 AM UTC

CompanionCuuube wrote: post #393

TulliusCicero wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not the one who called it ugly. I'm just pointing out that you either forgot your own comment, or were using a weird rhetorical trick where you pretend that the other commenter was calling the blog ugly, instead of the article.

> were using a weird rhetorical trick where you pretend that the other commenter was calling the blog ugly, instead of the article. There's an irony of seeing this behavior mixed in with comments about how Scott's language "uses associations" in a harmful way.

I was making the point and deleted it because of the kind of misrepresentation that you just made. I was making a point about vague and emotionally charged language and you took it in a negative direction. So I deleted the message to prevent further associations and misrepresentations of what I said.

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

#420

Post by mst » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 1:51 AM UTC

memexy wrote: post #417

mst wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I said "refined", not "concession". I have explicitly encouraged poeple to read the rest of the thread. Your choice to characterise my doing so as a "sophistic device" and "deceptive" is your own. I continue to encourage people who are unsure if my attempted summary is appropriate to read the whole of the original thread and draw their own conclusions.

If you really wanted people to read the whole thread you would not have shortcircuited the process and replied upstream. That is what I mean by sophistic and deceptive. It was disingenuous of you to assume I would approve. You should have asked if you wanted to summarize my points and we could have come to an agreement but instead you did something (posting upstream and summarizing and pretending to speak for me) to…

> If you really wanted people to read the whole thread you would not have shortcircuited the process and replied upstream.

And yet, I explicitly said: this is my (opinionated) summary of the thread that ensued from my sibling comment; if unsure whether I've captured things accurately, please read that whole thread and draw your own conclusions.

You are welcome to claim that my explicit invitation to people - in a situation where, as you say, your last comments are 'hidden away behind "more" button' - is deceptive, but given I was actively encouraging people to read things upstream that would otherwise have been, as you said, 'hidden away', I personally do not consider my actions to have been deceptive in the least.

As for 'civil', it seems to me that this conversation has, in and of itself, made very clear to anybody reading it that you and I have significantly different definitions of that concept, and how to interpret this fact can only be left as an exercise to the reader.