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

#491

Post by tripletao » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 3:13 PM UTC

pvg wrote: post #309

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 higher-level lesson is that anyone expressing heterodox opinions [...] I think the article both directly addresses this and also succinctly summarizes its tone: "[...] the stridency and hyperbole of the reactions of Alexander’s cohort to his cause bear the classic markers of grandiosity: the conviction that they are at once potent and beleaguered."

Sorry, I'm not sure I understand. Where did you get the "potent and beleaguered" from my comment? Heterodox doesn't mean good or bad or strong or weak, just that it's outside the norm. Lots of heterodox ideas are bad and deserve only criticism and rebuttal, including many of Alexander's. They don't deserve doxxing from the NYT, though.

The New Yorker reporter criticizes Alexander for calling on his audience to lobby the NYT not to publish his name, while ignoring entirely the much worse consequences that Alexander was likely to face from the NYT's own mob. I think it's hard to be that blind by accident, so I think it's deliberate, and that the proposed doxxing showed either an intent to harm Alexander or cheerful indifference to that harm. Do you disagree? Note that I'm asking whether the reporters were pleased to harm Alexander, not whether you think that harm was justified (i.e., whether you'd be pleased to as well).

I insulted the New Yorker article and reporter, but I accompanied that with an argument for why they deserved it--I believe the article contained many false or misleading statements that tend to impugn Alexander's character. If my reasoning wasn't clear from my brief comment, I've explained it to exhaustion elsewhere in this thread. Your comment quotes from the article to insult mine ("stridency", "hyperbole", and "grandiosity" are all strongly negative terms), but with no such accompanying argument for why the insult should hold.

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

#492

Post by rayiner » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 3:35 PM UTC

Maybe Silicon Valley really should have a war against the media. Because right now the media is waging a one-sided war against Silicon Valley. Media coverage of tech has become almost uniformly negative—the way the media used to talk about fracking or Wall Street. Silicon Valley needs to realize that being somewhat liberal on social issues will not protect it from a media that has set its sights on the kind of intellectual and (little “l”) libertarianism that characterizes Silicon Valley.

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

#493

Post by memexy » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 3:36 PM UTC

zozbot234 wrote: post #489

memexy wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what HBD is, care to explain?

"I don't know what HBD is, care to explain?" Yup, pretty much.

> "I don't know what HBD is, care to explain?"

> Yup, pretty much.

How do you propose I respond to your answer? I asked for clarification and you replied with a troll response. How would you respond if I did the same?

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

#494

Post by adamsea » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 3:41 PM UTC

thu2111 wrote: post #471

jollofricepeas wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Along with the rest of HN, you have no idea what journalism is. When has journalism ever stuck to “facts”? When has the “news” and “history” been more than short stories and opinion? Hint: Never Read: A History of News by Mitchell Stephens https://openlibrary.org/works/OL1854941W/A_history_of_news Read: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism Read: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_French_journalis…

The role of the press is dissent and debate. Even if we take your rather controversial definition for granted, the press suck at dissent and debate as well.

No, you suck at dissent and debate ;).

So, I’m saying that to tease you, but also illustrate a point.

Was your comment itself a good example of debating?

Is mine a good example of dissent or debate?

Are either of our comments reasoned, or specific, or providing logic or evidence to support our conclusions?

Does humor belong in debate? ;)

Does being annoying serve a value or is it a self-justifying position?

Am I being annoying? ;)

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

#495

Post by greenshackle2 » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 3:56 PM UTC

thu2111 wrote: post #472

greenshackle2 wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, you're right, it's not fringe in the sense that no one knows about it, everyone has known about it for half a decade - taking it seriously is fringe.

I wouldn't say everyone knows about it. In fact one of the most baffling and stupid aspects of the Basilisk is the strong belief it propagates that nobody should talk about the Basilisk.

> the strong belief it propagates that nobody should talk about the Basilisk

Looks like it didn't propagate very well. I'm a few degrees removed from the "rationalist community" and I heard about it years ago.

Yudkowsky tried to prevent people from talking about it, which predictably backfired. The LessWrong wiki has an entry on the whole thing.

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

#496

Post by adamsea » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 3:57 PM UTC

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…

I don’t think the article is saying that “negative coverage” would necessarily be warranted, just that it would exist, and be negative.

I don’t think a hit piece would explain how some potentially controversial SST articles were either later qualified by the author, or, qualified by the author at the time of publishing.

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

We would have to see what NY Times policy is on using The Internet Archive as a source. I don’t know, and, you didn’t go out of your way to find and share that information, so I think your conclusions are premature.

Honestly the article didn’t seem ugly to me.

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

#497

Post by adamsea » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 4:10 PM UTC

tripletao wrote: post #491

pvg wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The higher-level lesson is that anyone expressing heterodox opinions [...] I think the article both directly addresses this and also succinctly summarizes its tone: "[...] the stridency and hyperbole of the reactions of Alexander’s cohort to his cause bear the classic markers of grandiosity: the conviction that they are at once potent and beleaguered."

Sorry, I'm not sure I understand. Where did you get the "potent and beleaguered" from my comment? Heterodox doesn't mean good or bad or strong or weak, just that it's outside the norm. Lots of heterodox ideas are bad and deserve only criticism and rebuttal, including many of Alexander's. They don't deserve doxxing from the NYT, though. The New Yorker reporter criticizes Alexander for calling on his audience to lobby…

> I insulted the New Yorker article and reporter, but I accompanied that with an argument for why they deserved it

This. It’s a really easy trap to fall into online, but, the whole idea of someone deserving an insult is, 99.9% of the time, toxic.

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

#498

Post by zozbot234 » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 4:17 PM UTC

memexy wrote: post #493

zozbot234 wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I don't know what HBD is, care to explain?" Yup, pretty much.

> "I don't know what HBD is, care to explain?" > Yup, pretty much. How do you propose I respond to your answer? I asked for clarification and you replied with a troll response. How would you respond if I did the same?

Sorry about that. The point is, at least by now, HBD is a thoroughly confusing term that gets used in many, sometimes mutually contradictory ways. The SSC community has spent many years trying to handle the multiple sides of the many "nature vs. nurture" debates that are also referenced in OP's article, and ultimately decided that the 'HBD' term itself was not very helpful to that end. To ask for a "clarifying definition" of HBD given these circumstances is indeed rather pointless.

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

#499

Post by adamsea » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 4:18 PM UTC

whatshisface wrote: post #324

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).

There's simplifying, and then there's misrepresenting. Simplifying it would be calling it "crippling anxiety exacerbated by uncritical childhood exposure to radical literature."

The article isn’t about Scott Aaronsen.

Also I mean your phrase “uncritical childhood exposure to radical literature” is .... weird.

“Childhood exposure to radical literature”?

“radical literature” almost sound like a disease.

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

#500

Post by tripletao » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 4:19 PM UTC

adamsea wrote: post #497

tripletao wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I'm not sure I understand. Where did you get the "potent and beleaguered" from my comment? Heterodox doesn't mean good or bad or strong or weak, just that it's outside the norm. Lots of heterodox ideas are bad and deserve only criticism and rebuttal, including many of Alexander's. They don't deserve doxxing from the NYT, though. The New Yorker reporter criticizes Alexander for calling on his audience to lobby…

> I insulted the New Yorker article and reporter, but I accompanied that with an argument for why they deserved it This. It’s a really easy trap to fall into online, but, the whole idea of someone deserving an insult is, 99.9% of the time, toxic.

What's your opinion of your grandparent post's description of my comment as "grandiose", "strident", and "hyperbolic"? Are you saying those are fine (without explanation), but "ugly", "disingenuous", and "stupid" (with explanation) aren't?

Are you sure that you're not focusing on language to avoid engaging with an argument that would lead you to a conclusion that you find undesirable (i.e., that the NYT intended harm to Alexander, and the New Yorker stepped in to excuse their actions)? That's another easy trap to fall into online.