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Statement on New York Times Article

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Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#111

Post by blntechie »

Not a super fan of NYT or anything but I’m a subscriber. That NYT article didn’t sound like a hit piece or too negative as portrayed at all.

For people who call themselves The Rationalists and advocate for absolute free speech, it’s bit ironic they turn touchy and eager to get out their pitchforks if the topic being discussed is about them instead of the thousands of areas they think they have the absolute authority to talk and dissect about. Not that NYT is blameless on the later part of the previous sentence as well.

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#112

Post by bryanrasmussen »

The motivations of the hit piece seem extremely petty to me - they wanted to do an article about how he was an early proponent of mask wearing which I guess everyone agrees now is a good thing (is it like being prematurely anti-fascist or something) and they wanted to use his real name and he didn't want that, instead of saying ok, they said we'll do it anyway, he made it difficult for them to do that, later he starts blogging again under his real name and they do a hit piece to get even?

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#114

Post by sfblah »

grapehut wrote: post #42
NhanH wrote: post #13

This is shameful, and the second time this month NYT puts out such a shameful piece (the first time was the JetBrains/ Solarwinds article). I guess this should be enough to disregard everything NYT will write, and stop reading them. Another commenter said that NYT still produces comparably some of the best journalistic content. I will have to stop reading news if this is the case. After the whole fiasco of Scott dele…

Third time if you include the bizarre Ayaan Hirsi Ali hit piece too. I guess it's a product of actual-journalism not paying the bills.

What about spiking the Bret Stephens piece about the controversy over the science reporter who was fired? That was this month as well.

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#115

Post by morsch »

sjg007 wrote: post #23

The Charles Murray thing seems to be about his use of the word "sophisticated"... that was probably a bad choice. To dive deeper look at the criticisms of Murray and draw your on conclusion about the degree of sophistication of his assumptions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bell_Curve#Criticism_of_as...

Maybe he was being ironic, or not even ironic but using the word sophisticated in it's narrow meaning of complex. In the same way one might describe flat earthers as having a sophisticated world view.

If you believe in a sophisticated explanation where a simple explanation exists, you're probably a believer of nonsense. Occam's razor, basically.

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#116

Post by colinmhayes »

bpodgursky wrote: post #56
Tenoke wrote: post #10

The sad part is, despite so many bad takes, ideology pushing, and hatchet jobs The NYT overall still produces comparably some of the best journalistic content out there.

The WSJ produces just as much good content, and you can subscribe there without inadvertently funding rag hit pieces like this.

If you don't think the journal has rag hit pieces I don't know what to say other than you obviously haven't read many articles or practically any opinion pieces from them.

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#117

Post by notmarkus »

nexthash wrote: post #85

Wow, the NYT's actions on this one really made my blood boil. I don't even know how to process this... they typically put out reasonably high quality journalism that I read and enjoy on a regular basis. And then... this. They completely went beserk, like little children, with their heads firmly up their rears despite everything everyone begging them to keep Scott Alexander anonymous to preserve his profession and blo…

Consider that you know a lot about this topic and are disgusted by their handing of it. Consider that this might not be an outlier, and you may not be outraged by their handling of other topics simply because you know a bit less about them.

I don't know if this is true for you, but I've found it to be true for me. It took a good deal of time researching and revisiting to realize.

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#118

Post by taeric »

panarky wrote: post #105
cowmoo728 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is nothing new from them. The NYT, as the "paper of record" for America, has always been mired in politics and power. One of my favorite pieces from NYT is their blistering condemnation of MLK after his famous anti-Vietnam speech. Never forget that there is a side that benefits politically from telling you that the NYT is being taken over by "woke radical authoritarians". The NYT is a political organization play…

Either you support unlimited free expression or you don't. But the "Dark Enlightenment" folks want to have it both ways -- unlimited free expression for themselves even if it means platforming white nationalists, while simultaneously screaming bloody murder when the NYT publishes the well known real name behind the pseudonym Scott Alexander. Then we have luminaries like Balaji Srinivasan wanting to "sic the Dark Enli…

This seems a silly line to toe that accomplishes nothing. Worse, it feels in bad faith.

The crowd is constantly crying foul. And often shouting noise for the sake of being noisy. As such, it is all too easy for any supposed side to claim that the crowd is intrinsically party of the other sides.

To that end, did this person make particular claims that others have to reveal who they are? If not, I'm not clear on how this was hypocritical. Are there inconsistencies in the crowd? Absolutely. But, they could be easily ascribed to the side you appear to be taking up, as well.

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#119

Post by logimame »

nxc18 wrote: post #110
NhanH wrote: post #13

This is shameful, and the second time this month NYT puts out such a shameful piece (the first time was the JetBrains/ Solarwinds article). I guess this should be enough to disregard everything NYT will write, and stop reading them. Another commenter said that NYT still produces comparably some of the best journalistic content. I will have to stop reading news if this is the case. After the whole fiasco of Scott dele…

I recently dropped my NYT sub; jetbrains nonsense was the straw that broke the camel's back. I know it's a meme to bring up Gell-mann amnesia here, but I will raise it as a basic test for quality in journalism. When NYT writes about something I know about, I almost always have serious problems with it. Jetbrains in particular. And honestly some of the writing is so bad that even without knowing about the subject, I c…

Yeah, the Jetbrains article (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/06/us/politics/russia-cyber-...) was just too over-the-top conspiracy fluff. It’s sad to see some liberals critiquing QAnon and then immediately eating any kind of Russian conspiracy shit without any doubt.

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#120

Post by exogeny »

I must be missing something.

Scott literally calls a study that links IQ and race "sophisticated" and calls Murray an "ally" in the study of the connection and the antecedent impact on social welfare.

It's only when the NYT times points out the connection does it suddenly become much more narrow: a specific and borderline non-sequitur claim about teaching truckers to code.

I find the whole "I'm just asking questions!" routine to be so, so tiresome and disingenuous. This whole thing reads to me that he wants to be seen as iconoclastic and he wants to associate with contrarians but doesn't want any of the blowback for doing so. He may argue that a lack of refuting the more offensive implications and conclusions of an opinion while agreeing with a portion of it (only after the fact, mind you!) does not imply wholescale endorsement, but that's naive at best and wanting it both ways and crying about it at worst.

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