It’s almost unbelievable how far the NYT has fallen, how ideologically corrupt it has become. I can only hope that more and more people become aware of their corruption, and stop relying on them as a trustworthy source of reporting. Articles like this one are a step in the right direction, revealing the rot. I really admire the author’s bravery and honesty despite all that has happened to him.
Statement on New York Times Article
131–140 of 437 posts
Re: Statement on New York Times Article
#132The NYT article[1] can hardly be called a hit piece at all, considering how little 'dirt' it actually contains. What is telling however is the lengths to which they went to connect Scott to anything negative at all. Look at how they 'connect' him to Peter Thiel for instance: Scott is a prominent figure in a loose group of "Rationalists". Some rationalists are concerned about AI. Some people who are concerned about AI…
Thank you for the link to the NYT article. I completely agree with your reading.
Politicians have known forever that sometimes is more important to control what the conversation is about that what you actually say and traditional media is the way you control the conversation. But they have lost their monopoly. I'm not comfortable with the monopoly being transferred to big tech companies by the way which are usually the main target of their hatred but in this case I think it signals a new low in ethics that they are attacking an independent blogger.
Re: Statement on New York Times Article
#133This is the second article I’ve come across today lambasting the NYT for a hit piece, the second in my opinion is much worse given what the subject has been exposed to and has had to endure. https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/ayaan-hirsi-ali-and-the-... It seems the publication is in the midst of a takeover by woke radical authoritarians. It used to be that you should be cancelled and/or made a pariah of society for…
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…
This is similar to arguments I frequently make about the paper. The reason it has such standing as it does is because it was a mast of Northeast elite hedgemony. I mean this more in a sociological sense than in a true dynastic political sense. The Northeast had been thought for very long to have the best schools, culture, technology, leadership and values.
There was a time when that culture was not just dominant among elite circles but often revered by everyday people as something to live up to. As much as the 80s, 90s and on were seemingly about the decline of that power nexus, the institutions retained a lot of mystique and fascination.
That ideal of American life is in a tailspin. Norman Rockwell is more a punchline than a comfort to people. The nation's opinions aren't filtered through New York TV personalities any more.
The paper has weakend and that has allowed the social agreement about it to change. Before if you expressed a negative opinion about such a paper it was mostly washed away in a consistent wave of accolade. If disagreement always meets reproach it is hard for it to spread. Agreement is an innoculatiom against criticism.
Re: Statement on New York Times Article
#134Seriously, WTF is going on with NYT. I think something has seriously gone off the deep end with their newsroom, but I feel like it must be so culturally ingrained in their newsroom now that even questioning some basic assumptions will get one vilified as a racist or sexist. One of the most recent examples that really struck me was NYT's article about why they decided to capitalize Black, but not White, in their paper…
It seems very and crudely racist to assume all black people have a shared culture, in the same way assuming two black people must be related, would be.
Re: Statement on New York Times Article
#135On point 1: > The Times points out that I agreed with Murray that poverty was bad, and that also at some other point in my life noted that Murray had offensive views on race, and heavily implies this means I agree with Murray’s offensive views on race. This seems like a weirdly brazen type of falsehood for a major newspaper. In the quote in question, he literally says that Murray "has some very sophisticated theories…
It's a bad reply!
Narrowly because it's actually unfair point by point, as you say.
And slightly dishonest, because Scott does in fact entertain ideas that are scandalous to an expected arrival from the NYT. (Though not, I would say, for the reasons they might assume.)
But also more broadly, it doesn't take the opportunity to make intelligible to that arrival his insider's view of these related-but-distinct phenomena (his blog, the Rationalists, "Grey Tribe", the counter-techlash). Which the article predictably muddles.
Perhaps saddest to me, by responding defensively (however understandably!), he reinforces the emphasis in the piece on this sort of culture war stuff. Rather than perhaps channeling this new interest towards the meta-science and history and psychiatry and the like.
Re: Statement on New York Times Article
#136The NYT article[1] can hardly be called a hit piece at all, considering how little 'dirt' it actually contains. What is telling however is the lengths to which they went to connect Scott to anything negative at all. Look at how they 'connect' him to Peter Thiel for instance: Scott is a prominent figure in a loose group of "Rationalists". Some rationalists are concerned about AI. Some people who are concerned about AI…
Thank you for the link to the NYT article. I completely agree with your reading. Politicians have known forever that sometimes is more important to control what the conversation is about that what you actually say and traditional media is the way you control the conversation. But they have lost their monopoly. I'm not comfortable with the monopoly being transferred to big tech companies by the way which are usually t…
Here's that time where the legacy media threatened to doxx someone if they made memes they didn't like again:
>CNN is not publishing "HanA*holeSolo's" name because he is a private citizen who has issued an extensive statement of apology, showed his remorse by saying he has taken down all his offending posts, and because he said he is not going to repeat this ugly behavior on social media again. In addition, he said his statement could serve as an example to others not to do the same.
>CNN reserves the right to publish his identity should any of that change.
https://edition.cnn.com/2017/07/04/politics/kfile-reddit-use...
Re: Statement on New York Times Article
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you point to any examples that you found particularly annoying?
"Against murderism" was the last time it came up, I think? In context I believe it was supposed to be anti-anti-Trumpism, or at least that you should talk to Trumpists more rather than deplatform them. The reason I don't remember is that the effect of reading his essays is that they're so long you forget why he wrote them and what you were thinking before you started it.
>The reason I don't remember is that the effect of reading his essays is that they're so long you forget why he wrote them and what you were thinking before you started it.
Honest question: how do you read books if a 10k word article is too long?
Re: Statement on New York Times Article
#138I have never read the blog, or have any positive or negative association with it, but after all the attention this story has garnered, I just read both the NYT article and Mr. Siskind's response. The main takeaway from the NYT article is that there is a group of people in whose writings/blog comment sections/etc racists/sexists have found a home, and his is one of them. He does not address this assertion, or what the…
A while back I mentioned to my mother that I had been to a "reddit meet up" and my mother, predictably, had never heard of reddit. Later, reddit made the news, I forget exactly what for, but in was the category of harboring child pornographers, racists, or nude celebrity photos. What I did remember is hoping my mother didn't see this news article and conclude that I was out meeting with racist pedophiles. The thing i…
I fully understand your point re reddit, but I think a single person's blog is different than that. A blog is like a book and reddit is like a bookstore if you will, if you go to a bookstore selling a book that racists read that is not concerning to me (wrongly concerning to your mom as you said), but if you bought the book in question (even if non/anti-racists read it too) I would be concerned if I were your mother - just to make sure you are not aligned with them.
I am not saying this is the case (as I have no connection with the blog), but if the claim is indeed true that racists/sexists think the blog is great (which is the main takeaway I got from the article), that needs to be addressed as to why they are attracted there, and Mr. Siskind does not do that. If the claim is bogus, then the claim is bogus, but Mr. Siskind does not refute that they are attracted to his blog.
As to the feminism issue, in the full context, he criticizes feminism with respect to specific points and texts from feminists (which he is 100% entitled to), but then ends with the sentence in question that to me whichever angle you look at it from says, feminism and pure evil are not too distant. As I noted, he could have backed away from the statement easily by saying his statement is wrong (if he thinks so), but claiming it's out of context is dishonest and a diversion.
Re: Statement on New York Times Article
#139The NYT article[1] can hardly be called a hit piece at all, considering how little 'dirt' it actually contains. What is telling however is the lengths to which they went to connect Scott to anything negative at all. Look at how they 'connect' him to Peter Thiel for instance: Scott is a prominent figure in a loose group of "Rationalists". Some rationalists are concerned about AI. Some people who are concerned about AI…
>In one post, he aligned himself with Charles Murray, who proposed a link between race and I.Q. in “The Bell Curve.” In another, he pointed out that Mr. Murray believes Black people “are genetically less intelligent than white people.”
This paragraph alone could be a textbox example from "Hit pieces for Dummies".
The piece is a hit piece through and through. That they weren't able to dig up any real dirt and instead resorted to name calling - both in the classical sense, and also in the sense of actually mentioning names like Thiel and Murray and Curtis Yarvin, etc to insinuate actual or intellectual closeness between those people and Scott - is what makes it a hit piece in the first place.
Re: Statement on New York Times Article
#140On point 1: > The Times points out that I agreed with Murray that poverty was bad, and that also at some other point in my life noted that Murray had offensive views on race, and heavily implies this means I agree with Murray’s offensive views on race. This seems like a weirdly brazen type of falsehood for a major newspaper. In the quote in question, he literally says that Murray "has some very sophisticated theories…
The basic issue is: the Times article isn't really very good (possibly repurposed to focus on Slate Star Codex after all the controversy pre-publication?) and relies largely on sort of gesturing vaguely at small snippets of his writing around controversial topics.
This makes it pretty simple for Scott to parry the specific allegations or implications in his response here. But I feel like anybody who takes an honest look at his writing would have to admit:
He believes in IQ and intelligence heritability, specifically with at least a significant genetic component.
He doesn't like feminists (not all but a much broader swath than his response implies). Maybe you could say he's moderated on this over the years.
His response heavily implies that these things are not true. It strikes me as "technically true" in roughly the same way he's criticizing the Times piece for being.