Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Statement on New York Times Article

astralcodexten.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 437 posts

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#241

Post by javajosh »

higerordermap wrote: post #223
dandare wrote: post #199

What I find noteworthy about this story is how contentious and weaponized have gender and race become. Out of the four negative claims, one accused Scott of racism and two accused him of of some variant of misogyny. The fourth associated him with some other form of non-pure thinking. I am afraid things will get worse before they get better. I expect the trumpism/fascism wave will provoke unhealthy reaction and furthe…

As an Indian, I'd say this kind of "SJW" rhetoric serves no purpose other than causing a reactionary change -- of more normal people favoring extreme right wing instead, and leaving a bad impression about the total social justice thing.

The other alternative is to be independent. No tribe. Or you can be in a tribe, but as a critic and reformer. (Well, some tribes allow you to criticize them. Not the modern GOP.)

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#242

Post by bnj »

CPLX wrote: post #226
Aqua wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole story background story is extremely alarming. NYT unilaterally decided to reveal someone's real identity against that person's wishes. It should honestly be made illegal but given the current political climate it's doubtful such course of action will ever be considered. This whole situation gives even more credence to the idea that decentralisation is the only way forward for mankind if we intend to preserv…

Can you articulate a coherent framework for how and why an American news publication should be prohibited from revealing legally obtained true information about the leader of a large, popular, or otherwise noteworthy community?

I haven’t thought up a framework, but one thing I’m wondering is why the identity of the person alone is newsworthy.

I’m probably missing part of the background here, I’m new to the controversy. Did some kind of mystery arise around the true identity of the author? Your comment implies that NYT obtained the true identity of the author through legal means — how exactly did they do that?

I don’t think finding out the identity of someone who wishes to remain anonymous is, in itself, sufficiently newsworthy to overcome the privacy interests of the individual. I also wonder if this story has a more interesting angle buried in it about the complexities of identity in the internet age: the author of the blog achieved notoriety, but in some ways that character is distinct from the physical person living their life and doing their job. The NYT wanted to publish a link between those two personas over their objection. Why should they be able to if the story can be written in a way that doesn’t?

Consider someone like... Satoshi, of bitcoin. The character has achieved this powerful notoriety and managed to remain anonymous. Do people want to know which person on the planet created that persona? Sure; do they need to know, is the identity alone newsworthy without some reason to need to publish it?

Honestly I tend to say no. That’s just... gossip, isn’t it? How is knowing a different name to associate with the character going to enrich and inform me in any way?

Examples where I think revealing the identity might be of substance: - suppose someone committed crimes to keep their identity secret - suppose government officials intervened to help them remain anonymous - suppose the person turns out to BE a powerful government official

[edit: to add last example]

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#243

Post by jerome-jh »

Newspapers are in a weak position today: basically they are under perfusion of oligarchs and ads. So when they attack, they do so on: 1/ what is clearly identified as the enemy and 2/ weaker entities after labeling them as enemies. It is important to note neither provide ad incomes.

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#244

Post by hundreddaysoff »

bobcostas55 wrote: post #198
colinmhayes wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's also a pretty bad definition of effective altruism. For how much they spout "do the most good" you'd think the author could just use that?

The whole thing is bizarre. The author has been working on this piece for something like 10 months now, and he can't get a basic definition of EA right? I saw a hot take on twitter that Metz deliberately did a bad job because he didn't actually want to write a hit piece and his superiors forced him into it.

This is an interesting theory. It also seems somewhat testable, because if true and Metz's superiors are not tone-deaf they we'd expect they will fire him, no?

I wonder if it was Metz who had the idea for the original more positive-angled story re SSC's COVID info.

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#245

Post by DixieDev »

CPLX wrote: post #226
Aqua wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole story background story is extremely alarming. NYT unilaterally decided to reveal someone's real identity against that person's wishes. It should honestly be made illegal but given the current political climate it's doubtful such course of action will ever be considered. This whole situation gives even more credence to the idea that decentralisation is the only way forward for mankind if we intend to preserv…

Can you articulate a coherent framework for how and why an American news publication should be prohibited from revealing legally obtained true information about the leader of a large, popular, or otherwise noteworthy community?

They should absolutely be allowed to reveal legally obtained true information about people's identities, but the vital 'legally' part of the process should encompass said people's consent.

If I start a blog that sees some success, and avoid using my full name in order to protect my privacy, then I obviously don't want my full name linked to my blog and I don't see why random businesses should be allowed to doxx me for the sake of some ad revenue.

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#246

Post by woofie11 »

cedilla wrote: post #240
dandare wrote: post #199

What I find noteworthy about this story is how contentious and weaponized have gender and race become. Out of the four negative claims, one accused Scott of racism and two accused him of of some variant of misogyny. The fourth associated him with some other form of non-pure thinking. I am afraid things will get worse before they get better. I expect the trumpism/fascism wave will provoke unhealthy reaction and furthe…

The NYT abusing these kinds of allegations in a hit piece doesn't say anything about whether such claims can are "contentious and weaponized". Hit pieces latch on current topics. In the 1950s, the NYT would have had invented ties to communists. Or, if possible, hit pieces often imply corruption or paedophilia. That doesn't necessarily mean that corruption or paedophilia are topics that are "contentious" or related to…

I feel like the NYT used to be more credible and run fewer hit pieces. I'm not trying to argue zero, by any means, but I feel like in a very short time -- basically the past 4-8 years -- they've gone from one of the most credible source of media to where I trust them as much as I do Fox News (and I read both, as well as a number of international news sources, to have a complete picture).

This sort of stuff seems to be their modus operandi now.

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#247

Post by leephillips »

I used to read Alexander's essays now and then. I tried to read this one, but the site complained that I had javascript turned off (why do I need that to read an article?) and, even with scripting turned off, used a lot of CPU while the tab was open. I get the impression that substack is doing something shady, and I think I’ll avoid them in the future.

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#248

Post by Aqua »

CPLX wrote: post #226
Aqua wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole story background story is extremely alarming. NYT unilaterally decided to reveal someone's real identity against that person's wishes. It should honestly be made illegal but given the current political climate it's doubtful such course of action will ever be considered. This whole situation gives even more credence to the idea that decentralisation is the only way forward for mankind if we intend to preserv…

Can you articulate a coherent framework for how and why an American news publication should be prohibited from revealing legally obtained true information about the leader of a large, popular, or otherwise noteworthy community?

I won't because I'm neither American nor a lawyer, but I will answer your question.

The person in question wanted to remain anonymous for good reasons, they didn't consent to have their true identity revealed and yet a powerful news corp decided to do that anyway, clearly in bad faith and for their own gain, violating that person's and their relatives' privacy. It's obvious the aim was to incite verbal violence against and "cancel" that man because he committed the heinous crime of wrongthink.

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#249

Post by woofie11 »

CPLX wrote: post #226
Aqua wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole story background story is extremely alarming. NYT unilaterally decided to reveal someone's real identity against that person's wishes. It should honestly be made illegal but given the current political climate it's doubtful such course of action will ever be considered. This whole situation gives even more credence to the idea that decentralisation is the only way forward for mankind if we intend to preserv…

Can you articulate a coherent framework for how and why an American news publication should be prohibited from revealing legally obtained true information about the leader of a large, popular, or otherwise noteworthy community?

Prohibited? They shouldn't be, any more than they should be prohibited from replacing their logo to a swastika. We have freedom of speech, and that's important. If the government tried to go after NYT for a swastika logo, I'd be 100% on the side of the NYT; free speech should be legal even if I disagree with it.

On the other hand, I'd never visit NYT again, and I think most of the population would do likewise.

This isn't as extreme, but events like this should cause the general public to adjust their views of NYT. This shouldn't be a cancel-culture style slander, but simply starting to treat NYT as a random tabloid which makes stuff up for clicks.

NYT ran a hit piece on Larry Lessig too.

Post reply on HN