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Statement on New York Times Article

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Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#361

Post by rootsudo »

Aqua wrote: post #213
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 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…

Just imagine the zoom conversations the NYT had to have had with each other to publish this article, and it was approved.

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#362

Post by Lammy »

mawise wrote: post #289
twicetwice wrote: post #3

A great response, in my opinion. Succinctly and effectively points out what was wrong with the NYT article, then tries to move on. Somewhat more of a sober tone than Scott's typical writing, but still with a dash of his typical wit: > I don’t want to accuse the New York Times of lying about me, exactly, but if they were truthful, it was in the same way as that famous movie review which describes the Wizard of Oz as:…

I don't get it. Scott's response very clearly lays out the ways in which the NYT article was misleading--so clearly that it seems obvious that it was intentionally misleading. But to what end? What are the motivations driving NYT to try and create these poor associations with Scott and his writing? It seems a poor and short-sighted motivation for them to do this out of "revenge" for the bad press they got from the si…

Any potential community nexus that encourages sub-group-solidarity and class-unity is a threat to TPTB who maintain their power by encouraging us to view each other as potential threats to our various cultural/ethnic/gender/sexual/etc identities. It's Playstation-vs-Xbox playground mindset on a global scale. Ordo ab Chao.

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#363

Post by kazinator »

panarky wrote: post #351
taeric wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

> they could be easily ascribed to the side you appear to be taking up 1) Your argument is whataboutism at its finest. 2) I'm not taking a side in favor of establishment journalism. 3) I'm showing that leaders of the anti-cancel-culture movement are themselves more than willing to intimidate, suppress and cancel the free speech of anyone who criticizes them. 4) Either you're in favor of unrestricted free speech for e…

If you're in favor of unrestricted free speech for everyone, it necessarily, logically means:

- you oppose "cancel culture";

- you're okay with white supremacists having access to audiences via platforms, if someone is willing to provide them with that.

Intimidation and suppression cannot be avoided; they go hand in hand with having any sort of rules.

For instance, the law against stealing uses intimidation and suppression: people are intimidated against stealing with the threat of jail sentences, and offenders are suppressed with actual imprisonment.

You can't have guarantees of freedom of speech written in law without the intimidation and suppression being written into the same law: there have to be negative consequences for a law breaker infringing on someone else's constitutionally granted freedom of speech, which are written and enforced, in order for the law to have meaning.

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#364

Post by chillacy »

exogeny wrote: post #120

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!…

> literally calls a study that links IQ and race "sophisticated"

I did not read the quote that way. Looking at the original:

> Neither he nor I would dare reduce all class differences to heredity, and he in particular has some very sophisticated theories about class and culture.

He seems to be saying the opposite: that Murray has theories to explain IQ beyond just heredity (i.e. [social?] class and culture). It seems to me that Scott is drawing attention to Murray's non IQ/Race theories here, then using that common ground to jump into universal basic income.

If he were to call the IQ studies sophisticated, here's how I would have worded it:

(Abridged quote of evil twin Scott) Neither he nor I would dare reduce all class differences to heredity, [however he] has some very sophisticated theories about [hereditary genetics].

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#365

Post by chipsa »

geofft wrote: post #238
chmod775 wrote: post #64

The 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…

My reading of the article was that it wasn't about Scott at all. It was about the comment sections on Slate Star Codex, the Rationalist community (which the general public knows very little about), and its connection to the centers of power in Silicon Valley. If you read it as a story about Scott instead of as a story about Silicon Valley, it's less coherent of an article.

The problem with reading it as a story not about Scott is that there's no reason to use his professional name except to cause him problems.

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#366

Post by rootsudo »

DubiousPusher wrote: post #133
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…

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 amon…

I can see this. I'd like to read up more on it, any good sources?

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#367

Post by [deleted] »

mawise wrote: post #289
twicetwice wrote: post #3

A great response, in my opinion. Succinctly and effectively points out what was wrong with the NYT article, then tries to move on. Somewhat more of a sober tone than Scott's typical writing, but still with a dash of his typical wit: > I don’t want to accuse the New York Times of lying about me, exactly, but if they were truthful, it was in the same way as that famous movie review which describes the Wizard of Oz as:…

I don't get it. Scott's response very clearly lays out the ways in which the NYT article was misleading--so clearly that it seems obvious that it was intentionally misleading. But to what end? What are the motivations driving NYT to try and create these poor associations with Scott and his writing? It seems a poor and short-sighted motivation for them to do this out of "revenge" for the bad press they got from the si…

[deleted]

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#368

Post by analog31 »

eatplayrove wrote: post #125

I 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…

Had I not been prepped by reading about the controversy here on HN, I wouldn't have guessed that the NYT article was a hit piece. On the other hand, had I not noticed that the article came from the NYT, I wouldn't have guessed that it wasn't just another blog.

Lots of blogs praise one another while also including disagreements and disclaimers that they don't fully believe their own writing, much less the writing of others. But they consider the articles to be worth reading anyway.

Some of my opinions are unpopular and may even make people uncomfortable. So I admit with trepidation that I still like the NYT and will continue to subscribe.

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#369

Post by aksss »

Intentional political anxiety - a tactic of the Cultural Revolution that was discussed on the excellent In Our Time podcast from the BBC this last week. Never knowing exactly where the next offense may come from, intentionally keeping the population on edge about committing a politically incorrect infraction that will result in consequences to you or your family. Really resonates with the trajectory of institutional rhetoric in the US these days.

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#370

Post by anticristi »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #95

Seriously, 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…

As a non-native English speaker and European, I find these "minor language tweaks" pure distraction. I mean, one could raise taxes and offer quality free education to everyone -- like many European countries already do. One could also enforce more wage transparency to fight systematic salary discrimination. But it's so much cheaper to capitalize one letter.

white Black

There! Now everyone knows I am actively fighting discrimination and it costs me zero.

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