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Statement on New York Times Article

astralcodexten.substack.com

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Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#381

Post by will4274 »

asdfrmrf wrote: post #324

I am surprised just about no one on this thread finds his effort to hide his identity online flimsy. If you are a psychiatrist with a popular blog with hot wire topic discussions and cares a lot about patient relationships, shouldn't you be taking a lot more precautions in concealing your identity than just dropping your last name? I mean, come on.

I dunno. I mean, it's a little flimsy. But he said he started the blog in college - I know people who wrote online by removing their last name in college. And I doubt his patients know his middle name or spend a lot of time searching for his blog, when it doesn't appear in the NYT. I think if a single patient goes out of their way to research you, you stop seeing them and refer them to another doctor, but if half your patients read about you in the NYT, you have a real problem.

Do you find it implausible or merely flimsy? I certainly don't find it implausible.

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#382

Post by skissane »

geofft wrote: post #377
chipsa wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As the article points out, the name is hardly a secret, and I suspect the important thing is that the NYT has no practice of using pseudonyms. If a writer submits a story and the editor says, "Why'd you use a pseudonym," I'm not sure the writer gets to say, "They asked for one," because then why wouldn't everyone who genuinely is newsworthy and thinks they aren't newsworthy ask for one? If the writer says, "I didn't…

> I suspect the important thing is that the NYT has no practice of using pseudonyms

NYT was happy to write about Virgil Texas of Chapo Trap House without revealing his real name [0].

Implying that their actual rule is: yes to pseudonymity for people with whom we politically sympathise, no to pseudonymity for people with whom we don't.

That kind of inconsistency isn't worthy of respect.

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/29/us/politics/bernie-sander...

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#383

Post by wilsocr88 »

fortran77 wrote: post #330
wilsocr88 wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weaponized is the correct word. The word "racist" is morphing into a racial slur. It's now just a bludgeon to shut up someone with the wrong views. I believe this comes from the idea that the only possible way to be moral is to wield power by any means necessary because you're right and "they" are evil.

This has been used for years, but only recently became weaponized. I can recall in the early 80s, going to ACT UP meetings in NYC, we'd have random people come in and raise crazy issues about "racism" like "the word 'gay' is racist! You need to say 'queer'!" Often these people who came to throw a monkey-wrench into meetings weren't gay men; they were just old-school Greenwich Village agitators. Their tactics work and…

And, additionally, the same tactics were called "mostly peaceful" by the news media (until the other side followed suit, of course).

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#384

Post by taeric »

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…

My point was more that the subjects of this odd battle are not the actors in it. Such that the line you are drawing with the context you are drawing it in, feels in bad faith.

From all I have seen, which I confess is not everything, The blogger was asking for basic courtesy to not be named such that their practice could stay easily separate.

For my part, I care more for unpersecuted speech. I don't like the active screaming culture, but I can't bring myself to feel that someone should be able to have consequence free speech, either. Such that most of this debate is around gotcha moments that are people yelling at someone to reach the crowd.

It gets muddy, because I absolutely believe we have to allow people to be wrong. But I don't think we should tolerate active lying and gas lighting with deceptive rhetorical tricks that punish courage in openly exploring the boundaries of your knowledge.

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#385

Post by afiori »

afiori wrote: post #211
unityByFreedom wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've moved the goalposts. DDoS is against the law. Connecting an anonymous account to a name after confirming it is them is not. It may be libelous if the connection is not factual, but if it is a fact then that's legal to print.

This is also moving the goalpost, just because something is legal (and rightly so in this case) does not mean it is moral. My point is that doing risky activities does not mean you cannot complain when things go wrong; you can both take responsability for your decision to partecipate in that risk and criticise the system for exposing partecipants to excessive risk. In this case the criticism wasn't "the internet poli…

For context this is Scott's answer to this argument: [from https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/still-alive]

> Some of the savvy people giving me advice suggested I fight back against this. [...] Say why it was necessary for my career to publish those papers under my real name.

> Why didn't I do this? Partly because it wasn't true. I don't think I had particularly strong arguments on any of these points. [...]

> But the other reason I didn't do it was...well, suppose Power comes up to you and says hey, I'm gonna kick you in the balls. And when you protest, they say they don't want to make anyone unsafe, so as long as you can prove that kicking you in the balls will cause long-term irrecoverable damage, they'll hold off. And you say, well, it'll hurt quite a lot. And they say that's subjective, they'll need a doctor's note proving you have a chronic pain condition like hyperalgesia or fibromyalgia. And you say fine, I guess I don't have those, but it might be dangerous. And they ask you if you're some sort of expert who can prove there's a high risk of organ rupture, and you have to admit the risk of organ rupture isn't exactly high. But also, they add, didn't you practice taekwondo in college? Isn't that the kind of sport where you can get kicked in the balls pretty easily? Sounds like you're not really that committed to this not-getting-kicked-in-the-balls thing.

> No! There's no dignified way to answer any of these questions except "fuck you". Just don't kick me in the balls! It isn't rocket science! Don't kick me in the fucking balls!

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#387

Post by sjwright »

Traster wrote: post #195

So I may have come at this backwards- I read Scott's rebuttal and then read the NYT peice. No offence to Scott but I think he's got this all wrong. The NYT piece isn't about Scott, it's just a writing gimmick. The article is about the self-styled rationalists, Scott is just an entry point to open the discussion around these group of people. It's not trying to tie Scott to Thiel, it's describing the pantheon of people…

> No offence to Scott but I think he's got this all wrong. The NYT piece isn't about Scott

I'd be willing to entertain that hypothesis—but for how they knowingly and defiantly chose to unmask/dox a practising psychiatrist. Not printing names of sources is standard practice in media and to suggest that exceptions must be made in a case like this is dishonest.

By your lights, Scott's name added zero value to the story; printing it demonstrated that the piece was most definitely about Scott.

> the group has a massively over-sensitive to criticism

Misrepresentation isn't criticism. Lumping a diverse group under one label and then using individual traits to infer criticism upon the whole—isn't criticism. You appear to be overly enthralled by group narratives rather than talking about individuals.

> I think there's a debate to be had about the approach of the "Rationalists" and I think the Rationalists are unwilling to have it

An interesting assertion which smells a bit like mind-reading to me. Can you point to any instances where honest, civilised debate of "rationalist" ideas was refused? You can criticise the "rationalists" of many things, but given the proliferation of unedited and undigested conversations they churn out, being unwilling to debate isn't one of them.

(And yes, I realise that prior paragraph offers you plenty of rope: I haven't head the term "rationalist" used much and so I have no idea who you think a "rationalist" is. I have no idea what examples you might unearth. To be clear, I am not asking rhetorically, I'm asking because I'm genuinely curious what source data you used to form this unwillingness to debate hypothesis.)

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#388

Post by kodah »

sjg007 wrote: post #380
kodah wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, none of that is accurate to the phrasing of "a Russian company" as a rhetorical device. This kind of quasi-hyperbole about Russians is also getting old. Russia has been an ideological enemy for a long time, maybe even as long as time. I've never second guessed the motivations of business owners and citizens from Russia the way certain crowds do. That's pretty tantamount to something dubious . Does the governmen…

Yet you clearly second guess and misunderstand my intentions. The real problem is the threat vector. Where is it is easier for intelligence services to operate?

> Yet you clearly second guess and misunderstand my intentions

I can only go off of what you put in plaintext.

> The real problem is the threat vector

So, explain to me the threat vector. If we have a threat vector that is substantiated by, "is Russian" then I think we have a problem. If we have a threat vector of, "Government vets first order software dependencies, but not the second order and soft dependencies of software vendors" then we have something more akin to analysis.

It took Kaspersky being affiliated with, cooperating (and serving) the FSB in order for it to be banned, not because it was established by Russians.

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#389

Post by dragonsngoblins »

yanderekko wrote: post #304
MrMan wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never read that blog and don’t read the NYT but I will say in response only to your comment that racists and sexists don’t seem to enjoy Star Wars like they used to. Someone should write a (hopefully thoughtful-seeming) long form rumination on the parallels between what has (allegedly) happened to Disney and what has (allegedly) happened to the NYT.

>I never read that blog and don’t read the NYT but I will say in response only to your comment that racists and sexists don’t seem to enjoy Star Wars like they used to. Most of the ire is directly at the sequel trilogy, notably the last two movies thereof. So if one of your coworkers says they hated The Last Jedi but loved The Mandalorian, then you can reasonably report them to HR for engaging in discomforting behavi…

Ah well I'm safe then because I thought Force Awakens was pretty shit and never even saw the following two movies in the ST

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#390

Post by foldr »

skissane wrote: post #382
geofft wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the article points out, the name is hardly a secret, and I suspect the important thing is that the NYT has no practice of using pseudonyms. If a writer submits a story and the editor says, "Why'd you use a pseudonym," I'm not sure the writer gets to say, "They asked for one," because then why wouldn't everyone who genuinely is newsworthy and thinks they aren't newsworthy ask for one? If the writer says, "I didn't…

> I suspect the important thing is that the NYT has no practice of using pseudonyms NYT was happy to write about Virgil Texas of Chapo Trap House without revealing his real name [0]. Implying that their actual rule is: yes to pseudonymity for people with whom we politically sympathise, no to pseudonymity for people with whom we don't. That kind of inconsistency isn't worthy of respect. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/202…

I don’t think consistency is actually that important here. I don’t expect the NYT’s editorial decisions to be perfectly consistent with each other as (a) they’re not necessarily being made by the same people and (b) the NYT makes a very large number of editorial decisions. I do expect those decisions to be justifiable considered individually on their merits.

I don’t see any reason not to give Scott Alexander’s real name. The mere fact that he’d rather keep it a secret doesn’t strike me as a good reason.

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