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Statement on New York Times Article

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Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#321
post #277

The clever playground bully doesn't say "let's beat up Scott", at least not where teachers can hear - he knows he can say something like "Scott annoyed me a bit yesterday" and his followers/admirers will know that beating up Scott might just earn them popularity points. The clever mafia boss, at least in the movies, doesn't leave a paper trail showing they've ordered a hit job on someone, they say something like woul…

You could make the same point about this article.

The infamous internet argument that is "calling out negative things is a negative itself". "You just have to go meta, and you will see it's all the same." "Everything is relative/subjective"

These type of generic arguments bring nothing valuable to the discussion table. These arguments are used to shut down conversation in a very self-aggrandizing manner.

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#322
post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> WebMD is the Internet's most important source of medical information. [WebMD, And The Tragedy Of Legible Expertise"] I had no idea WebMD was taken this seriously. Can I recommend to HNers especially across the pond to use the excellent NHS.UK instead, for level-headed and concise medical info.

Wow, I just looked up aspirin and warfarin (comparison used in the article) at NHS.UK, and it really is better. For example, Q. What if I take too much? A. (for aspirin) Taking 1 or 2 extra tablets is unlikely to be harmful. (for warfarin) If you take an extra dose of warfarin, call your anticoagulant clinic straight away. This convinces me it's not that WebMD is a tragedy of legible expertise, but that WebMD is inco…

The legal and financial situations are quite different. WebMD is a US publishing company and Americans sue for everything so it has to be careful. The UK legal system makes it much harder to sue for dumb stuff and the NHS isn't going to be bankrupted being government owned.

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#323
The Times and many other supposed gold-standard papers have shown themselves to be unforgivably biased and politically compromised over and over and over. It's a sad thing that the entire communications apparatus of the West seems to be gaslighting the population all the time, and they're all united around the same few permitted/canonized political positions.

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#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.

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#326

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…

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.

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#327
post #213

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…

Couldn't agree more. If there's one thing the last 5 or so years should teach us is that newspeak isn't a language, it's the entire technological communications apparatus of the West.

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#328
post #144
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 h…

I don’t understand why people believe that anonymity is a right guaranteed to all people making content on the internet.

...okay, "sunpar", we can have that argument once you fix your username.

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#329
post #289

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…

It was misleading and unfair. But to understand it, you have to imagine yourself as a young, woke, sheltered person who went to a top private high school, a top college, and then got an internship and a job writing at the NY Times. To these people, there's only one correct world-view and anyone who even questions it, or thinks some truths are nuanced, is evil.

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#330

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…

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 have been mainstreamed.

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