Slate Star Codex and Silicon Valley’s War Against the Media

He already starts off with antagonism. Where is the data for this? How does he know what the popular consensus is? Why is he drawing such a sharp delineation between "popular" and their association with X and Y?

> A few iconoclasts say that X is definitely right and important, but maybe we should also think about Y sometimes.

Seems like he thinks he's an iconoclast and the people that associate with that will start to act out iconoclastically themselves and if you look at the comments you will notice that. They're modeling what Scott is outlining in the post.

> I can see why this pattern is tempting.

How clever of him to notice this pattern and point out it is tempting.

> If somebody said the US should allocate 50% of its defense budget to the usual global threats, and 50% to the threat of reptilian space invaders, then even though the plan contains the number “50-50” it would not be a “moderate” proposal.

He's making a really weird analogy. This is not what people argue about and he has created an extreme view that does not exist by comparing a position to "space invaders".

Anyway, I'm not reading further. I'm already convinced he's not making any worthwhile point here. He's using emotionally charged language to draw the reader in and make them identify with him. It's a poor tactic. It only works on people that don't notice it. And I think this is the most damning evidence against him, as a psychologist he should know this is what he's doing by making these statements. He doesn't speak / write like someone that has knowledge of human psychology. He speaks / writes like someone that uses knowledge of human psychology to confuse his audience.

Anyone who's read both and trust the NYT more has severe reading comprehension issues...

Note that "trust" here doesn't mean "their conclusion is definitely correct". It means trusting what's on the surface of the article: that descriptions of linked-to references aren't completely fabricated or misrepresentative, that some baseline level of honest reading of sources has been attempted, etc.

This isn't quite the apples-to-apples criticism that it appears: NYT has tons of people trying to cover a big chunk of all the events of note happening, and has no way of hiring at scale that narrowly selects for particularly intellectually honest or intelligent employees. Scott is a single person who happens to be really intelligent and quite intellectually honest, and he posts at the cadence he prefers about topics that he thinks he has something valuable to say about. If he had to scale his posting to the level of the NYT's, it's probably get more untrustworthy too.

I have a CS and law degree and IMHO the divide here is the CS people tend to believe "ad hominem" has a technical definition beyond, well, the definition

"...the online persona he has publicly cultivated over the years—that of a gentle headmaster preparing to chaperone a rambunctious group of boys on a museum outing—but, in this case, it seemed to lend plausible deniability to what he surely knew would be taken as incitement." - ok, so his gentle manner is a "persona", but he "surely" incites his readers to harass journalists.

"Slate Star Codex is often held up as an example of what the well-behaved Internet can look like—a secret orchard of fruitful inquiry." - note the passive voice.

"Much of the support Alexander received was motivated simply by a love for his writing." - implies that the support was not founded on actual judgment of the situation.

"On the blog, Alexander strives to set an example as a sensitive, respectful, and humane interlocutor..." - note the word 'strives'. To be fair, the rest of the sentence is genuine praise for his skill as a writer.

"...the rationalists’ general willingness to pursue orderly exchanges on objectionable topics, often with monstrous people, remains not only a point of pride but a constitutive part of the subculture’s self-understanding." - note how willingness to pursue orderly exchanges (with people that are presented as objectively monstrous) is a subjective point of pride.

Compare:

"the business model of the Times has little to do with chasing “clicks,” per se, and, even if it did, no self-respecting journalist would conclude that the pursuit of clicks was best served by the de-anonymization of a "random blogger." - presented as a factual statement.

"...a near-pathological commitment to the reinvention of the wheel, using the language of game theory to explain, with mathematical rigor, some fact of social life that anyone trained in the humanities would likely accept as a given." - why is this commitment pathological? Why is it as worthless as presented?

"These conversations, about race and genetic or biological differences between the sexes, have rightfully drawn criticism from outsiders." - why was this criticism rightful?

"The rationalists regularly fail to reckon with power as it is practiced, or history as it has been experienced, and they indulge themselves in such contests with the freedom of those who have largely escaped discrimination." - fairly standard accusations of privilege presented as facts.

"there is some evidence to support the idea that he, like anyone, is wont to sacrifice rigor in moments of passion." - presented as a statement supported by evidence.

Similarly, concerns and worries of the group are presented as subjective, over-reacting and reaching into conspiracy theory territory. By contrast, worries that the group itself is problematic are presented as legitimate.

And of course 'rationalists' are consistently presented as low-status dorks, but I guess it is the usual New Yorker snobbery and not something nefarious.