Slate Star Codex and Silicon Valley’s War Against the Media • Hacker News Board

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

#391

Post by CompanionCuuube » Thu, Jul 09, 2020, 11:45 PM UTC

memexy wrote: post #333

mst wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"certain patterns" is still not an outline so it's hard for me to pick a set of posts. But let's go with this one: https://web.archive.org/web/20200202214359/https://slatestar... since I suspect that will comfortably draw out our underlying disagreements (and if you don't know who Phedre no Delauney is, the Kushiel's Dart novels are fantastic and you've missed out).

andrewprock already found an example and I agree with his assessment. If you have snippets that you think are worthwhile then feel free to post them. Associating assassination with people, even as a question, is sinister. A polite and kind person would not make that association or even ask the question because it implants the idea in the reader's mind and they start thinking antagonistically towards certain groups th…

> andrewprock already found an example and I agree with his assessment.

But do you have a dispute for the counterpoint from mst? If so, what is it?

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

#392

Post by mst » Thu, Jul 09, 2020, 11:46 PM UTC

memexy wrote: post #386

mst wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't need to argue for freedom of speech and equal rights and justice for all because in my world those are givens. The article was about somebody who was arguing that using falsified numbers about rape statistics was not only acceptable feminism but was actually a good thing and that anybody who disagreed with that deserved to be destroyed. Speaking as somebody who believes that the truth is quite sufficient ju…

Then there are better ways to make those arguments. Recounting stories about being "young and stupid" is not one of those ways.

I am entirely fine with you believing that there are better ways to make those arguments - in fact, given any specific argument is almost certain to be imperfect, one would assume that there are.

But I would note that "there are better ways to make those arguments" is quite a distance from your original position.

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

#393

Post by CompanionCuuube » Thu, Jul 09, 2020, 11:48 PM UTC

TulliusCicero wrote: post #146

memexy wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

-

I'm not the one who called it ugly. I'm just pointing out that you either forgot your own comment, or were using a weird rhetorical trick where you pretend that the other commenter was calling the blog ugly, instead of the article.

> were using a weird rhetorical trick where you pretend that the other commenter was calling the blog ugly, instead of the article.

There's an irony of seeing this behavior mixed in with comments about how Scott's language "uses associations" in a harmful way.

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

#394

Post by Barrin92 » Thu, Jul 09, 2020, 11:54 PM UTC

astine wrote: post #274

tshaddox wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to me that the level of "privateness" of the information is relevant. Obviously just saying the real name of a famous person who goes by a pseudonym is not considered doxxing. This article claims that his full name "can be ascertained with minimal investigation," and Scott's own blog deletion announcement seemed to agree. Where precisely to draw that line is an area where we can reasonably disagree.

I looked up his name a few weeks ago after the blog was brought down. It took be a couple of days to find it and even then I only found it because I've seen him in person. People here are discussing tracking down his old blog through archive.org, but I didn't think to do that. So, 'minimal investigation' is a relative term.

type "scott alexander slate star codex" into google and his real name, plus several pictures of him are on the first page of the image results.

Alternatively, given that he's made his profession as well as place of residence known, looking for psychiatrists named scott alexander in that region also returns an official result.

If it took you days to figure that out I'm sorry to say you don't have a future as a private eye.

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

#395

Post by mrkurt » Thu, Jul 09, 2020, 11:55 PM UTC

neonate wrote: post #383

mrkurt wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're right about the amount of scrutiny. I think he's pretty firmly a "public figure" now (more deliberately than most), his name is obfuscated at best, and I don't have a problem with the NYT publishing his last name. I would have a real problem with it if he published under a pseudonym and the NYT were truly doxing him. But I don't think they'd have bothered with his last name at all if he were writing as…

I don't know why you'd say that. I expect they would have handled "Bert Axelrose" exactly the same way. Great name though!

Haha. I just mean it wouldn't have been as immediately interesting. No one would know who "Scott Alexander _______" was. I could be wrong, but knowing the rest of a sequence is more interesting than the name behind a code name (which I'll forget, probably).

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

#396

Post by memexy » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 12:12 AM UTC

mst wrote: post #392

memexy wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then there are better ways to make those arguments. Recounting stories about being "young and stupid" is not one of those ways.

I am entirely fine with you believing that there are better ways to make those arguments - in fact, given any specific argument is almost certain to be imperfect, one would assume that there are. But I would note that "there are better ways to make those arguments" is quite a distance from your original position.

What was my original position? More precisely, what did you think was my original position?

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

#397

Post by memexy » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 12:18 AM UTC

CompanionCuuube wrote: post #391

memexy wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

andrewprock already found an example and I agree with his assessment. If you have snippets that you think are worthwhile then feel free to post them. Associating assassination with people, even as a question, is sinister. A polite and kind person would not make that association or even ask the question because it implants the idea in the reader's mind and they start thinking antagonistically towards certain groups th…

> andrewprock already found an example and I agree with his assessment. But do you have a dispute for the counterpoint from mst? If so, what is it?

Which counterpoint? Several such points have been made already. Do you have a specific one in mind?

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

#398

Post by memexy » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 12:20 AM UTC

Frampy wrote: post #390

memexy wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is always subtext. There is no need for mystical allusions. You are welcome to go back and re-read his writing with a more critical eye and decide for yourself what you notice.

Proof I was right - you don't like SA therefore his writing is bad and it has a secret evil message (never mind you couldn't even understand his point when you tried to write like him in another thread) and a 'critical' reading would validate your view, which is entirely unfalsifiable.

Which of my points is unfalsifiable? And where did I try to write like him?

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

#399

Post by Barrin92 » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 12:22 AM UTC

fmajid wrote: post #175

cwp wrote: post #26

This is fascinating. It's a New York take on the Bay Area take on New York. It's the Media take on the Tech take on Media. It's illuminating, and frustrating. I keep looking for some reflection, some attempt to learn something from another point of view. I'll have to read it again more closely.

Scott Alexander only recently moved to the Bay Area, and as a clinician, he is very unlikely to be associated with any tech companies, although many techies read his blog, of course. The NYT behavior here was despicable. Not quite Wen-Ho Lee yellow-baiting despicable, but despicable nonetheless. The New Yorker shares the same envious hatred of tech companies most of the New York media scene seems to evince, not surpr…

>The New Yorker shares the same envious hatred of tech companies most of the New York media scene seems to evince, not surprisingly as their livelihoods are evaporating.

You really got to love how thin-skinned all the tech bros here are if they even receive the tiniest amount of scrutiny. You legitimately sound like Donald Trump ranting about the "failing New York Times", mocking people's livelihood evaporating? What kind of comment is that?

And how is the New Yorker "infotainment"? How is the NYT? The quality of reporting at either institution is the same it's always been, in fact they're doing better than they've done in a long time. What's wrong with a liberal-arts education or being a lawyer?

They're defending the status quo? Who brought Theranos to public attention, or Epstein, or Weinstein or much of the behaviour of the current administration over the last few years? Not Scott Alexander or the tech sector, they're too busy running their ads or writing arcane blog posts about the dangers of feminism with comment sections full of racists.

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

#400

Post by malandrew » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 12:29 AM UTC

paulgb wrote: post #199

eqvinox wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I said I was lazy, didn't I? :) Feel free to ignore that item. … But actually… that sheet also says that $51 million of their revenue is from digital advertising, down from $55.5 million a year ago. It's 11.5% of their total revenue, down from 12.7%. Not a huge problem but… it's still a business consideration. And let's not forget zest and sensationalism can sell subscriptions and print media too. (Publishing the ful…

Ad revenue is down but subscriptions and total revenue are up -- so doesn't that go counter to the "did it for clicks" narrative? My (admittedly simple) model of the media industry is that clickbait drives ad revenue, quality journalism drives subscriptions.

> quality journalism drives subscriptions.

A more effective paywall drives subscriptions. Once you have a paywall, subscriptions are as much about clicks as ads.

I don't have a subscription myself, but I have considered paying for one because acquaintances with a low bar for quality occasionally want to share and discuss something behind the paywall and I can't rely on all of them to know how to print a pdf and share that with me.

As subscribers witness the quality decline, they'll cancel their subscriptions.

The NY Times today is not the NY Times of A.M. Rosenthal.