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Statement on New York Times Article

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Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#421

Post by twicetwice »

mawise wrote: post #419
Cladode wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rage clicks pay, shallow dismissals are easy to produce -- no time-consuming investigative journalism necessary. Most important perhaps is that new media like Substack are in direct competition with traditional newpapers like the NYT. Coase's great insight (in: The Nature of the Firm , 1937) was that firms exist in order to reap economies of scale. Traditional newspapers reaped economies of scale from printing, paper…

I don't know, the more I think about it the less sense it makes. I wonder if we can apply Hanlon's Razor[1] and say it was just a poorly researched article. If the author did some brief googling for things people have said about Scott and his blog, they'll find other people who have quoted him out of context. For the example of "feminists are voldemort", Scott did mention that he's been quoted out of context lots of…

Unfortunately, we know for sure that it was not just a poorly researched article. From Scott Aaronson[0]:

> I spent many hours with Cade, taking his calls and emails morning or night, at the playground with my kids or wherever else I was, answering his questions, giving context for his other interviews, suggesting people in the rationalist community for him to talk to…

and

> Was there some better, savvier way for me to help out? For each of the 14 points listed above, were I ever tempted to bang my head and say, “dammit, I wish I’d told Cade X, so his story could’ve reflected that perspective”—well, the truth of the matter is that I did tell him X! It’s just that I don’t get to decide which X’s make the final cut, or which ideological filter they’re passed through first.

[0]: https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=5310

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#422

Post by skissane »

foldr wrote: post #418
skissane wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For example, if I make one bad choice, am I then morally obliged to keep making the same bad choice? No you are not. But I think, if someone points out your inconsistency, a person (or group/organisation) really ought to have the honesty to be able to say "Yes, you are right, that's a fair criticism, I am being inconsistent, I will try to be more consistent in the future". And one way of being more consistent in th…

I don’t understand why you think that consistency in itself is a moral obligation. In any case, the consistency argument, even if successful, doesn't show that the NYT was wrong to reveal Scott Alexander's real name. It shows – at most – that it was either wrong to do this or wrong not to publish Virgil Texas's real name. That is why the only interesting question here is the one that you've finally addressed. >He ask…

> I don’t understand why you think that consistency in itself is a moral obligation

Cicero defined justice as giving each their due; not a definition original to him, Plato and Aristotle said more or less the same thing. Inconsistency is a form of injustice because you are giving to one different from what you give to another without a good reason. Justice doesn't demand that you treat everyone the same, only that for any difference in treatment there is a valid justification – I give my own children hugs, I don't give hugs to the children of strangers, but that is not injust, since there is a good reason to justify that difference in treatment. Justice is a key part of ethics, indeed classically it is one of the four cardinal virtues.

> His reason was basically that he might suffer some negative effects from the publicity. But almost anyone whose name is mentioned in the NYT might suffer some negative effects from the publicity

He had specific reasons due to his dual role as both blogger and psychiatrist, that do not apply to the average person. The profession of psychiatry has certain expectations about psychiatrists hiding their opinions from their patients which don't apply to most other professions. Those reasons don't apply to "almost everyone" because most people are not psychiatrists, and most other professions don't care anywhere near as much if clients find out your opinions on unrelated issues.

> It’s “all the news that’s fit to print”, not “all the news except when someone asked us not to publish it”.

But what is "fit to print"? Traditionally journalism justified itself as serving the public interest. What is the public interest in publishing Scott Alexander's real name? I don't see how there was one.

> The paper can't simply grant anonymity to anyone who asks for it

Yes they can: If someone asks for pseudonymity, they should grant it unless there is a strong public interest in refusing it; and if they refuse it, they should be explicit about why they believe denying it serves the public interest in that particular case.

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#424

Post by shadowprofile76 »

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:…

>This is actually a widespread problem in medicine. The worst offender is the FDA, which tends to list every problem anyone had while on a drug as a potential drug side effect, even if it obviously isn't. This got some press lately when Moderna had to disclose to the FDA that one of the coronavirus vaccine patients got struck by lightning; after a review, this was declared probably unrelated."

How I laughed out loud... Gold

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#425

Post by foldr »

skissane wrote: post #422
foldr wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t understand why you think that consistency in itself is a moral obligation. In any case, the consistency argument, even if successful, doesn't show that the NYT was wrong to reveal Scott Alexander's real name. It shows – at most – that it was either wrong to do this or wrong not to publish Virgil Texas's real name. That is why the only interesting question here is the one that you've finally addressed. >He ask…

> I don’t understand why you think that consistency in itself is a moral obligation Cicero defined justice as giving each their due; not a definition original to him, Plato and Aristotle said more or less the same thing. Inconsistency is a form of injustice because you are giving to one different from what you give to another without a good reason. Justice doesn't demand that you treat everyone the same, only that fo…

Psychiatrists shouldn't go on political rants with their patients, but the idea that psychiatrists must completely conceal their political leanings from their patients is an idea that Scott has just made up. The NYT isn't gullible enough to fall for that one.

> Justice doesn't demand that you treat everyone the same, only that *for any difference in treatment there is a valid justification*

There are plenty of cases where there's no injustice in treating people differently without a specific reason. Take gifts as an example. It's inconsistent if I give one friend a big gift and another friend a small gift, but it's not unjust, as I'm under no obligation to give any of them gifts at all – and consistency in itself isn't an ethical constraint on behavior. I'm certainly not required to have a specific reason for spending $15 on Bob's gift and $100 on Mary's gift.

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#426

Post by dandare »

adolph wrote: post #290
javajosh wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other alternative is to be independent. No tribe. Or you can be in a tribe, but as a critic and reformer. (Well, some tribes allow you to criticize them. Not the modern GOP.)

Do you think the NYT tribe allows criticism or non-orthodoxy to exist? They encourage certain “criticism” exist to be sure, but only so far as it reënforces their prestige, to be reflexively believed and turned to as authoritative.

A recent example:

> The New York Times Guild Once Again Demands Censorship of Colleagues

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24763382

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#427

Post by dandare »

Dma54rhs wrote: post #216
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…

It sure will happen in Europe because people here are not really ashamed to admit they are sick and tired of that American 'justice' bullying. The only hope for America is when slightly more intelligent character than Trump suppress their political gains to put end to this madness.

As a white person from a poor post communist country with no colonial history (99.999% white) I cringe when some local SJW parrots the "white privilege" agenda. It just makes no sense in large parts of the world other than US.

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#428

Post by skissane »

foldr wrote: post #425
skissane wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don’t understand why you think that consistency in itself is a moral obligation Cicero defined justice as giving each their due; not a definition original to him, Plato and Aristotle said more or less the same thing. Inconsistency is a form of injustice because you are giving to one different from what you give to another without a good reason. Justice doesn't demand that you treat everyone the same, only that fo…

Psychiatrists shouldn't go on political rants with their patients, but the idea that psychiatrists must completely conceal their political leanings from their patients is an idea that Scott has just made up. The NYT isn't gullible enough to fall for that one. > Justice doesn't demand that you treat everyone the same, only that *for any difference in treatment there is a valid justification* There are plenty of cases…

> is an idea that Scott has just made up.

How can you be so sure? Maybe he's telling the truth, and the idea that he made it up was made up by you.

> The NYT isn't gullible enough to fall for that one.

As I said, they ought to default to granting requests for pseudonymity unless there is strong public interest not to, which there wasn't any in this case.

> There are plenty of cases where there's no injustice in treating people differently without a specific reason

The difference with your example of gifts, is that neither Bob nor Mary have any right to expect any particular gift. By contrast, if someone asks that we respect their privacy, we ought to respect it unless we have good reason not to. It is one thing to be inconsistent in gifts to friends, when we don't owe them anything in particular. It is another thing to be inconsistent in fulfilling one's obligations to others.

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#429

Post by foldr »

skissane wrote: post #428
foldr wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Psychiatrists shouldn't go on political rants with their patients, but the idea that psychiatrists must completely conceal their political leanings from their patients is an idea that Scott has just made up. The NYT isn't gullible enough to fall for that one. > Justice doesn't demand that you treat everyone the same, only that *for any difference in treatment there is a valid justification* There are plenty of cases…

> is an idea that Scott has just made up. How can you be so sure? Maybe he's telling the truth, and the idea that he made it up was made up by you. > The NYT isn't gullible enough to fall for that one. As I said, they ought to default to granting requests for pseudonymity unless there is strong public interest not to, which there wasn't any in this case. > There are plenty of cases where there's no injustice in treat…

>How can you be so sure? Maybe he's telling the truth, and the idea that he made it up was made up by you.

Sure, maybe I'm wrong. I'm open to evidence of this. As far as I can determine, psychiatrists are not required to keep their political views a secret.

>By contrast, if someone asks that we respect their privacy, we ought to respect it unless we have good reason not to.

But what are the implications of that for consistency? Consider that you're free to grant someone's request for privacy even if there isn't an overriding reason to do so or not to do so (just as you're free to give someone a gift without a reason). So just because the NYT honored one such request in the past doesn't entail that they're bound to honor all such requests in future. Again, the only interesting question is whether their reasons were good in each case.

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#430

Post by yanderekko »

webmaven wrote: post #412
yanderekko wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same sort of decomposition can be done towards black culture as well though. It also strikes me as untenable that one can simultaneously support the notion of "white privilege" while attacking the notion of "white culture" - many things that are commonly-cited as reflective of white privilege are cultural in nature.

> The same sort of decomposition can be done towards black culture as well though. You can, and it has been done, but that's a bit more like noting regional differences within a subculture than it is, for example, like examining the differences between Americans who identify as Latino/Tejano/Hispanic. There are fewer differences between East Coast vs. West Coast Rap and Hip-hop than there are between "Country" and "W…

>The privilege, in many respects, often simply comes from the assumption that members of your group are in some sense considered the default type of human, and that other humans are the exceptions (even if they actually outnumber the 'default') that the world may or may not choose to accommodate in various ways.

Sure, but obviously the modally-raised examples of privilege are not stuff like "'flesh-colored' crayons correspond to white skin tones." It pertains to perceived social norms and such that benefit white people as a class at the expense of non-white people. But if you posit that those social norms may constitute a shared cultural experience, then you've crossed a line? I don't buy it.

If you go on Twitter and find someone talking about hating white people for whatever reasons (shouldn't be too hard), I'm sure that many of the critiques will be cultural in nature (eg. look at all the culturally-laden digs towards "white-girl feminism".) But again, this shouldn't be taken to imply the existence of white culture? Why not?

I'm not particularly hung up on trying to prove that white culture exists in particular, but I just don't think the arguments for why black culture exists but not white culture are very good, and I think they are clearly subverted by how woke narratives collectively treat white people in pretty much any sort of critical context.

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