Slate Star Codex has been deleted
Scott Alexander has deleted Slate Star Codex:
So, I kind of deleted the blog. Sorry. Here’s my explanation.
Last week I talked to a New York Times technology reporter who was planning to write a story on Slate Star Codex. He told me it would be a mostly positive piece about how we were an interesting gathering place for people in tech, and how we were ahead of the curve on some aspects of the coronavirus situation. It probably would have been a very nice article.
Unfortunately, he told me he had discovered my real name and would reveal it in the article, ie doxx me. “Scott Alexander” is my real first and middle name, but I’ve tried to keep my last name secret. I haven’t always done great at this, but I’ve done better than “have it get printed in the New York Times“.
Read the whole thing, of course. He explains why, as a psychiatrist, he doesn’t want his pseudonymity forcibly removed and explains why deleting his blog was the best of a lot of apparently bad options.
He finishes with explaining why there is not a comments section for the post:
There is no comments section for this post. The appropriate comments section is the feedback page of the New York Times. You may also want to email the New York Times technology editor Pui-Wing Tam at pui-wing.tam@nytimes.com, contact her on Twitter at @puiwingtam, or phone the New York Times at 844-NYTNEWS.
(please be polite – I don’t know if Ms. Tam was personally involved in this decision, and whoever is stuck answering feedback forms definitely wasn’t. Remember that you are representing me and the SSC community, and I will be very sad if you are a jerk to anybody. Please just explain the situation and ask them to stop doxxing random bloggers for clicks. If you are some sort of important tech person who the New York Times technology section might want to maintain good relations with, mention that.)
If you are a journalist who is willing to respect my desire for pseudonymity, I’m interested in talking to you about this situation (though I prefer communicating through text, not phone). My email is scott@slatestarcodex.com.
(Featured image is “Commedia? Carnivale? Plague?” by CrazyUncleJoe-MoPho and is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
So the NYT has figured out it can dox bloggers it doesn’t like in the hopes of silencing them?Report
I wonder, though, what motivation does the NYT have for silencing SSC?
He is, honestly, pretty lukewarm. He posts plenty of bad takes. He’s kind of spineless. His extended online community is full of fascists (which ironically his irl community is a batch of the weirdest queerbies in North America). But even given all that, there isn’t much value in silencing him.
I say this as a person who very much dislikes him and the online community he created. Still, shutting down SSC — nothing is gained by this for anyone.
What would motivate the NYC editorial staff to do this?Report
Doesn’t have to be a motivation for this specifically. Sometimes the leviathan just crushes things because it is the leviathan.
The more pertinent question is, why does the NYT have a policy of doxxing bloggers for a story who specifically request not to be doxxed, when they aggressively protect other sources who request anonymity.
Such a policy strikes me as a tool specifically to target anonymous bloggers they don’t like, that might occasionally impact bloggers they are ambivalent to.Report
The cruelty is the point.Report
From the milquetoast editors of the NYT?Report
Structural racism does not require that anyone in the structure be racist. Likewise, structural cruelty need not require anyone in the structure to be cruel, merely unwilling to challenge the system.Report
I agree about structure. However, when we bash Trumpaloos by saying, “The cruelty is the point,” we mean that they outright enjoy causing suffering. They favor putting immigrants into cages, because they think immigrant deserve it. They want cops to blind protestors.
Yes, it is structural, but when we say the, “cruelty is the point,” we’re naming the aspects that go beyond structure. We’re naming the deliberate part.
Do the NYT editors want Scott to suffer? I find that unlikely.Report
Did he tell them what tying his professional name to his pseudonym would do?
Did this change their behavior?Report
I got the impression that he told the writer, who informed him of editorial policy. Who knows what happened behind the scenes among the editors.Report
As several news stories have pointed out, the NYT has repeatedly run stories, including one pretty recently about a blog, in which they gave the blogger’s pseudonym but not his real name.
Two of the people interviewed for the story report that they were told that it would not be necessary to giver their real names.
So the explanation that Cade Metz gave Scott appears to have been a lie.
I think the most likely explanation is not that they wanted to get Scott but that they wanted to make the story more interesting in order to get more clicks, and didn’t much care if that happened to hurt the person the story was about.Report
Yes he told the journalist. Read his explanation, linked above.
So far it has not changed their behavior.Report
Most structural racism has no desire to see anyone oppressed. Hell, I bet in a lot of cases everyone involved in such racism wants the opposite.
But people really like to see every policy as a Chesterson’s Gate kinda problem, so change is hard.
So I return to, why the policy in the first place?Report
I agree. I’m drawing a line between “systemic {whatever}” and “the cruelty is the point.”
When Trumpaloos encounter structural racism, they double down and say, “Yep! More of that!” That’s the cruelty. To them, police violence is good because it targets the subhuman.
Cruelty — it’s the point.
Is this the case for the NYT. If the editors discover that doxxing Scott will hurt them, will they say, “Fuck yeah. Let’s get that guy.”
Maybe, but I’m not convinced.Report
Scott Alexander deeply needs an editor. He meanders too much in his posts. I mind myself loosing patience long before I get to the end of the post even if I find it interesting. He has too much tolerance for some really dangerous people on his blog. The comments section was the equivalent of the Weimar Reichstag, with everybody from squishy liberal pacifists to outright Nazis debating.Report
The way I see it, his primary flaw is a kind of spinelessness. He wants everyone to get along. However, he sucks at subtext. Moreover, while he intellectually understands how fash can manipulate people, he doesn’t want to confront them directly. So he lets them stick around and they fester.
The big thing is male nerd resentment. That is a big part of how Scott built his brand. Thus, that is a big part of his audience. That is also prime feeding ground for online fash recruitment.Report
I think Scott is really big on the free market of ideas and letting anybody make their point when other blogs would have bashed down on somebody like Uncle Steve or similar people. In some ways it reminds me of usenet, where you had a bigger ideological spectrum in the group than you do on blogs. Most usenet groups would keep it Uncle Steve types though.Report
Someone I think Scott respects once said, that if you try to run a community that allows witches, you’ll end up with a community with three libertarians and a ton of witches.
Sadly I can’t quote directly, because the person who said that just deleted his blog.
Anyway, if you let the HBD crowd in — well they don’t argue in good faith. They gish gallop constantly, bad studies from bad journals, mixed with a smattering of good studies they have misrepresented, on and on. It’s tiresome. Trying to “logically argue” with them is a waste of time, because they’ll just drown you with verbiage, and they won’t change. The next day they’ll be back with the same wall-of-text.
The correct response to such people is shunning, but Scott won’t do that.
Anyway, given that, and given Scott’s nerd resentment, it was kind of inevitable which way his forum would fall.Report
“sure it’s bad what happened baby, but y’know, we told you all along that you were runnin’ with the wrong crowd, and it finally bit ya. cry about it all you like, it’s not gonna change what happened, and you could have stopped it any time you liked, but ya didn’t.”Report
I also often have conversations with myself. However, I don’t post them online pretending to be talking to someone.Report
I like this symbol for me more than the other symbol. Is there a way that the administrators can make this my symbol. I think it reflects my personality better.Report
I think you would need to snip the screenshot and upload it to Gravatar.Report
The avatar is automatically generated based on a hash of your e-mail address. In layman’s terms, it converts your e-mail address to a number, and then uses that number to choose which parts to put together to make a face. Kind of like Mr Potato head. Just keep using the same e-mail address, and you get the same avatar. Admins have no control over it.
For example, I’m changing one letter in my e-mail address for this comment, so I’ll get a completely different avatar.
Or, like Aaron said, you can save the image and set it at the Gravatar site.Report
And another.Report
I’m as puzzled as you. He already stopped calling out the Social Justice (sic, and sic) movement’s intellectual dishonesty and general awfulness years ago in response to the sustained campaign of harassment alluded to in the linked post.
He did recently speak out against the smear campaign against Steve Hsu, so there’s that, but from what I understand, the guy who was writing the article is generally pretty cool and doesn’t really do kulturkampf.
I’d be inclined to believe the explanation about having a strict real-name policy, if they actually had a record of consistently applying it, but apparently they don’t, so I’m not sure what’s going on.
The author doesn’t even tweet very much, which makes me more inclined to believe that he’s a more or less decent person.Report
I’ve only rarely engaged the comments section at SSC, and haven’t really followed Alexander elsewhere, although I’ve been dipping my toe in at Less Wrong and he shows up there.
All that is to say, I don’t know really whereof I speak in addressing your comment. And if you’re referring primarily to his online community (and you said you were) or perhaps to his management of the comments section at SSCA, I don’t have much to say.
However…..I really appreciate his general approach to what he writes about. I’m very receptive to people who don’t take sharp argumentative approaches to a lot of the types of issues he addresses. I’ve tried recently to read an e-book by Eliezar Yudkowski (sp.?…apologies to him), and I was so turned off by his in-you-face style of showing people how wrong they were, even though I suspect (from his own account) that Alexander might share similar views as his. But Alexander seems less willing to call people stupid (or irrational, or “non-Bayesian.”).
If this all results in SSC disappearing forever, it’s a loss for me and I regret it.
ETA: deleted stray sentence.
Also ETA: What you say below about sexual exploitation in the rationalist community does seem like a red flag for me. Not concerning Alexander or SSC, but Less Wrong, which I’ve started to read more and more of. I’m not sure I understand what “rationalist” means (to them), and I’m very wary, for a lot of reasons. But I have found their recent (last 3 or 4 months….I probably started when Covid started, but I’ve read earlier posts, too) posts interesting.Report
I can introduce a contrast: Scott Aaronson. He is in the same broad subculture as Scott Alexander. Like Alexander, he has had run ins with feminist cancel culture. He often stans for the same folks that Alexander does. So what is the difference?
Aaronson clearly opposes any hints of racism, fascism, HBD, and so on. When you browse Aaronson’s comments, you seldom encounter that stuff.
Alexander wrote a tedious post arguing that Trump wasn’t racist. It was idiotic. He wrote a lot of waffly garbage like that. His comments, and worse his Reddit, was a fash breeding ground.
He spun off the worst parts of his Reddit channel, but continued to recommend it.
He’s clearly not fash, but he continuously enables them. He gave them access to a fertile environment.Report
I tried reading Aaronson’s blog for a while, but it just wasn’t for me. Mostly that’s because what he wrote about was/is usually way over my head. I haven’t had enough experience in his comments section or in Alexander’s comments section to compare them, though.
I do remember the post that Alexander wrote saying Trump wasn’t a racist. He was wrong. It wasn’t clear to me, at the time, that he was wrong, though.Report
He didn’t say Trump wasn’t a racist. He said Trump was grandpa-racist, not David-Duke-racist. Accounting for the histrionic predictions that were being made at the time, It has actually aged pretty well.Report
As I recall (if I’m thinking of the right post), he was saying that Trump was more or less a regular politician and that a good number of his opponents were crying wolf. I believed that at the time. I don’t believe it anymore.
(To be clear, the question of whether people are crying wolf doesn’t speak directly to whether he’s racist or what kind of racist he is.)
ETA: And to be clear, Alexander actually had evidence. He may have been ignoring or underplaying countervailing evidence, but he did have evidence for his view.Report
Here’s an archived version of the post:
http://archive.is/JtmBz
I think this has held up very well.Report
Thanks for the link. It’s the post I remember. I didn’t re-read it, so I (still) am going from memory, but I don’t think it’s held up well. I mean, as a way to chastise those of us (myself sometimes included) for crying wolf, it works well.
I personally think Alexander has been proved wrong. I believe it’s true that Trump isn’t a SYSTEMATIC racist, or other “-ist.” But he has, in my view, proving all too willing to indulge and promote the racism of others, without even the window-dressing of speaking to supposedly widely shared ideals. Of course, my wolf-crying qualities would have led me to claim such window dressing was evidence of an underlying bigotry. So again, Alexander has a point.Report
I’ve noticed that Scott has been way too sympathetic to ideas I think are dangerous like anarchs-capitalism over time than I would like,. There are many questionable people that I remember from usenet, I was in my late teens and early twenties when usenet was dying, on Scott’s blog. These are people that were at best meh and at worst what I’d call actively evil in their beliefs on Slate Star Codex.
Trump not racist? That seems like the people who are arguing that Trump doesn’t mind LGBT people that much compared to other Republicans. It might be technically true but he keeps opposing some deeply committed homophobes and transphobes to positions of power, so the practical difference is null and void.Report
“Scott has been way too sympathetic to ideas I think are dangerous…than I would like.”
wrongthink doublebad. thoughtcrime doubleplusbad.Report
Let me add, Scott was consistently pro trans. In fact, he wrote one of the most thoughtful pro trans blog posts I’ve seen come from a cis person. However, his comment section was a rough place for a trans person. Whenver the issue came up, the same batch of transphobes would show up with the same dumb arguments. Nothing progressed. Conclusions were never reached. He allowed his commenters to continuously re-litigate the same bad arguments ad nauseam.
And gosh, that community always had a gaggle of energetic transphobes.Report
I didn’t know that.
(And thanks, by the way, for engaging my comments here.)Report
“full of fascists”
Could you define your terms? As someone who posted to SSC I’m curious whether I classify.
So far as self-identified position is concerned, we have had at least one communist and one admirer of Stalin, several Marxists, several Trump supporters, several anarcho-capitalists and a larger number of less extreme libertarians, but I don’t remember anyone ever identifying as a fascist.Report
You don’t have to self-identify as fash to be be fash. In fact, if you’re fash and you want to spread the word, it’s very useful to “hide your power level.” That’s fash playbook 101.
There certainly are plenty of NRx types eagerly recruiting on TheMotte. Moreover, scum like Steve Sailor is found often enough in the main comments section. There are others.
However, it was probably a mistake for me to merely say “fash.” After all, we have at least one open white nationalist on this forum (sadly). That alone doesn’t damn a forum (although, really, the correct amount of fash for any social space is zero).
Let me shift gears. How many regular comments on SSC, r/slatestarcodex, and r/TheMotte believe in HBD/”race realism”/IQ fetishism?
Hey, that’s a bigger number, right!
Why?
I think because Scott finds those to be a super interesting topics to debate ad nauseam.
And yes, I know he backs away from the topic under social pressure. I also know he considers himself a victim because he has to. All the same, if you want to spread the word about “human biodiversity,” you have an ally in Scott.
When he wrote his “Kolmogorov Complicity” thing, he specifically referenced science under the soviets. He drew an analogy to science here. But which science? Which particular topics?
He didn’t say, but we know what he was talking about. Everyone reading that knew. Don’t play dumb.
Biodeterminism, IQ fetishism, race realism, and sexual dimorphism of mental capacity.
Don’t even get me started on fucking autogynophelia.Report
I, too, have noticed that everybody who has criticized his Kolmogorov Complicity essay has known exactly what the science-he-can’t-talk-about is.
I imagine that if you had a science grad student who had never encountered “rationalism” before and had her read the essay, she’d immediately know what particular topics the essay was talking about too.
Without having to read a single other essay of his or the comments.Report
It’s funny, because as much as the rationalists are the “smartypants” types, who I would expect understand Lisp, you would think they could understand second order effects. Once they admit openly that they are going to dogwhistle about race science, then they lose their plausible deniability every time they dogwhistle about race science.
Them: “I didn’t literally say black people were inferior.”
Me: “True, but you’re part of a community whose leader has publicly endorsed hiding these things. Plus you keep stanning for Charles Murray. It’s kind of obvious.”
Oh, and this guy is a fascist:
https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/hdlwx8/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_june_22_2020/fvpsve7/
How can I tell? Easy. “America … was painstakingly built by the blood, sweat, and tears of it’s original stock…”
Some things are obvious.
What follows is a tedious pseudo-intellectual debate among smartypants nerds. What should follow is, “Shut up you fucking fascist swine.”
I do believe we should confront the ideas of fascism, and debate surely plays a role. But this isn’t that. This is masturbatory nerdwank. It ain’t good.Report
The only thing that one really has to worry about if the people who are saying “Shut up, you fascist swine!” start being joined by people who are saying things that would have been mocked as being fascist fewer than 3 cycles ago.
Or, I suppose, if the cycles get short enough that you can easily find examples of today’s fashy position being a fashionable one post-twitter (but pre-today).
(The “premature anti-whatever” position might be able to take off… now that people don’t read anymore… but it’s likely to turn into arguments over whether someone who opposed police unions in 2018 really deserves clout in 2020 for opposing them. “It’s not about clout. It’s about ending police unions.” “That’s what someone who only cares about clout would say! Ooooh, wait. There’s a flash mob pulling down the Emancipation statue! Gotta run!”)Report
Yeah, I agree there is an inevitable slippery slope, but that goes both ways. I don’t have a good answer. Nor can I give a perfect place to draw the line. That said, race science should certainly be way outside of the Overton window.
And indeed, the reason for this is moral. It’s also social. There are not-good reasons that the Stalinists purged certain viewpoints —
About which, sometimes the Stalinist motivations were absurd. They suppressed the knowledge of linear programming, for {reasons}. Honestly I can’t even begin to understand why. You would think the cult of central planning would jump at tools like linear programming. They did the opposite.
However, linear programing and race science are different, because … *deep breath* *another deep breath* … I mean jimminy fucknuggets look at how fucking racist our society has been. Look at the inertia of racism. Look at how the founders of the Pioneer Fund thought Hitler was peachy keen.
I mean, just look!
“Oh, but we must be empirical” (about bad studies published by racist liars).
Grrrrrr!
The social reasons we should summarily reject this stuff is because of racism and the clear desire for so many people to justify racism.
Sure, investigate this stuff empirically — but it only needs to be done once, by experts. We don’t need to keep doing it. Nor should we have a gaggle of half educated nerds debating this topic endlessly. It’s nerdwank. It’s a cesspool.
It will attract very terrible people to your forum.Report
Eh, it seems like crucifying wrongthinkers and people who hint at being able to conceive of wrongthought independently gets used as a way to distract from the fact that, no, we’re not going to change the zoning laws.
It does appear, on the surface, to be “doing something” though.Report
I’m pretty sure I’ve never suggested crucifying anyone, only banning “race realists” from any forums you run.
I remind everyone, I don’t approve of the NYT publishing Scott’s name. I certainly don’t want people harassing him at work, or any similar thing. That isn’t the point. All I’ve said is he created a fertile ground for spreading hateful reactionary views. He could have, and should have, chosen otherwise.Report
Then let me rephrase.
Eh, it seems like cancelling wrongthinkers and people who hint at being able to conceive of wrongthought independently gets used as a way to distract from the fact that, no, we’re not going to change the zoning laws.
It does appear, on the surface, to be “doing something” though.Report
That sounds like whataboutism to me.
I’m not sure if it’s really an argument for our against. After all, you can debate zoning laws in a forum free of white nationalists with ample fervor. Plus, your conversations will get sidetracked less.Report
It’s more asking “what’s the goal?”
If the goal is to address racism, I can’t help but notice that we’re making people anathema instead of changing things.
Maybe the goal is only to change who holds the whip.
I guess that’ll be obvious enough, in a short enough amount of time to notice.Report
The goal is to have a better forum. Race realists attract more race realists. Moreover, the more otherwise high quality forums that do this, the less space for racists to recruit.
That’s it. It isn’t complex.Report
What this conversation is dancing around is whether it is acceptable to have taboo subjects.
Subjects which simply are prohibited to be discussed, at the risk of social banishment.
Most people have boundaries where they are willing to agree with taboos, for instance those who question age of consent laws.
The question on the table is whether questioning racial equality is one of those taboo subjects or not.Report
I think things have gone well beyond that. Anyone who asserts that people should be treated like people without regard to race is probably going to be labeled a fascist now.
Suppose someone popped into this forum and said
“Black supremacy is as dangerous as white supremacy, and God is not interested merely in the freedom of black men and brown men and yellow men.” Clearly, this is an attack on BLM activists and is a racist dog whistle to white male chauvinists.
Yet one of the defining features of a moral panic is everybody one day looks back on them on wonders “Why were people so angry and stupid?”Report
Well, we now live in a world without SSC.
Some people think it’s better. Good people, I’m told.
Some people think it’s worse.Report
“The goal is to have a better forum. Race realists attract more race realists.”
And censors attract the censorious. Which is preferable is, of course, your opinion.Report
The moralization of empirical questions is epistemic cancer. All of the hypotheses you listed above are entirely compatible with liberalism, so yes, it was very much a mistake to abbreviate this to “fascists.”
Incidentally, I have never seen a “debunking” of a genetic contribution to racial gaps in cognitive ability that actually holds water. Although I think the balance of the evidence points towards a genetic factor, I remain open-minded and think that this question is unlikely to be conclusively settled until we actually have a good model for predicting IQ from genes. This is an empirical question, and people keep trying to make a priori arguments, which are invariably dumb because it’s not a question that can be settled that way.
You accuse HBD proponents of arguing in bad faith, but seriously, have you seen the garbage your fellow travelers try to pass off as serious arguments? Not to mention the moralization, which is a nuclear-grade bad-faith move.
All that aside, I didn’t even get the impression that that’s what the Kolmogorov Complicity post was about. The narrative machine has pushed so much more than that out of the window, and IIRC Scott never really wrote much about that sort of thing even before he got bullied into bowing out of the culture war. He called out bad SJ arguments and behavior, but I don’t recall him writing much about the biological aspects.Report
Here’s the thing. None of us are genetic biologists. So we have to depend on expert consensus.
The consensus is against race realism, very much so. That said, the race realists have created an alternative publishing framework. They publish and cite each other, under the auspices of various pro-eugenics organizations. These organizations often date back to the 30s, such as the Pioneer Fund. They try to appear like empirical science, but they are not.
And so the debate goes on and on. And yes, people like you will play the “both sides” card. Fine. I get it.
It’s rubbish.
What motivates people to create these alternative publishing frameworks? A commitment to truth? Why do you believe that? They have a long history of extreme racism.
This is not Galileo saying “but it moves.” It’s people deeply committed to the idea that black people are stupid, who will do everything in their power to sell that conclusion.
And yes, it’s a moral issue, because their racist motives are primarily immoral.
#####
And here is the big thing. There is a high degree of probability that someone will respond to this comment with a gish gallop of shit studies, which if I wanted to I could dig through and try to debunk, but no, I’m not going to do that. It’s been done many times by people more qualified than I am. It’s been done again and again and again and again and again.
Just stop. Ban the “race realists.” They offer nothing but tedious bullshit that carefully masks their belief that black people are stupid.
And like, at this point the proper response is, “Shut up you racist swine.” Really, we don’t have to engage with racists who pretend to be empirical.Report
This is from an essay I need to finish reading someday, but to me it sums up perfectly why trying to link genetics and intellectual ability is so fraught (hint: too many variables).
And from what I read, that is but one variable that impacts intellectual development and ability. Other variables include diet, sleep, stress, culture, exercise, etc.
You just can’t control for them all in any meaningful way.Report
And as far as genetics, there isn’t any reason to think the the process of natural selection would select for that one variable of intelligence.
What we call IQ is mostly abstract problem solving ability. In the Industrial age this is an important variable for a lot of the tasks we perform, but historically it was not any more important than physical dexterity or sociability.
That is, the final outcome- whether you lived to pass on your genes- was only slightly affected by your IQ.Report
The problem with “genetic component of cognitive ability” is that there isn’t much evidence of it in the wild. That is, it doesn’t seem to correlate to real world outcomes over time and geography.
It doesn’t explain the past or predict the future, both of which are critical components of any valid scientific theory.Report
One distinction that I see fail to get made a lot is the difference between “heritable” and “genetic”.
There are many things that are both genetic and heritable, of course.
There are a handful of things that are heritable but not genetic, though.Report
I note that you didn’t actually answer my question about what you mean by “fascist.” From the rest of your response, I conjecture that what you mean by it is someone who holds views on some politically relevant issues that you think he shouldn’t hold, or at least shouldn’t express. Combining that with your comment on the correct amount of fash for any social space, I conclude that you don’t want to talk with people who disagree with you and would prefer that other people not have an opportunity to talk with them either. The second half of that strikes me as closer to a fascist attitude than any of the things you mentioned.
I don’t read r/theMotte or r/slatestarcodex, so can’t comment on them, but I have been a regular reader of SSC for years. I expect most people who post on SSC, like most other people, believe there are biological differences among humans, since it’s obviously true — I don’t know what beyond that you require for HBD. I expect most of them believe that IQ measures something and that it is of some importance — is that what you mean by “IQ fetishism”? If “race realism” means the belief that the only important reason for differences in outcomes by race is differences in heritable characteristics, I expect that few people commenting on SSC believe that, since it’s pretty clearly inconsistent with the evidence, but if you mean the belief that there are significant differences in the distribution of heritable characteristics by racial group as commonly defined, I expect most people on SSC, like most other people, believe it, and perhaps more people on SSC than elsewhere are willing to say so.Report
her opinion is that there’s absolutely no difference of any kind between any person in any way at all whatsoever, and anyone who says differently is an evil person who’s addicted to hate and wants an excuse for hating.Report
I find it especially interesting that the Journalist (and presumably the NYT itself) are citing it as policy. What exactly is the Policy, and why would one even have that as a policy… especially a policy that doesn’t employ prudence?
What is “policy” in this case, and how in the world do we have institutions incapable of managing their “policies?”
It’s Policy is a strange talisman.Report
Additional perspective:
Report
Reminds me of “it’s beyond my control…”
https://youtu.be/QlWsLStRAiw?t=38Report
I’ve observed the pattern in lots of other contexts. Someone wants to do something, doesn’t want to have to defend it, so he claims that the law or, in this case, his employer’s policy, made him do it.Report
It’s David Friedman! Can we keep him?Report
So the basic lesson- if you are a government operative, politician, or appointee with serious and obvious self-interest in the matter on which you are commenting your anonymity is safe with the NYT. If, on the other hand, you are the hoi polloi rif raf of the land, daring to aim for intellectual honesty? Insert evil laughter here.Report
This was exactly my take. Anonymous White House sources must be quaking in their boots this morning. /s
(Written as someone who’s never read a word of that blog.)Report
There can be no dissent.
“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”
― George Orwell, 1984Report
In fairness even Alexander concedes he has no right to anonymity, and he doesn’t. What it does is add to the heap of questions about what we’re supposed to make of this paper of record of ours, and how it uses its power.Report
He does note that he has no inherant right to anonymity, but that wasn’t my point.
(also, if you are the tech editor of a major paper, you know that half the internet goes about anonymously. And you deal with that on its own terms. This simply smacks of BS power plays.)Report
Actually, Scott reminds me of Orwell. Like Orwell he is someone who identified with the left, sees many things wrong with it, and is willing to say so.Report
Yes, and it was often enlightening.Report
One of Scott’s problems is his real name is fairly well known. I’ve heard it before, although I didn’t write it down. I work on the same team with people who know him irl. The point is, it isn’t a huge mystery. Sooner or later this was going to happen.
Still, I see no point in doxxing him other than malice. Moreover, I’m not certain deleting his blog will help much, unless it motivates the NYT to change their minds. If they print the article, then anyone googling his name will still find a ton of unpleasant information about him.Report
“If they print the article, then anyone googling his name will still find a ton of unpleasant information about him.”
It’s not about what Internet People Are Saying About Him.
If you want to know what it’s about, ask your therapist if they have a blog and whether they’d want you reading it if they did.Report
Here is the way I see it: a patient googles his name. They find the NYT article. They google “Scott Alexander”. They don’t find SSC. Instead, they find things others have written about Scott Alexander. Those things will include fierce criticism, along with out-of-context excerpts.
If, instead, his blog was present, they may spend their time digging into the blog, instead of what people say about the blog. I suspect this would be better for Scott.
I’d rather be attacked for what I say rather than what others say that I say.Report
If you want to know what it’s about, ask your therapist if they have a blog and whether they’d want you reading it if they did.
If you want to know what it’s about, ask your therapist if they have a blog and whether they’d want you reading it if they did.
If you want to know what it’s about, ask your therapist if they have a blog and whether they’d want you reading it if they did.
If you want to know what it’s about, ask your therapist if they have a blog and whether they’d want you reading it if they did.
If you want to know what it’s about, ask your therapist if they have a blog and whether they’d want you reading it if they did.
If you want to know what it’s about, ask your therapist if they have a blog and whether they’d want you reading it if they did.If you want to know what it’s about, ask your therapist if they have a blog and whether they’d want you reading it if they did.If you want to know what it’s about, ask your therapist if they have a blog and whether they’d want you reading it if they did.If you want to know what it’s about, ask your therapist if they have a blog and whether they’d want you reading it if they did.If you want to know what it’s about, ask your therapist if they have a blog and whether they’d want you reading it if they did.
It’s not about Internet People Saying Mean Things. Internet people say mean things about therapists, by name, all the time, on Yelp and Google Reviews and Facebook and the internet in general. It’s about forming a personal relationship with your therapist outside of the session, which is a bad idea, and how Scott Alexander considered “reading my weblog” to be forming such a relationship, which is why he didn’t want a high-profile news source to publish his full name and directly link it to his weblog.
“I’d rather be attacked for what I say rather than what others say that I say.”
it’s fucking jawdropping that you say this while at the same time ignoring what he wrote in the sole post remaining on his weblog about why he deleted it.Report
Are you okay, dude?
Don’t forget to breathe.Report
I mean, this is you:
“I’d rather be attacked for what I say rather than what others say that I say.”
and this is also you:
“The correct response to such people is shunning, but Scott won’t do that. Anyway, given that, and given Scott’s nerd resentment, it was kind of inevitable which way his forum would fall.”
And I kind of think you mean the second thing more strongly than you mean the first thing.Report
The difference here is Scott runs the forum. I’m not blaming him for what some rando said on another blog. I’m blaming him for the comment section on his own blog, where he moderates.Report
It seems that the fundamental thing Scott wants to address is “what happens when a patient types my name into Google, in a naive way?”
I can’t say this makes me more likely to read the NYTimes. Rather than asking whether he has a right to anonymity, we could ask what purpose is served by doxxing him? What value is added for the readers?Report
A million years ago, I expressed concern that Joe the Plumber got doxxed for asking Obama a question on the campaign trail. I learned how much debt he had and how much money he made.
Ken Bone? I know that he has a vasectomy.
Soon I will know Scott Alexander’s last name.
Never attract the attention of the gods.Report
It’s not like he closely guarded the secret.
He used to blog under his full name, then when he decided to go pseudonymous he changed is blogging account name rather than create a fresh account.
So you can read his older articles on the site where they currently appear under the name “Scott Alexander”, and read the same article on archive.org as it originally appeared, where it’s under the name “Scott Alexander Lastname”.Report
Indeed. Some people make themselves easy targets.Report
A blast from the past.Report
Holy cow! I used to be an avid reader, and I’m not sure why I stopped. Thanks for the reminder.Report
Another blast from the past.Report
I can’t think of any reason why the NYT or really any other mainstream media source wants to cover Slate Star Codex. It isn’t even really internet famous as a blog. The only thing more weird might be Good Morning America wanting to do a piece on Slate Star Codex.Report
This story is weird in a few ways. It is very questionable ethics of the NYT to dox someone for a piece like this. Not sure what they are thinking or what their editors are doing. There is no purpose in it. They have a lot of editors trying to explain what they hell they are doing and this should lead to another, probably poor, explanation.
SA has been doxxed as a i recall and as he says he already uses his first two names and his last name is out there. He is dancing around wanting to stay hidden but not really doing it. If you are really concerned about a pseudonym why use your first two names. I’ve never understood that about him. If you really want to not be known, then do that.
I completely understand a doc or mental health pro not wanting a lot of their personal views out there. There are ways to do that of course. One is to not share them. If you want to share them then maybe a giant comment section is not a good thing to have. If you want a comment section then maybe it should be very tightly moderated.Report
” It is very questionable ethics of the NYT to dox someone for a piece like this.” Really? It’s just another step in the path away from “impartially” and providing the full story and towards full on support of the Left and their politics. I’d expect nothing less..Report
Ummm huh? The NYT is fully supporting the left is ludicrous based on the history of who and what they have published for years. Nobody is truly impartial. How doxing SA relates to being impartial is another big, huh?Report
See also: Lincoln was a Republican and the Dixiecrats were all Democrats.Report
Comment rated almost 15% coherent.Report
I’ll let you go back to appealing to the history of the institution to defend against recent misadventures then.Report
Umm yeah. I guess this is over 50% conherant. It is ludicrous to see the NYT as a vehicle for The Left. Tom “no quarter” Cotton doesn’t really get printed in The Nation. I guess cheerleading the rush to Iraq I is to far back to count as not being Left. It’s good to know Bari “IDW” Weiss works at a bastion of the left. Good work Mother Jones.
The local paper of NY that often focuses on the interests of the richest NYer’s is a real bastion of the left. Yeah.Report
We you aware of the various argle-bargles, kerfuffles, and foofaraws in the editorial office that followed Tom “no quarter” Cotton’s editorial? Here’s a Voxsplainer, if you haven’t.
The editor who okayed Cotton’s editorial resigned for having run it.Report
Yeah i’m aware of the struggles of a once great paper. Seeing the NYT at left wing is silly. It may be a lot of things but that ain’t it. There are all sorts of adjectives to describe the NYT, feel free to use them. But Left is still silly.Report
Well, you gave the Tom Cotton editorial as an example as if it didn’t result in people being tossed out on their hind end.
I’m just trying to point out that defending the editorial posture today as if it were the same one as, oh, 2019 is a mistake.Report
I’m sure you can find editorials on NYT that are broadly supportive of social democracy. I doubt you’ll find any that advocate for anything to the left of that. You’ll find no arguments for anarcho-syndicalism, nor for Marxism, nor anything else of that caliber. For example, find an article that advocates the elimination of private property? I don’t think you can, particularly in the last five years.
Regardless of the “kerfuffles” around Cotton’s essay, it was outright authoritarian. He advocated using state violence to suppress popular dissent.
One can easily argue that the NYT favors “enlightened centrism” or “neoliberalism” or many similar positions. However, they aren’t “leftist,” not even close.Report
Sure. And the NYT has since accepted the resignation of the person who ran it and has given hints that if they knew then what they know now, they wouldn’t have run it. Certainly not in its current form.
I’m not sure that it’s fair to use the editorial as evidence of how they’re totally willing to run that sort of thing given the resignations and apologies for running that sort of thing.Report
I agree, and I think hyperfocusing on this one incident when there are a million other examples of the point you’re trying to make is…odd. Does nobody remember when they were refusing to call torture torture? Are our memories so short?Report
Hey, I’m down with saying that the NYT isn’t on the left… it pushed for the Iraq war! It published Tom Cotton!
I’m also down with saying “those people don’t work there anymore and there was a revolt in editorial that resulted in a significant resignation and here’s a link explaining what’s going on there” as a response to that.Report
Fine, but how often do they “accidentally” publish an op-ed calling for a worker’s revolution?Report
And even (or especially) when they leave Manhattan to do a field survey of “Real Americans in Flyover” they invariably find a rural white male conservative.Report
This is the closest to that, that I could find. They haven’t apologized for it yet.Report
Can someone summarize that. I’m not signed up for NYT, and I don’t want to give them access to my info.Report
I opened it into an incognito window and listened to it using the audio recording.
Basic summary: We need to dismantle a whole lot of institutions before we can rebuild America to achieve what America originally promised to be.
(It’s really a sweet essay, if you don’t think about what dismantling institutions has looked like when attempted before.)Report
An OpEd, not an editorial. OpEds, unlike editorials, often present positions that the editors don’t agree with.Report
I didn’t say that the NYT is fully supporting the left. I said very clearly that “it’s another step in that direction”.Report
Can you support that claim? The NYT, as far as I can tell, tries to balance lukewarm centrism with an occasional gesture to the right. Can you show any editorials that supports any flavor of leftism stronger than AOC or Bernie? How frequently do they even stan for AOC or Bernie. In other words, if AOC and Bernie are on the edge of their local overton window, is that really “a step in that direction,” when they give as much attention to the right?Report
well.
maybe there’s just a tiny little itty-bitty baby BIT of a difference between “if you search the Reddit archives with the right terms you can find where someone posted my full name, and if you know that I’ve got a weblog and you know that’s my name you can link the two” and “the freakin’ New York Times posted my full name and tagged my blog directly to it”.Report
Yes there is a difference. Of course. But there is also a difference between a little bit of sleuthing can find a name and completely pseudonymity. SA has been quasi secret for a while. Did i not say what the NYT did was “very questionable” with no purpose and i dont’ know what the editors are doing there. I don’t like what the NYT did nor do i understand why they did it. And still SA’s full name was a poorly kept secret. Those two things are independent thoughts and co-exist just fine.Report
Dude, don’t’cha know that nuanced thinking can lead to communism. I’m serious, man! Engage in dialectic just once, and you’re on the slide.Report
If you try to run a community that allows communists, you’ll end up with a community with three libertarians and a ton of communists.Report
Well, in my world it would be three libertarians, seven anarcho-syndicalists, 50 “fight the man” larpers, and 12 tankies who everyone hates but no one have the courage to confront.
Everyone would call everyone else “racist.”
So yeah, basically.Report
In strangely related news: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/06/my-little-pony-nazi-4chan-black-lives-matter/613348/
something something worst timeline.Report
Everything old is new again.Report
All I know for sure is that Nazis suck and friendship is indeed magic.Report
Yeah, Scott has been doxxed a million times over. He never even tried to separate his online identity from his identity-among-the-rationalists. We knew who he was dating, for example. He shared a lot of personal stuff.
Note, back then he was a minor poster on a weird subcultural blog. Although it was partly online, the subculture always had a meatspace presence. Moreover, being a known online person will improve your status in meatspace. Thus it is unsurprising he would be open about who he was, not his real name, but enough so that when he showed up at a rationalist meetup people would know who he is.
More or less anyone can show up at a rationalist meetup. They aren’t secret. Moreover, there are a ton of ex-rationalists who left the scene. A fair number of them know Scott IRL.Report
I remember the thing with CNN and HanAssholeSolo, and CNN saying “well we COULD doxx this guy, but that would be WRONG”.Report
Well, this really sucks. SSC was one of the few blogs I still read with regularity, and while Scott and I may be pretty far apart politically in a lot of ways, I always enjoy his writing. Really hoping this blows over and SSC can come back like nothing ever happened.Report
Same here.
Once in a while, I encounter a blog author whose writing I like and it’s a pleasure for me to read, that I start going through their archives and read…not everything, but everything that I find interesting. I started doing that with SSC just a couple weeks ago, although I had read occasional blog posts for the last several years when they came to my attention or I happened over thee.
And now I’m only in April 2013, and it’s canceled. Too bad.Report
I suspect it will be back. First, the NYT might back down. In fact, I hope they do. Moreover, someone will probably post the archive. It’s floating around. Likewise, the expect Scott will start posting again with a new pseudonym.Report
Why would they back down? They don’t care what a bunch of neckbeard alt-right-adjacent Internet Males think, but they very much care what their friends think, and their friends all think that Scott Alexander getting doxxed is A-O-K…and even if their friends worried slightly about doxxing someone who specifically asked you not to do it, their friends definitely don’t think that you should do things because a bunch of neckbeard alt-right-adjacent Internet Males said you should.Report
Here’s what I wrote to the NYT –
“About the Slate Star Codex, two points:
First, you routinely protect sources names citing “journalistic ethics” (quotation marks deliberate), even risking jail sentences. Next time you’re in court, expect to have this thrown in your face. But he’s not a source, he’s a subject of an article. That makes him fair game?
“Second, I don’t know if you have any reporters or columnists who are pseudonymous, but I do know of other papers where the restaurant reviewer, e.g., is pseudonymous and never has their picture shown so that they can go into a restaurant and not be recognized. Other people who need anonymity or pseudonymity to do their jobs don’t get that consideration?
“I’m sorry, but I expected better out of the New York Times.”
It’s not about Alexander’s politics or writing ability, or the NYT’s politics (or writing ability). It’s about a stupid policy. The right to privacy has always been tenuous, but can we at least have some respect for privacy? Any paper CAN publish anything about anyone and if it’s reasonably true, you have no recourse. But that doesn’t mean they should. To not honor a reasonable request for privacy in despicable.Report
I’d write them, but do they even read that stuff? I wonder if bashing them on Twitter is more effective. Is anything effective?Report
James Bennet was forced to step down from the editoralship of op-ed because of the Cotton piece!Report
I hear that cancelling subscriptions is effective. Sarah Jeong got fired for tweeting this, so it’s probably true.Report
Well written.
Thank you.Report
For me, the fact that he’s the subject of the article rather than a source for it is all the more reason for them to not reveal his actual name.
I can see a prima facie reason for journalists to ask a source to put their name to a given comment (particularly if the source initiated the contact). I don’t see any such reason when writing about a pseudonymous online personality. If you’re writing a piece on a pseudonymous blogger, then all things being equal the piece you’re writing should leave her/his pseudonymity intact.
It’d be extremely weird if the NYT published a feature article on Banksy an insisted on publishing his actual name, saying “Sorry, [Banksy’s real name]. We have this policy.” I don’t see that this situation is any different. Hard to say whether its incompetence or malice that’s in play here.Report
Welp, someone I follow on Twitter just doxxed him.
I unfollowed them. Needless to say I’m disappointed.Report
Just doxxed Scott Alexander?Report
Yep. They posted his real name.
The poster is a well known ex-rationalist who has an axe to grind with them. I followed them because they have legit complaints, dealing with systemic sexual exploitation in the rationalist community. I agree with them on many particulars.
However, posting Scott’s real name seems out of line to me. It won’t help.
I enjoy many of this person’s tweets. They’re smart and interesting. The fact they had beef with the rationalists never bothered me, because their beef was legit. That said, posting Scott’s real name is irresponsible and petty.
It’s probably not a big deal. Those who follow this person are probably the sort of people who either already knew Scott’s name or could easily find out. They aren’t exactly the NYT. Moreover, they only posted Scott’s real name. They did not post “Scott Alexander,” so a person would have to be familiar with current events to connect the dots. This won’t leave a google trail.Report
Lotsa people doing it, actually, to show how morally superior they are by spreading around the name of a guy who said “I don’t really want my name spread around kthx”.
But I guess it’s his own fault really, for, y’know, not shunning the HBD gish-gallop crowd and all that. He should have known what he was in for, letting those people hang around his blog.Report
I don’t have a strong opinion on SSC, but it doessound like the guy is getting a raw deal from the NYT for no apparent reason.
I will say that the issue of anonymity is complicated and whether it is right or wrong is highly dependent on context and conditions. There’s a good reason why we as a society simultaneously protect whistleblowers and enshrine the right to confront ones accuser in law.
As for myself, I cloak my real identity in an obviously absurd Big Nose, Beard and Glasses disguise.Report
You forgot the fedora.Report
From The New Yorker (note: this is not The New York Times):
Report
It seems like a fair article. Personally I would have been far more critical of Scott, but all the same, the article hits some important points.
I think the whole “mistake” versus “conflict” theorist thing is kind of self-congradulatory bullshit. The way I can tell is this: notice how the “greys” are in full “conflict theory” mode with the NYTs. Notice how, previously, they considered “skin in the game” to be a monetary bet, which most of them can well afford to lose, and not their literal skin in the game. However, now that Scott has real skin in the game, and by extension his community feels a manifest threat, then suddenly they go gloves off. There is little attempt to reason with the reporter or the NYT. Instead, they switch to power moves, such as threatening to cut off access to tech journalists. It’s very much “us versus them.”
Which of course, it is. It has been for a long time. The wealth of the “app crowd” involves big VCs investing big money into products that deepen precarity. The threat of an extreme wealth gap is real. The threat of a permanent underclass is also real. The machine of Silicon Valley largely feels exempt from this, and they act accordingly. Some claim to care, but they do little to give the precariat either voice or power.
Their battle with the “establishment media” is not a challenge to elites. It’s a battle over who gets to be the elite — in other words, who gets to act with impunity.
To my view, neither side leaves much to recommend it.Report
The article was better than I expected going into it.
But I pretty much agree with this entire thread here:
I agree that it’s about power. And Scott destroyed his blog instead of allowing himself to be doxxed (or even cancelled).
Masada 2020.
(I’m also surprised at the sheer number of folks who think that defecting back is a bad play in an iterated game.)Report
Obviously “defecting back” is a good strategic choice, at least sometimes. On the other hand, game theory is simplistic and life is not. Moreover, I really don’t want the SV crowd to get good at the game, given that they are a social space that lionizes people like Thiel, Hanson, and Murray. The lords of Silicon Valley are too powerful already. The rationalist types are clever nitwits who don’t really grasp the context of what they do.Report
“The lords of Silicon Valley are too powerful already. ”
you’re…really going with “Scott Alexander is one of the dark lords of the universe”, here, you’re unironically going with thatReport
No I’m not “going with that.” Go reread the headline of the article: Slate Star Codex and Silicon Valley’s War Against the Media
Okay, read it carefully. Sit back. Take a breath. Notice the part that says “…and Silicon Valley’s…”
See, it’s not just about Scott. There is a bigger context here.
Now don’t you feel clever.Report
“it’s not just about Scott.”
I see Scott Alexander saying “please allow me to control my identity”, and I see a powerful media organization saying “no, we think we should control your identity”, and I see you, of all people, saying “yes, the powerful organization that probably doesn’t have individuals’ best interests in mind is should definitely have the power to control individuals’ identities.”
And you’re saying it because you don’t like the people who comment on his weblog.Report
Show me where I said the NYT was right to reveal (or I guess threaten to reveal) Scott’s name.
You’re a liar.Report
If you mind it, you’re certainly doing everything possible to convince us otherwise.
Yes, I see where you say “oh it’s bad”, and I see where you always follow with a “but”, and I know what it means when someone says “yes, but”.Report
It’s possible to both 1) dislike Scott and 2) think revealing his name would be unfair to him.
Regarding your consistently pathetic attempts to trap me with “gotcha” arguments — it’s like, whatever dude. You provide irritation but no insight. I suppose you can be proud that I noticed you.Report
It’s back.
https://slatestarcodex.com/Report
I know this is terrible, but it would be morbidly funny if the NYT ran the article tomorrow doxing him. That would generate more Twitter drama than hexing the moon.Report
He’s certainly painting a target on himself.
That said, there was recently a bit of drama over the NYT doxxing Tucker Carlson (the NYT denies that they were going to, Tucker Carlson says that he successfully demonstrated that it’d be a bad idea).
Doxing Scott Alexander would be a great opportunity for the NYT to demonstrate that they can do damage to *SOME* of their ideological enemies.
Remember the scene in A Bug’s Life where Hopper wants to hit Molt, but doesn’t, so he hits another guy? That was funny.
Report
Well, Carlson claimed they were going to print his home address, which is silly and demonstrates the gullibility of his audience — who in turn went after the reporter, who had done nothing.
So something something cancel culture.
At this point, the NYT would gain nothing by printing Scott’s full name, although I’d love to see them dig into the seedy side of SSC.Report
“I’d love to see them dig into the seedy side of SSC.”
lol
when you ask why there don’t ever seem to be any reasonable conservative voices on this site, why nobody from the Con side ever seems to want to have a discussion, why nobody wants to have a conversation…here’s one of the more active posters on the board suggesting that Slate Star Codex, of all places, has a seedy side.
like
what’s the use of even talking to this person? if that’s where they’re starting then we’re gonna need to go from Mars to Venus before we’re even on the same planet, let alone somewhere that we can find common ground.Report
At this point, the NYT would gain nothing by printing Scott’s full name
I don’t want to suggest that they’d gain something by doing it.
I was suggesting that they could vent some frustration by harming someone.Report
It’s a fairly large organization. There is no reason to think those feeling directly hurt by the Colbert nitwits are the same people who would make decisions about SSC. Moreover, they could also vent frustration a multitude of healthy ways. Also, any reporter or editor who prints his name would have to deal with an army of socially maladjusted rage-nerds, both on Twitter and perhaps real life. No one wants to deal with rage-nerds. They have a lot of free time.
In other words, I really don’t expect them to print his name.Report
Oh, I’m sure that they’re not the same people.
I’m merely suggesting some sort of solidarity between the folks there who haven’t resigned yet.Report
See, you have the same victim complex Scott does 🙂
I mean, I’m yanking your chain, but I do think a lot of very powerful “nerd sphere” people are fueled by a nerd victim complex, which distorts how they view the world.
Note, out in the broader world, a lot of “victim” stuff is just DARVO. I’m morally certain that Tucker Carlson plays constant DARVO games. Any fool can see that. It’s cynical and we should mock him.
The “nerds” however — let’s take a pretty obvious case: Scott AAronson. In my view, Aaronson does not engage in DARVO. That said, he constantly plays the victim card. So what’s the difference?
I think Aaronson has a genuine trauma response to any sense of social rejection. To this I’m sympathetic. I’ve mentioned before I have ADHD. Now go read this: https://www.additudemag.com/rejection-sensitive-dysphoria-and-adhd/
It’s hard to describe how I felt the first time I read that. A light went on in my head. Heck, fireworks went off, a thermonuclear blast, fucking supernovas.
Let’s just say it explained a lot.
I’m not saying Aaronson has either ADHD or RSD. I’m saying his response to criticism and social difficulty is out of proportion. I believe it genuinely hurts him.
He also has empathy, so what happens inside his head when he sees someone like Hsu being criticized?
Obviously I can’t read his mind. I’m guessing. But it’s an educated guess based on my being a weird-nerd who can painfully recall how things feel to me.
Aaronson has a lot of fucking hard trauma. I suspect he maps his pain onto Hsu. He puts himself into Hsu’s shoes.
Of course, Aaronson isn’t chummy with holocaust denialists. His hobby isn’t eugenics and reductive IQ research. He doesn’t espouse race science. In other words, I think his empathy toward Hsu is misplaced, and we’d all be better served if he instead had empathy for the students who don’t want Hsu exercising administrative power over their research.
Okay, enough about Aaronson. He’s just one guy. However, he’s also part of an “ideo-sphere,” which includes the VC crowd, Theil and Musk, the IDW, the “low decoupler” shitheels like Robin Hanson, the “race realist” crowd like Sailer, etcetera. As a group, these people have enormous social power. Moreover, many of them are as cynical as Carlson, and just as quick to deploy DARVO.Report
I see it more as he was sure that he was a “pre-victim” and everyone told him that he was, simultaneously, paranoid and someone who needed to change in order to prevent something bad from happening to him (which would be a shame, to be sure).
I’m not sure that the NYT scare really disabused him of any of his notions (nor those of any of the people who see him as One Of The Good Ones That I Wish We Had More Of).
My victim complex is probably similar. I know that I am a very, very small fish. Nowhere near as famous as Scott Alexander (who is, apparently, famous). So I’ve got that going for me, I guess.Report
“Okay, enough about Aaronson. He’s just one guy. However, he’s also part of an “ideo-sphere,” which includes the VC crowd, Theil and Musk, the IDW, the “low decoupler” shitheels like Robin Hanson, the “race realist” crowd like Sailer, etcetera. As a group, these people have enormous social power. Moreover, many of them are as cynical as Carlson, and just as quick to deploy DARVO.”
…are we still talking about Scott Alexander? I mean, you just blew up at Jaybird for changing the subject, so, figured I’d ask.Report
And heck, signaling that You Don’t Knuckle Under To The Alt-Right, signaling that You Don’t Listen To Neckbeard Incels; these are signals that the NYT’s readers like to see, at least as far at the NYT seems to figure.Report
I think its ironic that in all this breathless talk about the awfulness of reveling people’s real names, every single newspaper prints the real name of its reporter, editor and publisher under every story.Report
There are hundreds of thousands of teenagers making Tik Toks right now trying to go viral.
And Scott Alexander doesn’t want the NYT to print his real name.
It really makes you think.Report
I’m having a hard time being sympathetic to Scott here.
He wants to be famous as a pundit and blogger, but somehow shield his identity behind anonymity and is asking us to criticize anyone who punctures his self constructed veil.
I don’t have much criticism of a journalist who prints his name. It seems entirely fair and reasonable.
And I notice the creeping expansion of the word “doxxing”, from printing someone’s address and phone, to simply printing their name.Report
You don’t have to be sympathetic to anyone who doesn’t agree with you.
I honestly find it gets in the way of maintaining moral superiority over them.Report
I’m not sympathetic to someone demanding that I criticize a journalist for publishing the name of a famous person.Report
(demanding?)Report
Yes.
This is being presented as a moral injustice, that a journalist is not respecting his request to be both famous and anonymous.
We are being invited to consider publishing his name to be “doxxing” as if it were on par with publishing the home address of some minor blog commenter or non famous individual.
Scott is like one of these celebrities that aggressively publicizes their every move, then gets upset when a papparazzi photographs them going out to dinner.Report
(Hey, if I knew his real name, could I look up where he worked? Maybe even lived?)
Ah, pseudonymity. It provides all of the benefits of fame without any of the costs.
Outing him could be seen as redistribution of a sort. A tying of costs to benefits.Report
Even more creepy, what if we knew the real name of the reporter, or even the name of her employer and the address of their office??Report
Does “consent” matter?
Is there a point at which we should assume that it is implied?Report
Yes, there is a lot of legal theory of when a person becomes a “public figure” versus a private figure.Report
I don’t know about the legal theory.
I do know that I know a lot of the private details of the lives of Joe the Plumber, Ken Bone, and a handful of other “viral” celebrities.
And I think that my line of “public figure” is higher than what it seems to be in practice.Report
Well, we can always do some basic reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_figure
Scott Alexander easily fits the definition of “limited public figure.” I consider that obvious on the face. Moreover, given that his defenders were fairly high profile people, public figures themselves, and some described him as on the level of Mark Twain, that is pretty good evidence he is a public figure.
It’s hard to argue that 1) he isn’t a public figure, but 2) the loss of his blog is on the magnitude of the loss of the Library of Alexandria, which was a claim that was made.
Personally I don’t believe that Scott is as important as Twain, nor that SSC is as important as the Library of Alexandria, but many influential folks in the Silicon Valley network seemed to think so.
So this is definitely a “you can’t have it both ways” discussion.Report
“Scott Alexander easily fits the definition of “limited public figure.” ”
so does literally everyone in the world, if you go by that webpage
which
like I said, here you are riding like hell for the position of “you don’t control your identity, society controls your identity”, which, why are you doing that? why do you want that?Report
Okay, so I’m looking for specifics. Sadly, trying to search for specific statements I recall seeing on Twitter is — well — beyond the scope of my meager google-fu. “Scott Alexander” gets a lot of hits on Twitter.
Anyhow, I found this, from Scott Aaronson’s blog:
https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=4870
I guess all I can say is that, indeed, many high influence people in SV share these views, although Aaronson clearly feels them quite strongly. I saw many Tweets from names you know expressing similar views.
So is Scott Alexander a “public figure”? More specifically, does being a “thought leader” among SV elites make one a public figure?Report
I know many people have said many things about this issue, but I’m not sure who exactly wants to “have it both ways.”
Scott’s position is that he would prefer to blog pseudonymously, but that if that’s not possible, he’ll stop blogging due to his professional and personal concerns. Given that, he and many of his readers feel that whatever little value there may be in printing his full name is more than outweighed by the loss of his blog.
The rest of it is noise — who cares if other conventions and rules support the NYT’s “right” to do so, when there’s no obvious reason *to* do so?Report
Agreed. That analysis was limited to the question “Is he a public figure?” I was not (at least not in that and related comments) commenting on whether that implies he should have his name printed.
“Should the NYT, as policy, always print the full names of public figures who prefer a pseudonym?” is a different question.
As a matter of record, the answer is no. In the past they have respected the pseudonyms of a number of public figures, including one of the Chapo Trap House guys, plus Banksy. Therefore, the claim that it is “policy” doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.
Another question is, “Should the NYT print the full name of people who prefer to use a pseudonym in some cases but not others? If so, which cases and why?”
That’s a very good question. I expect the NYT will never answer it.Report
Yes, that is a good question. In some ways, the “public figure” status cuts in the other direction, if it’s the pseud itself that’s the public face — I can see the argument for not letting someone hide behind a temporary mask that they could use to say/do something irresponsible and then toss away at a moment’s notice, but for people who are primarily known by their pseudonym and have a vested interest in maintaining the reputation of that name, I think the argument becomes much weaker; at least as long as they’re not obviously evading responsibility by using it (and here it starts to get fuzzy, I guess).Report
One line of attack I’ve seen is this: that Scott often talks about patients on his blog, plus he’s obviously a terrible doctor for {reasons}. If that were the case, I could see a justification.
To be very clear: I do not agree with those arguments, as least as they are applied to Scott.
However, I do accept the form of the argument. Just because it doesn’t apply to Scott, I can see how it would apply in a hypothetical situation.
(I’m just being a “high decoupler” here, folks! If you support Scott and his ethos, then you’re not allowed to get mad at me. That would make you a “low decoupler” who cares about context.)
(You’re never allowed to get mad at a “high decoupler,” regardless of what we say — at least if you follow the SSC ethos.)
(I’m getting sidetracked here. Anyway…)
For example, there is a small handful of doctors who work with trans patients who are — well — literal fucking monsters.
If you’ve seen the Netflix show Sense8, the character Whispers is based on a real guy who used to run a famous gender clinic. Obviously the details have been changed, but it was a pretty spot on portrayal of how awful he is.
Anyway, say one of those doctors ran a blog where they were even more openly horrible toward trans folks than they are in public. Say I (or other trans activists) discovered this fact. Would we then be justified in letting people know that terrible blogger X is really terrible doctor Y?
Fuck yeah we would.
Anyway, I think there is a burden of proof here, or at least a “burden of argument.” I don’t find the “bad doctor” argument against Scott convincing. I don’t think the NYT should either.
I suppose, in his case, this might fall under professional review. However, I’m led to understand that Scott’s employer is aware of his pseudonym and his blog — at least I’ve heard this. It seems plausible enough. In that case, I’m satisfied that any ethical questions have been resolved in his favor. That’s enough for me.
I’m happy to focus my critiques of Scott on “Scott Alexander” and leave “Scott {last name}” out of it.Report
Yes, there is a lot of legal theory of when a person becomes a “public figure” versus a private figure.
Oh good, then there should a relatively bright line test you can use to demonstrate how Scott has desired to be a public figure.Report
I think running a widely read blog is not unlike publishing or editing a widely read newspaper, so would it be fair to compare Scott Alexander to James Bennett of the NYT?
Or maybe a widely read columnist like Michelle Goldberg or Andrew Sullivan?Report
So, how many readers do you need before you are too widely read to expect anonymity?Report
Like I said, this question has been widely discussed and litigated with regard to how public is “public”.
I don’t have a handy clever line to offer, but that’s kinda the point.
It doesn’t seem like some obvious moral injustice that a reporter might publish the name of a person whose blog has the level of traffic that SSC does.Report
If you don’t know what the dividing line is, how can you be so certain SSC has crossed that line?
Or is this like porn?Report
Much less enjoyable than porn certainly.
But I view Scott as on the same level as a newspaper columnist, for about the same reasons.
By the way, the literary world has long had a tradition of “nom de plume” but it has always operated within a set of norms and expectations.
Speaking from behind a hidden identity always had some air of transgressive danger, like a revolutionary or whistleblower.
But it also has a tradition of shame, of secret smear campaigns and whispers in the shadows.
I don’t see SSC as operating in either fashion, where a reasonable person would find a compelling case for anonymity. He isn’t a government source bringing acts to light, he isn’t in danger of injustice.
He just wants to be famous and speak freely, but not have his clients read his words.
I don’t see why journalists, whose job it is to report the facts, should be obliged to comply with his wishes.
If I went to a demonstration and got interviewed, I could ask the reporter not to use my name, but they aren’t under any sort of obligation to comply.Report
Thing is, he isn’t hiding behind a name like, say, I am (Oscar Gordon is not even close to my real name, and one of the reasons I chose it is because a Google search will result in a whole lotta ‘not me’.
Alexander actually uses his real name, just not all of it. He has a pretty reasonable argument to not have his name associated definitively with his blog.
So aside from ‘The Truth’, what value is there in refusing his request to not use his full name?
Sure, the paper has no obligation to honor the request, other than failing to do so damages their credibility and the trust people would have that they’ll respect the reasonable requests of other subjects.
But I guess if the NYT figures it has credibility to burn…Report
They weren’t under any obligation to publicize it, or hide it.
So I don’t have any strong feelings one way or the other.
And, gentlepersons of Ordinary Times-
Do not.
Under any circumstances.
Google my name.Report
They weren’t under any obligation to publicize it, or hide it.
That’s not quite right. Journalistic standards establish criteria for what’s newsworthy as balanced against potential harms or other consequences. Seems to me they’re under a prima facie obligation to *not* publish unless those standards are met, ie., that disclosing his name serves a legitimate journalistic purpose (beyond merely receiving clicks) etc etc.Report
What would a dividing line look like?
I think, in a sense, it has to be like “porn.” How else could it be?
Recall, the “public figure thing” is to determine who can sue for what. If I say, “Donald Trump is a malignant narcissist,” Trump cannot sue me. Do you want a world where he could?
I’m pretty sure you don’t want that world.
Although it would be funny to watch all the lawsuits that Hillary Clinton could churn out against something like 34902394823094 dipshit right wingers. That would hilarious.
(Note, it would not actually be hilarious.)
Did you know that David Nunes is literally a cow. No really! They sequenced his DNA and discovered it matched the cow genome by 99.65%. Remarkable.
(Darnit I hope he doesn’t sue the mods of the forum to force them to dox me, so he can sue me — of course, that’s just what a cow would do.)
I suppose Popehat would finally notice me! Yay!
Anyway, I think Scott Alexander is at least a “limited public figure” in the context of discussion Silicon Valley and the broader “nerd-sphere.” He’s a big deal there.
Moreover, according to this article: https://www.wired.com/2005/11/are-you-a-public-figure/ , an “ordinary citizen” can be considered a “public figure” if there has been “substantial public debate” about them.
That’s curious. What that means is this: if someone gets thrust into the limelight, then once that happens, they magically become a public figure.
It’s weird, but I see the logic. Take Jessica Yaniv. (Please, take her, put her somewhere where I never hear of her again.) Is she a public figure?
Obviously. She is now.
Am I allowed to point out that she is a wretched narcissist who seems to have an unsavory attraction to kids and dammit she’s living ammunition to people who want to make trans people look bad? Can I say that?
Yes I can. And I do. Yeesh. The cringe is visceral.
(No really, it is physically painful when I read about her. It actually hurts my brain.)
Can she sue me?
No, she cannot.
Has there been “substantial public debate” about SSC and its author?
Yep, sure has. We’re doing it now. Funny how that works.Report
Passive aggressive much?
Which disagreements are we discussing?
For example, I’m a finitist, but a number of my coworkers are full on classicists who believe ZFC set theory. Fucking weirdos!
However, I have a great deal of love and sympathy for them, despite the fact we disagree about the ontology of mathematics.
Like, people can overcome differences. True peace and harmony is possible. Yay diversity.
I don’t like sports, but I understand that people who cheer for competing sports teams can still be great friends. Uncanny, right?
Are you aware there are people who like video games that I don’t like? No really. It’s true. Wild.
So which disagreements do you mean?
I can suggest a few:
Black people are naturally stupid and there is not much that can be done.
The government should forcibly sterilize undesirables.
Trans people are sick, deviant freaks, and they are a threat to the social order.
In fact, all LGBTQ people are thus.
(((They))) secretly control the world and have tricked us into believing in the holocaust.
Feminism has ruined the romantic lives of men, thus we should enforce patriarchy and monogamy.
I could go on.
Are those the disagreements we’re talking about? Be specific.
I can disagree with a friend over Star Wars versus Star Trek. It’s rather different if they believe that black people are subhuman filth. I don’t get along with those people.
“Oh Veronica, hur dur, you just want to feel morally superior. Gotcha! I am very smart.”
Geezus fucknuggests, do you hear yourself?Report
I do hear myself.
Which is why I wonder at what you seem to be hearing.
Because they appear to be two very, very different things.Report
It’s because you constantly dodge the issue. We’re not merely “disagreeing” with people over random things. The content of the disagreement is critical to understand the nature of the disagreement. Moreover, we don’t feel a shallow moral superiority, as a Trekkie might feel an arrogant superiority over a Star Wars fan. It’s not like that.
We know what you’re doing. You’re not that clever. You ain’t Socrates. Your “aww shucks” act is tiresome.
Instead, you’re a traumatized nerd who deliberately occludes the difference between debates over race and gender with debates over your favorite action figures.
It’s fucking childish, dude.Report
I think it’s that we’re disagreeing what the issue is.
And you want to talk about issue Y and I want to talk about issue X and the fact that I keep talking about issue X when you want to talk about issue Y is interpreted by you as me dodging the issue.
When I am not dodging the issue. I’m merely not changing the subject.
(Thanks for the free psychoanalysis, though.)Report
“I can disagree with a friend over Star Wars versus Star Trek. It’s rather different if they believe that black people are subhuman filth. I don’t get along with those people.”
uh.
…this is the part where you show us where Scott Alexander believes that black people are subhuman filth.Report
You’re not very good at shifting context, are you?Report
veronica d: “You’re not very good at shifting context, are you?”
also veronica d: “You constantly dodge the issue.”Report
Carlson was engaging in a preemptive attack on NYT to blunt the giant ass story of all the various allegations against Fox personalities. Classic “I’m really the victim” here move.Report
Yeah, what a jerk!
Anyway, it’d be funny if the NYT doxxed Scott Alexander.Report
LOL. Well caring about rape allegations is past it’s sell by date i guess. I wish them all well.Report
Oh, is that what we’re arguing about?
I thought we were arguing about whether the NYT would have doxxed him in the course of publicly adding him to the “Shitty Media Men” list.
And pointing out how the NYT said that they wouldn’t do something like that and taking them at their word.Report
As long as we arent’ talking about the allegations against the Foxer’s i guess that’s the point.
Do they have a history of printing the home address of people with allegations against them. Urrmm No.Report
How suspicious do you find our silence to be?
Would you say you question the timing?Report
Odd. Peculiar almost. But mostly evidence of deep bias. Sort of like T wishing Maxwell well. Just a meaningless blip of shit in the shit torrent so just ignore it. It’s doesn’t suit preferred partisan attacks, so nothing to see here.
Timing. No. You can only ignore the allegations as they come up.
Again. NYT was bad for doxing Scott’s name even though he was being overly coy and trying to have his cake and eat it. But the NYT was wrong. Did i mention the NYT was wrong.Report
Greg, please write me with either a short essay talking about the Tucker thing or with an article discussing the Tucker thing that you would like to see on the sidebar and I will personally post it.
askjaybird@gmail.comReport
I don’t see any worthwhile journalistic purpose in revealing Scott Alexander’s name, and I wouldn’t do it. That said, since the Times hasn’t done it yet and may never, I don’t have the benefit of knowing whatever reasons the Times may have to do it, if it decides to do it. I would like to know its reasons — or at least its stated reasons — so I can judge them for myself. Both for veracity and sufficiency.
All that aside, just how difficult is it for anyone who cares to find out who someone is? (I’m not talking about myself, because I lack certain tech skills, but other people.) I assume that for someone with the right, and not rare, skills, it would be easy to find out who I am. My own screen name is my real last name and first and middle initials, which is how I sign most things, from checks to court papers. I have said enough things about what I do and where I do it that I should be easy to trace. On another blog, someone asked if I was who I in fact am just on the basis of the few breadcrumbs, without following the trail in any systematic way. (Saul, as a fellow lawyer, I’ll bet you could find out who I am in less than ten minutes. If you decide to give that a try, just post a comment saying that you did.) I see no reason to spread my real personal information all over the place, but I have no illusions that I could keep my identity under wraps if someone actually cared.Report
I think it’s a variant of the Blue Eyes Logic Puzzle. If someone tells you that you have blue eyes, it’s all over and you have to leave the island.
But before you get told that, you can live there.
There is a freedom that comes from pseudonymity, though. There are thoughts that feel safer to express when you feel anonymous. Having a pseudonym ripped from you will make a person feel less safe. (Whether or not “being less safe” and “feeling less safe” have any relationship to each other is not something I’m prepared to discuss at the moment.)
And having someone say “please don’t reveal my real name, doing so would harm me” now creates a situation.
Do you reveal his name or not? It’s not like you can pretend that he’d be okay with it. You pretty much have to switch to how he ought to be okay with it and since he ought to be okay with it then there’s nothing wrong with it.
Which can get dicey.Report
Scott’s not worried about internet denizens who read his blog figuring out who he is IRL — he’s worried about people he works with in real life googling his real name and finding his blog, which is a real issue if his full name is associated with his blog in the NYT.
Obviously on a much smaller scale but I’ve had the same concern in the past with my blog commenting — anyone with the keys to the blog can figure out my full name, but no one googling my full name will find my comments here (except for the one time I accidentally used my full name in a comment).Report
Note, I just did a search using his real name, with no middle name, on a fresh “anonymous” browser window. The second page included a link to a Tweet doxing him. However, a random patient would only see that after scanning over numerous links to his public, professional identity — a lot of “lists of doctors” kind of thing.
I can easy imagine a patient searching his name, clicking through to the second page, seeing that link, but not clicking on it, because obviously that must be some other Scott {Lastname}. On the other hand, if they do click on it, down the rabbit hole they go.
(Note, I wonder if Scott’s supporters have been gaming the Google algorithms. Certainly a number of them know how. He certainly has a fair number of supporters within Google.)
Note, if you google his full name, meaning first-middle-last, then SSC is linked on the first page, plus numerous Twitter accounts actively doxing him.
Anyway, I have no idea how much that would change if he were mentioned by name in the NYT article. Would it be much worse? Maybe.Report
Interesting — so at this point the veil is a little tattered but still there. He did some interview recently where he admitted he hadn’t been as careful as he should’ve with his anonymity overall.Report
There is an academic text with excepts from his blog published under his real name. He’s just one author among many, but it exists. I expect a sufficiently diligent person could find it, although finding nasty tweets about him is far easier.
Look at it this way, if you were a super famous blogger, widely respected in certain subcultures, and you met some people from that subculture, wouldn’t you want them to know you’re that guy. I mean, talk about a status rush. So he has a constant push-pull: on the one hand, stay anonymous, on the other, That’s me!!!.
I get it. He wants some people to know who he is, but not others.
Should the NYT respect that?
They’ve respected it for other notable people, so maybe. We could debate the particulars forever.Report
and there doesn’t seem to me to be much daylight between “well I could totally find your name if I wanted to, so I’ll ignore your request that I not publish it” and “if you weren’t looking to be hit on, what are you doing in a nightclub?”Report
Like I said ‘way back in the comments, there’s a difference between your full name being published in a comment thread somewhere on Reddit and your full name being published on the front page of the New York Times.Report
Update: Scott Alexander is voluntarily ending his relationship with his employer to explore other opportunities.
https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/09/11/update-on-my-situation/Report
An update.
Slate Star Codex is dead. Long live Astral Codex Ten!
He’s got a substack and will write there now. He also has a private practice now (sadly, not accepting blog readers as patients) and while the whims of his new employer may be much more capricious than with his previous boss, he seems to be poised to continue to do good among those who need the good that he does.
An awful story has a happy ending. Or, at least, a bunch of crappy chapters is finally followed by a good one.
The future is looking up already.Report
Not accepting readers as patients… but if what I read about the $35/month (or is it session with montly sub?) pricing model for his patients, he should offer $40/month for readers to call and argue with him about his posts. It took 40 years and a virtual revolution, but we’ll finally got the Argument Sketch in real life.Report
You can subscribe to his substack for $10/month or $100/year!
Leave comments that you *KNOW* he will read. “Back in 2013, you talked about hot dog inefficiency. As someone who has slaughtered his own hogs and made sausage, I’d like to suggest that there is a disjoint between packs of hot dogs and hot dog buns due to the home sausage production market. How in the hell did you not know that?”Report
There is a long history, which scott admits, for therapist/mental health types to keep their private lives away from clients. Like tell clients almost nothing about your self. As as a former therapist and still active MH type i completely agree with this. Clients shouldn’t be invested in who they think you are or be hearing about my life. There are some areas where this might be less important for a few reasons( LBGTQ, religious counselor) but in general your clients really shouldn’t know your politics. Lots of clients will be massively torqued off to no good and relationships will be damaged. He always risked that but it wasn’t much of an issue when people had to work hard to find his true identity. Even when it may be okay to have clients know about your private life or politics there are serious risks.Report
Agreed… this would be a totally non-medical Argument-for-hire subscription.
Although, now that he’s out there… the movement from Patient to Reader is theoretically trivial – even if he’s not accepting Reader to Patient.Report
Aaaaand the story finally dropped. There are reasons to believe that it was not written in good faith.
Report
Scott has written a response.Report
I remain unsurprised that the times did a hit piece on SA. I integrity is for suckers.Report
It’s hard to know whether there was actual intent to malign or if this was just bad in the way that journalism is usually bad — the journalist is writing about a topic he doesn’t really understand, hears opinions across a wide spectrum of friends, foes, and neutrals that he’s not particularly able to evaluate, then picks the path that most closely matches his own/his paper’s/his readers’ inclinations.Report
From the original post, back in June (we were so young!):
Report
The possibilities are basically:
1) It was always going to be a negative article, and Metz was basically lying from the beginning
2) The original intention was positive but the events of June caused Metz and/or the paper to recast negatively
3) The original intention was positive but it was inevitably going to turn out like this just because of the median view of NYT journalists and readership, once Metz started gathering opinions from interested parties.
All of these are plausible and I’m not sure there’s any actual evidence for one over the others. But IMO the end result was going to be more or less this no matter what.Report
Yes, but the probabilities are, 1 and 3. My monies on 1. Too many other examples about of “we just want your side” that turns into a hit pieceReport
Imagine uncritically believing Scott when he denies supporting Charles Murray.
Specifically, I’m not convinced that Scott has a consistent and principled opinion of Murray. Sure, when challenged he will deny believing Murray’s race science stuff, but after reading SSC long enough, it’s clear that Scott buys the general narrative about Murray (and people like him), namely that they are brave truth tellers. In short, it’s the Quillette narrative, and Scott is 100% on board with that.
Are “black people naturally stupid and nothing can be done” — Scott certain thinks that question open to debate, and more debate, and more debate, and more debate. At no point can something be dismissed as mere racism. Instead, racist ideas get nearly unbounded charity, while objections to racism encounter virtually no charity at all.
My criticisms of Scott rest on the community he fostered. In other words, I can’t read Scott’s mind. Regarding ideas, he’s a slippery eel. You won’t pin him down. Fine. However, he has created a very popular site that attracts very terrible people. If you want to spread “race science” to a wider audience, well Scott has the blog for you.Report
Where I see this going is Substack being shut down, for the record.
(Hate speech, you know how it is.)Report
I’ve not read any of SSC that I recall, but I’ll respond to your claim of racism in this manner. Hell, I read the comments on SLATE and see racist comments, and facist comments, and genocidal comments, etc., and that ain’t from the “conservatives” on that site.Report
I’m not sure if we can compare SSC to a mainstream news site, mostly inasmuch as the big news sites tend to lack a “community ethos” —
Or maybe they do have one. I don’t participate on the forums of major news sites. I did in the past participate on SSC — at least I tried to. In any case, smaller forums tend to have a stable audience. Over time you’ll recognize names and it begins to feel like a “community” of sorts. This blog is like that. I don’t think the comment sections of major sites are the same. They have (I expect) more “drive by posters.”
Therefore a news site with an occasional racist post is not the same as a blog community that accepts Steve Sailor as a respected member. Those are different sorts of things.
To me it’s like the difference between blaming the public transit authority because occasionally there will be a homophobic street preacher on the platform, compared with a Meetup group with several outspoken racists. (I realize that isn’t a perfect analogy, but I hope it makes the point.)Report
Based on casual observation on Slate and New York mag’s comment section, mainstream sites, and Slate is mainstream compared to SSC and other blogs because it is professional/commerical with paid staff, you do get a community but it is a lot shallower than any blog.Report
“mostly inasmuch as the big news sites tend to lack a “community ethos” ”
I don’t participate in much on line discussions on any site, except here, and here not much, but I do read the comments and see the same people on Slate a lot, and a lot of them are what I said above–and it’s NOT “occasional”. It’s “often”. I expect the TDS on Slate-hey it’s a left wing site. What I don’t expect is the “other stuff”, but hey, occasionally, there will be some “sane” comments as well. 🙂Report
Scott Alexander always struck me as starting off as a fairly bog-standard liberal who believed in the open discussion of everything because naturally the best ideas will always win. This meant that he allowed a lot of really Far Right opinion on his site because he saw no harm in it. The Far Right posters were eventually able to corrupt Scott and get him to believe things that nobody really should.
A lot of the modern liberal-left is growing skeptical about the ability to persuade people through open discussion, so Scott’s method of running is site was not in favor. Based on what happen, Scott’s critics are corret.Report
Your comment just demonstrated that open discussion can persuade people (Scott came to believe things his commenters said, ergo he was persuaded through open discussion). Perhaps the liberal-left needs to work on their messaging*.
*Yes, I know I say this a lot, because I believe it’s true. The left has crap messaging that relies heavily on guilt, and tries to leverage better angels/nature; and the right, in a very messed up way, is appealing to self interest and selling empowerment (at the expense of others, but that’s not how it’s sold at the start – I’ve heard the sales pitch of both sides enough to know how they both work).Report
I think what happened to Scott can be more described as seduction or preying on his insecurities rather than actual persuasion like what a cult does.Report
Yes, you gotta watch for those dirty sinners, always sneaking around trying to secude the meet elect to their degenerate ways of thinking. They can get anyone, you know.Report
Please explain the difference between persuasion and seduction in this case?
As for preying on insecurities, how is that worse than preying on guilt/shame?Report
I’d say that shame can be a powerful motivator, depending on the social standards that apply. For example, if someone feels shame for doing {actual bad thing}, then I would call that a pro-social application of shame. Certainly there are things that are rightly shameful.
With that out of the way, it appears that many of Scott’s insecurities are precisely about public shame. I very much would like to explain Scott’s insecurities, but I find it hard to put into words. I get the sense that he is very fragile in the face of criticism. He wants to be seen as the “good guy” — but don’t most of us want that? In his case, however, he comes across as really spineless. There is a fragility there that, in my view, prevents him from any real self-criticism.
I’m not sure what to say. I get a very bad sense about Scott as a person, but it’s not something I can prove, which is why I usually focus on the excesses of the community around him. The fact that his main “spinoff community” (TheMotte on Reddit) is an absolute cesspool that debates such interesting topics as “Are women even conscious?” tells us about the people he attracts. (Note that TheMotte was created to give Scott some plausible distance from the worst ideas of his community. However, he continues to promote the place.)Report
Agree with regard to shame/guilt. Applied appropriately, they can be powerful. Applied constantly, they lose their impact.
I joke at times that my mom was a travel agent for guilt trips. That worked when I was a kid, and fresh out of the house. One of the benefits of joining the Navy is that it exposed to me how she used guilt to control me*. Doing it so often allowed me to resist it.
People will only tolerate being told they are bad (shame/guilt) for so long before they are likely to either ignore it, or lean into it.
Does that describe SA? I don’t know. The handful of his stuff I’ve read isn’t enough to form an opinion on, and I never strayed into the comments.
*She would try to guilt me into coming home or staying home when she new I had to report for duty. That fact that she used guilt so reflexively was what finally did it for me.Report
You make a good point about shame having a shelf life.
As an aside, I get most of my “emotion vocabulary” from DBT. I’m not sure how widespread this understanding is, but here is how I understand guilt versus shame:
Guilt is an internal emotion one feels when they have harmed others, or otherwise failed to live up to one’s own ethical standards.
The value of guilt is obvious. It is an unpleasant emotion that can lead us to both make amends and to do better in the future.
Shame is a public emotion. It is about a loss of status among your community for breaking norms.
Shame is valuable precisely as much as the communal norms are valid.
Of course, one can feel “internal shame,” inasmuch as we internalize social messages. This is a big deal for LGBTQ people, as we often have to unlearn harmful messages about ourselves.
I often encounter bigots trying to use the same language that LGBTQ people do, regarding overcoming shame. Just as a drag queen might conjure up an over-the-top image as a way to counter internalized shame, a QAnon weirdo might be publicly horrible to address their own.
There is a difference, however. There is nothing wrong with being a drag queen. There is much wrong with believing QAnon.
Thus it is important to understand the psychology behind all of this, but we should never forget the concrete facts. There are things that are truly shameful.
Guilt is a different puppy entirely. Note, it is a maxim that narcissists cannot feel guilt, only shame. They do not have any internal sense of right versus wrong, nor is harm to others even the slightest concern. They are, however, very concerned about public image. The problem is, shame doesn’t actually work when applied to a narcissist. They certainly feel shame, but it doesn’t lead to any pro-social outcome. They just turn that feeling of shame into a feeling of rage. They lash out.Report
Guilt is different, and internal, but that doesn’t stop people from trying to trigger feeling s of guilt in much the same way they try to trigger feelings of shame.
And both hit a limit. What happens when that limit is hit is variable, but it rarely results in the behavior desired by the person trying to use it.
Still, this is heading into the weeds.
The point I was trying to make is that persuasion through guilt or shame is not terribly effective. And a lot of left/liberal arguments I’ve seen from the Overly Online* set tend to rely heavily upon them, whereas the populist right** has moved away from those arguments and toward arguments emphasizing self-interest and empowerment.
*I want to be very clear that this is the loud, online types. The left has some very good people who come to the debate with excellent arguments, but which are difficult to package for the 30 second soundbite.
**Separating out the Establishment Conservatives from the loud ProudBoy types.Report
For what it’s worth, if you all don’t mind wading into drama, Topher dropped some emails he got from Scott a while back. Topher later deleted the Tweet (but the internet is forever). I feel okay posting a link because I think it’s important to understand why I despise SSC. I’ve never seen these emails before, but I’ve followed SSC long enough that I already kind of knew Scott felt this way. It was obvious from his behavior.
Note, Topher is (last I checked) married to Ozzy, Scott’s ex partner, so there is “stuff” here. Anyway, link:
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1362108632070905857.htmlReport
I can totally see how someone would hate SSC and Scott Alexander after seeing that he thought those things.Report
I came across this “hot take” on the SSC thing. It’s worth reading: https://mynewbandis.substack.com/p/slate-star-clusterfuckReport
I’m wondering if having SSC described as a safe space is what really broke the camel’s back. It is an extremely accurate description, because you could say some weird shit on SSC without getting pushback, but nobody on SSC would see this as a compliment. Quite the opposite really.Report
I like the conclusion:
If I were to argue with it, I’d bring up “perspectivism” and compare stuff like “go after” (her words) with “pay careful attention to what you’re afraid they’re going to write, and why you wouldn’t want it to be public. Then apply some rational thinking” thing and see if you can swap those around with minimal effort.
Given that, from my perspective, you can, I think that she makes a decent point but doesn’t apply it broadly enough.
In any case, there are two sets of numbers that I would be interested in seeing (and I know that neither is going to be made available to me):
1. The NYT’s subscription numbers from the beginning of February versus the end of February
2. Astral Codex Ten’s subscription numbers from the beginning of February versus the end of FebruaryReport
Freddie has weighed in:
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There is also some indication that a dude with long-standing beef with Scott Alexander was heavily involved in sourcing the story, or at least he thinks he was:
https://twitter.com/webdevMason/status/1361214913100713987Report
Like magic, this sort of thing works a lot better when the magician doesn’t explain the trick.
When he explains the trick, he not only undercuts himself, he undercuts other magicians too.
Say what you will about Penn and Teller, when they give the game away, they give the game away for tricks that are about a hundred years old at the same time they’re pulling an even bigger trick.Report
also kinda funny to see Freddie go after the journalism crew on behalf of a techbro, although he’s very clearly always considered Scott to be One Of The Good Ones (which is yet another thing that makes me think of him as a closeted conservative.)
and, sure, People Can Grow And Change, but there’s kind of…not as much self-reflection about it as I’d want to see? Like, there’s “I Grew And Changed”, and then there’s “I Just Didn’t Know How To Explain Myself To You In A Way You Could Accept”…Report
Maybe Scott Alexander just needs a safe space, free of criticism and offensive words.
Is that snarky? Sure.
But in reading the Times article, I’m struck by the number of very powerful and influential people in SSC’s orbit.
People who are not just well established and secure in their professions, but who aggressively define themselves as bold fearless visionaries who speak truth to power and are flinty and impervious, unlike the tender fragile souls of the social justice warriors.
And yet, all it took to “destroy” the man and his blog, was a newspaper article that gave his true name, and made unflattering connections to unpopular people.
It is the image of Scott Alexander and his tribe that is built by his supporters which is most devastating; That beneath all the posturing of boldness and fearless iconoclasm, it is a culture that thrives in the shadows and wilts in the light. People who are unafraid to take the most outrageous and offensive positions, yet yelp and recoil at the most mild and civil criticism.Report
Chip, Scott Alexander has made one.
He is now on Substack, quit his old job, and opened a new private practice.
He has made himself anti-fragile and only after making himself anti-fragile has he made his safe space.
The NYT story is a story attempting to assail his now much safer space.
Do you think that it did a particularly good job?Report
Yeah, SSC is a weird Cancel Culture confirmation victory…
He got wind of the story before it landed, attempted to negotiate some terms, had his terms rejected, then deleted his content, exited his job, set-up a new business (and a new business model for Psychiatry), and re-entered the public sphere over 3-months in a new, hardened position.
That’s all it takes.Report
So, he isn’t “destroyed” after all?Report
Why did you put “destroyed” in quotes?
The initial issue was over whether they would have printed his real name in what they promised would be a good piece talking about him and his site. He asked them to not name him.
Then a whole bunch of stuff happened.
So… no, he’s not “destroyed” by the publishing of his name.
By the time he did it, he already quit his job, got set up with substack, and opened a private practice.
Because he made himself anti-fragile first.Report
I was quoting Freddie, who described it as him being “destroyed” by Metz.
It really doesn’t sound like a “hit piece” or hatchet job, or anything other than just a mildly critical piece that contains some arguable inaccuracies.
The reaction though, seems weirdly defensive, out of proportion to
any actual offense.Report
You’re actually misquoting, Chip. The quote is not that Metz “destroyed” Alexander but that Metz “Set out to destroy Alexander”. I’m afraid your point implodes thereon; Metz may have failed to destroy Alexander but it’s pretty hard, looking at the timeline, to try and claim that Metz didn’t set out to destroy him.Report
How do you figure?
I read the article and it didn’t seem anything close to that.Report
So you believe doxxing is a harmless bit of fun?Report
Chip either honestly believes that because Alexander had the capital (social and financial) to rebuild his life then It Wasn’t Really All That Bad, or he honestly believes that ironically taking that position is somehow pointing up the hypocrisy of the people here who think it was indeed That Bad.Report
Oh FFS.
He was a well-known blogger whose real name was already known.
And this is the point- he was one of those who made a big deal of posturing about how bold and fearless and vulcanized they were, yet somehow the fact that his writing would be connected to his real name caused him to get the vapors.
And its not like the Stasi were going to kick in his door; the worst that would happen is a few people would decide they didn’t want to associate with him anymore.
Yet here we are, talking about him like Nelson Mandela or some French resistance fighter.Report
Sounds like he was worried the worst thing that could happen is it effects his psychiatric practice, and this wasn’t just posturing, he quit that job to avoid it being an issue.
I used to generally do Internet stuff in my own name where I could, but my thinking on that changed significantly when I started having a legal practice.Report
I’m no techie, so I’m sure this won’t come off right – but how do you dox someone who is already publicly known for something by his actual name? Its not like – or so I keep reading around here – you couldn’t already find him?Report
The issue was, if a patient googled “Scott Siskind,” they would find no reference to “Scott Alexander.” The fact that googling “Scott Alexander” could, with moderate effort, reveal “Scott Siskind” wasn’t the point. Scott wasn’t concerned that people could find out his real identity. He was concerned that those who knew his real identity could discover his blog.
I’m in a weird place, in that I really don’t like Scott and think he is a harmful presence, but I think the NYT should have just granted his request. They’ve done it for others.Report
Is Alexander, Scott’s real middle name? There seem to be a lot of people that want to remain secret but end up creating online nyms that are really close to their own legal name.Report
I think it might be, but I’m not sure. In any case, no one has claimed that Scott did a good job protecting his anonymity, only that the NYT should honor it.Report
Tying a real name to a pseudonym is doxxing, according to some doxxing theories.
Here’s from his original post where he deleted his blog:
If you’re willing to read the comment threads above (they’re pretty good!), you can see us discuss doxxing theory and talking about whether consent to have your real name in a story about your pseudonymous blog is important. (There’s even a link to when “Publius” was outed!)Report
I’d say the debate over whether it technically counts as “doxxing” is pretty pointless. Personally, sure, I think what the NYT planned to do is doxxing, but we can discuss the material facts without getting caught up on how to categorize it. The key point is that the NYT, which is normally ranked highly in search results, was going to link “Scott Siskind” to “Scott Alexander” in a way far different from the existing links between the names. Scott requested that they not to do that. They refused, despite the fact they had done it for others in the past.
I don’t care about the term “doxxing,” because I think revealing someone’s identity is fine sometimes but not fine others. It depends on who and why.
To pick a somewhat extreme example, if I figure out who DB Cooper was, should I not “doxx” him? Don’t be silly. Likewise, I’m totally fine with doxxing white supremacists, while I think we should respect the anonymity of LGBTQ people who hide for their safety. This isn’t some kind of “double standard,” except inasmuch as I think that Nazis are bad and queer people are fine — a position I find both reasonable and obvious.Report
Sure, but Pihlip H asked “but how do you dox someone who is already publicly known for something by his actual name?”
I was trying to explain how that was possible.
If you want me to agree that sufficiently bad pseudonymous people should be doxxed but insufficiently bad (or even neutral or good) pseudonymous people shouldn’t be, then let me say that I agree with that 100%.Report
Yes I was agreeing with you, although it happens rarely enough that I should have been more clear. The NYT was going to doxx Scott, or do something that is close enough to doxxing that we don’t need to argue about the word.
One of the reasons I don’t think the NYT should have printed his name is simply this: No one will gain much by hurting Scott. By contrast, all it did was to play into the ongoing persecution complex of the Quillette narrative. That said, pointing out the problems with SSC and the related spaces is a worthwhile task. The surrounding community really is a mess, and Scott’s role in that is less important than the dynamic itself. The whole doxxing debate just confused the issue.Report
Well, the worst thing possible happened: Instead of hurting Scott, he made himself better.
He is now making enough money that he was able to create a low-cost therapy practice that helps people who (I imagine) wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford his services.
On top of that, he can point to how the NYT wronged him and, let’s face it, he has a point instead of being obviously paranoid.
And, on top of *THAT*, there are people who are now reading his work who wouldn’t have otherwise and they’re giving him money and, worse than that, believing his take on the situation instead of the NYT’s.
I don’t know how things could have gone better for Scott. And he’s even helping underserved people!Report
That’s a fair “outside view.” Inside Scott’s head, however …Report
La lutte elle-même vers les sommets suffit à écraser un cœur d’homme; il faut imaginer Sisyphe misérable.Report
Ha!Report
Another Freddie-is-actually-a-Republican data point: he got cancelled by his hosting provider before getting cancelled by your hosting provider was cool.Report
Freddie is a liberal- the republicans can’t have him.Report
Quillette has chimed in:
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This whole usage of the word “doxxing” seems to have taken a weird turn in recent years.
I mean, suppose I were to do the following:
Compile a massive database of every single person’s real name, real address and personal phone number;
Publish this database, and then go further and distribute a hard copy of this database to every single address.
This is of course, what used to be called the “phone book” and no one seemed particularly disturbed by it.
Also too, in those days when a psychiatrist wanted to issue thoughts and ideas about culture and politics he had to talk face to face with friends at the club or with the gang down at Cheers, where everyone knew his name.
I think this notion of anonymity being the default identity has sort of grown up around the internet and I’m not sure why.Report
It started with Hollywood’s “You’ve Got Mail” remake from 1998. That resulted in a minor realization among rom-com aficionados that they could pretend to be Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan. It culminated in 4Chan but then Gamergate happened and now we’re back to wanting to tie real names to real people, like they did in the 1950’s.Report
We discussed online anonymity (and its limitations) a mere week ago.Report
There are different flavors of doxxing. One sense of the term is to reveal someone’s true identity. Another is to reveal someone’s personal info, such as banking information or social security number. A chan style dox is often the latter.
Few people defend the latter style doxxing. Regarding the first type, as I said, I treat them case by case. For example, a fair number of anti fascists spend their time putting real names to the violent radical right. I support this fully. By contrast, many TERFs spend their time publishing the dead names of trans folks and “outing” folks online. I consider such behavior monstrous.Report
I agree with your nuances. That said, if you blog under two of your three given names, to expect total anonymity is somewhat laughable.
I should probably go to greater lengths to guard my privacy. And I did self censor somewhat during Trump what with his deep state federal civil servant witch hunts.
But my view has always been if its my idea or opinion I ought to stand behind it. Guess I’m a luddite that way.Report
Good points, and I would add that the line between “regular individual” and “public figure” is pretty hazy especially in this day of self-publishing bloggers.
Newspapers always write people’s true names in newsworthy stories- I mean, its not like you read “BigDogg234 was involved in a fender bender on Main St. when LuvBeer933 came to a sudden stop…”
Its true that papers often respect a request for anonymity, but its also pretty well established they aren’t under any obligation to do so.Report
That anonymity is generally granted to sources, not the subjects of the story.Report
During the original hoopla, a number of people pointed out that the NYT maintained the anonymity of Banksy and one of the Chapo guys. Although I didn’t read the stories in question, it seems highly probable that those two are “subject” material, not “sources.”
I’m sure people can come up with reasons that those two had their anonymity respected, but not Scott, but I think we have to admit it doesn’t look good.Report
Will Wilkinson’s essay seems related:
https://modelcitizen.substack.com/p/grey-lady-steel-manReport