Slate Star Codex must remain anonymous | Hacker News Reader

Slate Star Codex must remain anonymous

unherd.com

Collectively the web has become a cacophony of voices, yelling loudly over each other. Discourse, let’s agree to disagree, I can respect your view and your right to that view - none of these sentiments can exist in the current mentality of you are either with us or against us. Who this “us” are remains a mystery. SSC will be deeply missed but as a last bastion of rational heaven Scott deserves his anonymity.

I miss the blogosphere. Making it so you had to put a bit of elbow grease into seeking out someone vigorously disagreeing with someone else, instead of putting it literally one inch down, kept the conversations a lot cooler. Two bloggers could wall-of-text-quote each other for weeks at a time, but either one could unilaterally break it off essentially by simply stopping; the other could keep going but only people who sought it out would keep getting it. If you didn't obsess about your referrer logs you could just keep going as if it was no big deal. Even if you did obsess, it's still easier not to engage with them than when the text of the article is right in your face.

A lot of the apparent flaws are really virtues in disguise... but then, it's the same flaws that got them stomped because the hot communities are just so much more engaging than the cool communities, even if I'd submit the cool communities are ahead on almost every other metric other than "engagement".

https://twitter.com/melissamcewen/status/1275493977672777733

it seems Scott Alexander deleted SSC just as the reporter was going to get in touch with critics, and not just cheerleaders.

Along the same lines: https://www.stationarywaves.com/2020/06/slate-star-codoxxed....

I have to admit, it makes a great what-if story. (Albeit the author does get some things wrong, e.g. Scott was not sloppy about preserving his privacy. He was just going about it in a different way than what OP assumes.)

That blog article doesn't make much sense although, because the NYT could post an article with his pseudonym only, which is pretty minor in the scheme of things, and still have all the purported negative fallout that Scott could theoretically be worried about.

Why would Scott delete everything and put a lynch pin on something that is really minor for the NYT to do in the scheme of things if he is really worried about thing Y?

I'm not even involved with this SSC takedown thing, and I got a call from the NYT on Friday asking about it, as an expert on the rationalists and on neoreaction.

Scott and his fans have absolutely turned it into a story now and attracted 100% of the NYT's attention. Doxing the journalist will do that.

Scott did not doxx the journalist. He encouraged people to send polite and appropriate feedback to NYT editors-- so it makes sense that this is getting their attention.

His fans absolutely did, this is a thing that happened.

(I also submit that this was absolutely predictable, unless you assume there are zero overenthusiastic fans of a popular site. Putting a call to action was going to lead to this result, even with a "please be polite" disclaimer.)

There's been one person doxed in the course of all this, and it's the journalist, not Scott.

Doxxer gets doxxed, news at 10.

I'm not into speculation but your speculation about SA, says more about you than it might say of him.

Since we are into speculation now, it seems you dislike(d) SSC? What stopped you from expressing this opinion instead of pointing to another source? I'm actually interested in how the current cultural divide seems to be rooted in individual psychological traits, think this example might have some insight.

PS. I'd actually love to see some of these critics

Holy cow, Streisand in full effect. This story has drawn more attention to the site than it's ever had. I'm sure anyone that cares to know who runs it has figured it out by now. Also, TFA includes their general location, is that not an insane level of hypocrisy?

>The New York Times wants to out the author of a blog that is one of the few sites for reasoned argument

I haven't finished the article, and I probably agree that whoever this is shouldn't be "outed", but no person making a good-faith defense of another person would use such a petty, elitist, gate-keeping line. This reeks of social-political side-taking.

You have to read the blog to get it. Reasoned argument is its foundation, if your and in good faith people will engage you. The author would say he's dogmatic about 2 things and one is niceness.

It's not elitist. It's as undetailed, straightforward, nonpolitical description of the blog that you will get.

For the record: your “real name” is whatever you say it is. You and only you are the authority on what constitutes your own name.

Anyone who tells you differently, or publishes differently, is an asshole. This includes, in this instance, the New York Times.

They don’t still call the Wikileaks leaker by her old name or pronoun, despite what her government ID says or does not say. Why should they be any different here?

This sort of assholery makes me angry.

Especially from the New York Times! They of all organizations should respect the individual's right to define one's own identity.

That thing is Streisand effect to the max. No one cares about his name and it wasn't secret at all before, like he said himself. It's literally a google autocomplete. And even without that it's very easy to find. If anonymity is that important maybe don't put your first and middle name out there?

But Dr. Scott Alexander So-and-So also says that Scott Alexander is his real-life first and last name. That sure is an odd choice of pseudonyms for someone who wishes to remain anonymous. The legendary whistleblower "Deep Throat" wasn't a guy named Deep Throat McInnis, and if he was, going by "Deep Throat" wouldn't exactly be a cloak of anonymity.

Slate Star CoDoxxed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23627301

> But Dr. Scott Alexander So-and-So also says that Scott Alexander is his real-life first and last name.

No he doesn't, he says it's his real-life first and middle name. It would be pretty hard to identify someone from a common first and middle name alone with no other identifying information. Read his post again: https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/06/22/nyt-is-threatening-my-...

You're right - that was a mistake in the quoted essay. Nonetheless, the essay's main points are that Scott Alexander's actions are not consistent with those of someone who values anonymity.

They may not be consistent with someone who prioritizes anonymity above all else, but they are perfectly consistent with someone who moderately values pseudonymity.

Which is all Scott claims in his new landing page, if I read it right.

Agreed -- the counter-theory for his motivations in the linked essay doesn't hold up to Occam's razor compared to this explanation. (Without knowing anything about the author of the linked essay, it felt like there was a bit of projection going on there...)

Yes, he didn't go to great lengths to cryptographically protect his identity. He's not Edward Snowden, he's just some guy who started writing some essays on a blog, and used a somewhat half-hearted pseudonym probably never imagining it would get popular enough for anyone to look into it further than possibly googling his pseudonym.

Many people have made the mistake that when they first come on to the Internet, they have to choose their level of anonymity right then, when they have the least amount of information to know whether or not they'll need it. Once you've built up a nym's reputation it's essentially too late to make it more anonymous. His actions are completely consistent with someone who didn't expect to become an internet sensation of a size and scope that he's worth a NYT article. Did you pick your first nym assuming that might happen? I bet not.

He says nothing about anonymity. He writes about pseudonymity.

What a nasty little article. Reeks of petty malice. And from someone who claims he's interested in "being a good person".

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