Hacker News Reader

Comment by djohnston | Hacker News Reader

s/But in late June of last year, when I approached Mr. Siskind to discuss the blog, it vanished./But in late June of last year, when I doxxed Mr. Siskind, it vanished./ FTFY

I love the diffusion of responsibility via the passive voice. Oh it "just disappeared."

I hope big tech buries the NYT.

View on HN

While I read SSC and agree that this article is lacking to say the least I think NYT has every right to publish it. Rationalist movements, other areas for though and discussion, I welcome main stream media to talk even more about it. Maybe they will see that there is a huge opportunity on the table.

I do however not, in any way, hope that "big tech" buries a news house. Even for a, not very good written and mean spirited, article. Especially one trying to bring public light on where a lot of very influential people get a lot of their ideological beliefs from. That would be a horrible precedent.

To be clear, I didn't mean bury in a reactionary way to this piece, or do anything to actively inhibit NYT's ability to publish what they want. I meant provide alternative means to publish/access information that strip these news houses of their power, as they are just as full of it as anyone else.

I think that if you're not a public figure and/or have a reason to not be anonymous (accused of a crime, etc) then you should be allowed to remain anonymous.

The NYT publishing threat was gratuitous

> I do however not, in any way, hope that "big tech" buries a news house.

I'm by no way a fan of big tech but NYT has diverged quite sensibly from being a "news house" in the last few years.

NYT hasn't changed but the extreme amplification of any mistakes that organization makes definitely has. If you compare NYT to clown shows like Breitbart or Fox News it is extremely well run. I'm not a fan of NYT in many cases but the extreme propaganda against it these days makes me ask, in who's interest is it to destroy another one of our established institutions?

The NYT is a mess and it's gotten worse since it laid off a bunch of its editors and notably got rid of its public editor.

I see it today as a bunch of independent contractors loosely publishing under the same banner. Article quality varies heavily depending upon author. News pieces are increasingly opinionated.

I've been a reader for over a decade and have probably cancelled and renewed my subscription a dozen times.

This NYT has never been perfect: I'm still sore how uncritical it was over the Iraq War. But my memory is that its voice and quality used to be a lot more consistent.

Note: I am addressing only the news part of the org. The opinion section is a whole other ball of wax, but they bleed into each other.

>> I do however not, in any way, hope that "big tech" buries a news house

The claim that the NYT is a news house is an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary evidence. Can you provide any?

Agree. It’s amazing how hostile people seem to get about unfavourable articles in the mainstream press. There’s legitimate public interest in this stuff and the problem here is not that the New York Times shouldn’t publish articles about the intellectual climate around Silicon Valley/ big tech/ VC ETC. but that they should do a better job of it. “Sucking at something is the first step towards being sort of good at something“.

That said, The Times’s treatment of Alexander is pretty shabby, I don’t see how naming him substantively alters anything you might have to say about either his ideas or the ideas of those who move with him in “rationalist” circles.

[edited to fix a typo]

Big Tech has shown itself to be no better standard bearer of truth and good journalism. Shifting to the current biggest power center only magnifies this kind of problem. You need independence from power, not subjection to it.

Mr. Siskind's name was already very public beforehand (literally a Google search suggestion). Also, the right to free speech does not include the right to be freed from criticism and stay anonymous. Scott took his blog down voluntarily. The fact that his name didn't matter much is clear, when you consider he didn't mind publishing it openly on his new Substack blog.

> I hope big tech buries the NYT.

Interesting that the people rallying so much against cancelling that they believe you can never even publish names want a tech cartel to form and drive a publication out of business for being vaguely critical of a movement popular with Silicon Valley people.

> I hope big tech buries the NYT.

I don't. I do wish Cade Metz hadn't made a mess of this story though, because it's a story worth pursuing. As the impact of Silicon Valley's policies on society continues to grow, it would be good to understand where decision-makers are getting their ideas.

If diffusion of responsibility is your criterion for burying something I'd suggest we start with big tech first and then move on to other industries.

It's quite funny how in this very thread the thin-skinned, childish attitude of tech personalities is on full display. The article is fairly balanced and even bland, yet the howling is enormous. As the article itself points out, people like Balaji Srinivasan were treatening to harass reporters involved in this story, but compared to the 'doxxing' of Scott Alexander, this didn't seem to draw a lot of attention. I'm pretty sure most journalists would be delighted if simply publishing their full name was the only thing they'd be threatened with on a daily basis, which wouldn't be much of a threat, because in general they put them right at the top of the article.

> I hope big tech buries the NYT.

How, by disinterring it from the shallow grave where it was left by its own "journalists"?

> I love the diffusion of responsibility via the passive voice. Oh it "just disappeared."

Yeah, that also made me throw up in my mouth a little.

"And suddenly, all this cash was handed to me"

"What happened before?"

"I threatened everyone at gunpoint to hand over their cash"

Reply on news.ycombinator.com