Hacker News Reader

Comment by heavyset_go | Hacker News Reader

> No, he quite clearly was trying to keep the association between the psychiatry real identity and Scott Alexander. There would be no fucking discussion here if Scott intentionally meant to reveal his identity.

Then why did he publish his own recognizable blog post with his full name here[1]?

[1] https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Technological_Singu...

View on HN

Isn't there a difference between having your name in a book that likely doesn't get much circulation and therefore probably wouldn't damage your career from attention, and the literal New York Times outing your name?

Shouldn't we at least suggest these are significantly distinct events with very different ramifications for the author?

Don't argue that Scott didn't intentionally mean to reveal his identity if he himself intentionally chose to reveal his own identity.

That's not what TeaDrunk was arguing.

I think it is fair to say that the author under the pseudonym of Scott Alexander didn't mean to provide an avenue for which his identity could be in a major, nationwide, widely-read source of news, when he republished an article under his real name in a relatively niche audience book that would unlikely have the same amount of circulation as the New York Times.

You’re right, he’s probably working for NYTimes and this is a geurrilla marketing campaign. He didn’t want to stay anonymous and was using the name Scott Alexander for a decade for the build-up to this climax of made up events.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com