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Comment by fallingknife | Hacker News Reader

Because they want him to stop writing. Scott Alexander believes in open debate on any issue and to any participant. The NYT believes that "open" debate should only occur within limits, and that they are entitled to set these limits. If people like Scott Alexander can have a large audience then the NYT does not have the power that they believe they are entitled to. If the NYT did not have the motive to stop Scott Alexander from writing, then why didn't they publish the piece after he took down his blog? Why did the wait until right after he started writing again to run the piece? If their motive was real journalism they would have just run the article as planned.

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Frankly, I think it's even simpler than that. It's a tattle-tale culture. Did someone post wrongthink in your comments? "I'm telling!" Do you have a different opinion about some outrage du jour? "I'm telling!" Did you make an offhand mention of some ideas from a bad scary man? "I'm telling!"

In the past few years at the NYT, all of the old-school journalists in leadership positions have been railroaded by the tattle-tales. Millenial and Gen Z apparatchiks have largely taken full reigns of the paper. In general these generations are broadly more supportive of limits on free speech and open discussion[1]. Even more so among journalists specifically.

We're a long way from the era of journalists like HL Mencken or Tom Wolfe or Hunter S Thompson. But we do have world class tattle-tales.

[1]https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/11/20/40-of-mille...

Right, but you also have to acknowledge the elephant in the room that the market really, really likes tattle-tale stories. They share well on Twitter, which itself is a strange attractor of this kind of reporting.

And it's not even a liberal thing or a social-justice thing. Conservatives and status-quo warriors do this all the time, and I'd argue more maliciously. Project Veritas's entire reason for being was to construct tattle-tale narratives around whatever organization conservatives were expected to hate this week.

Completely agree. Being a tattle-tale is just plain fun. Which is why young children pick it up so easily. It's not inherent to any ideology, but any ideology can adopt it to score easy points. It's great for getting re-tweets. What's it's not though, is a constructive way to make meaningful change in the world.

> Because they want him to stop writing. Scott Alexander believes in open debate on any issue and to any participant. The NYT believes that "open" debate should only occur within limits, and that they are entitled to set these limits.

That is basically a conspiracy theory.

It's far more likely that the journalists in question don't care one way or another if Scott Alexander continues writing or not, they just wanted to do their work according to their usual standards (e.g. use people's real names, not write a with the goal of making the subject and his fans happy).

They have in the past used pseudonyms for Internet personalities. The example often used is Virgil Texas, (former?) Chapo Trap House host, whose real name was available online but was not included in his profile. But it might have been easier to find Scott’s real name. The lesson might just be don’t make it too easy to find your real name.

I thought so too. But it's hard not to notice that this article was supposedly in the work for many months, yet reads as if it took a day's worth of work (being generous). Why did it disappear for months and then come out shortly after Scott Alexander poked his head above the parapet again? That timing is awfully suspicious.

As for the NYT believing they should control the parameters of debate, that's not a conspiracy theory. That's exactly what they seem to believe. There have been many incidents showing that in recent years, most recently, the Silicon Valley reporter whose daring investigation of Clubhouse boiled down to trying to cancel Marc Andresseen for dumb reasons. The Tom Cotton op ed, the firings of editors and staff who believed in non-woke speech and so on.

> I thought so too. But it's hard not to notice that this article was supposedly in the work for many months, yet reads as if it took a day's worth of work (being generous). Why did it disappear for months and then come out shortly after Scott Alexander poked his head above the parapet again? That timing is awfully suspicious.

Not really, he made himself relevant again by relaunching his blog.

And it's weird to assume they were continuously slaving away on this story since this kerfuffle started, polishing it to perfection. They probably just shelved it in a draft state and moved on to new things. When it because relevant again, spent a little time dusting it off and updating it, then shipped. My understanding is this story isn't even that long for this kind of thing, and it ran on a Saturday (which IIRC is the least read edition of the week).

This story is BIG NEWS in the Rationalist subculture and adjacent communities, and a small blip pretty much everywhere else.

Most people agree that there are limits to a debate. I think there are essentially two camps:

The intellectual/traditional camp wants to consider ideas independently from social context, so things like doxxing or guilt-by-association are way off-limits. But something that potentially reinforces "bad" behavior is within bounds as long as it's true, relevant, and leads into a worthwhile discussion.

The socially-aware camp is almost the opposite. Facts should be vetted based on whether they fit a story that promotes and reinforces "good" behavior. Off-limits are anything that challenges or complicates the story. But twisting or cherry-picking facts, or personally pressuring those involved in the debate, are in bounds.

I feel the second camp is self-defeating. It's essentially that the ends (e.g. getting Trump out of office) justify the means (nearly anything). The tactics used undermine trust as well as undercutting the values themselves. And the definition of "good" behavior is rapidly shifting away from basic morality (treating all people with respect and fairness) into political convenience (pandering to minority groups without actually helping) and then further into plain power grabs (punishing political opponents). Bad means don't create good ends.

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