Notes on the Slate Star Codex Controversy
scholars-stage.blogspot.com
scholars-stage.blogspot.com
I really like this snippet. Captures an idea I hadn't ever been able to put into words before.
This entails a meta-perspective, a perspective-of-perspectives. This kind of consciousness is why people like Scott Alexander: he makes an attempt to understand other people's perspectives and rarely dismisses anything out of hand.
The questions is...why is this sort of consciousness, that understands the relative validity of virtually everyone's perspective, so uncommon outside of various internet blogs? Is it too much to ask for editors and reporters with this kind of open-mindedness?
Not dismissing people's perspectives is one thing, but if you cannot actually understand them, will that really help you make better decisions, or are you getting lost by adding more complex dimensions to a problem you already barely understand?
Open-mindedness is beneficial in general, but it cannot be blind. Some perspectives are just wrong. How do you cut through the noise?
I would be careful though: we could also describe a meta-meta-perspective, where you recognize the dangerous seductiveness of thinking yourself one level of abstraction higher than others. But then that leads to an infinite recursion...
Brain lateralization probably isn't what you think it is since pop culture gets almost everything about it wrong and it has become a career-ender for academic study so that no one synthesizes the research into coherent theses. Sadly, the topic has gotten such a bad reputation that I have to take a brief moment to defend the validity of bringing it up.
Part of the reason why it's rare is, I think, because of our schools. A lot of education pushes people to see things as having only one correct answer. That it's more important to win the debate than to explore ideas. There is not much emphasis on how one develops solid and correct ideas. There is a tendency towards justifying ideas, coming up with good-sounding reasons, whether or not they are actually true.
Also, writing that explores other perspectives in a fact-based manner can easily come across as an if-by-whiskey fallacy [1].
As far as a real answer goes - I think that it's a genuinly difficult problem. Religious figures have been talking about perspectives and empathy and compassion for thousands of years. It's clearly a big thing.
As far as the specifics of the SSC controversy, my attempt to understand both sides is this: Scott made ethical commitments as a psychiatrist, both to his clients in particular and his profession in general. The NYT made ethical commitments both to their readers in particular and to journalistic standards in general. In the SSC controversy these commitments conflict. Whose commitments should win? Whose commitments are the most important?
Scott found a way to make his ethical commitments work for him. Maybe it was a compromise, but I think it worked well enough so that his patients couldn't easily find out who he was. I think that the NYT could have easily made it work with their commitments, and everyone would have been better off.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/If-by-whiskey#:~:text=If%20w...
I'm sorry, what "ethical commitments" did the NYT have that required them to reveal Scott's identity? They have—over the last few years—systematically abused the privilege of anonymous sources. If this was some sort of manifest reversal of said abuse, I could maybe understand. But that's not what this was. It was a partisan choice to "out" him in a direct or incidental attempt to cancel/silence him.
They hold absolute secrecy for other sources that seek anonymity. (Or, in some cases, when revelation of that source wouldn't be a good look for their paper.) I cannot fathom any sort of ethical purpose—to their readers or to journalism—that necessitates his reveal.
Maybe you can help me understand the gymnastics of contorting ethics in such a way that this makes any logical sense, I would appreciate it. Because—from my vantage point and from innumerable other examples—the NYT has tossed every ethical framework out the window for the sake of their ego, id, wallets, power, and agenda.
They try to maintain the aire of integrity in their rapidly crumbling empire, but the emperor has no clothes. So please help me see what I'm missing.
As far as the NYT abusing their sources for the last few years, well, I could easily believe that it's true. But I think that it was clear from the context that I was speaking specifically about the current SSC controversy.
As far as doxing Scott, I agree that it was the wrong thing to do. Also, as Scott himself often discusses, it's important and worth while to try to understand the other side. For example, the New Statesman wrote about Scott's doxxing [2] earlier. It at least considers the possibility that the NYT has a reason for doxxing Scott, that they have a reason for their policies regarding anonymous sources.
It's certainly possible that the NYT is simply a bunch of slavering monsters who, as you wrote "tossed every ethical framework out the window for the sake of their ego, id, wallets, power, and agenda." But I'd bet that there was a fair bit of internal discussion over the issue. I'm willing to give them at least some credit, even if I disagree with their conclusions.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalism_ethics_and_standa...
[2] https://www.newstatesman.com/world/2020/06/why-new-york-time...
I understand you aren't sure what they've enumerated for themselves. The point is that they don't follow most of the most obvious standards one could conceive on a whim. If one had no formal knowledge of ethics, but chose to engage in a quick thought experiment in which one identifies "the basis of communicating truth", the NYT (currently) do not adhere to practically any beyond "factual".
Let's say they follow the generalizations in your wikipedia link:
> ...most share common elements including the principles of truthfulness, accuracy, objectivity, impartiality, fairness, and public accountability.
Abject failure on:
- accuracy
- objectivity
- impartiality
And just a bit further down:
> ...the ethics of journalism include the principle of "limitation of harm." This may involve the withholding of certain details from reports, such as... information not materially related to the news report where the release of such information might, for example, harm someone's reputation.
Well the NYT article is an absolute rejection of this principal. (Not that you disagree.)
I'm not sure what ethical standards you do think they follow, but whatever conversation they had about whether to reveal his name (or the ethics of the article at large) clearly didn't emphasize honorable intent in good faith.
The most generous interpretation I can muster for their ethics revolves around some notion of, "for the greater good." But history is pretty clear that's an invariably evil form of ethics.
I have no doubt they think they're doing "good", but their rejection of objective standards puts them in the camp of "partisan propaganda", far away from "journalism".
[0] I could not find the passage in Project Gutenberg's copy, though I found it reproduced here https://www.thoughtco.com/two-ways-of-seeing-a-river-by-mark...
A journalist that then promptly proceeds to explain that it’s the interviewee’s fault that a journalist misrepresents them, with a strange paternalistic argument about this being “how journalism works”.
Literally Every Single Person I have talked to about being interviewed have described the exact same experience, the journalist misrepresented what they said. Maybe, just maybe, the common factor here are the journalists?
But journalist are completely unable to understand this point-of-view, because they view themselves as the righteous defenders of “the truth”.
Regarding question two ("was the article misrepresenting SA/the rationalists"), a bit of the misunderstanding is cultural, I think. The NYT article makes heavy use of (what seems to be) guilt by association, i.e. he is in the same scene as "known bad" Peter Thiel etc.. While this is an accepted argument in some circles, it is frowned upon a lot in the rationalist community and seen as cheap smear. I think this is a major point on why opinions diverge on the article and why it is seen as malicious by so many people.
I think that what I'm trying to say is that there have been many reasons given, some better some worse, but I personally find this one the most compelling. Anonymity is commonly extended to authors of books, and the fact checking doesn't necessarily need to break that anonymity. So why is this case so different?
related: Killing the chicken to scare monkey.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kill_the_chicken_to_scare_the_...
So not a "CEO" just an unfortunte internet chicken that has been used to obliquely instruct unkown monkeys with aspirations to taking up 'The Pen'. (Remember, that mightier than kinetic weaponry instrument of the intelligent?)
Call it a 'hit job rehearsal'.
Honestly, it sounds very broad and rather conspiratorial. I'm really not clear on the scope of your statements. Maybe I could believe that it's a clash of cultures thing, where a qualitative culture (typified by, say, Liberal Arts/English majors) is in conflict with quantitative STEM/Engineering culture. But I don't think that's what you mean. Am I wrong?
> You're saying that Scott was made an example of in order for the NYT to scare him and stop his writing, with the end goal of preserving their authority?
I don't know, it's just a hypothesis, but this is the question you can answer for yourself: would the proverbial Scott today start an anon blog, or would he first do a liability analysis regarding his personal and professional life? In otherwords, has the social calculus of anonymous [non-estalishment] expression been altered in a significant way?
I'm shocked this is the case, though I've felt this has been the case. I don't know how one "speaks truth to power" when talking about narratives. It gives the NYT a very Game of Thrones feel, but more like the South Park version with reporting like this in mind.
Secondarily, as the author points out, people are looking for place to punch. This the author sets up a dichotomy of "up" for people more powerful and "down" for people less powerful.
The problem with power is that it's very perspective based. The author lays out some criteria but even that doesn't seem enough. If you have a Silicon Valley SWE who has saved up $5M and done nothing political, but has a popular blog talking about software and investing, are you entitled to fix them and frame them as you wish?
Personally, I have gravitated away from the idea of "punching" because as the author later alludes, punching implies a use of perspective which can change. Your punch cannot though, once send is hit, that is it.
> the hunter, logger, and geologist will walk through the same patch of wilderness and see an entirely different forest, for each eye is trained to notice something different. The more abstract the things observed the greater individual variance there will be. For intangible social processes like market exchange, mass movements, and elections, our understanding is all model, no matter.
I really liked this perspective, it was very thought provoking. It's always perplexed me why people can witness the same things and derive such different perspectives. It doesn't put those perspectives at less competition with each other, but it does make them more understandable.
That said, here is as good an example as I am aware of for why the left-leaning world finds rationalists so outrageously exhausting. Including footnotes (footnotes!), this is a seven thousand word treatise on what can only be called a minor quibble. A psychiatrist wrote an anonymous blog, got outed, and doesn't actually seem to have been harmed much in practice. He's back to writing rationalist stuff under his own name.
Yet... this is somehow an existential thing we need to revisit (pg himself tweeted out this story this morning) again and again and again?
This is where the rest of us just throw up our hands. The whole idea of the rationalist perspective is that it's supposed to be detached from parochial loyalty. It's supposed to be about real problems and real solutions that affect real people in real ways.
And... when push comes to shove, it's not. It's just another tribe, waging just another tribal war. The fact that Alexander was wronged here is real. The idea that his wronging is of existential importance is just not remotely "rationalist". At all.
His life was upended. He gave up his full time practice and moved on to writing as his #1 source of income.
That’s because he managed the situation spectacularly well. Imagine if NYT had gone ahead with the doxx earlier: it could have disrupted his life a lot more.
Rationalists are angry about the principles/norms being violated. The outcome doesn’t negate the criticisms.
On the other hand, it’s clear that the Left is willing to throw principles under the bus in pursuit of outcomes desirable to them.
...
So I'm going to try to start a medical practice that provides great health care to uninsured people for 4x less than what anyone else charges.”
It’s a side project right now, not his primary source of income.
Also: process and principles, not outcome
I feel this community generates more reading comprehension failures in the general public than almost any other.
I'm not saying you "shouldn't care" about this. I'm saying the fact that you clearly care so deeply is evidence that "rationalism" is largely a fraud. You want rationalism except when you get criticized, then you want a safe space.
I'm not convinced his last name has anything to do with understanding him, rationalism, SSC, SSC's wider influence, etc any better. His thin pseudonym is what was actually well known anyway, and without his last name the article would have still included the fact that he is a psychiatrist in the Bay area.
You imply there is a particular goal of his that you could figure out by knowing his last name. That sounds ridiculous, but I guess I'll ask anyway: What is that goal that you figured out through knowing his last name?
Hell if I know. But that's not really the standard, is it? It was a true fact. It's relevant to discussion about the guy. A "rationalist" would, objectively, be expected to celebrate this sort of thing. Let's get all the facts on the table and stop hiding stuff, then we'll figure it all out. Deliberate anonymity like this certainly can be used to hide an agenda. You agree with that much, right?
Also: don't fall into the rhetorical trap of claiming the guy was "cancelled" (which you seem to be dancing around without saying). He wasn't. His patients didn't leave, his clinic didn't fire him. He just quit, taking the opportunity to strike out on substack.
Again, I have no idea why you think knowing his last name could cause anyone (since you say it didn't actually work for you apparently) to know his goals.
Anyway, I seem to be violating some HN norms given the downvotes, so I'll end this here.
Ideally what it tries to do instead is to make us mindful of the emotional aspect, and re-examine it. That's for instance why rationalists are so obsessed with ingroup-outgroup processes: they notice themselves exhibiting the same patterns and want to understand why.
>>> The whole idea of the rationalist perspective is that it's supposed to be detached from parochial loyalty. It's supposed to be about real problems and real solutions that affect real people in real ways.
I believe this is a race against time. Rationalism has to actually influence the implementation of real solutions before it becomes a parochial loyalty in its own right. Unfortunately, one symptom of such a shift is the development of a shared enemy and a sense of embattlement, and the NYT/SSC affair may have provided the seed crystal for that shift.
I've deliberately ceded (in my head) from “rationalism”, to try to help push that off for a little while longer.
The OP offers as the better explanation that the NYT had a narrative for the piece to fit; and that narrative should not be seen as retaliation, because the trouble SSC gave them was beneath their notice.
This might be right, I don't know, but how do you square it with all the sources saying Metz told them he was researching a basically positive piece on the rationalists being right early about the pandemic? Was he just lying? (E.g. this post by Scott Aaronson, C-f for "Cade": https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=5310)
Also, it's not clear that the paper or the writer would only retaliate against a party viewed as powerful -- you don't necessarily see swatting a mosquito as not worth the effort; it's not as if a negative story is more work than a neutral one.
Does anyone know more about when papers write hit pieces and when they don't?
Why wouldn't he be lying?
Talking to journalists is like talking to the police. They will play nice with you to get you talking, and then use whatever you say however they want.
I don't think the "hit job" conspiracy theories are silly, I think they're a big deal. The conspiracy theorizing in the rationalist community right now is what worries me about the way that they're trending. Remember that this is a community that has a great deal to say about the downside of cognitive biases on their entire thought process, and specifically identifies conspiracies and tribalism as biases that can distort our perceptions. Yet the community seems to increasingly be awash in exactly the biases that they identify as most toxic. This is not some small concern, it's a problem that undermines the entire project. And while I agree that "rationalists" aren't some sort of Illuminati that controls Silicon Valley, they've certainly got enough of a following that a "Scientology" level culthood could emerge out of the group if they allow this to happen. I think that there is a dark timeline where that could really happen, and it would be a lousy outcome, especially since I have friends and colleagues who are attracted to this community.
TL;DR: I don't know if the NYT is the problem here, but I wish the community would spend more time thinking about its own tendency to identify conspiracy theories and close ranks against the "outgroup" and put serious thought into how they're going to fight this. Because this is antithetical to the purpose of the entire project.
Will Wilkinson was fired few weeks ago based on one tweet. He knows. He has also been close to the rationalist community from the start and has no ill will. He is in good position to criticize and he does it well. His criticism probably hurts most because it's so insightful.
If you ask me, the media has taken way too much power and that's bad for everyone. It might feel like a victory when Trump is taken down, but as we see here, the power can and will be turned against anyone.
However, I think it's clear that many media institutions have abused their power upon the foundation of their seminal integrity. They've had the power for a long time—and have instances of abuse—but not like we've seen the last few years.
The notion that they have "too much" power, however, is a very, very dangerous one. Any forcible resolution for this is—or should be—unpalatable. (And that's usually the insinuation when one discusses "too much" anything.)
It's clear that we need a reckoning among the people to help shift perception of what is deemed appropriate forms of news. I don't know that's possible in the current state of our culture, though.
The technological landscape has transformed the psyche of the people with such rapidity and force the likes of which has never been seen on this planet. Some self-aware individuals recognize the psychological dangers of our current state and choose not to participate, but I don't know that there's enough of them to make a difference.
Laziness, depersonalization, greed, envy... these are all rampant within our online communities, and all forms of media prey on our vulnerability to them. The world has largely transformed to a seething mass of unsustainable behavior. While the media has the power to at least influence a healthy message, they're desperately trying to maintain control... fire with fire.
The only ethical response to this is rejection. Rejection of communities that engage in unhealthy behavior. Rejection of media that engage in unhealthy behavior. Rejection in general of the unhealthy behavior.
Fortunately, a lot of people who grew up in the world before this insanity took over see how bad it's gotten. Others are burned and leave. Some never got involved.
The best we can hope for is rapid acceleration to such a degree that people reject the forms of messaging that have taken the world, en masse. At this rate, that actually may happen.
The worst that could happen would be one of either forceful rejection or such a slow burn that not enough jump ship.
Who knows what will happen, but we have at most one or two generations for the majority to recognize this or the well is poisoned. For all the worry about global warming or communism or fascism or whatever, very few seem too concerned about the implosion that's been growing the last couple decades.
I hate to use the phrase, "but this time it's different," because it's usually not. But this global connection that's been abused to infect our minds by charlatans is truly unprecedented in scale, force, and insidiousness.
The world is increasingly addicted to new forms of mind drugs that are anything but apparent, and their use are rationalized, increasingly less optional, and devastatingly subversive.
I know I sound like a madman, but if the state of our modern communities—in parallel with the growth of global connectedness over the last decade—doesn't reveal the cause, I challenge anyone to provide an alternative explanation.
The internet is quite possibly the most wonderful and most insidious development by the human mind, ever. To enable and amplify the best and the worst of humanity is truly unique, and at such a devastating scale. And I don't think the human race is is equipped do anything but abuse it for the worst.
Disclosure: I am a former singularitarian fast turning luddite.
> The notion that they have "too much" power, however, is a very, very dangerous one.
I didn't advocate for any forcible resolution. I am a strong proponent of the 1st Amendment. There are lots of things we can do, though.
One example of structural change would be to move towards more economic policy at the state level. If fewer battles are happening in D.C., the media will be forced to decentralize a bit to cover state issues.
> The only ethical response to this is rejection.
Rejection by small groups/communities of what they consider "bad" content, or some collective rejection that feels more like censorship (e.g. FB, Twitter, and mainstream media squashing a story in unison)?
The difference here is critical. A collective rejection also centralizes power to an insane level, which is where we are now.
> I am a former singularitarian fast turning luddite.
Haha, me too! (An exaggeration, but not far from the mark.)
Voluntary rejection by individuals based on internal principals and a desire to avoid unhealthy media as a personal choice. No cancelling, no censoring, just people deciding not to expose themselves to such things, just as most choose not to drink all day, for example. There may be some social stigma that arises from this, but hopefully not much more than, "Ah, that's too bad."
This is all a pipe dream, however...
I think they should report news of public interest. Is he of public interst has to be discussed?
I think there's a structural difference between anonymity in actions and anonymity in writing, where in actions it is easy to leverage resources from one persona to benefit in the other, hence anonymity providing you with a structural advantage. But writing generally rests only on your skill as a writer, not your financial or political resources.
The one case where writing benefits structurally from political resources in your de-anonymized persona is whistleblowing - a situation where journalists do their level best to keep people anonymous!
Likewise, I think there's a difference between a newspaper trying to drag corruption into the light, and a newspaper, made up by writers, depriving another writer of a layer of protection, against community norms and their own standard, in order to (or at least accepting the risk to) destroy their livelihood. The NYT and Scott Alexander are not in direct competition, but it's still hard to see this as anything other than an attempt to bring harm on a fellow writer for their own gain.
In other words, the goal of a newspaper should be to increase the views and voices available to the public, not to shut them up.
People living private lives should have that privacy respected. And journalists certainly have the right to agree to protect somebody's anonymity when they think the circumstances merit it. But if somebody is going to step onto the national stage, they don't have any sort of right to demand that everybody else help conceal obvious facts about them. Somebody is welcome to try that, of course, but the opsec burden is on them, not every other person with a keyboard.
As an aside, one of the things linked in this article was really helpful to me in understanding why Siskind's prose never worked for me: http://www.eruditorumpress.com/blog/the-beigeness-or-how-to-...
It might be useful to think about it in terms of similar but older mediums: would you consider it problematic to learn about, say, a philosopher, preacher, guru, etc. who was cited by a bunch of people like Sam Altman, Paul Graham, etc.? This wasn’t at the level of, say, Norman Vincent Peale but it’s not like every single story is required to be about national level politics, either. I’ve certainly read plenty of articles over the years about people who are influential in a community but not well known outside of it - it’s one of the reasons why journalism matters for helping you learn about things you wouldn’t have thought to ask about on your own.
If it had been someone who was already a public figure or someone who was leveraging their writing into something beyond the ideas presented, it would have been newsworthy.
The infantilization of the NYT from its glory years continues apace.
On the other hand, if Sam Altman and Paul Graham regularly made small talk with a barista at a coffee shop near YC headquarters, it would be strange and invasive for the NYT to put a spotlight on her against her will and identify her as a woman with the ear of Silicon Valley elites. And I'd argue that's a much closer analogy to what's happening here. It doesn't seem (again, as far as has been reported) that he had any concrete personal relationship with any VCs or tech executives.
Consider affirmative action for a concrete example. It consistently loses at the ballot box in even the most left-leaning states, but it's incredibly rare to hear a left-wing case for why we might not want it, because in the Internet age, anyone who presents such a case is putting their career and social circle in significant jeopardy. This kind of mismatch between what people think and what they can say is deeply unhealthy for our political environment, and I think pseudonymous blogging is a very important outlet to alleviate that.
If you want that argument to be situated, given context and weight, then you at best need mediated anonymity, where a trusted source like a newspaper verifies pertinent context without exposing an actual identity. But there's good reason that's quite rare. So we end up pretty quickly back at people needing to own their words when they try to influence the public.
That's especially true on a topic like race in America. The most prominent people who wanted to intercede on race anonymously were the KKK. And they make especially clear why there's no broad moral obligation to preserve the anonymity of people trying to act publicly while concealing their identity.
Potentially, yes. What does the biographic information add to the story?
If this hypothetical philosopher were influencing people under a pseudonym, then their real identity is important only if it somehow interacts with their influence. Maybe there's a conflict of interest; maybe there's some sort of fraud (i.e. it'd be remarkable of Alexander were not in fact a psychiatrist); maybe the person is otherwise independently notable in a surprising way.
The Times article was written from the perspective that Alexander's blog is harmful, dangerous, or risky because of its message. That perspective is neither strengthened nor weakened by hearing irrelevant details about the messenger, so in a publication always short on column-inches I'd think that the balance of convenience is in preserving the pseudonymity.
There's a reason that biography is a major genre. If you never have gotten anything out of a biography, that's fine. But you shouldn't be surprised that other people do.
Another way to come at it is not intent, but impact. Whatever one thinks of Metz's article, I think he's correct that a) Silicon Valley has huge influence in the world, b) that the people making big decisions there are worth covering, and c) the ideas that shape those decisions are relevant. More disputable is the last piece of his chain is d), SSC has some influence on those ideas, and is a useful case study. But given the strident defenses of SSC here and elsewhere, I think the reaction to the article proves that the topic is significant enough to merit coverage.
I agree one shouldn't get promoted to national prominence "by default". But spending years publishing something to the world with an ever-growing audience is not something one does by accident. I'm sure Siskind put at least thousands of hours into his blog, and now it's his full-time job. One can't reasonably spend years courting public attention and then be mad that the public will attend to something as they see fit. Freedom of speech goes both ways.
[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20210217195335/https://twitter.c...
I'm open to finding out that they're fake, but on the "balance of probabilities" standard, I believe they're real.
That's a false dichotomy. You can respect a wish for anonymity in cases like Scott's without giving up the possibility of making the names of other people public, when there's a good reason for it.
In the end, a person like Scott would be able to sue the newspaper, if he thinks that in their case the interests of the public did not outweigh his personality rights and a court would decide.
(Sorry, this post contains a lot of ad hoc translations of German legal terms, I hope it's still understandable and more or less correct English)
Consider the difference between these two reported pieces of information:
1. Senator McSenatorface has, anonymously via a shell company, accepted donations from Boeing in a quid pro quo to adjust the regulations to require less oversight.
2. Senator McSenatorface has, anonymously, booked three holiday tickets for himself and his family at the Isolated Mountain Lodge in Canada, where he will be out of phone contact for the coming four weeks.
Both are true information, that the person prefers to keep hidden, that some readers would find informative or useful, and both can be used to harm their interests. But I hope we are in agreement that one is valid and important journalism and the other is three inches away from incitement of violence. So by what criterion do we divide them? To me, the distinguishing factor is whether the information is more useful to moral or immoral action. In my opinion, revealing Scott's name is primarily of benefit to not just immoral action, but action that is near-universally acknowledged as immoral. If it has a redeeming moral justification, I don't see it.
There was literally a women in the rationalist community who committed suicide due to harassment and Scott's first reaction was to insinuate that all of her accusations were false.
>This is someone who repeatedly speaks admiringly of Charles Murray, puts Nick Land, Razib Khan, and various other fashy types on his blogroll, and openly advocates eugenics.
>The claim that he’s troublingly invested in racist bullshit is straightforward and, frankly, uninteresting; anyone trying to dispute it has a disingenuous agenda most likely involving racist bullshit.
Ironically enough, the essay throws an accusation of "tedious Gish gallop working its way through a host of minor claims" into the mix, also in the same third out of 100-odd paragraphs. Thank you for providing a morning chuckle.
https://twitter.com/ArsonAtDennys/status/1362153191102677001
He is a pseudointellectual.
Backup: https://web.archive.org/web/20210217195335/https://twitter.c...
More info: https://www.reddit.com/r/SneerClub/comments/lm36nk/old_scott...