Comment by nkurz | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nkurz | Hacker News Reader

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> Please show me the veil.

In mundo's terminology, it's not he veil that's important, but the direction that one is looking through it.

Scott's stated desire is that a search for "Scott [RealLastName] psychiatrist" doesn't turn up his personal blog posts at the top of the results. This is the search that a current or potential client is likely to do, and he would like the results of this search to be professionally oriented. So far as I know (I haven't tried the searches) most casual searches of such terms don't lead to directly to the blog.

He is less concerned with whether a search for "Scott Alexander Slate Star Codex real name" comes up with his real last name, since as you point out this information is already available online and won't be changed by a NYT article. His reasoning (I think correct) is that if a high profile article comes out that uses his full name and his profession, casual psychiatry related searches will highlight his blog rather than his professional career.

Whether or not Scott has a right to this level of privacy is a separate matter, but does this distinction make sense?

You've constructed a search query that returns at least 2 conspicuous links about his reactionary blog in the first page, and depending on your search history may or may not reveal the SSC reddit.

This is ridiculous. You're now litigating if things are "private" if they're below a 1080p page fold in Google.

I wonder if Google might be returning different results for "private" results based on some other factor, like geographic IP or browser?

Searching now for "Scott [RealLastName] psychiatrist" in an anonymous Safari window from Vermont, I get 9 professional results and a link to an Overcoming Bias post by Robin Hanson. The OB link has redacted Scott's last name, doesn't contain anything immediately alarming, has a dead link to a nonexistent previous blog, and importantly doesn't link to SSC.

A search from my regular account returns 100 results (as it should) and starts with the same first 10. The following 90 are mostly professional or for unrelated people. One midway down is a link to Reddit where the excerpt mentions SSC. Another at the bottom is a denunciation of him as a "low iq autist" "Jewish, clinically insane blogger", which I suppose might give a client pause.

I'm also not trying to "litigate" anything. I was just trying to be sure you understood the point that 'undo' was trying to make. You are welcome (and in fact encouraged) to disagree with it as long as you explain your reasoning.

ps. Separately, "reactionary blog" sounds like an odd description. Oddly, "neoreactionary" and "Moldbug" were among the banned terms on the site. Do you mean it in some other sense?

What alarming stuff would you be concerned about a search exposing?

Is this like the joke about the condemned engineer who knows how to fix the faulty guillotine?

I think Scott is correctly concerned that a Twitter mob might try to get him fired as a result of his blog. I don't really understand his reasoning for taking it down now, but I presume "real name in a national publication" was a pre-arranged line-in-the-sand for him. I think his actual opinions are secondary; the real problem is that he's clearly not fully supportive of team SJW. I suspect the main problem wouldn't be his own opinions, but that he allows others to discuss "unacceptable" topics on his site. His window for acceptable doesn't include everything (white nationalism was out) but is much wider than most.

That said, I found SSC to be the best place on the internet for hearing people calmly explain views I disagree with --- and I disagree with almost everyone! There aren't a lot of places where atheists and Catholics would productively discuss why they felt the way they do about abortion, where former Mennonites could explain how community health care works without insurance, where Marxists could try to explain to gun nuts what they have in common, or where a self-proclaimed a Social Justice Warrior can field questions from an anarcho-capitalist economic professors about redistribution. I probably spent about an hour a day reading comments there, and felt that it was time fairly well spent. Although I'm mostly a reader rather than poster, for a few years now it's been my primary contact with the outside world. I'll miss it, and don't know if there will be anywhere that can replace it.

You're making an impassioned case for something I'm not arguing about. I hold SSC itself somewhat in contempt, but I don't feel that way about everyone who gets value from it, and I'm not here to debate you about whether SSC is good or bad. You can think it's good while I think it's very bad.

What I don't understand is why it is that Scott Alexander feels like he's in danger from having his affiliation with the blog exposed, while at the same time it's so clear to everyone who peruses the site that it's open-minded and productive and wholesome. If that's the case, what's so alarming about the attribution?

What form does this supposed cancellation take? You've just claimed that white nationalism is off the table --- I disagree, but will happily stipulate. So what is it then? You've got a better imagination for what could happen than I do, since I think there's virtually no risk for Scott Alexander at all. Can you share more about what you foresee happening? Is it some citation to some horrible TheMotte commenter? What is that commenter saying?

I mean, let's be clear right up in front: one thing we can't really debate at this point is whether Scott Alexander is "out". He's out. It's over. The NYT could shitcan the article (I kind of hope it does) and nothing will change; Scott Alexander has seen to that. So what do you think might happen next?

> why it is that Scott Alexander feels like he's in danger

I think Scott's fear (rightly or wrongly) isn't that his own opinions will be his downfall, but that those politically on his own side will attack him for providing a platform to the enemy. I think he sees himself in the same position as Steve Hsu, who was just forced out of his position at Michigan State despite Scott's attempt at public support. The were various criticisms of Hsu, but the main ones seemed to be that he provided a platform for people with unacceptable opinions (Stefan Molyneaux, Ron Unz). I don't think these two are active on SSC, but given anonymous handles, they might turn out to be. Others with bad reputations (Steve Sailer comes to mind) post there civilly, and are treated with respect. I think indisputably there exist some people who consider this to be grounds for "cancellation".

> What form does this supposed cancellation take?

The same as pushed out Steve Hsu: public pressure by a small number of people against his employer for his promotion/tolerance/association with someone who holds less socially acceptable opinions than he does. Scott's view (and mine) is that it's better to have open discussion of unpopular opinions so that they can either be refuted or become accepted. Others think that the ideas are too dangerous to be discussed, and discussion needs to be prevented lest they become more widespread. Some of those who hold this second belief have shown themselves to be effective at pressuring employers to fire those who they choose as their targets.

> one thing we can't really debate at this point is whether Scott Alexander is "out"

I think you are viewing things with more of a binary computer security point-of-view than is appropriate: in normal life obscurity does make a difference. Making up numbers, at this point, 99.99% of the world has never heard of Scott by either his real name or his pen name. Of the remaining .01%, 1 out of 100 know him only by his real name as a local psychiatrist, 98 out of 100 know him by only by his pen name as a blogger, and 1 knows and associates both identities. A prominent NYT article might double the number of people who associate his identities, and he thinks this might double his risk of having professional problems. Is he wrong? Maybe, but I can see why he has the fear even if he thinks his beliefs and approach are overall good for the world.

> You can think it's good while I think it's very bad.

I think this thread has run its course, but perhaps in some future one (if it comes up) you could explain what you think made SSC "very bad". Like HN, I feel it had problems as a community, but was overall a good thing: it enabled better direct communication between people who otherwise communicate only through garbled media proxies. Is this the problem itself, or do you agree that this is a a positive but think it is outweighed by something larger?

> I think Scott's fear (rightly or wrongly) isn't that his own opinions will be his downfall, but that those politically on his own side will attack him for providing a platform to the enemy. I think he sees himself in the same position as Steve Hsu, who was just forced out of his position at Michigan State despite Scott's attempt at public support. The were various criticisms of Hsu, but the main ones seemed to be that he provided a platform for people with unacceptable opinions (Stefan Molyneaux, Ron Unz). I don't think these two are active on SSC, but given anonymous handles, they might turn out to be. Others with bad reputations (Steve Sailer comes to mind) post there civilly, and are treated with respect. I think indisputably there exist some people who consider this to be grounds for "cancellation".

The thing about "cancellation" is that it doesn't work if there's nothing there to start with. No one can really dispute that there is at least one frighteningly racist piece of work and at least one frighteningly sexist piece of work we can all point to from SSC.

> Others think that the ideas are too dangerous to be discussed

I'm very mixed on this. One the one hand, the idea that there is forbidden knowledge is anathema to me. On the other, my timeline has someone in it who essentially argues that he learned "the Bell Curve" is correct because Scott argued for it and he trusts "the smart people" who have read it to conclude it is correct and not racist [0].

We have to accept that, however indirect, that is harm to this individual. They've been recruited into an argument for the genetic superiority of a "white" brain by someone who's irresponsibly laid that argument out. So perhaps there are no forbidden ideas, but there are ideas where it's irresponsible to discuss them without the adequate context of 25+ years of debunking and counter-examples. Especially when homed in a country with a famously inadequate primary education system and a history curricula that barely covers the civil war, let alone anything happening after WW2.

[0]: In the interests of not dogpiling a confused individual, I will not share a link to this tweet. You can find it on my timeline if you look, but I really encourage you to leave that person alone for now. They're a victim in my opinion.

It would be a grave disservice to the work the moderators of HN do to compare this community to that of SSC, for whatever that's worth to you.

As you might guess from my earlier comments, I disagree with you, but I (will try to) appreciate your opinion. I think you are probably judging the SSC by its worst, rather than best or average. I'm confident that at its best, it was a really valuable resource --- the open question is how much to discount this because of its worst. Where we probably agree is that SSC would have been better with the skilled moderation of someone like Dan.

What's hard for me to square about this explanation is that the "team SJW" persecution voltron you've constructed has known about and pointed out that Scott openly supports extremely bigoted views and has gone to bat for the widely-discredited "Bell Curve" more than once. He's also written some stuff that's had a positive impact on the (white) trans community and folks have charged him over that as well. This is all very "last decade" stuff.

But now we've entered a world where Scott has pulled what really looks like a Moldbug-style publicity stunt where he wants to pick a fight with groups that his community have latent biases against ("liberals", "SJWs", "anti-rationalists" and of course the big one: "the press."). Despite mobilizing a substantial fraction of the richest people in America to his defense (and despite doing exactly what he claimed shouldn't be done: fully naming a reporter that might publish a story, I might add), he's still also pretending to be a victim. But the reality is that every consequence thus far has been directly of his own construction. He pulled his own blog down out of "fear" that folks might discover it, despite being "doxxed" at least 3 times before.

To me, the most challenging part of all this is that we're suggesting that writers who write racist material have a "right" to not be called to task if that's financially damaging. It suggests that because you find his writing pleasant, that we should protect it from the consequence of its substance. And the specific consequence is that, "His patients might make informed decisions about what he's said." They might not appreciate him naming dates, locations, diagnosis and specific medications prescribed. They might not want to be treated by someone who doesn't believe in their unique bigotry against trans people. They might not want to listen to someone who quietly believes they're genetically predisposed to inferiority.

Given that Scott has essentially made NO effort to keep a pseudonym and has explicitly said, "I don't want this piece to come out because I'm concerned about the impacts to my business," I can't avoid the conclusion that I should treat Scott exactly the same way as I treated Moldbug. And just like then, I got a lot of pushback here for that decision. A pushback that evaporated with not so much as a whoosh of air when Milo Yiannopoulos's email leak revealed long dissertations by Moldbug on specifically how to engage with militant nazis to enlist them to his cause.

To be clear: I don't think such a revelation is in the background for Scott. I think his racism is the quiet self-assuredness of the American intellectual that's socialized to accept racist policies and ideas if you can place enough layers of indirection around the concepts. I think he's the sort of person for whom grammarian arguments really are a compelling counter-argument to racism. This makes him unremarkable in every way except that he can mobilize so many rich and connected people to his "defense."

On your ps:

"Reactionary" is originally a definition of a political and social stance essentially characterized as opposed to some or all of the idea of social and economic reforms put forth during the French Revolution.

It has subsequently evolved into a sort of a catch term for a position somewhere near authoritarianism and a specific type of social conservatism. It's often applied to counter-revolutionary types as well, depending on context.

This is a label Scott has earned through his work.

Now that the crowds have left, I'll offer an addendum.

The odd part about calling it a "reactionary blog" is that part of Scott's early notoriety was for being an anti-reactionary on Less Wrong, a blog that had a lot of neo-reactionary support. In particular, he's the author of the "The Anti-Reactionary FAQ (or, Against Moldbug)": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6585715. Unfortunately, it's hard to link to right now, as it disappeared along with the blog. Archive.org has a download in an odd format, but no preview: https://archive.org/details/perma_cc_49D9-R67Y. I haven't read it recently, and thus can't summarize, so perhaps it reinforces your belief.

From one of your other comments, I don't think I agree that "No one can really dispute that there is at least one frighteningly racist piece of work and at least one frighteningly sexist piece of work we can all point to from SSC." Or rather, I'd agree if we are to include all the comments written by others on the site, but I probably do not if we are to consider only things Scott wrote himself.

This may be because I probably tend to different definitions of "racism" and "sexism" than you. I'm guessing you might feel it applies to almost all claims that one race or sex is statistically different than another, whereas I tend to reserve it for personal discrimination against individuals for belonging to a particular class. Thus, I don't feel that Charles Murray is racist, or that Larry Summers is sexist, at least not for the reasons that they are generally accused.

As a result, I don't agree that defending Scott implies 'that writers who write racist material have a "right" to not be called to task if that's financially damaging', unless we're using a definition of racism that assumes "everyone is a little bit racist". Rather, I think honest discussion of race and sex include discussion of the possibility that there are genetic differences in intelligence --- as well as discussing the alternatives that the tests are flawed, that maybe there aren't actually any measured differences, or that the differences may be purely cultural or environmental. While there are risks and downsides to this discussion, I think the societal effects of prohibiting the discussion are even worse.

I do appreciate your responses so far, though.

No. The distinction seems fanciful, because it's not how information works. It isn't even how information worked before the Internet. It's a "the floor is lava" grade of anonymity, based on offering people permission to connect 2 publicly available dots. It's also moot, since, again, one of his best-known pieces was released under his real name.

Many of us have had the experience of being unhappy with what Google chooses to surface for our names. I never thought to declare "Anonymity!", Michael Scott style, to resolve that problem for myself.

As a psychiatrist, Scott Alexander meets new patients or potential patients who haven't heard his real name before all the time, probably almost every day. It's been his experience until now, despite his blog being rather popular in certain circles and occasionally linked in national op-eds and such, that his patients, despite the inevitable cursory Googling that everyone does nowadays, are not aware of his blog and controversies that surround it (such as, e.g., numerous culture warriors on both sides loathing it). He greatly prefers it stay this way, for several very good reasons he wrote about better than I could, and suspects - I think correctly - that in the case of a NYT profile that outs his real name it will not.

I don't know why you keep repeating that him deleting his blog ensures the lack of anonymity (in this sense) where there'll be a NYT article or not. I suspect he'd disagree, and I think that if this story ends with no NYT article that outs his name, all the discussions and media articles about this story that happened so far won't change the desirable status quo re: his patients not connecting his name to Online Controversies through cursory Googling.

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