Comment by mshron
6 years ago
I am genuinely baffled how Scott Alexander's post has turned into hundreds and hundreds of comments on cancel culture, as if it was anything near the #1 reason why he'd be in danger if his name was revealed.
Being famous is dangerous in every era, doubly so in an era where anybody unhinged basically has access to the same level of information you used to need a private investigator to get.
Tim Ferris said it well: "The point is this: you don’t need to do anything wrong to get death threats, rape threats, etc. You just need a big enough audience." [0]
The focus should be on the Times threatening to out him for no good reason, not his personal reasons for wanting to stay anonymous.
[0] https://tim.blog/2020/02/02/reasons-to-not-become-famous/
> I am genuinely baffled how Scott Alexander's post has turned into hundreds and hundreds of comments on cancel culture, as if it was anything near the #1 reason why he'd be in danger if his name was revealed.
People in comments sections (doesn’t matter which) don’t really “react to” or “engage with” the article very often. What they’re really doing is being reminded by the article of some thought that’s been affecting them in their own lives lately—which they then hold forth about. Sometimes the tangential thought can be supported by quoting the article (either literally, or in rebuttal); but this is still different from engaging with the article itself, per se.
For most people, the article is grist for the idea-mill of their own “blogging”, which they happen to do in the form of a comment. (Heck, that’s what I’m doing right now, to your comment!)
People who genuinely respond to a post as if they were in conversation with the original author are few and far between, and tend to put their responses on professional blogs rather than comments sections. (Which is funny, because "comments sections" are nominally for engaging with the post. We've all become very mixed up somehow.)
This is pretty true on Hacker News. I engaged with the post as if I were in a conversation with the original author, not by posting here, but by sending an email to the original author.
I can't help but think that this effect isn't what I want from this community, however. I want reasoned discussion that helps me to see issues from various points of view, but instead I get a bunch of uninformed opinions from people who didn't even read the thing they're opining on.
> I can't help but think that this effect isn't what I want from this community, however. I want reasoned discussion that helps me to see issues from various points of view, but instead I get a bunch of uninformed opinions from people who didn't even read the thing they're opining on.
Some of the absolute best discussions I've read and sometimes participated in on HN have been tangents or inconsequential to the article they were attached to. I would miss those types of discussion sorely if they were gone.
There are tools to help manage this though. You can collapse comment threads, and if you find a particular vein of discussion not really to your liking, I suggest doing that so you can focus on what you do enjoy (and others can do the same, even if the items they read and ignore are entirely different than yours).
Personally, since these comments aren't the comments of the article in question (usually. Sometimes they just refer you here!), I think of it less as comments to the author when posting here, and more like a discussion in a group examining that article. Sort of like a book group, where people splinter into subgroups to have discussions that interest them, and even those that failed to read the book might find a place to contribute.
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> People in comments sections (doesn’t matter which) don’t really “react to” or “engage with” the article very often. What they’re really doing is being reminded by the article of some thought that’s been affecting them in their own lives lately—which they then hold forth about.
Don't want to go off on a tangent, but HN trains its users to do that by posting one article after another that's behind a paywall. Of course there will be comments vaguely related to the article when you've created a culture of commenting without reading.
I don't think that's it. HN trains its users for that by means of culture voting interesting things - because such tangential comments and resulting discussions are often much more interesting than the submitted article.
Well not for nothing, thanks for your comment - this is a really good insight!
Scott has been harassed by cancellers for years. It's a well-documented history, which was a serious issue for him and led to banning culture war topics in SSC-affiliated reddit section. There are still people and AFAIK organized communities on Reddit that target him. There were calls to his employers to get him fired and to friends to get them socially shunned.
Now imagine how much more of this one would get if their real name (and, by extension, address, employer, family, etc.) is published by NYT and easily accessible to anyone with rudimentary typing skills. Cancel culture is not the reason for NYT doxxing, but it makes the doxxing orders of magnitude more dangerous. And NYT must know that.
Yes, there are also random crazies. But I don't think I've read any storied about random crazies getting people fired from their jobs. I've read the last one about cancel culture doing that today. And have been reading them almost daily for a while.
> The focus should be on the Times threatening to out him for no good reason, not his personal reasons for wanting to stay anonymous.
It can be both.
> There are still people and AFAIK organized communities on Reddit that target him.
Though one of the more wholesome things I've seen is when I visited that subreddit you're referring to and the consensus seemed to be that doxxing Scott was not justified.
You mean NYT is actually doing so bad that people who self-select for desire to hunt and harm other people over the internet actually think they've gone too far? Well done, NYT!
Less charitably it's self-preservation; reddit has a very low tolerance towards doxxing and has banned multiple subreddits (some sizeable) for it.
Many there would still support the article and his name being published, and would push for his cancellation.
> Yes, there are also random crazies.
The issue here is that he's a psychiatrist. Dealing with random crazies, some of whom might literally try to kill him if they knew where he lived, is his day job.
Those people already know his real name.
So the extra danger from that direction associated with the NYT publishing his real name in an article about SSC is that they might read that article, discover that Xxxxx Xxxxx who treats them for paranoid schizophrenia also has this blog that says yyyy yyyyy yyy yyyyyy and that zzzzzz zzz zzzzz, and then go after him (using the real name they already had).
The harm there isn't zero, but I think it's much less than the harm that results from giving his real name to people who already knew about SSC and hated it for some reason.
(Also, at present at least, it's easier to go from Scott's real name to his blogging pseudonym than in the other direction with a couple of minutes and a search engine. Neither direction is terribly difficult, but that's no reason why the NYT should make them both easier.)
It should be noted here that "culture war topics" that are banned means literal white supremacists, nazis and their ilk.
You are acting as if it is a great injustice done to the man that he was forced to do the absolute bare minimum to stop giving nazis a forum.
It does not. Anything that's obviously politicized in a way that relates to the culture wars (including "Blue Tribe vs. Red Tribe" topics) is inappropriate outside CW-specific spaces. And obvious calls to harassment, violence, blatant bigotry etc. have always been off-limits altogether.
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>I am genuinely baffled how Scott Alexander's post has turned into hundreds and hundreds of comments on cancel culture, as if it was anything near the #1 reason why he'd be in danger if his name was revealed.
Isn't it obvious that the upcoming NYT articles is going to be a hit piece with the goal of ruining his personal credibility and professional career.
I hope to be wrong, but somehow I don't think so.
>Being famous is dangerous in every era, doubly so in an era where anybody unhinged basically has access to the same level of information you used to need a private investigator to get.
Nobody would really care if it was just some twitter people bitching on twitter. The problem is that media, employers, sponsors, advertisers, etc. listen to them and act on what they think the mob wants.
And we are way past targeting famous people. The step-mother of the Atlanta cop who shot Brooks was fired for having the audacity of defending her step-son on social media. Imagine a world where you fault a mother for not disowning her son!! WaPo put together a 3000 word article attacking and naming a staffer for a Halloween costume she wore two years ago (with no ill intent!). She profusely apologized, but that doesn't matter - she was fired after being publicly humiliated by a noted paper of record who was also her employer. WaPo did that to their own employee!! How about that "Karen" (a modern day slur against women) in San Francisco who merely inquired, very very politely, if a gentleman who was writing out a BLM slogan on a property if he lived at that property .. she was dragged through the mud, forced into a public apology, which was not accepted (apologies are never accepted but instead are used as evidence of guilt) her small business was shut down (after the mob targeted her customers), and her husband was fired from his job.
This is all great stuff.
> Isn't it obvious that the upcoming NYT articles is going to be a hit piece with the goal of ruining his personal credibility and professional career.
I suppose if i had and axe to grind against NYT it might be "obvious". Even the blog author mentions it would be a "mostly positive piece". Where are you getting your information from?
>I suppose if i had and axe to grind against NYT it might be "obvious".
Like I said, I hope to be wrong, but I am cynical about the motives of NYT, especially given this quote from the blog post: "He told me it would be a ___mostly___ positive piece about how we were an interesting gathering place for people in tech, and how we were ahead of the curve on some aspects of the coronavirus situation." (emphasis mine) - that's a reporter buttering up Scott Alexander to get a quote and compliance until the hit piece drops.
When that article drops, we'll see. If it is balanced and fair I will own up to being wrong. Gladly. I just don't thinks so.
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The NYT has previously respected the anonymity of others, including an ISIS fighter[0]. That the NYT has a blanket policy about publishing real names is possible, but certainly suspicious.
> Tim Ferris said it well: "The point is this: you don’t need to do anything wrong to get death threats, rape threats, etc. You just need a big enough audience."
True, but a big part of why Scott has such a big audience is his willingness to write about the problems of cancel culture, and cancel culture would almost certainly come after him if he is doxxed.
[0]https://twitter.com/AlanMCole/status/1275446136375898114
one explanation: the policy exists and symbolizes the ideal for a news organization that prides itself on integrity and transparency. when this journalistic ideal conflicts with the practical concern of creating a story, the organization allows for discretion and trusts the writer to make an ethical decision.
in the ISIS case, the article likely doesn't happen without the fighter's cooperation, so the writer must defer to the subject or risk losing the story.
in the scott alexander case, the article can happen with or without subject cooperation, so the writer can afford to obey the stated policy and increase "transparency" on this story.
> one explanation: the policy exists and symbolizes the ideal for a news organization that prides itself on integrity and transparency. when this journalistic ideal conflicts with the practical concern of creating a story, the organization allows for discretion and trusts the writer to make an ethical decision.
There's no indication that the cited policy allows for such discretion.
> in the scott alexander case, the article can happen with or without subject cooperation, so the writer can afford to obey the stated policy and increase "transparency" on this story.
Does that also apply to Virgil Texas of "Chapo Trap House"[1]?
It's clear that the NYT does not, in practice, have a blanket policy against pseudonyms. The writer's claims that it does are therefore at least somewhat BS. Violating the privacy of a practicing mental health professional who is obligated to hide his personal life from his patients is a pretty serious mistake. This could all be some sort of bureaucratic bungling, but as the saying goes: mistakes of this magnitude are rarely innocent.
[1] https://twitter.com/s8mb/status/1275436187713286144
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Ya. And even if he was writing on totally un-emotional topics, like a food blog or something, his job is such that patients being able to discover these aspects of his personal life would be likely to pollute his doctor-patient relationship with them. Psychiatrists understandably want to limit what their patients know about them, to keep the focus on the patient and their needs, rather than the personality of their psychiatrist.
I think this is what Scott's more concerned about than anything. I'm sure he worries about canceling and stuff too, but this is really out of concern for his ability to treat patients effectively at his day job.
I agree with you that we should focus on the doxxing, not his reasons for staying anonymous. As far as I'm concerned, people don't need a reason to want to be anonymous.
But I think cancel culture is still relevant because it very well may be why the NYT was threatening to dox him.
Most people don’t have to hide their identity as long as they babble correct talking points. Turn on TV, for example. This is an absolutely ridiculous statement.
>> Tim Ferris said it well: "The point is this: you don’t need to do anything wrong to get death threats, rape threats, etc. You just need a big enough audience."
And that is why we need to abolish anonymity on the internet and ensure traceability. If people can trace threats and harassment, it either won't happen or can be reported.
That's a lot of trust in the government. It's also the exact opposite of what the whole blog post is about, preserving anonymity.
>> That's a lot of trust in the government.
I'd prefer to keep them out of it. I'd prefer technical solutions that ensure we can find out where packets, email, or phone calls come from.
>> It's also the exact opposite of what the whole blog post is about, preserving anonymity.
I imagine a world where you can be annoymous, just not by default. A blogger might use a pseudonym, but refuse incoming comments lacking tracability.