posted on June 23, 2020 06:13 PM by
u/completely-ineffable
30
u/Soyweiser37 pointsat 1592943176.000000
I;m sorry I have not read the whole post from Scott, as I just can’t
deal atm (Like I already spend enough time today on this shit). But I
saw this:
In a year of historic ironies, here’s another one: that it was the
decent, reasonable, and well-meaning Cade Metz, rather than any of the
SneerClubbers or Twitter-gangsters who despised Scott Alexander for
sharing his honest thoughts on hot-button issues, who finally achieved
the latter’s dark dream of exiling Scott from the public sphere.
I look forward to the updated priors any day now… any day.
E: Scott not being friends with Scott before untitled is quite the
reveal however.
nerd-hating SJWs
Ow for fucks sake. At this point im considering taking up sports just
so I’m no longer getting annoyed by this.
E?: ow god the conspiracy theories in the comments… the NYT is doxing
Scott to get back at Bari Weiss for defending Hsu. I’m a paranoid
crazyperson, and that is crazy even for me.
En++: could the rationalists please stop discussing which search
terms do or do not lead to scotts real name? It is so stupid that atm
finding his real name is now the hardest if you only read sneerclub, the
other places almost give step by step instructions…
I've been always saying that he'll hit the spotlight and get fired when the next anti diversity manifesto cites him... not exactly spot on but close enough.
Well he made that day closer by deleting his blog and ensuring he’ll grow bigger and badder and more racist in his follower’s heads over the coming weeks.
The news had already been bad enough: Trump’s “temporary suspension”
of J1 and H1B visas (which will deal a body blow to American
universities this year, and to all the foreign scientists who planned to
work at them), on top of the civil unrest, on top of the economic
collapse, on top of the now-resurgent coronavirus. But with no more
SlateStarCodex, now I really feel like my world is coming to an end.
me growing up staring at the mounting pile of evidence of inevitable
climate catastrophe: this is fine
me when my favorite “i don’t think racists are good but saying
racists are bad is evil” blog gets deleted: oh no
> me growing up staring at the mounting pile of evidence of inevitable climate catastrophe: this is fine
as a long-time reader of shtetl optimized, i can assure you that this is a wildly inaccurate portrayal of Aaronson's views. it's actually hard to think of a worse example you could have picked. Maybe if you said he didn't care about p=np truthers or quantum computing pseudoscience?
climate change is one of the non-computational-complexity things he talks about most (frequently as part of his broader point that the Republican Party and the ideas it pushes must be utterly destroyed and ground to a fine powder). [Here's a relatively recent example](https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=4312).
> "i don't think racists are good but saying racists are bad is evil" blog
relatively recent reader of ssc, but afaict this is pretty inaccurate too
i'm just saying, it sounds like you and he agree much more than you think you do, is all.
it'd be like if i said i hate the chapo trap house people because they're too eager to give centrists the benefit of the doubt. that's, like, the exact opposite of their whole *shtick*
yeah it was an unfair generalization
however, it was in response to a post comparing the deletion of SSC to the burning of the works of Mark Twain, so i don't mind committing a little absurd hyperbole of my own
~~oof, that's gotta suck, you have my sympathies. i apologize for exposing you to info that made you a climate change denier against your better judgement!~~
~~out of curiosity, if aaronson changed his mind and said he hates ssc now, would you be able to care about it again? or is it a one-and-done thing, where now you're "constitutionally incapable" of EVER caring about the climate catastrophe ever again?~~
~~either way that's a rough mental atypicality to deal with, good luck managing it!~~
EDIT: comment i responded to was edited
I unironically think the impact of Mark Twain and SSC on current society is comparable (I wouldn't dare extrapolate to the future though). We're at a pretty revolutionary moment in scientific history, and psychiatry is in an important spot in this revolution. For the first time we can not only dwelve incessantly on psychology and the millions of psychological features of man and society, but we have a lot more information on how the brain really works, why it misbehaves, the basics of how society functions and why it functions, and so on. We're close to recreating intelligence from scratch. Of course, a straightforward analytic view can only access and explain so much. Fiction and arts have an important role in the intangible conclusions, but they're part of a universe of discussion (and Scott imo is one of the best popular writers bringing a little bit of this expanded universe into intellectual discourse -- otherwise it's all boring and disconnected academic talk).
So the works of Mark Twain are immortal of course, but SSC is legitimately one of the only voices bringing this new integrated knowledge about ourselves and the world in a coherent manner. It should seem there should be many more like that, but there aren't. I'll probably start my own blog under another name, because there's just too much to say.
Disclaimer: I don't think he's perfect or messianic. For example, when his arguments go into mathematics they fall apart (e.g. an article about genetic oligocausality), although they're still interesting if you take it as a conjecture. He's just condensing what needs to be said (in a way no one else was saying); to some this is obvious, to others it is the definition of genius.
http://libgen.is/search.php?req=the+wretched+of+the+earth
if you want something with more hard data:
http://libgen.is/search.php?req=how+europe+underdeveloped+africa
these are 100% unironic recs btw, they're both quite readable. I prefer Rodney (the second link) but Fanon takes a more psychological approach if that's what you're looking for.
The news had already been bad enough: Trump’s “temporary suspension”
of J1 and H1B visas (which will deal a body blow to American
universities this year, and to all the foreign scientists who planned to
work at them), on top of the civil unrest, on top of the economic
collapse, on top of the now-resurgent coronavirus. But with no more
SlateStarCodex, now I really feel like my world is coming to an end…
In my view, for SSC to be permanently deleted would be an
intellectual loss on the scale of, let’s say, John Stuart Mill or Mark
Twain burning their collected works. That might sound like hyperbole,
but not (I don’t think) to the tens of thousands who read Scott’s essays
and fiction, particularly during their 2013-2016 heyday, and who went
from casual enjoyment to growing admiration to the gradual recognition
that they were experiencing, “live,” the works that future generations
of teachers will assign their students when they cover the early
twenty-first century. The one thing that mitigates this tragedy is the
hope that it will yet be reversed (and, of course, the fact that backups
still exist in the bowels of the Internet).
> That might sound like hyperbole, but not (I don’t think) to the tens of thousands who read Scott’s essays and fiction, particularly during their 2013-2016 heyday, and who went from casual enjoyment to growing admiration to the gradual recognition that they were experiencing
I feel erased. What about the people who then did a 180 and reread scotts work and went, wtf, in this light this is pretty terrible?
Also, odd silence from This Scott when other Scott deleted his livejournal works. But that is just a bit whataboutism sorry.
I too read SSC back in the day and thought it was pretty cool, up until I realized how sophomoric and uninformed a lot of his posts were, and how pants-on-head some of his other ones were, and how enabling he was/is of the toxic community that flocked to him. I am a bit bummed that others won't get to share that experience now, but probably better than new people using it as a gateway to rationalism? Still, any Sneerer could have "doxxed" him at any time, given that the information was pretty much out there already, and yet none did.
Ugh is this going to be the rationalist gamer-gate? I'm torn, this is good popcorn fodder in the short-term, but it's going to get tiresome quickly, the whole community is a crying wojak meme right now.
The rationalist gamergate *is* gamergate. But we’ll see how long this controversy lasts. In the meantime, I’ll be enjoying the further Balkanization of rationalism.
Of course my judgment is colored by one of the most notorious posts
in SSC’s history (“Untitled”) being a ferocious defense of me, when
thousands were attacking me and it felt like my life was finished.
Imagine being this oblivious about how getting mean internet comments
compare to the experience of people who actually need to fear for their
life
just imagine being so fundamentally illiterate that 1) you genuinely
think the blithering garbage on slate star codex is a work of surpassing
genius that, if there is justice, would outlast every other work of the
21st century so far and 2) you don’t even know enough to be completely
ashamed of how this opinion demonstrates your total inept ignorance
“In my view, for SSC to be permanently deleted would be an
intellectual loss on the scale of, let’s say, John Stuart Mill or Mark
Twain burning their collected works. ”
Oh yeah, so first off the notability of an authors works can only be
determined post their death. Personal affection by this blog poster
isn’t really part of the metric.
Again, this is the standard lack of context and having a truly well
rounded education that rationalists seem to lack. The ideas behind
noteworthy authorship are centuries old, and they’ve survived because
they really do work.
I didn’t expect him to think highly of SC, but come on. It’s really
uncharitable to think we’d ever dox people or want to exile people from
the internet.
He seems to have defacto banned me from the blog for defending the 'Red Guards' in a very mild way.
edit: I apologise, seems like my comment has been approved now. Looks like the free market of ideas is open again.
Yes, it seems Scott himself has to approve all messages before they arrive on his blog. (I really hope he has somebody (or at least a few scripts) to help him with that because, that seems like both a waste of time, and not totally healthy considering the cranks he attracts ('I found P=NP, publish my comment or perish!')).
(come on dude, all you have to do is check removeddit/reveddit/ceddit/whatever on any of the big threads about this. tbf the mods do a good job of cleaning it up)
EDIT: srsly guys you permabanned me for this? completely-ineffable, the examples you gave sound pretty pro-doxxing to me.
> (come on dude, all you have to do is check removeddit/reveddit/ceddit/whatever on any of the big threads about this. tbf the mods do a good job of cleaning it up)
I, using my moderator vision, can easily see the removed posts. So I can easily see that you are mischaracterizing [that thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/SneerClub/comments/he9fgd/rip_ssc/)—the only recent thread to have significant comment removal. Removed comments like
> I do not agree with that [that = "NYT was definitely in the wrong here"].
or
> How is it doxxing if a single google query is sufficient to discover this guy’s real name? He simply is not anonymous. He is a public figure whose name is widely known, period.
are not doxxing, are not pro-doxxing, and are not saying that Scott Al. should be exiled from the internet. There is only one poster in that thread whose comments could be conceivably construed as pro-doxxing. (I'd argue that construal lacks important nuance; lines like "I don't see the value in protecting a blogger who's paranoid about all their political rants coming back to bite them in the ass" or "I can see why NYT has no interest in caving to demands of every crank who wants to keep their name a secret" are saying something quite different than "hahaha yes Scott [redacted] is getting doxxed and driven from the internet in shame!")
That said,
u/noactuallyitspoptart was right to remove the comments he did. With people like Scott Aa. holding weird grudges and attributing all kinds of motives at us, I think it's good that we keep a far distance from anything that might be used as ammunition against us or might possibly feel inviting to people who would actually do the stuff we oppose. And I think the cost in freeze peaches in sneerclub is worth it to pay, even though that means some comments that aren't pro-doxxing get removed. But if we're doing that, then we also have to crackdown on mistruths being stated about sneerclub. If someone is taking at most one person's comments—removed, of course—and using them to say that it's reasonable to think that sneerclub would dox people or want to exile people from the internet, then I must pushback on that spreading of mistruths about us. And given the tools that reddit provides to enforce things, what I'm saying is: banned for lying.
I guess I was just too lazy today, should have actually checked what was removed rather than just taken him at his word that it was there.
EDIT: Also, ty mods for clearing this up.
Dang I guess I missed that/am late to witnessing today's events. Well, this sucks.
I'm editing this to just point to my other comment, turns out I was wrong to assume that there was evidence of people trying to dox.
yeah. i used to like this place, but eventually i decided to unsub from every subreddit defined as being *against* something instead of *for* something (except for cases with 0 ambiguity like anti-fascism & anti-Trump). even with the best of intentions, i don't think it's easy to maintain a very healthy social atmosphere in a place that's only defined as being in opposition to something else
i decided to stop by to see how you all are taking it, and i am glad the mods are taking a hard line against doxxing
That might be a healthy move long term... I'm really saddened that people here wanted to dox him.
I'm editing this to just point to my other comment, turns out I was wrong to assume that there was evidence of people trying to dox.
I'm wondering about the rest, read as:
>This morning, like many others, I woke up to the terrible news that Scott Alexander... has deleted SlateStarCodex in its entirety.
I;m sorry I have not read the whole post from Scott, as I just can’t deal atm (Like I already spend enough time today on this shit). But I saw this:
I look forward to the updated priors any day now… any day.
E: Scott not being friends with Scott before untitled is quite the reveal however.
Ow for fucks sake. At this point im considering taking up sports just so I’m no longer getting annoyed by this.
E?: ow god the conspiracy theories in the comments… the NYT is doxing Scott to get back at Bari Weiss for defending Hsu. I’m a paranoid crazyperson, and that is crazy even for me.
En++: could the rationalists please stop discussing which search terms do or do not lead to scotts real name? It is so stupid that atm finding his real name is now the hardest if you only read sneerclub, the other places almost give step by step instructions…
me growing up staring at the mounting pile of evidence of inevitable climate catastrophe: this is fine
me when my favorite “i don’t think racists are good but saying racists are bad is evil” blog gets deleted: oh no
Imagine being this oblivious about how getting mean internet comments compare to the experience of people who actually need to fear for their life
just imagine being so fundamentally illiterate that 1) you genuinely think the blithering garbage on slate star codex is a work of surpassing genius that, if there is justice, would outlast every other work of the 21st century so far and 2) you don’t even know enough to be completely ashamed of how this opinion demonstrates your total inept ignorance
“In my view, for SSC to be permanently deleted would be an intellectual loss on the scale of, let’s say, John Stuart Mill or Mark Twain burning their collected works. ”
Oh yeah, so first off the notability of an authors works can only be determined post their death. Personal affection by this blog poster isn’t really part of the metric.
Again, this is the standard lack of context and having a truly well rounded education that rationalists seem to lack. The ideas behind noteworthy authorship are centuries old, and they’ve survived because they really do work.
Well that seems overwrought.
I’m just sitting here on the bench, sittin’ here on the group W bench, laughing my fool ass off.
I didn’t expect him to think highly of SC, but come on. It’s really uncharitable to think we’d ever dox people or want to exile people from the internet.
Am I misreading something? Does he have a history of doing this? Is this a weird attempt at humor or sarcasm?
[deleted]