"Scott is not the first subject who’s unaccustomed to being on the receiving end of journalism who, confronted with a portrayal he didn’t like, attributed all forms of bad faith to the person who produced the portrayal."
(https://mynewbandis.substack.com/p/slate-star-clusterfuck)
posted on February 14, 2021 11:34 PM by
u/sudosussudio
40
u/duckconference30 pointsat 1613367305.000000
And I’ve known Balaji for 20 years. As a matter of disclosure in this
context: we briefly dated in my early 20s when he was still a grad
student at Stanford, and just before Nick Denton and I started Gawker.
I’m not going to try to explain that except to say, I have always been
attracted to very smart men, and I was 23 at the time. I am 44 now. I
still believe Balaji is frighteningly intelligent, but I would vastly
prefer that he use those powers for good than, well, whatever this is. I
believe he has similar, ah, reservations about my career
trajectory, and obviously believes Peter Thiel, his mentor and friend,
was right about Gawker.
“It’s all just a sandbox fight between a bunch of ivy league types?”
“Always has been.”
anyone who has read what Balaji thinks journalism is, has historically been, or should be, and still thinks he's intelligent at all is just a fucking wallet-fetishizer and always has been
The co-founder of Gawker being the ex of Thiel’s protégé is some
juicy drama. Can’t wait to see that when one of the half-dozen scripts
on that trial gets produced.
Does the article mention that time Scott responded to a woman killing
herself to put weight behind her allegations of repeated sexual assault
by calling her a crazy liar?
No?
Then it is not a hit piece. It is not a hatchet job. It’s
remarkably fair to him, in ways I absolutely would not be. I
mean, the article mentions Moldbug without noting his ties to Steve
Bannon. It doesn’t bring up that Steve Sailer is a common commentator.
It doesn’t mention how it’s a little weird that multiple spin-off
subreddits are essentially hives of far-right extremism for some
reason. It hardly touches on the extreme racism going on
in communities that Scott publicly endorses.
This is an unbelievably fair and even-handed look at a figure who
deserves far more scrutiny than he gets.
https://www.reddit.com/r/SneerClub/comments/hhyavv/when_the_rationalist_subculture_had_its_metoo/
https://medium.com/@itai.ilyich/if-i-cant-have-me-no-one-can-kathleen-rebecca-forth-born-april-11-1980-31c49ed15121
Warning: it's about as unbelievably awful as it sounds. Suicide, sexual assault, cult shit, the whole nine yards.
This article hits just so many points that I had never really
considered so directly.
The “moral” difference between serious newspapers and tabloids, isn’t
“sticking to reality per se”, but writing malicious hit pieces to offend
the individual, as opposed to a “just negative” portrayal dictated by a
honest opinion of the facts.
It points out that whenever right-wing crybabies complain about undue
treatment, they may even actually be “true to their feelings”. They
aren’t lying or being hypocrites to a conscious level at least,
they simply live in a privileged cocooned world where everything that
isn’t sucking their dick is treason.
And it nails down perfectly the SSC double standard. The problem
isn’t so much that they leisure in considering the most despicable
arguments (from racialism, to eugenics, to all the freedum of
peach tiptoeing). It’s that whenever the slightest “social context” is
brought up as data they go full Hindenburg.
Bonus points: conservatives fucking breed in homophily (online echo
chambers my bony ass), and libertarianism is “codified naivete” to
excuse being a douche to everybody else.
To me it came across more like phrasing the obvious in a way that could possibly be palatable to your average rationalist. You're not going to like it too much but it might be a first step for some.
Spiers' writing style is pretty meandering, but tbh i think the piece is good and she was a good person to write a reaction piece because she DOES still have a foot in that world.
“It’s all just a sandbox fight between a bunch of ivy league types?” “Always has been.”
The co-founder of Gawker being the ex of Thiel’s protégé is some juicy drama. Can’t wait to see that when one of the half-dozen scripts on that trial gets produced.
Does the article mention that time Scott responded to a woman killing herself to put weight behind her allegations of repeated sexual assault by calling her a crazy liar?
No?
Then it is not a hit piece. It is not a hatchet job. It’s remarkably fair to him, in ways I absolutely would not be. I mean, the article mentions Moldbug without noting his ties to Steve Bannon. It doesn’t bring up that Steve Sailer is a common commentator. It doesn’t mention how it’s a little weird that multiple spin-off subreddits are essentially hives of far-right extremism for some reason. It hardly touches on the extreme racism going on in communities that Scott publicly endorses.
This is an unbelievably fair and even-handed look at a figure who deserves far more scrutiny than he gets.
This article hits just so many points that I had never really considered so directly.
The “moral” difference between serious newspapers and tabloids, isn’t “sticking to reality per se”, but writing malicious hit pieces to offend the individual, as opposed to a “just negative” portrayal dictated by a honest opinion of the facts.
It points out that whenever right-wing crybabies complain about undue treatment, they may even actually be “true to their feelings”. They aren’t lying or being hypocrites to a conscious level at least, they simply live in a privileged cocooned world where everything that isn’t sucking their dick is treason.
And it nails down perfectly the SSC double standard. The problem isn’t so much that they leisure in considering the most despicable arguments (from racialism, to eugenics, to all the freedum of peach tiptoeing). It’s that whenever the slightest “social context” is brought up as data they go full Hindenburg.
Bonus points: conservatives fucking breed in homophily (online echo chambers my bony ass), and libertarianism is “codified naivete” to excuse being a douche to everybody else.
I have to be honest, this is one of the most ponderously written ways of stating the obvious I’ve read in a while
It also undeservedly makes excuses for Siskind
Remember when TLP got doxxed and it didn’t matter because he wasn’t giving intellectual cover to neo-Nazis?
I’d rather take the “bad faith” blue pill over the “NYT reporters are actually that incompetent” red pill. I’ve written better reports in high school.