RIP Slate Star Codex

[7Wannabe5]

@jennypenny:

Yeah, kind of highlights the difference between the two operative paradigms.

[jacob]

It is ironic from the perspective of the naked message.

However, if communication is seen as "message+messenger", it makes sense to avoid being associated with the other sportsball team. Unfortunately, we live in a world paradigm where the messenger often matters more than the message. This is clear from the areas where even objective reality has been politicized. In that case, communication is "95% messenger" and maybe only "5% message" because people have demonstrated a willingness or strong desire to be gaslighted to an enormous degree and believe that 2+2=5 or say that "there are five lights". (This is inherent in 60%+ of humans, see Asch's stick experiment.)

As such, "saying the right thing in the company of the wrong team" could actually be more destructive than "saying the wrong thing in the company of the right team". Why? Because the people who need to hear it the most can't understand it by construction since their affiliation depends on them not understanding it in the first place. (H/T Sinclair).

Add: IOW, the Harper letter is written for and by high-information ideology voters about certain points they can all agree on. This buffet-style point-framework, however, is not how the majority of people see things... and some of the signatories realized that.

I suppose that's the concern about an intellectual dark age. The question is whether we ever really left that age.

[Campitor]

I suppose that's the concern about an intellectual dark age. The question is whether we ever really left that age.

We probably never did but it's different now. Technology has enabled efficient witch hunts and given a world reaching bullhorn to the most vitriolic anti-science/anti-data driven crowd. I suspect most people don't believe what they're hearing but follow the "team" out of fear they're the only ones who can see the emperor has no clothes.

[Campitor]

Another voice bites the dust.

https://www.bariweiss.com/resignation-letter

A snippet of the resignation letter:

My own forays into Wrongthink have made me the subject of constant bullying by colleagues who disagree with my views. They have called me a Nazi and a racist; I have learned to brush off comments about how I’m “writing about the Jews again.” Several colleagues perceived to be friendly with me were badgered by coworkers. My work and my character are openly demeaned on company-wide Slack channels where masthead editors regularly weigh in. There, some coworkers insist I need to be rooted out if this company is to be a truly “inclusive” one, while others post ax emojis next to my name. Still other New York Times employees publicly smear me as a liar and a bigot on Twitter with no fear that harassing me will be met with appropriate action. They never are.

There are terms for all of this: unlawful discrimination, hostile work environment, and constructive discharge. I’m no legal expert. But I know that this is wrong.

I do not understand how you have allowed this kind of behavior to go on inside your company in full view of the paper’s entire staff and the public. And I certainly can’t square how you and other Times leaders have stood by while simultaneously praising me in private for my courage. Showing up for work as a centrist at an American newspaper should not require bravery.

[jennypenny]

Matt Taibbi discussing cancel culture on Bret Weinstein's podcast.

[NuncFluens]

Sorry to cut into the ongoing conversation, but there was an edit to the SSC quitting post that reads:

[EDIT 7/21: This post is now a month old, and I am cautiously optimistic that the Times has changed their mind. There is no further need to take any of the actions described below.]

Cause for hope? (Edit: The old posts are up again, at least)

[onewayfamily]

Yes definitely cause for hope. I assume if he's happy to put back up the old posts he will be posting new material soon enough.

[nomadscientist]

Almost certainly overly optimistic. NYT might have let him be if he had stayed self-cancelled. They already fired a plausibly deniable shot at him via another publication: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/annal ... -the-media

[Campitor]

The anonymous author of the Slate Star Codex is still not blogging. His last update was in September:

I haven’t heard anything from the New York Times one way or the other. Since nothing has been published, I’d assume they dropped the article, except that they approached an acquaintance for another interview last month. Overall I’m confused.

But they definitely haven’t given me any explicit reassurance that they won’t reveal my private information. And now that I’ve publicly admitted privacy is important to me – something I tried to avoid coming on too strong about before, for exactly this reason – some people have taken it upon themselves to post my real name all over Twitter in order to harass me. I probably inadvertently Streisand-Effect-ed myself with all this; I still think it was the right thing to do.

At this point I think maintaining anonymity is a losing battle. So I am gradually reworking my life to be compatible with the sort of publicity that circumstances seem to be forcing on me. I had a talk with my employer and we came to a mutual agreement that I would gradually transition away from working there. At some point, I may start my own private practice, where I’m my own boss and where I can focus on medication management – and not the kinds of psychotherapy that I’m most worried are ethically incompatible with being a public figure. I’m trying to do all of this maximally slowly and carefully and in a way that won’t cause undue burden to any of my patients, and it’s taking a long time to figure out.

And another journalist, Glenn Greenwald, is pushed out for being non-partisan in his reporting choices: https://greenwald.substack.com/p/my-res ... -intercept.

[jennypenny]

I'm worried we are losing some of the most insightful and independent voices who might have helped guide people through troubling times ahead. And for no reason other than offering them up as click-bait sacrifices.

[Campitor]

@jennypenny

My biggest concern is that this censorship is occurring everywhere: academia, private business, tech, medicine, science, etc. And surprisingly the ones being targeted are those who share the same general philosophy but don't support all the orthodoxy being promulgated. To get to the truth we have to risk offending someone; the guilty or those in error rarely take their medicine without umbrage.