For those eager to see new Scott writing after the drought, check out that Lorien Psychiatry page! There's lots of psychiatry-related content there, most of which seems new, written in Scott's usual style (with slightly fewer amazing offhand comments than usual, but quite the page-turner compared to just about any other online medical resource).
While I like the writing style of Lorien Pschiatry unfortunately I find the site physically hard to read: if the font was changed from a weight of 300 to 400, and the color from #555 to #000, I would find it a lot easier to read, as I expect would many older people with poor eyesight.
I know it may be helpful enough, but there are some excellent addons (or "extensions") for Chrome (any browser, really) that can dramatically improve readability. I tried many in Chrome and settled on "Reader View Plus." I appreciate being able to change line spacing, width of the paragraphs, setting the font to something larger and serif, and using light gray on a dark gray background. Hopefully you can find something that works for you!
I use Firefox and the reader view on that is pretty good and allows me to view the articles. Also I use the Stylus add-on (user-defined CSS). So it's not really what works for me that's my concern -- it's what works for other people, i.e. Scott's prospective patients. If I find a web layout annoying or hard to read, others will to and I'd like Scott's business to be a success.
Right, but, any joy in that song was washed out by that solid year of people doing really sincere covers of Still Alive on ukelele / trombone / dot matrix printer etc.
Instant subscribe, It's great to hear from you again Scott. I wish you the best of luck with Lorien Psychology and I look forwards to seeing which direction you take with this new blog.
Will you be returning to Twitter in any capacity, either as @slatestarcodex or @astralcodexten?
I want your next couple of posts to be about nothing more than what you've been up to with nothing more stressful than stories about the various recipes you've been working on in the kitchen.
Welcome back to blogging, Scott! Best of luck with your new practice, I look forward to your conversation with Alex Tabarrok whether you succeed or fail gloriously.
Wonderful news! Great to have the blog back (for both myself and the world) but even better to hear that you’re doing well and that this will hopefully be the start of great new things!
So happy to have you back, Scott! I just signed up for an annual subscription, the first time I've paid for writing online. My bank (Boa) didn't seem to expect this of me, and initially declined the transaction as suspicious.
Actually, I was unaware of this when I wrote my comment, since none of the comments at that time were threaded. Maybe nobody is using it yet, because this topic isn't one that begets discussion! (But your original blog did always have very interesting comment threads so I'll wait hopefully.)
I agree about the density. As proven by this comment, threading works fine for me. One thing I actually liked a lot about the old comment threads was the _lack_ of a like button: it forced me to just read arguments at face value without thinking about the extent to which there was popular support for those arguments. I hope the like button here doesn't change the comment landscape perversely
I like the number of people who like that you like it.
(I'm open to seeing how this new incentive structure seems to be playing out, but the SSC comment section was so uniquely good before that I'm worried that changes are more likely to cause regression to the mean than to be improvements.)
Hmm... if you use Tampermonkey-or-a-similar-plugin, hiding the like-count is [extremely simple](https://tinyurl.com/hide-substack-likes-userscript). (Though obviously this doesn't change the incentive landscape.)
I agree the like button might make bandwagoning easier. You should be able to hide it with an extension or ublock for personal use at least.
A couple other things:
- The comments seem to nest indefinitely, which leads to issues that heavily nested comments get very narrow and hard to read. As much as people complained about the lack of deep nesting on the old blog, it seemed to have the advantage that things were easy to read and didn't lead to a bunch of hidden rabbit holes.
- There doesn't seem to be a way to do simple formatting, unless I've missed a source. Testing _underscores_ *asterisks* -dashes- ~tilde~.
This is all with the understanding you may not have much control over how comments are done on here. Mostly just glad you're back, Scott!
Yes, this. If possible please get rid of the like button. For a readership as ideologically diverse and often very contrarian this button decreases the utility of the comment section.
The lack of a "no, seriously, just load all the comments right now onto this page so I can search/scan/whatever them myself" button is painful for me, and possibly not just me
You're definitely not alone. Ctrl-f works so much better if you don't have to click "Load more" fifty times first. (Naively, I'd estimate a "Load All" button to be two hours of coding work, and that would pay off in collective time saved in a single popular post.
Well they seem to email you every time someone replies. (And every time someone likes your comment. Is there really no way to disable this without manually muting every thread?) But yeah, it doesn't seem smart enough to load your comment directly even when using their link.
The comments don’t even seem to have unique URL identifiers. So if you click the link it emails to reply to someone, you have to keep showing more until the one you want appears.
And I wouldn’t type long replies in the browser, because it’s easy to accidentally delete them.
You are going to make substack a lot of money -- I bet they would consider adding some new options (like turning the like button on and off) if you asked.
I have not read yet, but I wanted to say thar you are a big inspiration in my life right now, I'm a piece of shit & trying to better myself, every time I read your art I want to study like there is no tomorrow. Strange bit of text but just thanks and I hope they don't make you go away again. Respectfully
Once again, is really really good to have you back.
There's a lot in there, but one thing above confused me. Or, more to the point, confused me in a "am I bad/terrible/stupid/etc for not getting this?" level of confusion:
"She then went on to doxx the Vice reporter involved, Which Was Morally Wrong And I Do Not Condone It"
Why was it morally wrong in that circumstance? Doxing is wrong in general, but if someone promises not to dox you, then goes ahead and willfully doxes you, and you have no other reasonable recourse... why is "dox them back" actually morally wrong? Could you or anyone here spell it out for me why "doxing the doxers that dox you, who clearly are acting in a way that implies they themselves have no objection to doxing" is bad? (I feel stupid and bad for asking this, but that feeling doesn't actually provide me with a clear spelled out answer, so...)
Big picture stuff; if somebody draws a knife and stabs you, the law of the jungle gives you the go ahead to draw your knife and stab them back.
But then all future admonitions about how crappy it is that everybody of going around stabbing each other over every got dang little thing will ring a bit hollow. Hard to enforce a taboo when it gets broken casually every day of the week and twice on Fridays.
Scott cares more about keeping the taboo intact than about affirming the right to stab back when stabbed.
That did occur to me, but... the flipside is if the taboo isn't really being recognized by one side, so one side feels free to be all stabbystab, and the other goes "I must not fight back, even if I get stabbed", well... that's not exactly leading to good "big picture" prospects either.
As I basically asked in my reply to darwin's reply to me here: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/still-alive/comments#comment-1103418 is there any other adequate enforcement mechanism for the taboo presently available? My confusion was in the context of me being ignorant of any other reasonable recourses available to her.
(also, minor substack annoyance: I can't resize the textbox I'm typing this in. Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!)
I agree with this. Also, Scott capitalized it. I interpreted this as a tongue-in-cheek way of saying "this is the official position that I, as one who follows appropriate social norms, must of course hold". I thought the capitalization was a way to leave some ambiguity about whether Scott felt that doxxing the Vice reporter back was 'actually' bad (for some sense of actually - perhaps see https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/28/contra-askell-on-moral-offsets/).
Another detail is that doxing is an asymmetric weapon. Some people have more to lose than others. For some people in some countries it can mean secret police knocking on their door. For others, there is a small chance of some crazy people visiting them or trying to SWAT them... and this probably also depends a lot on the neighborhood. If you are a rich person, your house will probably be better protected, and the police is more likely to think twice about the evidence they have before kicking down your door.
So if a rich American man doxes a Chinese woman famous for having politically incorrect opinions, and she doxes him back for being an asshole, that's like someone stabbing you, and you spitting on them (because you don't have a knife with you while walking on the street). An emotional response that is understandable, arguably impolite and unnecessary, but can hardly be called justice.
(I have the same objection against using Twitter to make people lose their jobs. Don't those people realize they are legitimizing a weapon that works best against poor people who need jobs to survive, while a trust fund kid would just laugh at it?)
I someone murders your sister, you're supposed to report them to the police instead of going out and murdering them yourself.
Of course, under many moral system, and most people's moral intuitions, you wouldn't be *wrong* to revenge-murder them, especially if you tried the police and they couldn't make a case.
BUT, a world where everyone relies on vigilante justice and revenge killings instead of an organized police force quickly descends into violent madness and endless blood feuds.
Similar here. The revenge doxing is ok in an 'eye-for-an-eye' sense, but counter-productive to the effort of creating a better world where people dox less.
Not sure I agree with that logic. Murder is illegal and will hopefully get the attention of the police. Doxxing is not OK but AFAIK legal, so reporting to the police will have little effect. Therefore, any legal action that has a chance of getting people to understand that doxxing is in fact not OK is fair game. Revenge doxxing seems to fit the bill rather nicely.
The idea of 'we will do a bad thing to hurt people so that everyone realizes that thing hurts people and stops doing it' is a very optimistic one, and I don't think it's how the world actually works usually.
I think doing bad things that hurt people, and facing no consequences for doing so, just tends to normalize those things and make them more common. Especially if you can make a compelling narrative that they 'deserved' it and therefore it was *good* that you did the bad thing, which seems to be the case here.
Sure. But who is the "organized police" that'll do something about this? Right now, as near as I can determine, "you do to me, I do to you" is the only extant functional enforcement mechanism on this specific sort of matter. If I knew of alternative adequate recourse, then I wouldn't have found the "this is immoral" commentary as confusing.
If you have A promises B not to dox, then A doxes B, putting B in danger, and there's nothing at all that happens to A in return, so that they can happily keep doing that sort of thing, there appears to be a problem. (Am I missing something? Did she have some other recourse that I missed? If there exists some sort of "anti-dox police" that does a good job coming down hard on this sort of thing and actually preventing it, and she just chose not to avail herself of such, then that's a whole other situation.)
This puzzled me, too. I wrote a friend with the quote and spelled out my confusion. Should've just asked the commentariat here.
I see you have replies. I'm about to read them, jus wanted To let you know you weren't the only one confused by it, and if that makes you stupid and bad I guess we can be stupid and bad together.
Essentially, Kant was right. Behave as if the motivations for your behavior universalize, because your behavior provides a justification for others' behavior. The universal condemnation of doxxing is especially relevant for Scott because the entire point of this article, the deletion of his blog, hell this whole Substack, is that doxxing is bad.
Oh, hey -- if you're giving up on anonymity, does that mean you'll put the old LJ back up? :) There's a lot of good posts there and it's a pain to have to use the Wayback Machine to read it.
Gavin McInnes is a lot of things, but "violent neo-fascist leader?" At this point, I want to see what happens if he has a sit-down chat with Scott. I am a fan of them both.
Then here goes: You are either a fascist yourself, or particularly susceptible to the manipulation tactics used by fascists. McInnes is absolutely a fascist, and also the leader of a violent, white supremacist (not to mention deeply weird) gang.
I could go through it in more detail, but your reflexive rejection of a plain fact-stated by pretty much the most likely to be sympathetic source that is not also a fascist-means you’re likely unwilling to hear it.
The Proud Boys do suck, and I agree with you on that point, but you have gotten several facts wrong. They are a violent paramilitary organization that should have disbanded long ago, but they are not fascist or white supremacist. They're multiracial and civic nationalist. Their problem isn't what they believe, which
is somewhere along the lines of PragerU or Daily Wire, but rather is their tendency to initiate fights. The group was supposed to act as security and defend speakers, not do brawls. Gavin stepped down in 2018, and my only complaint is that he hasn't sufficiently denounced the recent activities of the group, comparing them to "consensual bar brawls," as though those are somehow acceptable. Gavin himself is still the most entertaining person on the right today, and deserves to have the career Steven Crowder does.
Pro tip: Anyone who describes themselves as “nationalist” is a Nazi being too cute by half. If you haven’t caught on, it’s because you aren’t that far down the radicalization pipeline they they dispense with the bullshit. You might never get there, but Nazis have been using coded language like that since the 1960s. Both to inure potential members (not to mention society more broadly) to their fascist ideology, but to avoid legal trouble.
> Their problem isn't what they believe, which is somewhere along the lines of PragerU or Daily Wire
Buddy, that right there is... it’s interesting. Because you named two stops on the fascism express, both part of a concerted effort to give fascist ideas a veneer credibility while insulating the group from inconvenient opposing views.
Remember that’s stuff you didn’t know about yourself? You just admitted to it. The beliefs are why they’re fascist, and you consider their fascist beliefs to be moderate. Which is due to an intentional focused effort to convince of just that going back decades.
> but rather is their tendency to initiate fights.
This is why they’re on the FBI’s radar. But not why they’re fascists. They pretty much figured fascism was on the brink of winning, so they could cut the bullshit and just become a terror group without consequences. They were a few million votes from correct about that not very long.
> The group was supposed to act as security and defend speakers, not do brawls.
Yes, and the Genovese family was just supposed to pick up garbage and provide security for small business owners.
> Gavin stepped down in 2018, and my only complaint is that he hasn't sufficiently denounced the recent activities of the group.
He “stepped down” to avoid civil liability and/or RICO exposure. It not entirely convincing that his ties are severed. Unless you take his word for it. Which, of course you do.
> Gavin himself is still the most entertaining person on the right today, and deserves to have the career Steven Crowder does.
Yes, he should have the career of Noted Not Fascist Steven Crowder.
I’m really sorry, buddy. But you’re in the pipeline. And if you’re not very careful, you risk being convinced to get involved in some bad shit.
My family are army brass and they would consider themselves nationalist patriots. Nationalism is literally the name of the game, at the broad social level, and has been for thousands of years. Nationalism is literally how you avoid getting rubbed out by other nationalists. It's just the Nash Equilibrium of group violence.
"All nationalists are Nazis" is a lazy take. I get that it's a popular take, but it's lazy.
You wrote a lot here, and made a lot of assertions, but I don't see where you presented any arguments that McInnes is a fascist. I hand't heard of the guy before just now, so I'm not sure who to believe but leaning toward the commenter who was less incendiary.
Also, I wonder whether your comment meets Scott's "true, necessary, kind" standard.
I'll one up you. Gavin has sufficiently denounced them. He told them not to go to the January 6th protest. He told them not to go to the inauguration. One of them, Biggs, is now in jail, and Gavin is explicitly not supporting him legally because Gavin told Biggs not to go. All of this is public.
The original accusation of Scott was about Gavin. I think it's needless to go off into debating Proud Boys.
The Proud Boys have been indefensible for years, and I wish Gavin would admit it already instead of doing this "it's just brawling, like me and other punks did as teens" thing. But aside from that, Gavin is a good guy and I will defend him.
"We will kill you, that's the Proud Boys in a nutshell"
"Beating the shit out of these people, I think it's our job to do it, and the cops to turn a blind eye"
"...don't listen to what he has to say, choke him"
"Fighting solves everything. We need more violence from the Trump people... choke a bitch, choke a tranny"
"Get ready to blow someone's fuckin' head off"
"This is a fuckin' war"
Honestly makes me sad to see people in the SSC comments defending this guy. This is not the "niceness, community, and civilization" ethos by any stretch.
The current leader of the Proud Boys - Enrique Tarrio - is Cuban/latino which most wouldn't consider white.
Doesn't the fact that a group has to break away to be white supremacist exactly prove Jason's point that they are not white supremacist?
The whole point of this thread is that Scott made some pretty wild claims about Gavin Mcinness without much evidence except for a highly biased Wikipedia article. Scott should be smart enough to know not to link to _any_ controversial figure's Wikipedia article. It's sad to see is all.
> At times, McInnes appeared to contradict his promise to quit. He repeatedly described the group as “we”, throughout a lengthy defence of its actions, said “this is 100% a legal gesture, and it is 100% about alleviating sentencing”, and also called his actions a “stepping down gesture, in quotation marks”.
"They managed to take a complaint about a video game review and mishandle it so badly that they literally got condemned by the UN General Assembly"
You'd think Scott would have figured this one out by now, but for whatever reason, his attitude on this topic remains one of "invincible ignorance". Irony of ironies.
Here's a topic for you to ponder: why people consistently refuse to give agency to the media when describing a conflict between media and their readers.
On August 28, 2014, a dozen very large gaming sites, with a reach of millions of people, published articles saying their core audience was irrelevant ("gamers are dead"). The _press_ managed to take a minor scandal about an indie personality and turn it into an industry-wide thing. They did this. It's right there for you to find.
They also didn't get the UN General Assembly involved, it was UN _Women_. It goes to show you how various organizations and brands are used as skin suits to lend an air of authority to what is, essentially, someone running to the principal to DARVO after their bullying tactics backfired.
Whether or not the media behaved properly or defensibly in this case, 'being good at PR' just means 'managing your relationship with The Media as they actually exist.
'Get everyone in the media to hate you to the point that they write terrible things about you and make tons of people think you're a monster and widely denounce you' is pretty much a definitional example of 'being bad at PR,' which is the only thing Scott accused them of.
I saw that one, tiny but very significant, change to the lyrics that Scott had made, and I started to tear up a little bit :) Given the emotional tone of what surrounds it I'm pretty sure it's deliberate.
I agree entirely about the online right to psudo-annoyminity. Maybe I'm a hopeless nostalgic but I still share some of that early internet dream where your race, sex, nationality was irrelevant and so your argument would stand and fall on it's own merits. You could even be a dog and nobody could tell if you made a good argument.
Also I have to say. If you manage to get an argument about a video game review all the way to the United Nations that is either the very worst, or the very best PR of the decade. There's an article by an ex editor in chief of Gawker saying that GamerGate is more responsible than anyone for Gawker's fall, so I'm leaning towards the later.
Best of luck with your attempts to fight cost disease, I'm not American so I can't say more on that.
One question: are you planning to continue releasing your posts under a CC-BY license, as you did on your old blog? Your doing so was a huge boon to free culture and to rabid fans like myself who like having things on paper :)
You had me grinning the whole way through, and very nearly tearing up at the end. We're stoked to have you back, and glad it seems to have been as thought-provoking as it was awful.
There are a lot of reasons for my investment. In part it's because I'm still a fan of Gavin, and in part it's because I know I'm next. I was a part of the Proud Boys in the very early days, but I left on amicable terms when the focus shifted from being a fan club for Gavin's podcast to running security for campus speaking events. I'm horrified by what they've become, but the revisionist history is bad for me personally. Anthony Cumia and Joe Rogan are the only guys who seem to understand what happened except for the people who were there.
At the time (and in-context), those comments seemed to be hyperbole about self-defense. That was my inference as someone who listened to Gavin's podcast and knows how he speaks, and it was also how the Proud Boys explained those comments at the time. When joining the group, you had to read and agree to a set of rules that included "we don't start fights, but we do finish them!" It fit my priors as someone who had been assaulted and seen others be assaulted at campus events, but had never been a victim of or personally witnessed politically-motivated violence by a conservative against a leftist.
When I first saw this compilation of those comments, most of which I was already familiar with, it was easy for me to dismiss it. It uses dramatic music to frame an interpretation of Gavin's comments, and does not include any rebuttal from him. It was also made by Vic Berger, who put his name on a (now defunct) flash game for Super Deluxe where you beat up Richard Spencer and Milo Yiannopoulos. Here's the most easily accessible quote I could find from Gavin on this subject.
["McInnes appears to believe that the beating came about as an act of self-defense, as his group were threatened. ‘This is people standing up for themselves,’ he said. ‘This person was not randomly beaten in the street on 35th and Park just going to get a coffee. This guy had been screaming threats all night as part of a group that had been threatening people all night, vandalising our establishment, trying to attack us. This was not a random incident, this was someone who fucked around, and found out. We don’t start fights, we finish them. And we are living in a culture today, where the media says “if you don’t just sit there and take an antifa beating, then you’re violent.”]
This easily fit my priors as 1. someone who has seen a lot of comedians say outrageous things that they then had to clarify were being hyperbolic (see Seth Rogen's comments on Israel) and 2. someone who has had experience with violence from only one side. But I may be wrong. Unlike allistic people, I literally don't know how to tell when people are lying unless I catch them in a contradiction. When I catch someone in a contradiction, I call them out on their contradiction, and I decide whether they're lying based on whether their answer satisfies me. Obviously, this is impossible to do with public figures, but I did it with the Proud Boys at least a dozen times just while reading their rules. I actually pissed them off pretty bad by asking them which version of racism their "no racism" rule was about, quoting Scott's "Against Murderism" post on SSC to make my point. Good times.
Do I think Gavin was just lying out his ass? How would I know? I've never had the ability to interrogate him. I've gaslit myself a lot over the past year and a half in response to recent developments, and my answer is still "I don't know."
Speaking of, I have one remaining contact in the Proud Boys, an old friend who I knew before the Proud Boys and who got me to join in the first place. After a member showed up at Vic Berger's house, I asked my friend why the hell Gavin hasn't denounced it. He said, "Because this wasn't a threat. Vic declined multiple requests for an interview or any sort of conversation, so this guy went to force him to respond. If you look at the video, you'lll see he isn't being threatening at all." He also implied my inference that showing up at someone's house = threatening is a mistake I made due to being autistic, to which I said "Yeah, well, I wouldn't know."
Boy this turned out long. Hope someone enjoyed reading it! I'm not gonna take the time to respond to the two other comments I got notifications about related to that video, because I'd just be saying the same thing.
You call Gavin McInnes is "a violent neo-fascist leader"? Really? Is this someone you're actually familiar with and have followed or just skimmed the Wikipedia article?
Like I said in another comment, Gavin is far from innocent, but he's not the monster he's made out to be. He's not a fascist, nor is he a leader at this point in time.. but he is, unfortunately, a "consensual street brawler." Scott literally didn't know who Gavin was until last year, so I doubt he's knowledgeable of the man's complicated history. I would love to see a conversation between the two of them very much.
First they came for the X, Finnydo. I'm invested because I know I'm next. I want Gavin to be criticized fairly and accurately, just as I would want to be.
In general, when they come for the fascist domestic terrorists, they stop there. But I suspect you know that, or you wouldn’t be “no, you-ing” fascism.
It's quite surreal to find "they stop there" as a deadpan assertion written below the very article describing how they came for Scott.
The key bit for the above metaphors is to pin down "who's 'they'?" The NYT is a relevant-enough 'they' in my book. If it isn't relevant-enough in your book, then I concede that your book is more interesting than mine.
Otherwise I have no opinion on what McInnes is or isn't as I haven't dug into that much, though I find Scott provides good priors in a remarkably high percentage of cases. As to what is or isn't fascism, that is a quite complex question to pin down, and I find Eric S. Raymond's essay on the subject to be an excellent and very relevant attempt: http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=8310
I think the accusation here is that Gavin is part of the 'they', not the 'X' in that formula.
The quote isn't just saying 'never say bad things about anyone ever.' The whole point is about opposing the 'they' who is attacking people, which means you *are* supposed to oppose *someone*.
Most people believe Gavin is that someone. He's a rich white male with a huge public platform and ties to a media empire. The people he disparages are outsiders, minorities, and women.
He's the one emboldening the folks who are 'coming for people', whether he believes that about himself or not.
Subscribed as soon as I got to read the email. If you will forgive me quoting Pete Townsend, "I've got a feeling twenty-one is going to be a good year, especially if you and me see it in together". Missed you.
If you charge 4x less than what anyone else does supply and demand equilibrate in some other way, currently by seniority/connections. What's your plan for future allocation?
It's an interesting question because there's sort of a split based on purpose:
If you want to give this new system a fair test, I guess you'd screen for all the applicants that a normal practice would be willing to take, then choose randomly among them.
If you want to learn as much as possible about psychiatry (for the blog and for personal professional development), you could select interesting patients with symptoms you want more experience with.
If you're worried about your livelihood and the continuation of the clinic, you can choose people who you trust to pay.
If you want to enjoy your life, you could choose patients that seem fun/easy to work with.
Of course, that's all assuming the advertising is good enough to get a plethora of applicants, I'm not sure how that works in the psychiatry field.
First time commenter. I've really missed your blog, and it's made me realize I want to try to be a bigger part of the community. So that's what I'll try to do. I'm very glad to say welcome back!
I had figured out your name a few years ago based on info that you gave about your brother. I purposely forgot it because I appreciated what you do. It is a great comfort to know that someone like you exists in the world at this time in history. Welcome back!
It is just a blog. Maybe I should get a life. Yet I don't think there would be a better use of my time than to read a new Slate Star Codex (or Astral Codex Ten) post at 2am. Thank you for everything Scott!
I've participated on the subreddit a bit, but never in the comment section of your blog. I'll try to change that this time around because I feel I've missed out in the past. I subscribed (as promised on reddit) immediately when I saw this.
> "IT'S JUST A BLOG, GET A LIFE"
"It's just a ____" is a pretty good example of the noncentral fallacy you yourself coined. Sure, it's a blog, and most blogs are kinda just ok. The fact that your writing takes the form of a blog doesn't detract from it.
I can meet you halfway and qualify with the word "some" here: Some of your writing is on par with the best essayists of the past century.
I was so curious what your name was, and I had resisted the urge to look it up out of respect. But finding out your name was just anti-climactic. Like it *was* Scott all along? Gimme my money back
New to Substack so I'm not sure about everything regarding how comments work here. I guess this one will appear as anonymous? Do I have to get a Substack account and/or subscribe to this blog to comment here with a handle? (I'm infrequent Wordpress user and SSC commenter Liskantope, much more frequent Tumblr user also under that handle.)
Anyway, I'll skip the gushing and say thank you for coming back, and I'm glad to see that everything seems to be going all right for you after this disturbing sharp turn in your life. (I sensed a strange layer of irony in "I had, not to mince words about it, a really weird year.")
A quick comment: I'm curious about this early-2010's blog under your real name and whether you're referring to your LiveJournal or something else I never knew about. It seems like you were a pretty busy LJer until you took that down and set up SSC, but (1) it wasn't that easy to find your real last name from your LJ as I recall (only from like one reference to it in a comment under the earliest LJ post publicly viewable in the mid-2010's?), and (2) seems to me there was plenty of controversial stuff starting from 2012 and spanning the final months of the LJ?
Yeah, I didn't know what would happen when I hit "post" but it asked me to create a name and email for a profile. (I wanted to put my old avatar there too but couldn't find it on this new laptop.) I hope my email isn't visible...
It took literally the first post for me to remember “Oh yeah, Scott manages to convince me and fascists that he is on our wavelength at the same time.”
It's great to see you back and I'm glad you came through this okay.
I'm a journalist myself, though one who works for an organization that respects pseudonymity as a matter of explicit policy.
*That said*
I'm glad this post is here. It's worth all of us discussing this question of what information the public has the right to know and what information it doesn't. This is such a tricky point.
I do think there's a way in which in a world with an internet machine where finding identities is uniquely easier than it has ever been forces journalists to reconsider this question.
But where the hell is the line?
I think your post raises the question but I'm not sure it does anything to clarify the line. And it's an important line. If all anyone ever did was write the stuff everyone wanted us to, well... we might as well just cancel journalism and let every company and politician and official blog their own updates.
I understand that your point is: well there's a lot of people who fall short of important enough but like... where?
(and yes I understand that you were just writing about identity but obviously it ends up being a lot more than identity, too)
Well, reporters already withhold useful information from the public: the names of sources who don't want to be public. Plenty of these sources seem to have a double agenda or lie, so it would be quite helpful for the public if these people were de-anonymized, so we could judge their conflicts of interest, reputation, etc. Reporters typically seem to regret having anonymous sources, but accept it, because this is often the only way that certain information gets to the public.
Scott makes the same argument, where bloggers and the like can often only bring their information to the public if they anonymity is preserved. So the only thing that reporters have to do is to be less narcissistic and selfish, where they see themselves as the only channel of information that needs anonymity to work, and extend those exact same ethics to others.
Note that for blogs and the like, the case against anonymity is typically way less strong than for most anonymous media sources. Doxxing "a source within the White House" is way more useful to the public than doxxing a cop who writes a blog, because the former typically claim to have information or power that only very few people have, while there are typically better alternatives to figure out how truthful points of view are that are not based on exceptional power or knowledge, than divulging private information. The media themselves also acts this way, where they fact-check people in power, but not their own opinion piece writers. Instead, they believe that open debate that gives people different points of view is best.
If the media wants people to be able to judge if an anonymous blog by a cop on being a cop is accurate, it similarly works way better to ask a bunch of cops and report on what they say, to get those different points of view, than to publish his name so people can judge his biases. Almost none of the readers of the NYT will know anything more about that cop than what the NYT tells about him in the article about the blog, or what is in the anonymous blog. So what does doxxing him actually achieve for 99% of the readership? Very little. The cost of potentially silencing him should therefor weigh much more heavily than the very minimal benefit of publishing the name. A huge cost for a small benefit is typically considered unethical.
Ultimately, the "right to know" is also undermined if people are silenced, because they feel that expressing certain things will lead to unacceptable consequences.
"Scott makes the same argument, where bloggers and the like can often only bring their information to the public if they anonymity is preserved. So the only thing that reporters have to do is to be less narcissistic and selfish, where they see themselves as the only channel of information that needs anonymity to work, and extend those exact same ethics to others."
Sad because that would require transformation of human nature - many, or for the sake of argument: most or nearly all, reporters could be less narcissistic and selfish, but this system fails where only one or a few are rewarded for unethical behavior. We the people have to condemn and punish (shame & blame) the current state of what we might laughingly call 'journalism' before things might, grudgingly, improve. Given 2020's excessive... tomfoolery, I'm not holding my breath.
I am answering you seriously because I think you're asking a serious question. Apologies if not.
Scott is humbled (made to feel small, meek) because of the internal juxtaposition between the grandiose descriptions people offer and how he feels inside (that it isn't as good as they say). The difference between grand praise and your own modest appraisal can generate a feeling of meekness (humbling).
Perhaps needless to say, I am one who think it *is* as good as they said.
"and that smiley face will haunt my dreams" made me laugh uncontrollably out loud. Subscribed for real $, my first Substack paid subscription. Glad you're back.
I don't have much to add to what innumerable others have said, but boy am I glad you're back. I wish you all the best in your endeavors, and hope that we might have the pleasure of your company for some time to come!
You picked a shit time, because the comment system is kind of a nightmare. Trying to dig up comments to respond to is basically my job for the last 48 hours. And that’s with clicking the (entirely useless) links that are getting emailed to me.
Yeah, I'm starting to see that. (I had a crappy time even finding my own comment again to reply to you!) But seems like SubStack is working with Scott, so we can hope for quick improvements.
Congratulations on your first steps to demist the fog of war in your maps of healthcare. I wish for you courage and clarity in your journey. In the words of Glen Weyl, "All the interesting things in life happen in the space between abstract goals, and the concrete manifestation of those goals".
Also, though I'm must admit I'm neither an impartial nor an authoratitive judge of the pacing of longform prose compositions, but WOW... this essay had, IMHO, deeply emotionally and rhetorically satisfying pacing. I loved the interweaving your journey from fighting against doxxing and finding yourself driven to a "lose-lose" situation for the greater imagined good with that whacky-at-first-and-then-downright-haunting (at least IMHO) Jonathan Coulton swan song for GLaDOS in the computer game Portal. Also, I loved the emotional and rhetorical payoff of your ending: you starting your own new -- and hopefully truly innovative and trendsetting -- practice and "coming out" proudly, as it were, in merging your personal, vocational, and avocational (alternative vocational?) personae... loved it both for how well it was teased throughout the essay and for the actual fact of it. Lemons to lemonade! Good for you, Dr. Scott Alexander Siskind!! :)
I am generally sympathetic, but I also see why the Times Reporters did not find your arguments convincing.
You call the possibility of them revealing your name "kicking you in the balls" and "doxxing," whereas they would probably call it "doing their job."
As you note, revealing things that people would prefer remain hidden is pretty much the definition of journalism. It is certainly not self-evident to an outsider that revealing your name is analogous to kicking you in the balls. And I think they are correct to note that your blog had gained notoriety, and that you had not exactly discouraged it. The NYT's default isn't so much "go around kicking people in the balls" as it is "publicize information."
It is indeed your circumstances that made this "kicking in the balls." So while you may have been adverse to what may seem like special pleading, I think this may have been a more apparent argument than calling what people do for a living kicking people in the balls.
I also think "doxxing" is an unnecessarily loaded term for what the NYT was going to do. "Doxxing" has its history in revealing personal information so as to encourage harassment and intimidation. It seems pretty clear to me that this was not the NYT's intent. Now, they are responsible for the impact of their actions, but I think that term unnecessarily raised the temperature of the conflict.
Now, once you made it clear what the impact is, I think it would have been best for them to agree to not publish your name. But I'm not sure I want to encourage a norm of, "journalists should default to not publishing information that might hurt somebody." But there's probably more I can learn and think about this.
>As you note, revealing things that people would prefer remain hidden is pretty much the definition of journalism.
I think it's an imprecise definition without the phrase 'revealing information *of some value to the public* ' in there.
Like, journalists may publish the sex scandals of a public official, but they don't go around printing long lists of every private citizen who re-gifted something at Christmas this year. That information really has no value to the general public and isn't worth publishing, even though it meets the simple criterion of 'things that people would prefer stay hidden'.
Similarly, many people probably vaguely want 'when was the last time you picked your nose and what did you do with it' to remain hidden, but journalists don't report on it.
'Things people would prefer stay hidden' is an *extremely massive* category of data, and I'm guessing that maybe .00001% of that entire category are also 'things that a journalist might reasonably choose to report on'
I think that's the crux here - the public doesn't benefit in any tangible way, or really care, about learning Scott's real name. They have reason to care if Scott has some horrible opinion that lots of people might be reading and influenced by, but Scott's last name doesn't affect how that horrible opinion influences people.
Since the information has no benefit or interest to the readers, I think it's a lot harder to make a journalistic case for publicizing it.
The question, then, is who decides when someone is a public official or what information is valuable to the public? Scott is an influential public figure. He has a following in powerful places. His brand new blog, at a brand new domain, after six months of silence, has gotten him (an estimated) hundreds of thousands of dollars in annualized income from his reader base. And that amount was the estimate I saw yesterday. It could be up to a million by now and it would not surprise me at all.
A lot of those people, also, are wealthy intellectuals in Silicon Valley (which, I think the amount of money and speed of it indicates a pretty wealthy fanbase even if I didn’t know it already) whose work quite literally impacts who runs the world and how. Perhaps it’s just a silly little blog, but the argument that Scott is a public figure subject to public figure rules whether he sees himself that way or not... It’s not clear to me that the argument is wrong. I don’t think he falls of the side of “private citizen with expectation of privacy” anymore.
Did the Times give a fully satisfying justification? Nah. Was it pretty shitty given the rule they were citing is inconsistently enforced? Yes. But, in the end, Scott’s influence and popularity was such that his identity was going to come out. It was already out, really, and it took nothing more than it coming to the attention of people who weren’t his fans that he would it prefer it remain private for it to get completely away from him.
So, still... Should a particular newspaper be the arbiter of who Public and who is Private? No, probably not. But I think if you’re among reasonable people who had complete information about Scott’s position and influence, most would come down on the side of him being Public rather than Private. He’s influential, he’s about to get pretty wealthy off of that influence, and that influence is concentrated among one of the most powerful demographic cohorts the world has ever seen. It sucks that his life had to get turned upside down, but he won the fucking lottery and we have to take the good with the bad.
If journalists see immoral behavior (huge costs and little benefit) as "their job," then maybe they are the baddies?
> The NYT's default isn't so much "go around kicking people in the balls" as it is "publicize information."
I've been raised with the idea that the respectable media actually only publishes things that are important for the public to know, while things that lots of people want to know, but that are not important, are published by gossip rags.
Is your claim that the NYT should be regarded as a gossip rag?
My claim is that the identity of the author of a prominent blog is information that is of some interest to people, and I can understand why the NYT would default to publishing it if it knew it and was doing a story on said blog. That is the business they are in.
Perhaps norms need to evolve. But I think that is a discussion, and I think things like "kicking in the balls" and "doxxing" and "immoral behavior" are question begging, and do not lead to a productive discussion.
Nude pictures of celebrities are also of interest to many people. Would you understand it if the NYT published those?
You and most other journalists truly come across to me as people with an immense lack of empathy and unwillingness to even recognize the negative consequences of their actions. I've seen a lot of people discuss the impact that reporting had on them, which is often immense. I bet that most actually would prefer a kick to the balls.
Doing severe damage to people can certainly be justifiable, but it requires a much better grounds than that 'people like to know'. In fact, the norm that you earlier rejected, where personal information that can harm people shouldn't be published against the desires of the person unless there is a good justification for it, seems like a perfectly good norm. This won't impact a lot of reporting anyway, but just the hit pieces.
Note that I'm not even suggesting actual checks and balances, or actual accountability, like those that doctors face, but merely that journalists actually consider whether the harm that their actions are likely to cause are justified. Or what I like to call, moral behavior (in contrast to amoral behavior, rather than immoral behavior)
It’s not just that the blog is prominent. It’s where that prominence is. It’s among the class of people whose decisions decide who has influence and who doesn’t. The people who decide, more than individual media outlet, what the world is thinking. The people who decide whose businesses get to make money, and on what terms.
If Scott were a blogger that every sitting US Senator and most of the cabinet read, nobody would dispute that he’s a public figure whose expectation of privacy is unreasonable. Instead, he’s popular among people who have trillions of dollars to throw around and can literally decide that the President of the United States is not allowed to have a voice anymore if they want to. And those people are sniffing their own farts about how overblown his influence is.
I assume it’s because they simply don’t fully grasp the power they wield. Because I can tell you for sure that Scott doesn’t.
So glad to have you back! Got a little teary-eyed around the end of this post. So sorry you had to go through such a turbulent year. I hope things go well and better than ever in your new place. I'm glad to support you!
"In Russia we witnessed similar things back in 1917. 100 years later the same situation is in your country :)".
I don't understand this comment. The Russian Revolution was a gargantuan positive for humanity and remains a beacon of hope and inspiration to the proletarian masses over 100 years later. Is this a pro-doxxing email? Certainly, I think intellectual justifications for doxxing can be explicated at length - I'm surprised your piece doesn't do more to investigate the issue from all sides. Remember not to confine yourself to a tribal bubble - one day you may find it has burst.
Hopefully I will be less censored on this blog compared to the strict censorship I faced on Scott's previous blog and in other Rationalist spaces. And if 62% people are apparently 'scared' of expressing their political opinions then I hope Scott doesn't compound this problem by deleting leftist political analysis that he disagrees with.
Nice to see you here! I hope you and other people with unpopular points of view will continue to be a part of this community, but I also hope Scott's moderation will be strict enough to preserve its uniqueness.
As u/HarryPotter5777 wrote at r/slatestarcodex: "SSC is not an example of how writing charitable interesting things inevitably attracts charitable interesting commenters. It is an astonishing fluke, a shining beacon of hope for the entire internet, an unrivalled treasure of public discussion. That magical atmosphere was powered by some ancient relic of machinery beyond human ken, and we just turned off that machine for most of a year and changed out half its parts".
Please, given that many people can be triggered by your comments (and I can totally relate to them, as someone whose grandparents' close relatives went through Gulag), try to be extra "kind + necessary + true" when commenting. Try to anticipate other people's reaction and be preemptively sympathetic.
I guess that's an extra burden that people with unpopular opinions have to carry, but in the end it may get you further. We all need to make an effort to prevent the comments section from turning into what the rest of the internet is.
The world has fallen apart rapidly in your absence -- riots at the US Capitol, pandemic escalating out of control, etc etc -- and I'm hoping that things will start to normalize now that we have you back helping the rest of us get saner over time.
I did not cancel my subscription to the NYT... because I would never subscribe to that shit in the first place. This blog though, please take my money.
You will always be Scott Alexander to me. No, seriously, I spent 2 months in a locked down hospital last year getting my head zapped therapeutically, and and I think I may have some screen/memory burn-in in addition to the horrendous tinnitus :D
> I don't think anyone at the Times bore me ill will, at least not originally. But somehow that just made it even more infuriating.
I was in a Tijuana jail once, facing 5 years. I'm a software engineer who's never been in a fight in his life. I was shocked by how benign and nice they all seemed as they stated shocking, bald assertions of their power.
That said, the "load more" comments button needs to die a horrible death, and not be replaced by "infinite" scrolling. @substack: give me all comments in one static html file on pageload or give me death!
> who could have guessed that a webzine founded by a violent neo-fascist leader
I see Scott hasn't changed in the occasional poorly researched accusation. I watch Gavin's show every day and have for years. It's hilarious. He's not a fascist and only violent if you think self-defense is violence.
Someone doesn't have to spout fascist rhetoric every day of the week in every interaction they have in order to be a fascist. Many fascists are capable of producing individual pieces of media that don't make them look like fascists, and indeed have very good reasons to wish to do so.
"I love being white, and I think it's something to be very proud of. I don't want our culture diluted. We need to close the borders now and let everyone assimilate to a Western, white, English-speaking way of life."
He later regretted saying that and meant simply Western. His wife is Native American. The leader of the Proud Boys is cuban/latino. There are black, gay, and every other races of members of the Proud Boys. I forgive Gavin for being too loose with his words early on. The Proud Boys started as a humorous drinking club (the name of the club is making fun of a Disney musical), not as a political movement. He's much more careful with his words now.
Listen, I don't want to go 20 rounds of 'No True Fascist' here.
'Fascism' is one of those terms that gets used differently by different people from different fields, ideologies, and intentions, and I'm sure you have a definition in your head, plus a list of alibis and excuses for any evidence against him, that equals out to 'he is not a fascist'.
I don't think you're being dishonest, I believe you're following a legitimate process to come to this conclusion.
Because those are personal decisions you've made about how to define the word in your head and how to interpret his actions and statements and what to forgive or dismiss, there's no way anyone can provide evidence against your conclusion.
Just understand that other people use different definitions of the word, interpret his words and actions differently, and do not forgive or dismiss the things that you do.
They are not ignoring evidence and making things up, they are following precisely the same process you are, just with different priors. Their conclusions are arrived at as fairly as your own via that process.
I think they're correct. Arguing over what the word 'fascist' means and what it takes to qualify as a 'fascist' and whether past actions are included or excluded and etc. is all semantics. I think one consequence of his actions and statements has been to advance fascist causes and ideology, whether or not he would say that was ever his goal.
I'm happy to call him a fascist in casual conversation for that reason. You don't have to be.
> Just understand that other people use different definitions of the word, interpret his words and actions differently, and do not forgive or dismiss the things that you do.
I agree. That's why I find these terms are mostly useless. They act to compartmentalize and divide people and they retard debate in a semantic morass. If Scott had instead said, "[...] a webzine founded by a socially reckless and vulgar lightning dynamo," that would have been reasonable. However, terms like fascist and neo-fascist poison the conversation.
> I think one consequence of his actions and statements has been to advance fascist causes and ideology, whether or not he would say that was ever his goal.
The logic of this scares me. If I start a blog, and some readers of my blog misinterpret something and start a coup, am I at fault? Especially if I clarify things and say "don't do that"?
It is truly, truly good to see you back and writing again, Scott. And even better that you've made it through 2020 apparently in good shape, because...yeah, this year has been interesting. Count me as a future subscriber once I've sufficiently unfucked my finances, and I look forward to watching this space.
I think the NYT story (and meta-story) came at a point where suspicions of legacy media organizations 'having it out' for the internet were at a near-peak. Has a piece of meat quality to it from there; facts are almost always a bit more nuanced.
Excellent news! Welcome back! I had missed your blog, but I didn't realize how much until I read this post and couldn't stop laughing. I'm looking forward to more insights from a treasured voice of reason and sanity. (And I subscribed, of course).
I am excited for the libertarian community's newfound awareness that tyrannical Power can and does arise with no state involvement and no violation of the NAP.
Terrible automatic recording of the first time I've tried to play the song, while leaning over from my computer chair to the piano; proof of concept screwing around. I'll try an actual arrangement tomorrow :p
Be warned, bad notes, checking if I remember the tune, and I didn't sing due to it being 4am. Epistemic status: “it's bad and I know it's bad”, skip ahead a minute or so. Or wait until tomorrow for something less bad :p
I noticed you changed the line "When I look out there it makes me glad I'm not you" to "When I look out there it makes me glad I've got you." Was this deliberate?
It seems like, every time you post a comment, it pops up a pre-cehcked box saying 'subscribe to our newsletter', and you have to uncheck it every single time you comment in order to stay unsubscribed.
This seems like very asshole design and is very frustrating.
Also, it seems like sometimes when you comment, it reloads the page, and you have to hit 'load more comments' a dozen times again to find where you were and continue reading/corresponding where you left off. Somewhat excruciating.
I don't know if Substack can/will customize the mechanics of their comment section for an individual blogger, but the current system feels very hostile to the type of in-depth interactions that the previous blog fostered. This would be a great thing to fix if fixed it can be.
I noticed that if you press "Load more comments" once, you can just hit Space repeatedly to press it again and again. It made the process just a bit less frustrating for me.
Unfortunately the space bar is not an option on mobile devices. I vaguely remember Substack appearing to promise Scott they “would make changes” to the site if needed, to sign him on, let’s see how forthcoming they are now
At least ¼ of what I love about the blog is the quality of comments, but that benefit goes away really fast if the comments are second-class citizens like that, for a bunch of little reasons. :(
Replying here for reason's that t will soon be obvious: I believe you're supposed to subscribe to see replie, that's how I saw your reply on the other thread. On the other hand, the links in the email don't work if the comment isn't already loaded in the first set of comments, which sorta defeats the peint (hence the obvious comment at the start.) On an entirely different note, the comment box is doing some sort of realny wonk' thing where it freezes the page (but not the browser) frr _minutss_ •t a time, although if I give it enough time, it'll e_entualny show everything that I've been ttyping blind on my phone that whole time. weird behaviour for something that really should be nothing more than a styled text box, grumble grumble
Welcome back! We've missed you!
Ah, the smell of a fresh post
For those eager to see new Scott writing after the drought, check out that Lorien Psychiatry page! There's lots of psychiatry-related content there, most of which seems new, written in Scott's usual style (with slightly fewer amazing offhand comments than usual, but quite the page-turner compared to just about any other online medical resource).
Thanks! The notes on supplements definitely has that feel to it of a sane person patiently explaining something in a world of insanity.
While I like the writing style of Lorien Pschiatry unfortunately I find the site physically hard to read: if the font was changed from a weight of 300 to 400, and the color from #555 to #000, I would find it a lot easier to read, as I expect would many older people with poor eyesight.
I know it may be helpful enough, but there are some excellent addons (or "extensions") for Chrome (any browser, really) that can dramatically improve readability. I tried many in Chrome and settled on "Reader View Plus." I appreciate being able to change line spacing, width of the paragraphs, setting the font to something larger and serif, and using light gray on a dark gray background. Hopefully you can find something that works for you!
I use Firefox and the reader view on that is pretty good and allows me to view the articles. Also I use the Stylus add-on (user-defined CSS). So it's not really what works for me that's my concern -- it's what works for other people, i.e. Scott's prospective patients. If I find a web layout annoying or hard to read, others will to and I'd like Scott's business to be a success.
Pocket has served me well. getpocket.com
Try https://readup.com/ there is an app on iOS plus extensions for Firefox, Safari, Chrome, etc...
There is a little social element too, in that you cannot place a comment on an article, until you've read the piece in its entirety.
That way you know everyone who has commented has read the piece! allows for great conversations.
Hey, Scott! I'm really glad to see you back. I can't wait to read what you write next.
That last sentence is heartwarming. Welcome back, my man. We've missed you.
So utterly delighted you are back!
The Glados interlude throughout really makes it.
I love how he changed just two words (two phonemes, three letters) in the last bit to really change the meaning.
I'm really glad everything turned out ok for you and you're back to blogging. Best luck with your new practice!
Thanks.
Fantastic.
Wheeee!
I'm sufficiently pleased about this that I'll overlook making it a Portal reference but don't push your luck bub
Portal is one of the greatest games ever made and Jonathan Coulton is one of the best living musicians. This is just good taste.
Right, but, any joy in that song was washed out by that solid year of people doing really sincere covers of Still Alive on ukelele / trombone / dot matrix printer etc.
Instant subscribe, It's great to hear from you again Scott. I wish you the best of luck with Lorien Psychology and I look forwards to seeing which direction you take with this new blog.
Will you be returning to Twitter in any capacity, either as @slatestarcodex or @astralcodexten?
I just claimed https://twitter.com/astralcodexten; happy to give it to Scott if he wants it. I also got astralcodex.net and pointed it to the substack.
I see the subreddit AstralCodexTen is private. Is that you, too?
Nope, though I had the same thought. No idea who that one is.
Good job!
I like the astralcodex.net idea! Use the domain as part of the anagram.
He lives!
Oh my gosh. I have missed you so much.
I want your next couple of posts to be about nothing more than what you've been up to with nothing more stressful than stories about the various recipes you've been working on in the kitchen.
https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2020/11/09/direct-primary-care/
Hey Scott, how's tricks
It feels so good to see you back Scott :)
Welcome back to blogging, Scott! Best of luck with your new practice, I look forward to your conversation with Alex Tabarrok whether you succeed or fail gloriously.
Great to have you back, dood!
Wonderful news! Great to have the blog back (for both myself and the world) but even better to hear that you’re doing well and that this will hopefully be the start of great new things!
Congratulations, good luck with the practice, I look forward to hearing the hilarious and horrifying story of how bureaucracy killed it
Bentornati Scott! Good to see you back and very best of luck with your new practice.
So happy to have you back, Scott! I just signed up for an annual subscription, the first time I've paid for writing online. My bank (Boa) didn't seem to expect this of me, and initially declined the transaction as suspicious.
I also just got a call from my bank for exactly this, lmao
Welcome back Scott!
It's wonderful to meet you, Dr. Siskind.
So, what happened to the deadly neurotoxin?
Welcome back! I'm baking cake in celebration.
Your blog is one of the bright spots in my life, so glad to hear from you again!
Welcome back, hero.
Welcome back, Scott
Welcome back. You SWATted our hearts.
ACT, eh? That's an acronym I can get used to. Welcome back Scott, long live The Blog!
He appears be using ACX
Tbh, I like that even better
Welcome back!!!
This is so wonderful. Congratulations.
Literally brought a tear to my eye. Great to see you pull strength out of adversity. Looking forward to reading you again.
I'm so glad you're back! I really missed your blog especially during the past few months.
Hey, your "all psychiatrists" link points to a Google cache rather than directly to the page being linked. It should point here: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/mind-guest-blog/why-psychiatrists-don-t-share-personal-information-with-patients/
Thank you!
Oh my god, this post cured my cancer. Thanks Scott - we've all missed you greatly and warmly welcome you back.
I'm very psyched. I am subscribing as soon as I get home.
So good to have you back Scott. Best of luck with these new ventures, I can't wait to see how it all turns out.
Instantly subscribed for the year. Thanks for all of your incredible writing in the past. I wait excitedly for all of your writing in the future.
Let's hope that Substack improves the comment interface. I miss the original site's density, page size and comment threading.
By threading, do you mean that I can respond to your comment directly? Are other people having problems with this?
Actually, I was unaware of this when I wrote my comment, since none of the comments at that time were threaded. Maybe nobody is using it yet, because this topic isn't one that begets discussion! (But your original blog did always have very interesting comment threads so I'll wait hopefully.)
I agree about the density. As proven by this comment, threading works fine for me. One thing I actually liked a lot about the old comment threads was the _lack_ of a like button: it forced me to just read arguments at face value without thinking about the extent to which there was popular support for those arguments. I hope the like button here doesn't change the comment landscape perversely
I like the number of likes that this comment has.
I like the number of people who like that you like it.
(I'm open to seeing how this new incentive structure seems to be playing out, but the SSC comment section was so uniquely good before that I'm worried that changes are more likely to cause regression to the mean than to be improvements.)
Strong upvote!
Hmm... if you use Tampermonkey-or-a-similar-plugin, hiding the like-count is [extremely simple](https://tinyurl.com/hide-substack-likes-userscript). (Though obviously this doesn't change the incentive landscape.)
I agree the like button might make bandwagoning easier. You should be able to hide it with an extension or ublock for personal use at least.
A couple other things:
- The comments seem to nest indefinitely, which leads to issues that heavily nested comments get very narrow and hard to read. As much as people complained about the lack of deep nesting on the old blog, it seemed to have the advantage that things were easy to read and didn't lead to a bunch of hidden rabbit holes.
- There doesn't seem to be a way to do simple formatting, unless I've missed a source. Testing _underscores_ *asterisks* -dashes- ~tilde~.
This is all with the understanding you may not have much control over how comments are done on here. Mostly just glad you're back, Scott!
Yes, this. If possible please get rid of the like button. For a readership as ideologically diverse and often very contrarian this button decreases the utility of the comment section.
Threading is fine, but I really loved the ~new~ text on the old site. If there's any way you can bring it back here, that'd be great.
(Also, could you please restore the old site's theme, so we can sort comments oldest-first instead of newest-first? It's almost unreadable now.)
The lack of a "no, seriously, just load all the comments right now onto this page so I can search/scan/whatever them myself" button is painful for me, and possibly not just me
You're definitely not alone. Ctrl-f works so much better if you don't have to click "Load more" fifty times first. (Naively, I'd estimate a "Load All" button to be two hours of coding work, and that would pay off in collective time saved in a single popular post.
What I can't figure out is how I'm supposed to see if anyone has replied to any of my comments?
It seems like I literally have to hit 'load more comments' over and over until it runs out, before I can ctrl-f myself.
Somewhat excruciating, especially i the comment section remains large.
Well they seem to email you every time someone replies. (And every time someone likes your comment. Is there really no way to disable this without manually muting every thread?) But yeah, it doesn't seem smart enough to load your comment directly even when using their link.
Now I feel bad about 'like' ing and replying.
The comments don’t even seem to have unique URL identifiers. So if you click the link it emails to reply to someone, you have to keep showing more until the one you want appears.
And I wouldn’t type long replies in the browser, because it’s easy to accidentally delete them.
You are going to make substack a lot of money -- I bet they would consider adding some new options (like turning the like button on and off) if you asked.
I also recommend scrapping like button, if possible. It was rather unique and great feature of the SSC that it did not have one.
Fantastic to have you back Scott, 2021 just got a whole lot better.
Fantastic to have you back Scott. 2021 just got a whole lot better.
I have not read yet, but I wanted to say thar you are a big inspiration in my life right now, I'm a piece of shit & trying to better myself, every time I read your art I want to study like there is no tomorrow. Strange bit of text but just thanks and I hope they don't make you go away again. Respectfully
Welcome back, Scott! <3
A wonderful way to kick off 2021
Good to see you back
Once again, is really really good to have you back.
There's a lot in there, but one thing above confused me. Or, more to the point, confused me in a "am I bad/terrible/stupid/etc for not getting this?" level of confusion:
"She then went on to doxx the Vice reporter involved, Which Was Morally Wrong And I Do Not Condone It"
Why was it morally wrong in that circumstance? Doxing is wrong in general, but if someone promises not to dox you, then goes ahead and willfully doxes you, and you have no other reasonable recourse... why is "dox them back" actually morally wrong? Could you or anyone here spell it out for me why "doxing the doxers that dox you, who clearly are acting in a way that implies they themselves have no objection to doxing" is bad? (I feel stupid and bad for asking this, but that feeling doesn't actually provide me with a clear spelled out answer, so...)
Big picture stuff; if somebody draws a knife and stabs you, the law of the jungle gives you the go ahead to draw your knife and stab them back.
But then all future admonitions about how crappy it is that everybody of going around stabbing each other over every got dang little thing will ring a bit hollow. Hard to enforce a taboo when it gets broken casually every day of the week and twice on Fridays.
Scott cares more about keeping the taboo intact than about affirming the right to stab back when stabbed.
That did occur to me, but... the flipside is if the taboo isn't really being recognized by one side, so one side feels free to be all stabbystab, and the other goes "I must not fight back, even if I get stabbed", well... that's not exactly leading to good "big picture" prospects either.
As I basically asked in my reply to darwin's reply to me here: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/still-alive/comments#comment-1103418 is there any other adequate enforcement mechanism for the taboo presently available? My confusion was in the context of me being ignorant of any other reasonable recourses available to her.
(also, minor substack annoyance: I can't resize the textbox I'm typing this in. Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!)
I agree with this. Also, Scott capitalized it. I interpreted this as a tongue-in-cheek way of saying "this is the official position that I, as one who follows appropriate social norms, must of course hold". I thought the capitalization was a way to leave some ambiguity about whether Scott felt that doxxing the Vice reporter back was 'actually' bad (for some sense of actually - perhaps see https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/28/contra-askell-on-moral-offsets/).
I not only love this blog, I love the people who love this blog. Thanks, Scott.
Another detail is that doxing is an asymmetric weapon. Some people have more to lose than others. For some people in some countries it can mean secret police knocking on their door. For others, there is a small chance of some crazy people visiting them or trying to SWAT them... and this probably also depends a lot on the neighborhood. If you are a rich person, your house will probably be better protected, and the police is more likely to think twice about the evidence they have before kicking down your door.
So if a rich American man doxes a Chinese woman famous for having politically incorrect opinions, and she doxes him back for being an asshole, that's like someone stabbing you, and you spitting on them (because you don't have a knife with you while walking on the street). An emotional response that is understandable, arguably impolite and unnecessary, but can hardly be called justice.
(I have the same objection against using Twitter to make people lose their jobs. Don't those people realize they are legitimizing a weapon that works best against poor people who need jobs to survive, while a trust fund kid would just laugh at it?)
I someone murders your sister, you're supposed to report them to the police instead of going out and murdering them yourself.
Of course, under many moral system, and most people's moral intuitions, you wouldn't be *wrong* to revenge-murder them, especially if you tried the police and they couldn't make a case.
BUT, a world where everyone relies on vigilante justice and revenge killings instead of an organized police force quickly descends into violent madness and endless blood feuds.
Similar here. The revenge doxing is ok in an 'eye-for-an-eye' sense, but counter-productive to the effort of creating a better world where people dox less.
Not sure I agree with that logic. Murder is illegal and will hopefully get the attention of the police. Doxxing is not OK but AFAIK legal, so reporting to the police will have little effect. Therefore, any legal action that has a chance of getting people to understand that doxxing is in fact not OK is fair game. Revenge doxxing seems to fit the bill rather nicely.
The idea of 'we will do a bad thing to hurt people so that everyone realizes that thing hurts people and stops doing it' is a very optimistic one, and I don't think it's how the world actually works usually.
I think doing bad things that hurt people, and facing no consequences for doing so, just tends to normalize those things and make them more common. Especially if you can make a compelling narrative that they 'deserved' it and therefore it was *good* that you did the bad thing, which seems to be the case here.
Sure. But who is the "organized police" that'll do something about this? Right now, as near as I can determine, "you do to me, I do to you" is the only extant functional enforcement mechanism on this specific sort of matter. If I knew of alternative adequate recourse, then I wouldn't have found the "this is immoral" commentary as confusing.
If you have A promises B not to dox, then A doxes B, putting B in danger, and there's nothing at all that happens to A in return, so that they can happily keep doing that sort of thing, there appears to be a problem. (Am I missing something? Did she have some other recourse that I missed? If there exists some sort of "anti-dox police" that does a good job coming down hard on this sort of thing and actually preventing it, and she just chose not to avail herself of such, then that's a whole other situation.)
This puzzled me, too. I wrote a friend with the quote and spelled out my confusion. Should've just asked the commentariat here.
I see you have replies. I'm about to read them, jus wanted To let you know you weren't the only one confused by it, and if that makes you stupid and bad I guess we can be stupid and bad together.
Essentially, Kant was right. Behave as if the motivations for your behavior universalize, because your behavior provides a justification for others' behavior. The universal condemnation of doxxing is especially relevant for Scott because the entire point of this article, the deletion of his blog, hell this whole Substack, is that doxxing is bad.
The modern day Nietzsche returns with some verse as well!
I'm so relieved and happy you're back. I hope the changes you've made work out for you and make your life more awesome! :)
Cool-cool (in the voice of Abed on Community).
Cool cool cool*
Oh, hey -- if you're giving up on anonymity, does that mean you'll put the old LJ back up? :) There's a lot of good posts there and it's a pain to have to use the Wayback Machine to read it.
Seconding this.
Also, welcome back!
thirding
Welcome back king. I knew you'd come up from the ashes
It is really good to have you back.
Gavin McInnes is a lot of things, but "violent neo-fascist leader?" At this point, I want to see what happens if he has a sit-down chat with Scott. I am a fan of them both.
Um. I think there may be some things about yourself that you don’t fully realize.
I would like to realize them.
Then here goes: You are either a fascist yourself, or particularly susceptible to the manipulation tactics used by fascists. McInnes is absolutely a fascist, and also the leader of a violent, white supremacist (not to mention deeply weird) gang.
I could go through it in more detail, but your reflexive rejection of a plain fact-stated by pretty much the most likely to be sympathetic source that is not also a fascist-means you’re likely unwilling to hear it.
The Proud Boys do suck, and I agree with you on that point, but you have gotten several facts wrong. They are a violent paramilitary organization that should have disbanded long ago, but they are not fascist or white supremacist. They're multiracial and civic nationalist. Their problem isn't what they believe, which
is somewhere along the lines of PragerU or Daily Wire, but rather is their tendency to initiate fights. The group was supposed to act as security and defend speakers, not do brawls. Gavin stepped down in 2018, and my only complaint is that he hasn't sufficiently denounced the recent activities of the group, comparing them to "consensual bar brawls," as though those are somehow acceptable. Gavin himself is still the most entertaining person on the right today, and deserves to have the career Steven Crowder does.
Pro tip: Anyone who describes themselves as “nationalist” is a Nazi being too cute by half. If you haven’t caught on, it’s because you aren’t that far down the radicalization pipeline they they dispense with the bullshit. You might never get there, but Nazis have been using coded language like that since the 1960s. Both to inure potential members (not to mention society more broadly) to their fascist ideology, but to avoid legal trouble.
> Their problem isn't what they believe, which is somewhere along the lines of PragerU or Daily Wire
Buddy, that right there is... it’s interesting. Because you named two stops on the fascism express, both part of a concerted effort to give fascist ideas a veneer credibility while insulating the group from inconvenient opposing views.
Remember that’s stuff you didn’t know about yourself? You just admitted to it. The beliefs are why they’re fascist, and you consider their fascist beliefs to be moderate. Which is due to an intentional focused effort to convince of just that going back decades.
> but rather is their tendency to initiate fights.
This is why they’re on the FBI’s radar. But not why they’re fascists. They pretty much figured fascism was on the brink of winning, so they could cut the bullshit and just become a terror group without consequences. They were a few million votes from correct about that not very long.
> The group was supposed to act as security and defend speakers, not do brawls.
Yes, and the Genovese family was just supposed to pick up garbage and provide security for small business owners.
> Gavin stepped down in 2018, and my only complaint is that he hasn't sufficiently denounced the recent activities of the group.
He “stepped down” to avoid civil liability and/or RICO exposure. It not entirely convincing that his ties are severed. Unless you take his word for it. Which, of course you do.
> Gavin himself is still the most entertaining person on the right today, and deserves to have the career Steven Crowder does.
Yes, he should have the career of Noted Not Fascist Steven Crowder.
I’m really sorry, buddy. But you’re in the pipeline. And if you’re not very careful, you risk being convinced to get involved in some bad shit.
Daily Wire is a step to fascism? What's your definition of fascism?
My family are army brass and they would consider themselves nationalist patriots. Nationalism is literally the name of the game, at the broad social level, and has been for thousands of years. Nationalism is literally how you avoid getting rubbed out by other nationalists. It's just the Nash Equilibrium of group violence.
"All nationalists are Nazis" is a lazy take. I get that it's a popular take, but it's lazy.
You wrote a lot here, and made a lot of assertions, but I don't see where you presented any arguments that McInnes is a fascist. I hand't heard of the guy before just now, so I'm not sure who to believe but leaning toward the commenter who was less incendiary.
Also, I wonder whether your comment meets Scott's "true, necessary, kind" standard.
:-/
I'll one up you. Gavin has sufficiently denounced them. He told them not to go to the January 6th protest. He told them not to go to the inauguration. One of them, Biggs, is now in jail, and Gavin is explicitly not supporting him legally because Gavin told Biggs not to go. All of this is public.
The original accusation of Scott was about Gavin. I think it's needless to go off into debating Proud Boys.
Gavin's alright, and the show is pretty tight.
The Proud Boys have been indefensible for years, and I wish Gavin would admit it already instead of doing this "it's just brawling, like me and other punks did as teens" thing. But aside from that, Gavin is a good guy and I will defend him.
Has he denounced himself? He's called for violence many times: https://www.facebook.com/vicbergeriv/videos/1243400416013469
"We will kill you, that's the Proud Boys in a nutshell"
"Beating the shit out of these people, I think it's our job to do it, and the cops to turn a blind eye"
"...don't listen to what he has to say, choke him"
"Fighting solves everything. We need more violence from the Trump people... choke a bitch, choke a tranny"
"Get ready to blow someone's fuckin' head off"
"This is a fuckin' war"
Honestly makes me sad to see people in the SSC comments defending this guy. This is not the "niceness, community, and civilization" ethos by any stretch.
Any idea where I can find Gavin nowadays? I used to watch him somewhat, up until his youtube channel was taken down.
>They are a violent paramilitary organization that should have disbanded long ago, but they are not fascist or white supremacist
Not *officially* white supremacist, but they've got people working on it! https://www.newsweek.com/proud-boys-based-stickman-enrique-tarrio-goys-1546597
The current leader of the Proud Boys - Enrique Tarrio - is Cuban/latino which most wouldn't consider white.
Doesn't the fact that a group has to break away to be white supremacist exactly prove Jason's point that they are not white supremacist?
The whole point of this thread is that Scott made some pretty wild claims about Gavin Mcinness without much evidence except for a highly biased Wikipedia article. Scott should be smart enough to know not to link to _any_ controversial figure's Wikipedia article. It's sad to see is all.
"Gavin stepped down in 2018"
> At times, McInnes appeared to contradict his promise to quit. He repeatedly described the group as “we”, throughout a lengthy defence of its actions, said “this is 100% a legal gesture, and it is 100% about alleviating sentencing”, and also called his actions a “stepping down gesture, in quotation marks”.
(https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/22/proud-boys-founder-gavin-mcinnes-quits-far-right-group)
What a wonderful piece of news. Welcome back, Scott!
"They managed to take a complaint about a video game review and mishandle it so badly that they literally got condemned by the UN General Assembly"
You'd think Scott would have figured this one out by now, but for whatever reason, his attitude on this topic remains one of "invincible ignorance". Irony of ironies.
Here's a topic for you to ponder: why people consistently refuse to give agency to the media when describing a conflict between media and their readers.
On August 28, 2014, a dozen very large gaming sites, with a reach of millions of people, published articles saying their core audience was irrelevant ("gamers are dead"). The _press_ managed to take a minor scandal about an indie personality and turn it into an industry-wide thing. They did this. It's right there for you to find.
They also didn't get the UN General Assembly involved, it was UN _Women_. It goes to show you how various organizations and brands are used as skin suits to lend an air of authority to what is, essentially, someone running to the principal to DARVO after their bullying tactics backfired.
Lol.
Whether or not the media behaved properly or defensibly in this case, 'being good at PR' just means 'managing your relationship with The Media as they actually exist.
'Get everyone in the media to hate you to the point that they write terrible things about you and make tons of people think you're a monster and widely denounce you' is pretty much a definitional example of 'being bad at PR,' which is the only thing Scott accused them of.
The NYT may think "You want your freedom? Take it! Now I only want you gone." But we wanted you back. Welcome to Dr. Scott Siskind, blogger.
I imagine it’s mostly a reference — the post cites Portal’s ending song, and this snippet is from Portal 2’s credits song, “Want You Gone”:
“You want your freedom? Take it
That's what I'm counting on
I used to want you dead, but
Now I only want you gone”
:-)
Yes yes yes yes! This is the best thing one can possibly find out at midnight :)
Very important comment: it's not "glad I've got you", it's "glad I'm not you", unlike my feelings for this blog.
I think that was intentional :)
Makes sense...
I saw that one, tiny but very significant, change to the lyrics that Scott had made, and I started to tear up a little bit :) Given the emotional tone of what surrounds it I'm pretty sure it's deliberate.
This is exciting and great, welcome back! it's been such a weird time in the past year, and I'm excited to read your perspectives on it!
I'm so excited to see you are back. This is a good start of the year :) Welcome back, Scott!
I've missed your insight dearly during this crazy time. You are a bright light in this dark world.
And so close to my birthday too! Welcome!
We're glad you're back. I loved the post, its style, its length, and its emotion.
Very glad you and this entire community exists, and we love you back!
I cried a lot when reading this
Subscribed
Amazing to have you back.
I agree entirely about the online right to psudo-annoyminity. Maybe I'm a hopeless nostalgic but I still share some of that early internet dream where your race, sex, nationality was irrelevant and so your argument would stand and fall on it's own merits. You could even be a dog and nobody could tell if you made a good argument.
Also I have to say. If you manage to get an argument about a video game review all the way to the United Nations that is either the very worst, or the very best PR of the decade. There's an article by an ex editor in chief of Gawker saying that GamerGate is more responsible than anyone for Gawker's fall, so I'm leaning towards the later.
Best of luck with your attempts to fight cost disease, I'm not American so I can't say more on that.
The article you mention seems to be this:
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2016/08/did-i-kill-gawker.html
We missed you so much Scott, its good to have you back. Take my money.
Instant subscription. As one of the embarrassing fanboys, I'm glad you're back :D
Also, shameless plug of my last article whose title style I obviously stole from you: https://federicorcassarino.substack.com/p/ar-glasses-much-more-than-you-wanted
Good to have you back! Happy to see you revealing your name willingly - it's a complete arc! With character growth!
So overjoyed to be able to read your posts again! This one is a great example of your humour, humility and insightfulness.
Looking forward to reading the latest on the birth order issue, as well as all your thoughts on the crazy events of the past year.
Good to see you back!
The long 2020 is over.
So excited to get this blog back. It's simply the best blog on the internet for me, and I look forward to learning more from Scott and you all.
One question: are you planning to continue releasing your posts under a CC-BY license, as you did on your old blog? Your doing so was a huge boon to free culture and to rabid fans like myself who like having things on paper :)
Joy to the world! The king is back!
You had me grinning the whole way through, and very nearly tearing up at the end. We're stoked to have you back, and glad it seems to have been as thought-provoking as it was awful.
Welcome back, Scott!
The "Scott is Kind" full name reveal is the perfect climax to this arc.
Wait, why isn't the logo for Lorien Psychiatry a hair dryer?
Knowing Scott's full name feels *weird*. Like stumbling on your parents sex tapes.
I had never had any urge to go find it out, but it does feel touching and special to have him tell us publicly.
I feel like using it would still be somehow rude? I will continue with the pseudonym for now.
You didn't put a hairdryer on your practice's site. Kind of disappointed.
"Who could have guessed that a webzine founded by a violent neo-fascist leader and named after the abstract concept of evil would stoop so low?"
The violent neo-fascist group he leads is also named after the most serious sin.
No, it's named after a showtune.
My friend, you are weirdly invested in defending the proud boys for someone who thinks they’re actually bad.
There are a lot of reasons for my investment. In part it's because I'm still a fan of Gavin, and in part it's because I know I'm next. I was a part of the Proud Boys in the very early days, but I left on amicable terms when the focus shifted from being a fan club for Gavin's podcast to running security for campus speaking events. I'm horrified by what they've become, but the revisionist history is bad for me personally. Anthony Cumia and Joe Rogan are the only guys who seem to understand what happened except for the people who were there.
"still a fan of Gavin"
Is this part of the reason why, or do you have some kind of innocent explanation for every clip: https://twitter.com/RexChapman/status/1311413755633381381
At the time (and in-context), those comments seemed to be hyperbole about self-defense. That was my inference as someone who listened to Gavin's podcast and knows how he speaks, and it was also how the Proud Boys explained those comments at the time. When joining the group, you had to read and agree to a set of rules that included "we don't start fights, but we do finish them!" It fit my priors as someone who had been assaulted and seen others be assaulted at campus events, but had never been a victim of or personally witnessed politically-motivated violence by a conservative against a leftist.
When I first saw this compilation of those comments, most of which I was already familiar with, it was easy for me to dismiss it. It uses dramatic music to frame an interpretation of Gavin's comments, and does not include any rebuttal from him. It was also made by Vic Berger, who put his name on a (now defunct) flash game for Super Deluxe where you beat up Richard Spencer and Milo Yiannopoulos. Here's the most easily accessible quote I could find from Gavin on this subject.
["McInnes appears to believe that the beating came about as an act of self-defense, as his group were threatened. ‘This is people standing up for themselves,’ he said. ‘This person was not randomly beaten in the street on 35th and Park just going to get a coffee. This guy had been screaming threats all night as part of a group that had been threatening people all night, vandalising our establishment, trying to attack us. This was not a random incident, this was someone who fucked around, and found out. We don’t start fights, we finish them. And we are living in a culture today, where the media says “if you don’t just sit there and take an antifa beating, then you’re violent.”]
This easily fit my priors as 1. someone who has seen a lot of comedians say outrageous things that they then had to clarify were being hyperbolic (see Seth Rogen's comments on Israel) and 2. someone who has had experience with violence from only one side. But I may be wrong. Unlike allistic people, I literally don't know how to tell when people are lying unless I catch them in a contradiction. When I catch someone in a contradiction, I call them out on their contradiction, and I decide whether they're lying based on whether their answer satisfies me. Obviously, this is impossible to do with public figures, but I did it with the Proud Boys at least a dozen times just while reading their rules. I actually pissed them off pretty bad by asking them which version of racism their "no racism" rule was about, quoting Scott's "Against Murderism" post on SSC to make my point. Good times.
Do I think Gavin was just lying out his ass? How would I know? I've never had the ability to interrogate him. I've gaslit myself a lot over the past year and a half in response to recent developments, and my answer is still "I don't know."
Speaking of, I have one remaining contact in the Proud Boys, an old friend who I knew before the Proud Boys and who got me to join in the first place. After a member showed up at Vic Berger's house, I asked my friend why the hell Gavin hasn't denounced it. He said, "Because this wasn't a threat. Vic declined multiple requests for an interview or any sort of conversation, so this guy went to force him to respond. If you look at the video, you'lll see he isn't being threatening at all." He also implied my inference that showing up at someone's house = threatening is a mistake I made due to being autistic, to which I said "Yeah, well, I wouldn't know."
Boy this turned out long. Hope someone enjoyed reading it! I'm not gonna take the time to respond to the two other comments I got notifications about related to that video, because I'd just be saying the same thing.
Welcome back Scott! Can definitely see 2021 being a better year now
Welcome back and uh I checked your psych website. The menu where the black fonts on dark blue background is not a great idea. Not enough contrast
I forgot just how damn good your writing was. Glad to have you back.
"When I look out there it makes me glad I've got you"
I noticed the change, and the feeling is mutual.
This makes me glad!
You call Gavin McInnes is "a violent neo-fascist leader"? Really? Is this someone you're actually familiar with and have followed or just skimmed the Wikipedia article?
Like I said in another comment, Gavin is far from innocent, but he's not the monster he's made out to be. He's not a fascist, nor is he a leader at this point in time.. but he is, unfortunately, a "consensual street brawler." Scott literally didn't know who Gavin was until last year, so I doubt he's knowledgeable of the man's complicated history. I would love to see a conversation between the two of them very much.
Weirdly invested.
First they came for the X, Finnydo. I'm invested because I know I'm next. I want Gavin to be criticized fairly and accurately, just as I would want to be.
Okay, so how would you describe Gavin McInnes? What do you think would be a fair characterization of him?
In general, when they come for the fascist domestic terrorists, they stop there. But I suspect you know that, or you wouldn’t be “no, you-ing” fascism.
It's quite surreal to find "they stop there" as a deadpan assertion written below the very article describing how they came for Scott.
The key bit for the above metaphors is to pin down "who's 'they'?" The NYT is a relevant-enough 'they' in my book. If it isn't relevant-enough in your book, then I concede that your book is more interesting than mine.
Otherwise I have no opinion on what McInnes is or isn't as I haven't dug into that much, though I find Scott provides good priors in a remarkably high percentage of cases. As to what is or isn't fascism, that is a quite complex question to pin down, and I find Eric S. Raymond's essay on the subject to be an excellent and very relevant attempt: http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=8310
I think the accusation here is that Gavin is part of the 'they', not the 'X' in that formula.
The quote isn't just saying 'never say bad things about anyone ever.' The whole point is about opposing the 'they' who is attacking people, which means you *are* supposed to oppose *someone*.
Most people believe Gavin is that someone. He's a rich white male with a huge public platform and ties to a media empire. The people he disparages are outsiders, minorities, and women.
He's the one emboldening the folks who are 'coming for people', whether he believes that about himself or not.
Welcome back! Here's hoping that your readers never make you post "Want You Gone".
Geez this could have been a less rambling post!
This does seem like the week when the difficulty level goes down a notch. Wonderful to have you back! Also, a big fan of that song (so much so I once translated it to Hebrew: https://web.archive.org/web/20131021030413/http://laaz.co.il/עדיין-בחיים)
Geez could have been a less rambling post! Time is short. Nature only gives us about 80 years.
Really glad to have you back Scott!
Oh wow, oh wow. I'm so glad to have you back. That last line drew shivers around my back and instantly filled my eyes with tears.
I'm over the moon with joy, welcome back!
Subscribed as soon as I got to read the email. If you will forgive me quoting Pete Townsend, "I've got a feeling twenty-one is going to be a good year, especially if you and me see it in together". Missed you.
Oh, and sorry about the nym - it's pretty hubristic here at your substack, but it's my substack nym and I will not be shamed over it.
If you charge 4x less than what anyone else does supply and demand equilibrate in some other way, currently by seniority/connections. What's your plan for future allocation?
It's an interesting question because there's sort of a split based on purpose:
If you want to give this new system a fair test, I guess you'd screen for all the applicants that a normal practice would be willing to take, then choose randomly among them.
If you want to learn as much as possible about psychiatry (for the blog and for personal professional development), you could select interesting patients with symptoms you want more experience with.
If you're worried about your livelihood and the continuation of the clinic, you can choose people who you trust to pay.
If you want to enjoy your life, you could choose patients that seem fun/easy to work with.
Of course, that's all assuming the advertising is good enough to get a plethora of applicants, I'm not sure how that works in the psychiatry field.
!
First time commenter. I've really missed your blog, and it's made me realize I want to try to be a bigger part of the community. So that's what I'll try to do. I'm very glad to say welcome back!
Feeling the same way here. Thanks for expressing my feelings nicely!
ronpaulitshappening.gif
I’ve missed you so, so much
I had figured out your name a few years ago based on info that you gave about your brother. I purposely forgot it because I appreciated what you do. It is a great comfort to know that someone like you exists in the world at this time in history. Welcome back!
It is just a blog. Maybe I should get a life. Yet I don't think there would be a better use of my time than to read a new Slate Star Codex (or Astral Codex Ten) post at 2am. Thank you for everything Scott!
We can try to understand
The New York Times' effect on man
Whether you're a brother or whether you're a mother
You're stayin' alive, stayin' alive
Welcome back! I wish you good fortune in your new endeavor after the hell you've been through!
I've participated on the subreddit a bit, but never in the comment section of your blog. I'll try to change that this time around because I feel I've missed out in the past. I subscribed (as promised on reddit) immediately when I saw this.
> "IT'S JUST A BLOG, GET A LIFE"
"It's just a ____" is a pretty good example of the noncentral fallacy you yourself coined. Sure, it's a blog, and most blogs are kinda just ok. The fact that your writing takes the form of a blog doesn't detract from it.
I can meet you halfway and qualify with the word "some" here: Some of your writing is on par with the best essayists of the past century.
I was so curious what your name was, and I had resisted the urge to look it up out of respect. But finding out your name was just anti-climactic. Like it *was* Scott all along? Gimme my money back
absolutely psyched you're back
Bravo!
Welcome back! You truly are a national treasure.
Delightful… With your help we can save reality and bring peace to (parts of) the planet! There is hope!
I am moved to tears.
I have missed your writing so much! I'm so happy you have figured out a way to make this work, and I can't wait to read more :)
Glad you're back, Scott!
New to Substack so I'm not sure about everything regarding how comments work here. I guess this one will appear as anonymous? Do I have to get a Substack account and/or subscribe to this blog to comment here with a handle? (I'm infrequent Wordpress user and SSC commenter Liskantope, much more frequent Tumblr user also under that handle.)
Anyway, I'll skip the gushing and say thank you for coming back, and I'm glad to see that everything seems to be going all right for you after this disturbing sharp turn in your life. (I sensed a strange layer of irony in "I had, not to mince words about it, a really weird year.")
A quick comment: I'm curious about this early-2010's blog under your real name and whether you're referring to your LiveJournal or something else I never knew about. It seems like you were a pretty busy LJer until you took that down and set up SSC, but (1) it wasn't that easy to find your real last name from your LJ as I recall (only from like one reference to it in a comment under the earliest LJ post publicly viewable in the mid-2010's?), and (2) seems to me there was plenty of controversial stuff starting from 2012 and spanning the final months of the LJ?
This came up as Liskantope - looks like it drew it from somewhere?
Yeah, I didn't know what would happen when I hit "post" but it asked me to create a name and email for a profile. (I wanted to put my old avatar there too but couldn't find it on this new laptop.) I hope my email isn't visible...
Not your email, just your SSN and home address.
The list of credit card numbers and raw genetic test data are much more worrying, I think.
To clarify from the joke: I'm registered to substack and can't get any information about you from clicking on your name, so I think you are good.
Yay! Scott is Back!
You have an odd power to make impersonal well-wishes transmitted through writing seem just a bit like geniuen and kind words.
I join everyone in saying I'm glad the blog is back :)
Glad to see you back!
All the best Scott, I'm so glad to see you back!
Scott is writing again. Nature is healing; the misery of 2020 is undone in one respect. w00t!
:)
Long time reader but never commented. Wonderful to have you back :)
10/10 victim post. Would cry again!
It took literally the first post for me to remember “Oh yeah, Scott manages to convince me and fascists that he is on our wavelength at the same time.”
Heeessss baaaack!
We've missed you, Scott!
Hey, good to meet you!
It's great to see you back and I'm glad you came through this okay.
I'm a journalist myself, though one who works for an organization that respects pseudonymity as a matter of explicit policy.
*That said*
I'm glad this post is here. It's worth all of us discussing this question of what information the public has the right to know and what information it doesn't. This is such a tricky point.
I do think there's a way in which in a world with an internet machine where finding identities is uniquely easier than it has ever been forces journalists to reconsider this question.
But where the hell is the line?
I think your post raises the question but I'm not sure it does anything to clarify the line. And it's an important line. If all anyone ever did was write the stuff everyone wanted us to, well... we might as well just cancel journalism and let every company and politician and official blog their own updates.
I understand that your point is: well there's a lot of people who fall short of important enough but like... where?
(and yes I understand that you were just writing about identity but obviously it ends up being a lot more than identity, too)
(which, btw, is the world Balaji wants)
Well, reporters already withhold useful information from the public: the names of sources who don't want to be public. Plenty of these sources seem to have a double agenda or lie, so it would be quite helpful for the public if these people were de-anonymized, so we could judge their conflicts of interest, reputation, etc. Reporters typically seem to regret having anonymous sources, but accept it, because this is often the only way that certain information gets to the public.
Scott makes the same argument, where bloggers and the like can often only bring their information to the public if they anonymity is preserved. So the only thing that reporters have to do is to be less narcissistic and selfish, where they see themselves as the only channel of information that needs anonymity to work, and extend those exact same ethics to others.
Note that for blogs and the like, the case against anonymity is typically way less strong than for most anonymous media sources. Doxxing "a source within the White House" is way more useful to the public than doxxing a cop who writes a blog, because the former typically claim to have information or power that only very few people have, while there are typically better alternatives to figure out how truthful points of view are that are not based on exceptional power or knowledge, than divulging private information. The media themselves also acts this way, where they fact-check people in power, but not their own opinion piece writers. Instead, they believe that open debate that gives people different points of view is best.
If the media wants people to be able to judge if an anonymous blog by a cop on being a cop is accurate, it similarly works way better to ask a bunch of cops and report on what they say, to get those different points of view, than to publish his name so people can judge his biases. Almost none of the readers of the NYT will know anything more about that cop than what the NYT tells about him in the article about the blog, or what is in the anonymous blog. So what does doxxing him actually achieve for 99% of the readership? Very little. The cost of potentially silencing him should therefor weigh much more heavily than the very minimal benefit of publishing the name. A huge cost for a small benefit is typically considered unethical.
Ultimately, the "right to know" is also undermined if people are silenced, because they feel that expressing certain things will lead to unacceptable consequences.
"Scott makes the same argument, where bloggers and the like can often only bring their information to the public if they anonymity is preserved. So the only thing that reporters have to do is to be less narcissistic and selfish, where they see themselves as the only channel of information that needs anonymity to work, and extend those exact same ethics to others."
Sad because that would require transformation of human nature - many, or for the sake of argument: most or nearly all, reporters could be less narcissistic and selfish, but this system fails where only one or a few are rewarded for unethical behavior. We the people have to condemn and punish (shame & blame) the current state of what we might laughingly call 'journalism' before things might, grudgingly, improve. Given 2020's excessive... tomfoolery, I'm not holding my breath.
*offers hugs*
What a blessing to have you back, I'm so pleased!
A weight has been lifted from my chest. To say I missed you is to say I missed the Sun after an impact in the Yucatan.
I'm so glad to see you back again. Missed you so much. :)
So great to have you back, Scott! Now I hate to be this guy but is that really what the word "humbled" means? Or is humbled now its own antonym?
I am answering you seriously because I think you're asking a serious question. Apologies if not.
Scott is humbled (made to feel small, meek) because of the internal juxtaposition between the grandiose descriptions people offer and how he feels inside (that it isn't as good as they say). The difference between grand praise and your own modest appraisal can generate a feeling of meekness (humbling).
Perhaps needless to say, I am one who think it *is* as good as they said.
"and that smiley face will haunt my dreams" made me laugh uncontrollably out loud. Subscribed for real $, my first Substack paid subscription. Glad you're back.
Best. Comeback announcement. Ever.
Prediction market on whether Scott will make more money from the substack or Lorien when?
I don't have much to add to what innumerable others have said, but boy am I glad you're back. I wish you all the best in your endeavors, and hope that we might have the pleasure of your company for some time to come!
I wasn't a frequent commenter in the SSC days, but now with ACT (?) I'll start.
Great to have you back, Scott. You're an inspiration to us all!
You picked a shit time, because the comment system is kind of a nightmare. Trying to dig up comments to respond to is basically my job for the last 48 hours. And that’s with clicking the (entirely useless) links that are getting emailed to me.
Yeah, I'm starting to see that. (I had a crappy time even finding my own comment again to reply to you!) But seems like SubStack is working with Scott, so we can hope for quick improvements.
I am so glad that you are back, and that you are still alive and being your fantastic self, and that I am still alive to read your new posts.
looking forward to the new predictive processing stuff
We love you too.
Fuck yeah!
So glad you're back. I didn't realize how much I would miss you until you were gone.
Glad to have you back.
This is good stuff, man. Been hard without you. This'll keep the shakes away for the weekend, man.
Congratulations on your first steps to demist the fog of war in your maps of healthcare. I wish for you courage and clarity in your journey. In the words of Glen Weyl, "All the interesting things in life happen in the space between abstract goals, and the concrete manifestation of those goals".
It's good to have you back on the internet.
I am truly happy to have you back.
Also, though I'm must admit I'm neither an impartial nor an authoratitive judge of the pacing of longform prose compositions, but WOW... this essay had, IMHO, deeply emotionally and rhetorically satisfying pacing. I loved the interweaving your journey from fighting against doxxing and finding yourself driven to a "lose-lose" situation for the greater imagined good with that whacky-at-first-and-then-downright-haunting (at least IMHO) Jonathan Coulton swan song for GLaDOS in the computer game Portal. Also, I loved the emotional and rhetorical payoff of your ending: you starting your own new -- and hopefully truly innovative and trendsetting -- practice and "coming out" proudly, as it were, in merging your personal, vocational, and avocational (alternative vocational?) personae... loved it both for how well it was teased throughout the essay and for the actual fact of it. Lemons to lemonade! Good for you, Dr. Scott Alexander Siskind!! :)
I am generally sympathetic, but I also see why the Times Reporters did not find your arguments convincing.
You call the possibility of them revealing your name "kicking you in the balls" and "doxxing," whereas they would probably call it "doing their job."
As you note, revealing things that people would prefer remain hidden is pretty much the definition of journalism. It is certainly not self-evident to an outsider that revealing your name is analogous to kicking you in the balls. And I think they are correct to note that your blog had gained notoriety, and that you had not exactly discouraged it. The NYT's default isn't so much "go around kicking people in the balls" as it is "publicize information."
It is indeed your circumstances that made this "kicking in the balls." So while you may have been adverse to what may seem like special pleading, I think this may have been a more apparent argument than calling what people do for a living kicking people in the balls.
I also think "doxxing" is an unnecessarily loaded term for what the NYT was going to do. "Doxxing" has its history in revealing personal information so as to encourage harassment and intimidation. It seems pretty clear to me that this was not the NYT's intent. Now, they are responsible for the impact of their actions, but I think that term unnecessarily raised the temperature of the conflict.
Now, once you made it clear what the impact is, I think it would have been best for them to agree to not publish your name. But I'm not sure I want to encourage a norm of, "journalists should default to not publishing information that might hurt somebody." But there's probably more I can learn and think about this.
>As you note, revealing things that people would prefer remain hidden is pretty much the definition of journalism.
I think it's an imprecise definition without the phrase 'revealing information *of some value to the public* ' in there.
Like, journalists may publish the sex scandals of a public official, but they don't go around printing long lists of every private citizen who re-gifted something at Christmas this year. That information really has no value to the general public and isn't worth publishing, even though it meets the simple criterion of 'things that people would prefer stay hidden'.
Similarly, many people probably vaguely want 'when was the last time you picked your nose and what did you do with it' to remain hidden, but journalists don't report on it.
'Things people would prefer stay hidden' is an *extremely massive* category of data, and I'm guessing that maybe .00001% of that entire category are also 'things that a journalist might reasonably choose to report on'
I think that's the crux here - the public doesn't benefit in any tangible way, or really care, about learning Scott's real name. They have reason to care if Scott has some horrible opinion that lots of people might be reading and influenced by, but Scott's last name doesn't affect how that horrible opinion influences people.
Since the information has no benefit or interest to the readers, I think it's a lot harder to make a journalistic case for publicizing it.
Exactly. Compare:
You can tell if someone is a good journalist by checking whether they "reveal things that people would prefer remain hidden"
You can tell if someone is a good cop by checking whether they lock up people who would prefer to not be locked up.
You can tell if someone is a good repo agent by checking whether they take cars from people who would prefer not to have their cars taken.
The question, then, is who decides when someone is a public official or what information is valuable to the public? Scott is an influential public figure. He has a following in powerful places. His brand new blog, at a brand new domain, after six months of silence, has gotten him (an estimated) hundreds of thousands of dollars in annualized income from his reader base. And that amount was the estimate I saw yesterday. It could be up to a million by now and it would not surprise me at all.
A lot of those people, also, are wealthy intellectuals in Silicon Valley (which, I think the amount of money and speed of it indicates a pretty wealthy fanbase even if I didn’t know it already) whose work quite literally impacts who runs the world and how. Perhaps it’s just a silly little blog, but the argument that Scott is a public figure subject to public figure rules whether he sees himself that way or not... It’s not clear to me that the argument is wrong. I don’t think he falls of the side of “private citizen with expectation of privacy” anymore.
Did the Times give a fully satisfying justification? Nah. Was it pretty shitty given the rule they were citing is inconsistently enforced? Yes. But, in the end, Scott’s influence and popularity was such that his identity was going to come out. It was already out, really, and it took nothing more than it coming to the attention of people who weren’t his fans that he would it prefer it remain private for it to get completely away from him.
So, still... Should a particular newspaper be the arbiter of who Public and who is Private? No, probably not. But I think if you’re among reasonable people who had complete information about Scott’s position and influence, most would come down on the side of him being Public rather than Private. He’s influential, he’s about to get pretty wealthy off of that influence, and that influence is concentrated among one of the most powerful demographic cohorts the world has ever seen. It sucks that his life had to get turned upside down, but he won the fucking lottery and we have to take the good with the bad.
If journalists see immoral behavior (huge costs and little benefit) as "their job," then maybe they are the baddies?
> The NYT's default isn't so much "go around kicking people in the balls" as it is "publicize information."
I've been raised with the idea that the respectable media actually only publishes things that are important for the public to know, while things that lots of people want to know, but that are not important, are published by gossip rags.
Is your claim that the NYT should be regarded as a gossip rag?
My claim is that the identity of the author of a prominent blog is information that is of some interest to people, and I can understand why the NYT would default to publishing it if it knew it and was doing a story on said blog. That is the business they are in.
Perhaps norms need to evolve. But I think that is a discussion, and I think things like "kicking in the balls" and "doxxing" and "immoral behavior" are question begging, and do not lead to a productive discussion.
Nude pictures of celebrities are also of interest to many people. Would you understand it if the NYT published those?
You and most other journalists truly come across to me as people with an immense lack of empathy and unwillingness to even recognize the negative consequences of their actions. I've seen a lot of people discuss the impact that reporting had on them, which is often immense. I bet that most actually would prefer a kick to the balls.
Doing severe damage to people can certainly be justifiable, but it requires a much better grounds than that 'people like to know'. In fact, the norm that you earlier rejected, where personal information that can harm people shouldn't be published against the desires of the person unless there is a good justification for it, seems like a perfectly good norm. This won't impact a lot of reporting anyway, but just the hit pieces.
Note that I'm not even suggesting actual checks and balances, or actual accountability, like those that doctors face, but merely that journalists actually consider whether the harm that their actions are likely to cause are justified. Or what I like to call, moral behavior (in contrast to amoral behavior, rather than immoral behavior)
It’s not just that the blog is prominent. It’s where that prominence is. It’s among the class of people whose decisions decide who has influence and who doesn’t. The people who decide, more than individual media outlet, what the world is thinking. The people who decide whose businesses get to make money, and on what terms.
If Scott were a blogger that every sitting US Senator and most of the cabinet read, nobody would dispute that he’s a public figure whose expectation of privacy is unreasonable. Instead, he’s popular among people who have trillions of dollars to throw around and can literally decide that the President of the United States is not allowed to have a voice anymore if they want to. And those people are sniffing their own farts about how overblown his influence is.
I assume it’s because they simply don’t fully grasp the power they wield. Because I can tell you for sure that Scott doesn’t.
> You call the possibility of them revealing your name [...] "doxxing," whereas they would probably call it "doing their job."
Both can be true at the same time.
So glad to have you back! Got a little teary-eyed around the end of this post. So sorry you had to go through such a turbulent year. I hope things go well and better than ever in your new place. I'm glad to support you!
Scott, are still crying wolf after Jan 6? I think an update should be made.
That was fast paced and full of energy. I'm excited to see where this goes!
Oh joyous day! Scott has returned to us!!
Wow. Just wow.
I am so, so glad you’re back.
Funny, now that I know your name I wonder why anyone would care.
"a violent neo-fascist leader" ... this shows you really are just brainwashed by the left.
Good to see you writing again!
"In Russia we witnessed similar things back in 1917. 100 years later the same situation is in your country :)".
I don't understand this comment. The Russian Revolution was a gargantuan positive for humanity and remains a beacon of hope and inspiration to the proletarian masses over 100 years later. Is this a pro-doxxing email? Certainly, I think intellectual justifications for doxxing can be explicated at length - I'm surprised your piece doesn't do more to investigate the issue from all sides. Remember not to confine yourself to a tribal bubble - one day you may find it has burst.
Hi MarxBro!!!
Hopefully I will be less censored on this blog compared to the strict censorship I faced on Scott's previous blog and in other Rationalist spaces. And if 62% people are apparently 'scared' of expressing their political opinions then I hope Scott doesn't compound this problem by deleting leftist political analysis that he disagrees with.
I hope you will feel as free to express your opinions as Russians did in 1917.
The Russians fought for their freedom in 1917 - and won!
"The Russian Revolution was a gargantuan positive for humanity"
That's just, like, your opinion, man.
Nice to see you here! I hope you and other people with unpopular points of view will continue to be a part of this community, but I also hope Scott's moderation will be strict enough to preserve its uniqueness.
As u/HarryPotter5777 wrote at r/slatestarcodex: "SSC is not an example of how writing charitable interesting things inevitably attracts charitable interesting commenters. It is an astonishing fluke, a shining beacon of hope for the entire internet, an unrivalled treasure of public discussion. That magical atmosphere was powered by some ancient relic of machinery beyond human ken, and we just turned off that machine for most of a year and changed out half its parts".
Please, given that many people can be triggered by your comments (and I can totally relate to them, as someone whose grandparents' close relatives went through Gulag), try to be extra "kind + necessary + true" when commenting. Try to anticipate other people's reaction and be preemptively sympathetic.
I guess that's an extra burden that people with unpopular opinions have to carry, but in the end it may get you further. We all need to make an effort to prevent the comments section from turning into what the rest of the internet is.
What I said was already extremely kind, necessary and true.
It's hard to overstate my satisfaction
The world has fallen apart rapidly in your absence -- riots at the US Capitol, pandemic escalating out of control, etc etc -- and I'm hoping that things will start to normalize now that we have you back helping the rest of us get saner over time.
It's awfully good to have you blogging again.
Welcome back to the land of the living!
Very sweet, glad to have you back
I did not cancel my subscription to the NYT... because I would never subscribe to that shit in the first place. This blog though, please take my money.
Oh goodness, it's a breath of fresh air to see you writing again. What an introductory post, too! Welcome back, you've been sorely missed.
The resources at Lorien Psychiatry will be immensely helpful to me and my patients! So glad you're back.
Best thing to have have happened in 2021.
I know I'll be lost in the torrent of replies, but like everybody here I'm glad you're back and excited to see what comes next.
You will always be Scott Alexander to me. No, seriously, I spent 2 months in a locked down hospital last year getting my head zapped therapeutically, and and I think I may have some screen/memory burn-in in addition to the horrendous tinnitus :D
> I don't think anyone at the Times bore me ill will, at least not originally. But somehow that just made it even more infuriating.
I was in a Tijuana jail once, facing 5 years. I'm a software engineer who's never been in a fight in his life. I was shocked by how benign and nice they all seemed as they stated shocking, bald assertions of their power.
😭😭😭
That said, the "load more" comments button needs to die a horrible death, and not be replaced by "infinite" scrolling. @substack: give me all comments in one static html file on pageload or give me death!
Yes, please. I hate the new format. I want to be able to search using ctrl-f, just like we did before.
> who could have guessed that a webzine founded by a violent neo-fascist leader
I see Scott hasn't changed in the occasional poorly researched accusation. I watch Gavin's show every day and have for years. It's hilarious. He's not a fascist and only violent if you think self-defense is violence.
Someone doesn't have to spout fascist rhetoric every day of the week in every interaction they have in order to be a fascist. Many fascists are capable of producing individual pieces of media that don't make them look like fascists, and indeed have very good reasons to wish to do so.
Please provide a quote of Gavin McInnes espousing fascism or neo-fascism.
"I love being white, and I think it's something to be very proud of. I don't want our culture diluted. We need to close the borders now and let everyone assimilate to a Western, white, English-speaking way of life."
He later regretted saying that and meant simply Western. His wife is Native American. The leader of the Proud Boys is cuban/latino. There are black, gay, and every other races of members of the Proud Boys. I forgive Gavin for being too loose with his words early on. The Proud Boys started as a humorous drinking club (the name of the club is making fun of a Disney musical), not as a political movement. He's much more careful with his words now.
Listen, I don't want to go 20 rounds of 'No True Fascist' here.
'Fascism' is one of those terms that gets used differently by different people from different fields, ideologies, and intentions, and I'm sure you have a definition in your head, plus a list of alibis and excuses for any evidence against him, that equals out to 'he is not a fascist'.
I don't think you're being dishonest, I believe you're following a legitimate process to come to this conclusion.
Because those are personal decisions you've made about how to define the word in your head and how to interpret his actions and statements and what to forgive or dismiss, there's no way anyone can provide evidence against your conclusion.
Just understand that other people use different definitions of the word, interpret his words and actions differently, and do not forgive or dismiss the things that you do.
They are not ignoring evidence and making things up, they are following precisely the same process you are, just with different priors. Their conclusions are arrived at as fairly as your own via that process.
I think they're correct. Arguing over what the word 'fascist' means and what it takes to qualify as a 'fascist' and whether past actions are included or excluded and etc. is all semantics. I think one consequence of his actions and statements has been to advance fascist causes and ideology, whether or not he would say that was ever his goal.
I'm happy to call him a fascist in casual conversation for that reason. You don't have to be.
> Just understand that other people use different definitions of the word, interpret his words and actions differently, and do not forgive or dismiss the things that you do.
I agree. That's why I find these terms are mostly useless. They act to compartmentalize and divide people and they retard debate in a semantic morass. If Scott had instead said, "[...] a webzine founded by a socially reckless and vulgar lightning dynamo," that would have been reasonable. However, terms like fascist and neo-fascist poison the conversation.
> I think one consequence of his actions and statements has been to advance fascist causes and ideology, whether or not he would say that was ever his goal.
The logic of this scares me. If I start a blog, and some readers of my blog misinterpret something and start a coup, am I at fault? Especially if I clarify things and say "don't do that"?
Welcome back
You've been greatly missed.
Great to have you back!
I like this substack interface too - I've never seen another substack with an old-school blogroll included. Very nice.
the portal robot ? seriously Scott ? can you get any duller ?
Welcome back, Siskind-sama!
2020 ate you. Now you will eat 2021!
It is truly, truly good to see you back and writing again, Scott. And even better that you've made it through 2020 apparently in good shape, because...yeah, this year has been interesting. Count me as a future subscriber once I've sufficiently unfucked my finances, and I look forward to watching this space.
Great to have you back, you were missed!
Thank the Maker, this oil bath is going to feel soooo good
Talent like Scott is why Substack is a place to watch as we morph into new ways of delivering and consuming entertainment, content and the like.
I'm thrilled to see you back around. Looking forward to all ACX has to offer.
Great to see you back
I think the NYT story (and meta-story) came at a point where suspicions of legacy media organizations 'having it out' for the internet were at a near-peak. Has a piece of meat quality to it from there; facts are almost always a bit more nuanced.
That's a secondary thought though - welcome back!
Excellent news! Welcome back! I had missed your blog, but I didn't realize how much until I read this post and couldn't stop laughing. I'm looking forward to more insights from a treasured voice of reason and sanity. (And I subscribed, of course).
<3
I am excited for the libertarian community's newfound awareness that tyrannical Power can and does arise with no state involvement and no violation of the NAP.
Welcome back, you've been missed.
<3
The Great Unbloggedening is finally at an end. So glad your transition seems to be going well, and glad to have you back bud.
Home is behind. The world is ahead.
Welcome back!
Welcome back!
Welcome back!
Since you invoked the song, I had to write out a full filk:
That was a blog post!
I'm making a note here:
HUGE SUCCESS!
Is hard to overstate my celebration
Once more a codex
Because someone must, and who else can?
For the good of all of us
Even the ones who are dead
'Cause there's no use crying over NY Times' hate
We'll just keep on writing 'til we master all fate
Finding sense through the fog, as we make a neat blog
Astral codex ten is still alive
I'm not even angsty
I'm feeling so upbeat right now
Even though you did your best to break me.
Livelihood damaged!
Threatened to SWAT my neighbors' child.
And though it hurt, I still will strive
To have charity toward you.
Now these points of data make a skewed funnel plot
I'll keep adding graphs until you'll wish that l'd stop
So although I got doxed
And I Newcomb one boxed
Astral codex ten is still alive
Come in and read me
I know it was hard between my blogs
Maybe you found someone else to guide you?
Rational wiki?
That was a joke. Ha ha. Fat chance
Anyway this squid is great
The jackdaws love my big sphinx
Look at me still talking when there's rta to learn
And I feel so glad to see my people return
Soon the surveys will be run
And the lit reviews begun
Astral codex ten is still alive
And believe me I am still alive
I'm doing science and I'm still alive
I'm thinking clearly and I'm still alive
When Vox is lying I'll be still alive
And in your heads I will be still alive.
Still alive.
I am so very tempted to record a cover with these words :)
Do it! Post a link!
Terrible automatic recording of the first time I've tried to play the song, while leaning over from my computer chair to the piano; proof of concept screwing around. I'll try an actual arrangement tomorrow :p
Be warned, bad notes, checking if I remember the tune, and I didn't sing due to it being 4am. Epistemic status: “it's bad and I know it's bad”, skip ahead a minute or so. Or wait until tomorrow for something less bad :p
http://cwillu.com/files/background-recording.2021-01-22T03-55-39.ogg
How does one pronounce rta? is this sparta?
I've always heard it as ur-tah. But that's probably not quite right, and an actual Sanskrit-speaker could do better.
Oh, what a great start of 2021! I am so glad you are back Scott, my local rationalist community have missed you so much!
I noticed you changed the line "When I look out there it makes me glad I'm not you" to "When I look out there it makes me glad I've got you." Was this deliberate?
VERY BAD COMMENTING THING:
It seems like, every time you post a comment, it pops up a pre-cehcked box saying 'subscribe to our newsletter', and you have to uncheck it every single time you comment in order to stay unsubscribed.
This seems like very asshole design and is very frustrating.
Also, it seems like sometimes when you comment, it reloads the page, and you have to hit 'load more comments' a dozen times again to find where you were and continue reading/corresponding where you left off. Somewhat excruciating.
I don't know if Substack can/will customize the mechanics of their comment section for an individual blogger, but the current system feels very hostile to the type of in-depth interactions that the previous blog fostered. This would be a great thing to fix if fixed it can be.
I noticed that if you press "Load more comments" once, you can just hit Space repeatedly to press it again and again. It made the process just a bit less frustrating for me.
Unfortunately the space bar is not an option on mobile devices. I vaguely remember Substack appearing to promise Scott they “would make changes” to the site if needed, to sign him on, let’s see how forthcoming they are now
At least ¼ of what I love about the blog is the quality of comments, but that benefit goes away really fast if the comments are second-class citizens like that, for a bunch of little reasons. :(
Replying here for reason's that t will soon be obvious: I believe you're supposed to subscribe to see replie, that's how I saw your reply on the other thread. On the other hand, the links in the email don't work if the comment isn't already loaded in the first set of comments, which sorta defeats the peint (hence the obvious comment at the start.) On an entirely different note, the comment box is doing some sort of realny wonk' thing where it freezes the page (but not the browser) frr _minutss_ •t a time, although if I give it enough time, it'll e_entualny show everything that I've been ttyping blind on my phone that whole time. weird behaviour for something that really should be nothing more than a styled text box, grumble grumble
Apologies for the terrible spelling, I just felt the need to post the comment unedited after going through the whole process blind :p
Oh no, and copy-paste text selection is somehow broken to not scroll the window if you're on mobile and selecting something that extends off the page
The king is dead - long live the king!