Read on Twitter
The rationalists are sometimes irritating, but I will take them any day over the sad little men who hate thinking, and who judge an idea's merits on whether or not it is in vogue. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/13/technology/slate-star-codex-rationalists.html?searchResultPosition=1
The Times, of course, has still not answered questions about why it would not afford SA the anonymity that it afforded so many other people.
https://freebeacon.com/media/well-known-blogger-shuts-down-site-for-fear-of-nyt-doxxing/
https://freebeacon.com/media/well-known-blogger-shuts-down-site-for-fear-of-nyt-doxxing/
"On the internet, many in Silicon Valley believe, everyone has the right not only to say what they want but to say it anonymously."
This is, I think, the battle line here. People who were on the internet 10 years ago remember that it is not a civilized place.
This is, I think, the battle line here. People who were on the internet 10 years ago remember that it is not a civilized place.
The spread of the internet from niche nerd hobby to the most commonly used tool in America has brought a demand that it should be brought in line, and that the norms of elite thought be imposed.
The problem is that the internet is, structurally, built for its original denizens. You can't actually crush the anonymous and dissenting speech. And this is *extremely upsetting* to the people who wield cultural power.
This is why, for example, they are upset that Clubhouse is voice only—less legibility = harder to regulate. https://twitter.com/CharlesFLehman/status/1359978685613420550
This is also what the tropes about "misinformation" and "extremist views" are really about: the internet permits the dissemination of Unapproved Ideas, and those are part of a larger, if ultimately pointless, effort to erect a cordon saintaire
The entities that facilitate this effort are enormously powerful, wealthy, and democratically unaccountable. Which is why there's an effort to (perhaps unwittingly) destroy them. https://twitter.com/mims/status/1360584880132915205
incidentally, the "scholar who closely follows and documents the Rationalists" Metz quotes, Elizabeth Sandifer, appears to do most of her work writing about, uh, Doctor Who. https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/17928103.Elizabeth_Sandifer
I'm reasonably certain its the same sandifer who wrote a) this blog post http://www.eruditorumpress.com/blog/neoreaction-rationalism-and-eliezer-yudkowsky/ and b) this book, which was funded on kickstarter and self-published. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2027287602/neoreaction-a-basilisk
Nothing against self-published authors, I just don't think the NYT should be going to Doctor Who fanfiction writers for expert comment.
ugh, I should really write this essay, shouldn't I?
