Scott's coronavirus articles were reliably ahead of the media. He was early with insights such as the insufficiencies of the flattening the curve model, the efficacy of masks, and warning it could become a pandemic.

These opinions are now mainstream. He gave them a platform earlier than the media did, because he was more open to being wrong and to exploring heterodox ideas, but also applied research and rigour when writing about them.

I don't get your point. People are going to roast Scott because he got things right about covid? What does this have to do with his relationship with his patients?

You asked which "hidden truth, controversial opinion or super secret insight [is] at stake". I gave some examples of what Scott got right to illustrate what's at stake if he's forced off the internet.

Can you explain a bit more about what you're asking for?

The original post made an argument of the following form:

>People who could offer smart insights consor themselves for fear of being attacked for their opinions.

The user you're replying to asked what opinions is Scott risking to be attacked about. You're providing arguments about Scott having offered smart insights, which was not the part of the argument debated. The original post shifted the discussion from Scott's worries--which were chiefly related to the dangers of working in psychology--towards the more general discussion about censorship as it is talked about in the works referenced above.

In other words, most of this thread is repurposing Scott's post to give a platform for their current political concerns.

> The original post shifted the discussion from Scott's worries--which were chiefly related to the dangers of working in psychology--towards the more general discussion about censorship

If you read Scott's post, it says that blog readers have tried to get him fired and sent him death threats. That's already happened, before his anonymity is completely broken by the NYT. He's written on a variety of political topics, including feminism and racism, which are now self-censored as the blog has been taken down. Censorship is very much a feature of Scott's post.

Plenty of people were attacked for their opinions on, e.g. the case for wearing masks, or the effectiveness of simple cloth coverings. Their opinions turned out to be correct. We can only know in retrospect what opinions will turn out to be controversial, so in effect you're asking for something impossible.

Okay so you're saying the NYT is silencing Scott by threatening to publish a hit piece about his early warning about covid? And if he didn't post that, his relationship with his patients wouldn't have been jeopardized by having his real name associated to his personal blog and he'd have kept it up? I'm not trying to strawman here, I'm genuinely attempting to connect the dots.

What I got from it is that any sort of publicity at this scale is potentially harmful to his position as a psychiatrist and person. Not necessarily that the things he said were particularly right, wrong, or controversial. And even though early warnings about COVID may not seem particularly controversial, the internet attracts and fosters all sorts of conspiracy theorists and fantastic ideas. Scott also mentions himself that he's had death threats, which adds to the risk of having his name associated with the blog.

Maybe I'm missing some nuance to this line of questioning since I'm skimming too quickly for my own good...

But my read is that Scott is simply opposing the NYT's absolute policy of posting his real name in their article. His decision to delete the blog is because there were other non-coronavirus posts which he feared could lead to all kinds of IRL reprisals if his real name were to be known publicly.

Hence the repetition of "No doxing random bloggers for clicks". He seemed to be willing to bring everything back if that policy changes, and went so far as to ask people to mail the editor and be polite and specific about it.

Anyhow, apologies if I'm just restating the obvious here.

The point I was trying to make is tangential, but related to the post.

Scott has created one of the most thoughtful, level-headed, and interesting places on the internet. And yet he's shutting it down because it has led to a huge downside risk for his personal and professional life:

> I also worry that my clinic would decide I am more of a liability than an asset and let me go, which would leave hundreds of patients in a dangerous situation as we tried to transition their care.

What does this mean for others who want to start similar blogs or engage in these sorts of discussions? They're going to see this sort of thing happening and think: "Why bother? It's not worth the trouble."

But this is not about his opinions or that they are not accepted. This is about maintaining pseudonym and importance of it for practising MD.

I don't understand how his blog could impact his practice. He doesn't blog about his patients. Unless, of course, his practice is worried about the opinions Scott posts on his blog...

His post literally includes the line “and angry internet critics have called my job pretending to be upset patients to get me fired.”

You can’t imagine how it would affect his job?

Doctors have weirdly strict rules about what they can or can't say on social media.

In England the regulator is the GMC, and here's their page for doctors use of social media: https://www.gmc-uk.org/ethical-guidance/ethical-guidance-for...

> Anonymity

> If you identify yourself as a doctor in publicly accessible social media, you should also identify yourself by name. Any material written by authors who represent themselves as doctors is likely to be taken on trust and may reasonably be taken to represent the views of the profession more widely.10

But also, a complaint to the regulator is a worrying time for the doctor even if they've done nothing wrong.

If you had bothered to read the article, you would see that Scott lists two reasons why he is shutting down the blog. The reason that you mentioned is one. The other reason is:

> The second reason is more prosaic: some people want to kill me or ruin my life, and I would prefer not to make it too easy. I’ve received various death threats. I had someone on an anti-psychiatry subreddit put out a bounty for any information that could take me down (the mods deleted the post quickly, which I am grateful for).

You write:

> What's the hidden truth, controversial opinion or super secret insight at stake here?

There is no one opinion at stake here. What is at stake is the ability to hold any dissenting opinion. Or not even hold it, but merely discuss it openly.

In the case of the anti-psychiatry lobby it's not even a dissenting opinion! It's basically the opinion that psychiatry ought to exist. There is just a small community of dissidents who disagree and want to get Scott fired (or worse). They now have a lot more leverage, because we've collectively decided that we should foster a culture where it's totally normal to try and get someone fired for things that are totally unrelated to work.

Just as the members of an anti-psychiatry subreddit should have a right to freedom of speech and association without the fear that their posts will get them fired (or worse), so should Scott.

This is pretty easy. Scott does have controversial opinions at times. He uses a pseudonym to make them public without fear of that impinging on his life and work.

So yes. He's being silenced because he cannot enjoy speaking publicly without fear of retribution.

What do these controversial opinions have to do with the NYT writing a piece about Scott's early warnings about covid, and Scott's assessment that it would damage his relationship with his patients? Are you arguing that warning everyone ahead about the virus was controversial?

Not in this case, now, no. But he's said plenty of things that some proportion of people find controversial enough to bother harassing his job to get him fired. If his name and website get more widespread acknowledgement, he expects the level of harassment to increase proportionally, which he fears could get him fired.

You are being obtuse. The NYT propose linking his real identity to everything in his blog.

I think GP and many people ITT project their current political concerns on OP's post. It doesn't seem apparent to me that Scott is deleting his blog due to any recent political changes.

His name is...