Like, you really have to bring up Roko's basilisk? What is the point, besides "look at how silly these Silicon Valley types are"? They present it like a central example of "Grey Tribe" discourse, when it's pretty fringe, even by LessWrong standards.
But you’re right it’s not part of the “discourse” except mostly as a joke.
Looks like it didn't propagate very well. I'm a few degrees removed from the "rationalist community" and I heard about it years ago.
Yudkowsky tried to prevent people from talking about it, which predictably backfired. The LessWrong wiki has an entry on the whole thing.
The article also calls the author "Scott _____" instead of just "the author of S.S.C.".
Wasn't this exactly what he was trying to prevent with the NYT in the first place? So now other journalists feel like they have to step in and "doxx" him instead? And this New Yorker article ultimately got published in spite of all the controversy surrounding his identity. What kind of backlash is that going to generate? On top of the reaction to all the other veiled attacks on people in the article and irrelevant detours into "controversial" details about SSC and the rationalist community, etc.
I don't see a good outcome to this at all. Maybe it says something if the people who put the most effort into overcoming bias and trying to foster reasoned conversation couldn't prevent all of this from blowing up as it did. Maybe it doesn't. I don't know. It's certainly ugly.
"...the online persona he has publicly cultivated over the years—that of a gentle headmaster preparing to chaperone a rambunctious group of boys on a museum outing—but, in this case, it seemed to lend plausible deniability to what he surely knew would be taken as incitement." - ok, so his gentle manner is a "persona", but he "surely" incites his readers to harass journalists.
"Slate Star Codex is often held up as an example of what the well-behaved Internet can look like—a secret orchard of fruitful inquiry." - note the passive voice.
"Much of the support Alexander received was motivated simply by a love for his writing." - implies that the support was not founded on actual judgment of the situation.
"On the blog, Alexander strives to set an example as a sensitive, respectful, and humane interlocutor..." - note the word 'strives'. To be fair, the rest of the sentence is genuine praise for his skill as a writer.
"...the rationalists’ general willingness to pursue orderly exchanges on objectionable topics, often with monstrous people, remains not only a point of pride but a constitutive part of the subculture’s self-understanding." - note how willingness to pursue orderly exchanges (with people that are presented as objectively monstrous) is a subjective point of pride.
Compare:
"the business model of the Times has little to do with chasing “clicks,” per se, and, even if it did, no self-respecting journalist would conclude that the pursuit of clicks was best served by the de-anonymization of a "random blogger." - presented as a factual statement.
"...a near-pathological commitment to the reinvention of the wheel, using the language of game theory to explain, with mathematical rigor, some fact of social life that anyone trained in the humanities would likely accept as a given." - why is this commitment pathological? Why is it as worthless as presented?
"These conversations, about race and genetic or biological differences between the sexes, have rightfully drawn criticism from outsiders." - why was this criticism rightful?
"The rationalists regularly fail to reckon with power as it is practiced, or history as it has been experienced, and they indulge themselves in such contests with the freedom of those who have largely escaped discrimination." - fairly standard accusations of privilege presented as facts.
"there is some evidence to support the idea that he, like anyone, is wont to sacrifice rigor in moments of passion." - presented as a statement supported by evidence.
Similarly, concerns and worries of the group are presented as subjective, over-reacting and reaching into conspiracy theory territory. By contrast, worries that the group itself is problematic are presented as legitimate.
And of course 'rationalists' are consistently presented as low-status dorks, but I guess it is the usual New Yorker snobbery and not something nefarious.
It's a bit ironic that you would say that, even as others have complained that the "subjective" presentation is just weasel words and fake balance, i.e. saying "Some people think X." when you really really want to say "X." At least when the author is stating things directly from their POV ("News media is totally not chasing for clicks, honest!") it's clear that it's their own stance.
Wait, didn't you just pull that trick on me, by referring to some vague 'others'? :) In seriousness, here is for example the Wikipedia policy that indeed discourages the use of weasel words in attributions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_vie... . The difference is, that policy explicitly prohibits presenting opinions as facts without any attribution so there is a temptation to write in some bogus attribution so that is prohibited too. In any case, an opinion stated with no attribution whatsoever appears to bear more weight.
Of course I am not advocating that magazine articles should be written in the encyclopedic style but I think it is important to be consistent. E.g. it is well-known that authors of The Economist write as omniscient gods and that's OK because readers can correct for that, but mixing styles is suspicious. And isn't it suspicious that almost all statements written from the author's POV in the article are negative?
See, this is what I'm not sure about. An opinion stated with no attribution looks just like that, an opinion held primarily by the author. (After all, you can tell that it can't possibly be an uncontested fact, just by the subject matter. I mean, stuff like "news sites are not chasing for clicks" is bound to be controversial.) Whereas if the author says "Some people think X.", they're pointing to something that's supposedly the shared opinion of a whole group, so it looks a lot more relevant. Of course that's just my point of view, I may well be mistaken.
But you are right, there are examples of Russel Conjugation too (e.g.: "Alexander’s supporters were working themselves into a tizzy") as well as other tricks. This article is quite a case study on spin!