From your implication that this is all an overreaction, it seems like you believe there's no reason to be concerned that Alexander might be forced out of his profession, even if the NYT did run the piece with his full name as they'd proposed (but haven't yet).

Is this because you think it's unlikely that would happen even if the piece did run? If so, then I gave the reasons in my previous post why I disagree--so we have a simple disagreement about a prediction for the future, and we could each give our reasons why we expected our respective outcomes. Why didn't you engage with any of those arguments?

Or is it just because you're indifferent to whether he loses his career, or indeed might be glad to see it happen? That seems most consistent to me with your statements so far--but would you feel the same if the person staring down the Twitter mob were your ideological ally? You yourself? If we normalize this behavior, then what makes you think that it won't be someone you care about next?

I don't have much interest in re-litigating the hypothetical outcomes via the Socratic Pinniped Textwall Method. I think my comment was quite straightforward - nothing happened and then a very mildly critical meta-article appeared in the New Yorker. Your response starts with hyperbole and ends with what is frankly a conspiracy theory about how journalism works. Which is the sort of thing that is gently ribbed in the article itself, completing the circle!

Have you ever considered the possibility that you're mistaken? I try to myself, which is why I want to discuss with people who hold opinions other than mine, in order to understand why they do and whether I should change my view. You've communicated clearly that you disagree with me, but I'm not sure what else I could get from your comments.

Is there any substantive argument that you'd be willing to engage with? I'm not sure why you keep responding if not. You can't actually believe that nothing happened here, unless you believe that nothing happened in the Cuban Missile Crisis because the missiles never flew.

Have you tried to consider the possibility that you're mistake on this forum, or just other ones? Can you point to an exchange here where that's happened? The search bar at the bottom of the page could help, if none come to mind.

I'm always curious about the expectations people when they write things like "have you ever considered the possibility that you're mistaken". It seems totally ineffective as a rhetorical move, but I wonder if might have some slim chance of being productive if accompanied by a show of good faith. Like, for instance, any evidence whatsoever that the person saying it had ever been inclined to concede anything on the forum.

I don't usually comment on political topics like this one, but here's a thread where someone corrected my oversimplified view of the Fed's current bond market interventions. It took several levels of replies for me to understand what they meant, and I later corrected someone else who continued to argue for my initial (and misleading) view:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23421917

Close enough? Or in a different sub-thread here (that the mods seem to have detached), another poster and I probably still disagree on the original question, but we did manage a respectful discussion in which we agreed on other related points:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23783613

I didn't mean it as a rhetorical device--I'm genuinely curious, how someone came to be so sure that I'm wrong that it's not even worth explaining why. There's very few things I'm that sure of.

It's easy to reach certainty that the conversation you're engaged in has no hope of becoming productive, far easier than reaching any kind of (ugh) "epistemic" certainty. It's helpful to recognize that; otherwise, you're at risk of being the annoying dude in the meme sitting behind a card table on a college quad, "change my mind".

I'm afraid that you're probably right. So what should I have done differently? What could have changed pvg's mind, or at least generated something like a respectful and substantive discussion in which they explained the reasons for their differing views (which you'll see that I did manage with several other posters who disagree with me in this thread)?

A snarky original post like the one I wrote here starts from a negative interaction with someone who disagrees, which I agree is bad. You'll find mostly more nuanced comments in my history, including those about semi-political topics like the coronavirus; but those mostly get no replies at all.

Sometimes it's fine just to give up on a thread. Cards->table, I can't tell you what would change 'pvg's mind, because I agree with him.