>> In his first post [on Astral Codex Ten], Mr. Siskind shared his full name.

Did you actually read the post where Scott explains why? Because at that point it was impossible to keep it private. He was also forced to quit his job. The fact that he landed on his feet doesn't mean there wasn't a cost paid.

What was happening in this story was that Scott Alexander was demanding everyone else's assistance in maintaining his pseudonym and pretending the real identity behind it was unknowable. That's a reasonable request to make in a community of peers (it's why I'll keep using "Alexander" on HN, for instance). It is not remotely a reasonable demand to make of strangers, let alone journalists.

This is another instance of message board thought seeping into the real world, and it's always alarming to me to see that, because while message board thought is fun, it's also deeply weird and dysfunctional.

"Scott Alexander was demanding everyone else's assistance in maintaining his pseudonym and pretending the real identity behind it was unknowable."

Absolutely false. Scott admits many times that it's trivial for his real identity to be known if you search around for Scott Alexander.

Scott Alexander -> Scott Sisnick (trivial)

What Scott was concerned about what his searching his real name being resoundingly brought to Scott Alexander, a major issue for his psychiatrist-patient relationships, as he demonstrates that psychiatrists need to maintain a blank slate for their patients to project onto, so that the patients don't hide or alter the behavior knowing something about their psychiatrist. That's very mainstream psychiatry. And there were concerns about current psychiatric patients he was seeing possibly being affected by this.

Before: Scott Sisnick -> "psychiatrist, bay area, studied at X, etc."

After: Scott Sisnick -> "Scott Alexander, rationalist, providing a platform for white nationalists, racism, etc."

By way of example, a friend just told me on Twitter that it's super important that patients not be able to look up their therapists on the Internet and learn more about their personal lives. But that's definitely not a norm! I checked with several therapists I know personally.

I feel like people are scrambling to invent Internet rules that allow Alexander to coerce journalists, and I don't find that effort especially persuasive.

I mean, they don't bind like a physical law or something. Ignoring people's requests for anonymity and getting them harassed or fired is certainly physically possible, it just makes you an asshole and there are ethical considerations about the effect on speech and discourse.

It's sort of similar to not wearing a mask out, it's certainly not illegal or impossible to go out without a mask and cough on people who would prefer you didn't, but it still makes you an asshole and there are ethical considerations about you putting others' lives at risk.

But even if it was an accurate representation, the media has to ask "is it our job as a powerful outlet to literally punish this much less powerful person because they have opinions we disagree with".

If it wasn't "opinions we disagree with" but like "has killed 3 people" sure appoint yourself judge, jury, and executioner. But in other cases yes it makes you an asshole to think that you should enforce your will by punishing someone who disagrees with you.

Scott Alexander on the one hand is a practicing clinician, and on the other writes prolifically about culture war topics. This is majorly out of balance, and it's on Scott to fit these areas of his life and income together. Why would the responsibility be on the NYT to help him?

His preferences bind on the NYT in that as Scott can take actions which are adverse to the NYT in order to maintain his preferences. Such as deleting the blog and having his fans sign a petition and cancel their subscriptions. None of those actions are unreasonable: he is free to delete his blog for any reason or no reason, and anyone can make in a petition. What is the problem here?

But, as Scott has said numerous times, he simply wanted to make it hard for his patients to google his name and find his blog, so that he could continue practicing psychiatry. That's a perfectly reasonable request to ask of anyone, including journalists.

[1] https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Technological_Singu...

These arguments about why we're all obligated to cooperate with Alexander's attempt to walk his identity back always seem to be inventing new norms, like the norm of "if a doctor slips up and writes political essays under their real name, then, for the sake of the doctor's career, every other person in the world should pretend that real name was never disclosed". It's a reasonable thing to want, but not to expect.

Not really. The NYT was perfectly willing to protect the anonymity of a different psychiatrist blogger. Yes, this person did a better job of keeping their identity a secret, but the justification was largely the same.

And let's not pretend that journalism is only about sharing information. There's a great deal that journalists don't share (or even try to actively suppress) for many different reasons. Partly because there are a lot of ethical considerations when publicizing information.

Worth noting that part of the issue is that, with psychiatry and counseling in particular, it really doesn't matter what he was writing about or what his politics are. Any such publicity compromises the blank slate that counselors are supposed to present to their clients. While this does mean that mental health professionals have an obligation to take care with their public image, it's not unreasonable to ask others (including journalists) to respect the particular cost they face with any kind of exposure.

Is there a real argument for why the NYT _should_ publish Scott's name? Other than "it doesn't care whether that hurts the subject, and it expects to get more clicks this way".

It's not a requirement to offer this protection, but declining when it's asked for by the subject of a story is certainly a weighty ethical decision that respectable journalists don't take lightly.

Outing someone in a vulnerable position simply because the journalist disagrees with their ideas and wants to harm them (vs. deciding it's in the public interest) would be a very clear breach of ethics.

It doesn't matter if someone could just Google it. The NYT shouldn't make it easier unless there's journalistic value in doing so. Spite doesn't count.

Would you feel the same if this was a story about a sexual assault victim instead of a blogger?

He's a blogger, not an assault victim, but his concerns are similar. Avoiding harassment and physical violence against himself and his family. Avoiding negative consequences on his career.

Why are his concerns less valid than anyone else's? "Because I disagree with him" or "because he talks about ideas I don't think should have a platform" aren't good answers. There's no allegation he hurt anyone, did anything illegal, abused his influence, or acted in bad faith. So what's the journalistic purpose of exposing him?

Should his identity have been withheld because it would hurt his career, or he might be harassed?

It's not like he was trying to hide from the NSA or anything. The goal was "I don't want my patients to see my blog on the first page of Google results when they search for my real name". The NYT completely obliterated that.

Additionally, the fact that the NYT chose to smear him means that now many potential patients may google his name, see the hit piece and nothing else, and decide "yikes, better not go there".

The article wasn't flattering. It wasn't a smear or a hit piece.

Based on his behaviour in this and other[1] situations, I have no doubt that if Metz thought he could get away with something more unsavoury, he would have tried to.

[1] https://medium.com/@garyweiss_86200/cade-metz-pulls-a-deep-c...

This would be reminiscent of the South Park planet Marklar where all people, places and things are named Marklar. It's fun for a bit but likely impractical. It's also not clear how using someone's name is 'spiteful' given the vast majority of readers would have never heard of Scott Alexander, pseudonymous or otherwise.

You seem to be under the impression that journalists are under no obligation with regard to how their reporting impacts their subjects, even when that subject is not a public figure per se. I'm pretty sure that's something that even most journalists (at least those working at relatively prestigious institutions) would disagree with.

Again, you are justifying Gawker-style journalism, which is pretty atrocious and doesn't serve to create a better informed public.

What a facile justification. By that metric there was nothing wrong with Gawker's antics. The question is always whether the things a journalist is publicizing in the public interest, and the fact that publications (especially prestigious ones) have an obligation to consider the impact of what they expose of citizens who often don't have an equal platform from which to defend themselves.

The very fact that you can find his real name from his pseudonym means that the NYT wasn't actually "exposing" anything of value. At the same time, they've made it considerably harder (if not impossible) for him to practice normal psychiatric medicine.

Also, does this article even cover what it was originally supposed to be about - i.e. a bunch of people online who saw COVID coming long before the authorities? I haven't gone all the way through, but my understanding is no. Instead there's no so subtle implication that the guy who wrote the "Anti Neoreactionary FAQ" may in fact a secret nazi or something.

Those who tried to find Scott Alexander's real name could find it.

But those who tried to find information about their doctor or colleague Scott Siskind most likely wouldn't find out that he writes a popular blog.

There existed a trivial mapping of A -> B. There did not exist a trivial mapping of B -> A. Scott was trying to prevent his patients, who had information B, from being bombarded with the link to A. It is not a hard concept to grasp.

This isn’t what he asked for. As you note there’s pages of comments and Alexander’s own account on Substack now. Maybe you’re claiming he isn’t being honest about his requests from NYT.

[1] https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/still-alive [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Horton_(blogger)

I prefer to live in a world where professionals act responsibly. He could have stopped writing as Scott Alexander and started writing with a new pseudonym. He just didn't want to rebuild his audience.

>...using an identity so trivially connectable to those patients.

As others have pointed out, the connection was mapped as A to B and not B to A.

>...it has nothing whatsoever to do with the Times.

And the Times is what would've changed how his identities were mapped. How The Times' operates in this new tech-enabled media environment is absolutely relevant.

My name is not secret. It is, however, private.

At the start of the post but there's more further in.

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/still-alive

There's s also this from The NYT initially contacted him with his reasoning for protecting his job (which didn't work out)

>I think it’s plausible that if I became a national news figure under my real name, my patients – who run the gamut from far-left to far-right – wouldn’t be able to engage with me in a normal therapeutic way. 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.

https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/06/22/nyt-is-threatening-my-...

It seems like he's pretty clear that he chose to quit. He says his job was "tentatively willing to try to make it work". It appears to me that he's shown a consistent pattern of overstating the effects of his name being revealed, so I don't put a lot of stock in "tentatively".

I am quite convinced he simply didn't want his name in the paper because he knows he's said some edgy stuff (ie, explicitly comparing himself to Charles Murray).

The sources he provides as supporting the importance of therapeutic anonymity appear to be debates, as opposed to, say, APA guidelines emphasizing its importance. And that's a one sided picture, where Scott is digging for evidence to support his claim.

Part of his argument is that he has already faced threats and harassment. Okay, and he still didn't take basic steps to anonymize himself, so apparently this didn't concern him so much in the past. His argument is that he has a lot of crazy, nutso enemies. But those people could already easily find him.

He's been pretty clear about his dislike for SJWs and distrust for the news media (I mean this in the most value-neutral way possible). That's fine, but I think it's silly to make up a bunch of reasons your name shouldn't be in the paper.

He even comes out and says that it's simply his preference for anonymity:

>Why didn't I do this? Partly because it wasn't true. I don't think I had particularly strong arguments on any of these points. The amount I dislike death threats is basically the average amount that the average person would dislike them. The amount I would dislike losing my job...and et cetera. Realistically, my anonymity let me feel safe and comfortable. But it probably wasn't literally necessary to keep me alive. I feel bad admitting this, like I conscripted you all into a crusade on false pretenses. Am I an entitled jerk for causing such a stir just so I can feel safe and comfortable? I'm sure the New York Times customer service representatives who had to deal with all your phone calls thought so.

Again, he did not lose his job. They were willing to keep him, and he quit anyways.

>In the New York Times' worldview, they start with the right to dox me, and I had to earn the right to remain anonymous by proving I'm the perfect sympathetic victim who satisfies all their criteria of victimhood. But in my worldview, I start with the right to anonymity, and they need to make an affirmative case for doxxing me. I admit I am not the perfect victim. The death threats against me are all by losers who probably don't know which side of a gun you shoot someone with. If anything happened at work, it would probably inconvenience me and my patients, but probably wouldn't literally kill either of us. Still! Don't kick me in the fucking balls!

Replace "dox" with "include my name, which was found on my blog, in a news story about my blog", and yes, that's a default-allow unless you have some really extraordinary circumstances.

"Well crap now I'm a public figure because of this, I don't really have a choice if I want to do my job well in the future."

Using "forced" may be a little clumsy, but it's certainly directionally correct.

If he doesn't think he can do psychotherapy very while while he's a "public figure" (his name being in the paper a single time), why is he opening up his own practice?

I have already posted his own quotes in this comment chain, where he admits his case is weak and that anonymity is merely his preference.

He is opening his practice only to patients that are comfortable with him and he is comfortable with. That's a different situation than working with who the hospital assigns him. Also he does say they were 'tentatively' willing to still keep him but it sounds like there was friction nonetheless.

I would be curious to know what other articles you consider well written.

To me, this comes across as a hack job to elevate the writers status before the release of his upcoming book.

It’s a classic tactic that writers use to drive book sales.

And there, indeed, lies the problem. What should society do when an an argument is factually correct but leads to an immoral result?

Choose a moral alternative. Humans aren't bound by (or even capable of) pure logic or animal instinct, that's why we invented abstractions like "morality."

This approach conflicts with the notions of "natural law" and much of Christian morality. It's a rather alien concept to most people. This leads to pressure to try to alter facts to fit a moral scenario.

Suppose you have 1000 applicants and 900 slots. 900 of the applicants are white, 100 are black.

In traditional racism you give all 900 slots to the 900 white applicants.

Using a woke quota system you would have to arrange for it to be exactly proportional, i.e. 810 white and 90 black, even if that required taking race directly into account in order to force the numbers.

Using some kind of merit-based evaluation, you might have 830 slots go to white applicants and 70 to black applicants.

The first system is clearly morally wrong, but it's also misaligned with the optimal allocation. The second system has the same issue as the first; it's basing the decision directly on race even when it doesn't align with merit.

The biggest criticism of the third system is that maybe your metric for evaluating merit is imperfect, but it might still be pretty good. And other than that it's clearly the one with the moral high ground. So where is the moral question? The moral system and the optimal system are the same one. All that's left is the technical question of how to implement a more accurate measurement of merit, if possible.

hint-it's to treat people not as individuals at all, the genetic basic of intelligence is generally brought up to justify discrimination.

It's the same problem as arguing no free will; if the ultimate end is the same as if we had it, why are you bringing it up? But usually people want to order society around that truth, not just score points in a debate.

This is important because the claim that racial gaps are solely due to racism is used to advocate for far-reaching reforms, which have huge risks and which won't actually close the gap if racism is not the cause or at least in the way as is claimed.

>Choose a moral alternative.

Are you saying that facts should be suppressed/set aside when they lead to immoral results? I can't assign any other meaning to your words.

I'm saying facts have no moral or immoral dimension - "immoral results" come from choices made in the interpretation of fact, choices which are relative and mutable because morality is an abstraction. There is no case where an immoral choice is made where a moral choice could not also be made.

Can you unpack this a bit further?

Are you saying that {a select group of people} should be allowed to discuss a controversial question, but {a wider group of people} cannot be trusted to have such discussion?

I can almost guarantee this is Cade misrepresenting what Kelsey Piper said.

> allows people to decide for themselves what the intentions of Scott Siskind may be.

Except that he clearly throughout misrepresents or misunderstands things like above. I can only assume it seems accurate because you haven't looked into the relevant quotes or peope.

>> In his first post [on Astral Codex Ten], Mr. Siskind shared his full name.

The fact that you think this after reading the article shows just how misleading it is. He shared his real name after quitting his job because of it. The NYT leaving that detail out is completely bonkers. It's a little bit like saying "what was the point of WW2, Hitler just ended up killing himself after all that trouble anyway."

Why would you not want to debate that? If it's not true, or there's no evidence for it, then you have an actual argument for fighting people who believe in it. If it's true, then you have a new societal issue to discuss. Either way, you win.

You seem to be making a case against scientific inquiry and intellectual discussion.

> However, it's slightly alarming to hear that Altman defends the promulgation of such ideas because "people need a forum to debate ideas". Too many of these ideas seep into the discussions even here on Hacker News.

This is anti-intellectualism. What possible reason would there be to not debate ideas, of any kind? Bad ideas get analyzed, exposed, and proponents of such are forced to either change their position or be exposed as dogmatic.

So when people say that rationalists and libertarians haven’t thought through the consequences this is what they mean.