Talk:Scott Alexander/Archive1

Tax name
Please don't post Dr Alexander's tax name to the article. It's findable if you try, but it's pretty unique, and I've seen the Internet feckwits who think contacting his hospital about his posts would be a great idea - David Gerard (talk) 11:31, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Should we be more critical?
Alexanders not an idiot by any means but politically he goes easier on Neoreactionaries than he does feminists and some of his views on AI seem borderline pseudo-scientific. He also has the general anti-politics routine you see on LessWrong, mainly through false equivalences to write everyone off (such as implying that the left-wing idea of a 15 dollar minimum wage is equally as crazy as building a wall across the entire southern border of the United States). Some of his understandings of political spectrums are surprisingly inaccurate though I suppose that has some more leeway in it since it's not an exact science. ClothCoat (talk) 23:28, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Agreed, but until I got the idea to do so recently, I didn't know I would be writing a wiki page on him, so I didn't make notes or anything when I was previously reading his writings. I was just thinking myself today that I should add something on his weird ideas related to politics and social justice - for example, he's advocated 10%-tithe-style effective altruism for everyone without even acknowledging the effect following that advice would have on poor single mothers, let alone poor single mothers with scrupulosity issues (despite the fact that he claims to care about people with scrupulosity issues, and he should have a professional interest in that given his profession). For another example, he promotes highly dubious statistics "showing" that lack of women in STEM careers is 100% down to lack of women studying STEM, without understanding basic facts like you don't always need a CS degree to work as a programmer, contrary to how it is in his profession (doctors need to have a recognised doctorate). The typical schoolboy howlers made by know-it-alls pronouncing outside their fields of expertise, in other words. See also engineers and woo. Feel free to add critical stuff like this.--Greenrd (talk) 18:04, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

NPOV
Is it not considered problematic that this article is essentially a hit piece? Anyone who stumbles over this page is liable to think less of RationalWiki. Even if being libellous was the goal, this is way too in-your-face to be effective at all. 173.176.105.79 (talk) 23:06, 18 October 2015 (UTC)


 * RationalWiki:What is a RationalWiki article? - David Gerard (talk) 18:50, 20 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Can you state exactly what in the article you think is "a hit piece"? The only thing I see is some extremely mild criticism. --Ymir (talk) 05:15, 25 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I must admit that after reading the article, I can't really see how the label "hit piece", even if hedged by "essentially", applies either. ScepticWombat (talk) 05:36, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

You contrast his views on AI with an "actual" researchers, without noting the actual researchers (like Stuart Russell) who share his concerns.
 * Stuart Russell is a researcher in made-up AI, posting his results to LessWrong, not a researcher in actual AI that is even conceivably within range of construction - David Gerard (talk) 19:03, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Stuart Russell on Wikipedia Ciphergoth (talk) 01:35, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
 * How the hell did I mix up Stuart Armstrong and Stuart Russell. Thank you.
 * IP: if you're invoking the name of Stuart Russell, has Stuart Russell e.g. specifically named Scott Alexander as someone whose claims he supports? Or do you actually mean "Scott has said something like something Stuart Russell said" or "Stuart Russell said something like something MIRI had raised" or what is the specific claim you're making here? - David Gerard (talk) 09:48, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

He also co-wrote an extremely popular textbook on AI. Painting him as just some blogger is dishonest.

I for one have a problem with taking one of Amanda Marcotte's few erroneous columns seriously (it's in the footnote about Alexander defending Scott Aaronson, and only a total misunderstanding of Aaronson's comment would lead you to believe it was creepy). Julyo (talk) 03:01, 28 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I thought it was pretty fucking creepy, and Marcotte enumerated my concerns with it pretty well. His comment was sincere, and it was also fucked up to all hell - David Gerard (talk) 00:08, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Then why not simply link to his comment rather than the Marcotte piece and let readers decide?
 * Because context is absolutely key to dealing with SSC - his articles are not somehow isolated crystals floating in the void, devoid of context or impetus David Gerard (talk) 19:03, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

Right. The contxt is Aaronson's comment, which you should link to. It isn't Marcotte's ridiculous piece, which has nothing to do with the subject of the article.
 * I edited in a calmer statement about Aaronsons's comment, linked to it, and switched out Marcotte's nasty screed for Laurie Penney's rational and reasoned one. Some weeks ago many editors voted in the Saloon about whether this wiki would link to "hate sites." The overwhelming consensus was that we not only could, but should. (My view was more of a "it depends.") So, the community believes in linking to the source itself, and that is entirely indicated in this case [adding: I do not remotely consider Aaronson's comment to equal hate speech]. As a woman (and mother of three boys), I am horrified by Marcotte's piece. It does not speak for me. Others here also dislike it per this discussion. So, I made the change.---Mona- (talk) 05:08, 20 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Your edit just now is fine by me - David Gerard (talk) 20:26, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
 * If I remember correctly, the Aaronson piece is the one in which he says some completely misinformed BS about the Israeli law changes meant to protect women's ability to file accusations of rape, which should probably be covered.KrytenKoro (talk) 01:45, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Citations needed
All the entries under "quotes" need to be referenced.---Mona- (talk) 20:16, 10 January 2016 (UTC)


 * I'm not convinced this should even be here. I looked at the recent additions and wonder if the section is even worth having. These aren't remarkable or famous in themselves quotes - David Gerard (talk) 20:26, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
 * They're all sourceable by Googling the quoted phrases, but I agree that they don't look particularly noteworthy. & Lists of unannotated contextless quotes don't make for good RW content.  21:02, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Agreed, pretty pointless. And I wasn't gonna take the time to google stuff I don't care about to source it.---Mona- (talk) 22:34, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
 * A set of links to some of his more interesting pieces, like I Can Tolerate Anything Except the Outgroup, or Radicalizing the Romanceless, would probably be a better fit. - Smerdis of Tlön, LOAD "*", 8, 1. 04:31, 11 January 2016 (UTC)
 * And why they're fucking terrible - David Gerard (talk) 13:52, 11 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I read them both and they strike me as pretty useful (much moreso the Outgroup essay though) do you have any specific problems with them? ClothCoat (talk) 06:38, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

"calling communism a collection of all the worst ideas ever invented" I've made a bit of an effort to find out what this is in reference to... In http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/24/book-review-red-plenty/ and http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/13/book-review-singer-on-marx/ he praises some of communism's ideas, so it's evident that he doesn't believe this, and he certainly isn't saying it in the present tense. I'm taking it out, but I'd love to know why it got in in the first place. 163.47.104.114 (talk) 08:17, 4 February 2017 (UTC)CompanionGoat

Slightly negative leaning and for almost all the wrong reasons
I have to agree with the commenter above, this article does come off as something of a hit piece. It's not so much that you're criticizing the guy; I agree that the criticism against him is very mild. It's more the reasons why we're criticizing him: they seem less like valid reasons for criticism and more like a knee-jerk reaction to him having the "wrong" views and belonging to the "wrong" factions. From what I can tell from the (admittedly minor) complaints about him in this article, and from the comments of the above poster who was complaining the article wasn't harsh enough, RW users dislike him for the following reasons:

1. He's not critical enough of neoreactionaries, despite writing perhaps the definitive takedown of neoreactionary ideas. After all, he's actually willing to politely discuss and debate their points instead of just dismissing them altogether as racist, sexist, classist idiots; he's willing to befriend individual neoreactionaries and thinks that they can be decent human beings despite having different views than him; he's even willing to entertain the notion that just maybe a few of their ideas might be partially good. Clearly he's basically a neoreactionary in liberal's clothing, even though he disagrees with virtually everything they say!

2. He's critical of "social justice warriors", and God knows Rational Wiki loves those now. He's repeatedly made it clear that he doesn't have a problem with the underlying principles of social justice, and his criticisms of the social justice movement have all been expressed rationally and respectfully (going as far as to put trigger warnings on his posts and use gender-neutral pronouns like ze and zir), and he's made some very good points about the very real and increasingly common problems with the more extreme branches of the movement... but no, we can't have anyone being too critical of the SJWs. After all, SJW is just a slur thrown around by bitter reactionaries and bigots who are upset about losing their privilege, there are no genuine problems with the social justice movement, none at all.

3. He was a major contributor on LessWrong, and no one from LessWrong deserves any respect. They're kinda sorta rivals to Rational Wiki, and petty internet drama and sub-sub-community politics take precedence over everything else. (This seems to be less of a factor than the first two, but I can still sense that anti-LW sentiment seething just below the surface.)

There are some complaints in the article that are legitimate. His grasp on political terminology, while better than average, leaves a lot to be desired. And I certainly don't mind poking fun of him for writing articles that are too long, because they totally are. And I haven't read any of his writings on AI (and even if I did, I wouldn't know enough about the subject to make a valid judgment on them), so he could be completely off the mark in that regard. But most of the complaints just seem to be left-liberal heresy charges: he's too lukewarm against our group's enemies, he's too critical of our group's allies, that practically makes him one of our enemies too.

I have no affiliation with Scott or his site, by the way. I actually found his site through Rational Wiki, just a few days ago! I was looking for a more detailed analysis and critique of the neoreactionary movement that went beyond "they're fascist capitalist libertarian monarchists so they're bad", and I found one. But I like a lot of what I've read on the site, including some of the supposedly "terrible" articles you guys linked to above (I found his article on ingroup/outgroup dynamics and their relation to modern politics to be absolutely brilliant, and that's coming from someone with an MS in Political Science), so I was really confused why your article on him tends to skew toward the negative so much. 63.143.200.126 (talk) 12:11, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
 * I once proposed fallacies here which I read on his blog through shared articles. That is, I don't even knew his blog and don't read it regularily and as such believed it was uncontentious to propose these fallacies. Wrong. It was a major problem for reasons I still don't quite understand. All I can say, you are right, but it's also somewhat pointless. If he's on the wrong tribe, there is nothing you can do about it, unless the mobocracy of a handful of people is overcome by more people who think differently. ~ Aneris 14:02, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Same user here. I edited the page to be less negative. I tried to remove as little content as possible, and to avoid painting him in an overly positive light. I just removed a lot of things that seemed like weasel words, like the subtle implications that he supported reactionary ideas or that his opposition to some elements of the social justice and radical feminist movements was inherently a bad thing. I didn't touch the sections on Effective Altruism or Artificial Intelligence at all (other than slightly changing some formatting) because I know next to nothing about those things. 174.44.202.247 (talk) 14:41, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

My edits
One of the users here dismissed my edits as "whitewashing", but I disagree. I was very conservative about editing this article, and tried not to remove any information, but rather to add some much needed context. Here's a list of the actual changes I made (not counting formatting issues), and my justifications for them: I hope this sufficiently explains why I made the changes I did, and persuades people not to revert them again. 174.44.202.247 (talk) 19:43, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
 * 1) Prior to my edits, the article did not mention Scott's actual stated political views at all. I added this information.
 * 2) Furthermore, while it didn't come out and say it outright, the paragraph on neoreactionaries heavily implied that Scott held neoreactionary views himself, which is completely false. It said he "later recanted many of the points he made" in his takedown of the neoreactionary movement, which is technically part true, but extremely misleading: all he actually said was that some of his arguments were flawed or could have been better, after neoreactionaries pointed out some perceived flaws in his FAQ. His actual views on the subject didn't change, and he specifically noted that he would provide counter-counter arguments to the neoreactionaries' counter-arguments. The previous version also mentioned that he "keeps discussing [neoreactionary] ideas in his blog", ignoring the fact that he only keeps bringing them up to criticize them, or occasionally to use them in abstract thought exercises; again, it makes it sound like he keeps talking about these ideas because he supports them, when actually the opposite is true. (I kept in the part about neoreactionaries frequenting his comments section because I don't know that it's untrue, but I added in a (citation needed) because I don't know that it's true either.)
 * 3) I added in his actual reasons for criticizing feminism and the social justice community. Whether or not you agree with his reasons, surely most people here will agree that it's better for the article to include them? I don't see how this change isn't a strict improvement, "X hates Y because of Z" is definitively more informative than "X hates Y". If nothing else, this change should definitely be retained.
 * 4) I removed the part about racist and sexist opinions in his comments section because it seemed trivial. In retrospect, this actually does feel a little like whitewashing, especially since there was a link to someone complaining specifically about that problem, so I put it back in.


 * Dude, he literally brought up Mencius Moldbug arguments by name as his go-to comparison when talking about gay relationship counseling. Although, were I to apply my powers of mind reading, I might say he wasn't a neoreactionary deep in his heart, he keeps bringing up their ideas and jargon and expects his readers to know what he's talking about, strongly suggesting (a) he's taken neoreactionary ideas fully on board as part of his mental toolkit (b) he feels safe to assume his readers are instantly familiar with neoreactionary ideas. That you're in clear denial of this is why I call your edits "whitewashing" and consider them utterly untrustworthy - David Gerard (talk) 20:34, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
 * And that's not even to mention the neoreactionaries, scientific racists and white nationalists in the blogroll at the side, which are literally the context for every post on the blog. He may not be a neoreactionary, but he is pretty clearly a huge fanboy - David Gerard (talk) 17:53, 4 February 2016 (UTC)


 * That's a nice character assassination you're doing here, David Gerard. One cannot have a civil relationship with people they disagree with - and even perhaps value their analysis to some extent - without being a "fanboy" ? Is it intellectually unclean to even consider the possibility that someone else's "mental toolkit", as you put it, might contain "some" worthwhile elements ? Do you even give a single fuck about being fair-handed towards the folks with pages on here ? How is it goddamn "untrustworthy" to link to Scott Alexander's actual statement of his political views ? It's true that a number - not all - of neoreactionaries can be found in his comment section, but he's hardly responsible for that, and I don't see why he should censor them. NewFrenchHotness (talk) 21:51, 27 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Apparently "brought up Mencius Moldbug arguments by name as his go-to comparison" means the following: in the article linked there, he mentions that Moldbug proposes to identify the "sovereign" (in Hobbes's sense) as "the one who sets the null hypothesis". How exactly does this suggest that S.A. holds neoreactionary views or likes neoreaction or anything of the kind? What it looks like to me is: he spotted one interesting not-particularly-reactionary idea in the writings of a neoreactionary, wanted to refer to it, and gave credit where it was due. It's not a "go-to comparison", whatever that even means, it's just another way of looking at the idea that cultural defaults determine what's seen as reasonable or unreasonable in cases of conflict, an idea he already introduced and argued for in ways that didn't involve mentioning neoreactionaries. 46.17.166.146 (talk) 17:58, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

Reddit thread of the day
Suprisingly, Scott Alexander fans are less than amused. 04:48, 14 February 2016 (UTC)