There’s a story from the Bible that’s relevant to something I want to talk about. Bear with me. In the book of Numbers, the Jewish people find themselves at the outskirts of the land of Canaan. God has promised them this land; according to him, it is theirs for the taking. He tells Moses to select 12 spies from the leadership of the twelve tribes of Israel and have them scout out Canaan. It’s important that these are leaders; these are people selected by the various tribes to represent them. These were people who could be reasonably expected to represent the will of their respective groups.
Here’s how I think about it: suppose you were an attorney for the side of truth and justice (I won’t say which that is :-) ), and suppose the US Supreme Court nevertheless ruled against you. In fact, suppose they were so ideologically slanted that they ruled against you 25 times in a row. Could you then say: I reject the Supreme Court’s authority and will seek out a different court? Alas, it’s not so simple: your options are either (1) continue working within the system, trying to push the court in the direction you think right, or (2) a coup or an insurrection.
The New York Times is basically the Supreme Court of educated public opinion. Which means: when it makes bad calls, those of us who understand that can either work within the system to try to fix it, or we can all coordinate to depose the court and set up a new court. Those are our options. But if we go for the latter, we’d better succeed, and it’s going to be super difficult, so we’ll need all the powerful allies we can get, and to that end it will help if we can show everyone that we exhausted the first route to no avail.
I’ve never had any pretensions to being a Moses or a Joshua. But I’d be satisfied if people said the following at my funeral: “he told about as much truth as he could get away with, and was about as nice as he could be given a commitment to openness and truth.”
Some public figures, because they don't want people scraping their histories for out-of-context sentences, periodically delete their tweets. Ezra Klein has none available before November 2020. You're being a little trigger-happy on what constitutes revenge or even targeted behavior.
I offer an alternative, one that I believe requires less assumptions and is more plausible: The NYT is just, simply, right. The rationalist reaction is, simply, wrong.
The NYT article was fine.
The NYT IS fine.
There was no hit piece, there is no conspiracy. The NYT is not on a crusade to destroy bloggers 10,000x smaller than them, any more than a person is on a crusade to destroy an ant when they step on an ant on the way to the store.
And those you're quoting? They know it, deep down. They know their audience requires nothing less than fervent loyalty, and if they don't condemn the NYT then they will be labeled as the "outgroup". And so, they write some tepid commentary to assuage their irrationally angry fanbase, then move on with their lives.
Here’s how I think about it: suppose you were an attorney for the side of truth and justice (I won’t say which that is :-) ), and suppose the US Supreme Court nevertheless ruled against you. In fact, suppose they were so ideologically slanted that they ruled against you 25 times in a row. Could you then say: I reject the Supreme Court’s authority and will seek out a different court? Alas, it’s not so simple: your options are either (1) continue working within the system, trying to push the court in the direction you think right, or (2) a coup or an insurrection.
The New York Times is basically the Supreme Court of educated public opinion. Which means: when it makes bad calls, those of us who understand that can either work within the system to try to fix it, or we can all coordinate to depose the court and set up a new court. Those are our options. But if we go for the latter, we’d better succeed, and it’s going to be super difficult, so we’ll need all the powerful allies we can get, and to that end it will help if we can show everyone that we exhausted the first route to no avail.
I’ve never had any pretensions to being a Moses or a Joshua. But I’d be satisfied if people said the following at my funeral: “he told about as much truth as he could get away with, and was about as nice as he could be given a commitment to openness and truth.”
—Scott Aaronson
This article isn't about the NYT. It's about seeking social approval at the cost of yourself. People are looking at this backwards.
Some public figures, because they don't want people scraping their histories for out-of-context sentences, periodically delete their tweets. Ezra Klein has none available before November 2020. You're being a little trigger-happy on what constitutes revenge or even targeted behavior.
I offer an alternative, one that I believe requires less assumptions and is more plausible: The NYT is just, simply, right. The rationalist reaction is, simply, wrong.
The NYT article was fine.
The NYT IS fine.
There was no hit piece, there is no conspiracy. The NYT is not on a crusade to destroy bloggers 10,000x smaller than them, any more than a person is on a crusade to destroy an ant when they step on an ant on the way to the store.
And those you're quoting? They know it, deep down. They know their audience requires nothing less than fervent loyalty, and if they don't condemn the NYT then they will be labeled as the "outgroup". And so, they write some tepid commentary to assuage their irrationally angry fanbase, then move on with their lives.
Further reading:
https://modelcitizen.substack.com/p/grey-lady-steel-man