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I still have no idea why people are making this whole thing about a political point or 'controversial opinions'. The facts are: -The NYT wanted to write about

I still have no idea why people are making this whole thing about a political point or 'controversial opinions'. The facts are: -The NYT wanted to write about SSC notably because SA warned about covid ahead of time, wrote a nice piece about the effectiveness of masks, etc. -The NYT did not care enough about Scott's pseudonymity to keep it intact -Scott, fearing that his relationship with his patients might be jeopardized if they got linked to his personal blog, deleted it. Where do 'the mob' or 'controversial opinions' or 'ideological differences' factor in this at all? It is not 'the mob' that triggered this, in fact Scott upset a lot of people over the years with some of his articles and that hasn't deterred him from keeping them up blogging further. The NYT isn't reporting on the SSC commentariat's curious obsession with the IQ of black people either. So why do 90% of posts on here are making it about politics? If I were not charitable beyond reason I would start to believe HN's love of neutral, level-headed and impassionate discussion might be an act.

BraveSnoo1028 6y ago
Scott didn't take down his blog just because of his relationship with his patients. It's one of his core arguments, yes, but it's tied with modern cancel culture, where speaking your mind if it deviates from accepted norms and ideas can result in significant personal and professional consequences, even if your intent isn't to oppress, spread hate speech, promote racism, etc. and even if the ideas you express are valuable in some way. It's dangerous nowadays to toe the line of what's "acceptable", where what's acceptable is decided by what people happen to feel on any particular day and how something can be spun into something it's not. Any number of character assassinations we've seen (such as the attempt on Stallmann) show that there are risks to being visible if some people suddenly decide they don't like you. Which connects with his other concern, that he may become too much of a liability for the place he works if some group or other finds something he's said controversial and tries to punish him or his employers for it.
- throwaway4666 6y ago
  At no point did he mention cancel culture or 'the norm'. In fact, his argument entirely revolved around his relationship with his patients and that has little bearing on what he believes about the IQ of black people, since, as he says, his patients run the full gamut of the political spectrum (so any opinion would be controversial to some of them). It's more about the fact that psychiatrists are apparently supposed to act as blank slates to their patients and his blog contains a lot of deeply personal stuff. Even without the politics stuff it'd be a problem.
  - BraveSnoo1028 6y ago
    Are you sure you read his blog entry? > The second reason is more prosaic: some people want to kill me or ruin my life, and I would prefer not to make it too easy. I’ve received various death threats. I had someone on an anti-psychiatry subreddit put out a bounty for any information that could take me down (the mods deleted the post quickly, which I am grateful for). I’ve had dissatisfied blog readers call my work pretending to be dissatisfied patients in order to get me fired. And I recently learned that someone on SSC got SWATted in a way that they link to using their real name on the blog. I live with ten housemates including a three-year-old and an infant, and I would prefer this not happen to me or to them. Although I realize I accept some risk of this just by writing a blog with imperfect anonymity, getting doxxed on national news would take it to another level. He doesn't name cancel culture, but it's obvious it's a part of what he's worried about.
    - throwaway4666 6y ago
      There's no evidence all of this comes from cancel culture. As I said in a previous thread, the main doxxing comes from an alt-right dude who angrily posted Scott's personal info and clinic because he believed to be shadowbanned. Seriously, look at Scott's post where he quotes disparaging opinions about him. You'd be surprised at how much of the vitriol comes from the alt-right, calling him limp-wristed, a beta cuck, as well as any number of Jewish slurs. And the alt-right does have a far more prominent record in actually killing people than blue-haired people on twitter.

BraveSnoo1028 6y ago

Scott didn't take down his blog just because of his relationship with his patients. It's one of his core arguments, yes, but it's tied with modern cancel culture, where speaking your mind if it deviates from accepted norms and ideas can result in significant personal and professional consequences, even if your intent isn't to oppress, spread hate speech, promote racism, etc. and even if the ideas you express are valuable in some way. It's dangerous nowadays to toe the line of what's "acceptable", where what's acceptable is decided by what people happen to feel on any particular day and how something can be spun into something it's not. Any number of character assassinations we've seen (such as the attempt on Stallmann) show that there are risks to being visible if some people suddenly decide they don't like you. Which connects with his other concern, that he may become too much of a liability for the place he works if some group or other finds something he's said controversial and tries to punish him or his employers for it.

throwaway4666 6y ago
At no point did he mention cancel culture or 'the norm'. In fact, his argument entirely revolved around his relationship with his patients and that has little bearing on what he believes about the IQ of black people, since, as he says, his patients run the full gamut of the political spectrum (so any opinion would be controversial to some of them). It's more about the fact that psychiatrists are apparently supposed to act as blank slates to their patients and his blog contains a lot of deeply personal stuff. Even without the politics stuff it'd be a problem.
- BraveSnoo1028 6y ago
  Are you sure you read his blog entry? > The second reason is more prosaic: some people want to kill me or ruin my life, and I would prefer not to make it too easy. I’ve received various death threats. I had someone on an anti-psychiatry subreddit put out a bounty for any information that could take me down (the mods deleted the post quickly, which I am grateful for). I’ve had dissatisfied blog readers call my work pretending to be dissatisfied patients in order to get me fired. And I recently learned that someone on SSC got SWATted in a way that they link to using their real name on the blog. I live with ten housemates including a three-year-old and an infant, and I would prefer this not happen to me or to them. Although I realize I accept some risk of this just by writing a blog with imperfect anonymity, getting doxxed on national news would take it to another level. He doesn't name cancel culture, but it's obvious it's a part of what he's worried about.
  - throwaway4666 6y ago
    There's no evidence all of this comes from cancel culture. As I said in a previous thread, the main doxxing comes from an alt-right dude who angrily posted Scott's personal info and clinic because he believed to be shadowbanned. Seriously, look at Scott's post where he quotes disparaging opinions about him. You'd be surprised at how much of the vitriol comes from the alt-right, calling him limp-wristed, a beta cuck, as well as any number of Jewish slurs. And the alt-right does have a far more prominent record in actually killing people than blue-haired people on twitter.