Scott is the type of individual where literally any side of a political debate can write a hit piece with some quotes, because he considers ALL the sides of a debate. Unfortunately, that's a rare trait these days.

I don't think I've seen anyone right-of-center have anything really bad to say about Scott. I doubt any of those outlets (Breitbart, etc.) would want to do that to him.

This may itself be reason for some people to distrust Scott, except that he's probably done more to bring people to a moderate or left-of-center position on some topics than all the people shouting "racist!" combined.

I think this is just because the right is on the cultural defensive right now. Most people are really bad people; they don't process liberal principles intended to protect the powerless (on any dimension) as anything but a hollow tool, to be used when they're being protected and ignored (to the extent possible) when they want to crush their enemies.

That is to say, those who are culturally out of power _need_ to act relatively civilized, because civilization is the only thing that protects them, while those that dominate norm-shaping are free to act as the monsters they truly are. It's no coincidence that so much of the left has started pretending that caring about free speech is only ever a tactical decision to protect unforgivable rightwing views: if you're the kind of morally hollow creature that can't conceive of holding a principle, you also can't conceive of anyone else holding one. (Not incidentally, this is why Scott is so often tarred as alt-right or alt-right-adjacent, despite being pretty firmly on the left).

In the GWB years of an ascendant cultural right, Scott would have likely faced the same threats from the right as he does from the left, over different issues.

> In the GWB years of an ascendant cultural right, Scott would have likely faced the same threats from the right as he does from the left, over different issues.

I agree with your general point about power, but I disagree where cultural power has been historically. Consider, when was the last time the NYT was not the paper of record?

If anything, the cultural right is far more powerful now than it has ever been - at least since Barry Goldwater. And it still isn't on top, but that seems to be the current trajectory.

> In the GWB years of an ascendant cultural right, Scott would have likely faced the same threats from the right as he does from the left, over different issues.

The rationalist/secularist/etc. community was around back then, and that didn't really happen. I agree that a limited incumbent effect does apply, but it seems quite clear that liberal norms and principles really do get more respect on the (non-extreme) right than they do on the left.

Sure, but thats not the issue here. It is about naming sources.

The article is about Scott, as a person who runs a popular blog. The source is named "Scott Alexander". There is no need to publish his personal information. If the NYT wants to verify that he is actually a practicing psychiatrist etc, then they can gather that information, do the legwork, publish the information ("NYT can confirm that SA is who he says he is"), without jeopardizing that practice.

The anti-out-of-context-quote-hit-piece-insurance that Sam Harris went to in his recent podcast on police violence etc was insane. I fully understand why, he's been burned by the Twitter mob before, but it's eye-opening to the media-induced reasonable paranoia some "public" people will go through when there's basically three paragraphs of "I'm not saying this is the one and only truth, I believe in equality, justice..." for every one paragraph of stats or opinion they post.

It has a very religious witch hunt feel where you constantly need to assure everybody that you are totally not a member of the out-group and you believe in the same things they do and you really are not possessed by the devil and they really shouldn't burn you, but they may have gotten something a tiny bit wrong in their, of course totally justified, blind rage.

Slate Star Codex says they were expecting a relatively nice article, not a hit piece.

Are you referring to Episode 207? https://overcast.fm/+KhqFMR3J4

I think Sam did a very poor job in that episode -- he was preaching exclusively to the choir. He spends the start of the podcast explaining the important distinction between justified and unjustified police involved killings. This is a very important distinction, and I would love to see data about the racial breakdown of unjustified killings, relative to a racial breakdown of police interactions.

But, Sam then completely abandons this distinction. He discusses "An Empirical Analysis of Racial Differences in Police Use of Force", Roland G. Fryer, Jr. July 2007, a NYC-only study that does not measure unjustified killings.

Then, as usual, he spends an awful lot of time spouting his usual rhetoric of truth, epistemology, science, data, facts, and knowledge. This is merely rhetoric because his reference to that study is clearly meant to be evidence that we have the truth -- that police brutality is the issue, and unjustified killings do not disproportionately affect black Americans. He even discusses the Fryer study and moments later is confidently stating "race isn't the relevant variable". This is a grand claim that can't possibly be justified based on the Fryer study.

All interspersed with more rhetoric such as:

- "expiation of sins" for you Botox as if you're "woke as AOC"

- "ecstasy of ideological conformity"

- "woke analysis" is where "democratic politics goes to die" (probably means Democratic Party politics)

- "social activists playing chicken with the forces of chaos"

- "form of political pornography"

- "unable to speak or even think about facts"

Sam's usual parade of platitudes about epistemology are best understood by another quotation from this episode: "the difference between the branding of a movement and its actual aims, that's why propaganda works".

> Slate Star Codex says they were expecting a relatively nice article, not a hit piece.

Yeah, I wasn't referencing the article specifically, but the general state. What Sam Harris said at the beginning of that episode (I was talking about the one you linked, but I only read the transcript, I don't have the attention span for podcasts) rang true for me: opening your mouth is risky for normal people, but it's extra risky if you're a publicist/commentator/celebrity and that has an extreme chilling effect.

I don't want to debate his opinions, I don't regularly listen to Harris, but the fact that he felt it's necessary to add so much "please don't take this out of context" left me impressed, and I haven't marked Harris down as somebody who'd do that for effect, to claim victimhood etc. I also don't believe that he does so for his usual audience, because they most likely know his general positions, know that he's not alt-right or a white supremacist and that he may say something that doesn't intuitively sound "okay" but usually has at least some reason for it. On the contrary, I think he does it purely for the Twitter mob who is sure to look for material in whatever he says. And that's really just a sad state of affairs, when any public utterance is basically "my lawyer has advised me not to answer that question" because whatever you say can and will be used against you in the court of public opinion, will be taken out of context and will be enhanced with rumors and lies.

That's not specific to Sam Harris, of course, and the tactic isn't specific to whatever you want to label the people who hate him. It's pretty universal in both the targets and those that target them.

it has the feel of the religious witch hunt because that is exactly what is has become. Many of these groups no longer look at data or science or any empirical evidence for the basis of their positions or policy, it is pure emotional dogma at this point. They are non-theistic religions

Political groups have replaced religious groups as providing a sense of meaning and purpose in modern times.

Politics is the new religion. Combine that with destabilizing effects of instant communication and social media and you get what we have now. Essentially divergent realities created by our narrow casted views (news feeds) that create a modern day tower of Babel moment where we literally can't understand each other.

And they heavily share the proselytizing aspect of many religions as well.

I generally doubt that the striking down of religion was a force for good. When we've kept the "group identity generation" only partially in this world and a lot in the next, you can feel all high and mighty knowing that you will go to paradise while the wrong-believers will go to hell, and God will judge everybody.

Now, there's no more God to judge, there's no more "in the afterlife", there's only here and now, and everything becomes an integral part of your identity, from your programming language to your favored comic universe, and it all feels much fiercer. Maybe it's the lack of the after-life where they can be punished, so you need to see them punished in this life.

Scott’s “Meditations on Moloch” is a good summary of the underlying issue. It’s too bad I can’t provide a link.

John McWhorter makes this exact claim in his debate on the damage of racism and anti-racism. Its an interesting full debate but here is just his opening remarks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mT2rlJe9cuU