[CompelTechnic]

>the hunter, logger, and geologist will walk through the same patch of wilderness and see an entirely different forest, for each eye is trained to notice something different. The more abstract the things observed the greater individual variance there will be. For intangible social processes like market exchange, mass movements, and elections, our understanding is all model, no matter.

I really like this snippet. Captures an idea I hadn't ever been able to put into words before.

[slibhb]

By using that analogy, the author puts himself above his subjects. He understands various perspectives (reporters, editors, rationalists, SV "decentralization" fanatics), and that they are mere perspectives, while also acknowledging their relative validity.

This entails a meta-perspective, a perspective-of-perspectives. This kind of consciousness is why people like Scott Alexander: he makes an attempt to understand other people's perspectives and rarely dismisses anything out of hand.

The questions is...why is this sort of consciousness, that understands the relative validity of virtually everyone's perspective, so uncommon outside of various internet blogs? Is it too much to ask for editors and reporters with this kind of open-mindedness?

[theonemind]

I think this book, "The Master and his Emissary" https://www.amazon.com/The-Master-and-His-Emissary-audiobook... would argue that the right hemisphere of our brain acknowledges multiple perspectives and contextualizes them, and that our culture suffers from a severe left hemisphere bias.

Brain lateralization probably isn't what you think it is since pop culture gets almost everything about it wrong and it has become a career-ender for academic study so that no one synthesizes the research into coherent theses. Sadly, the topic has gotten such a bad reputation that I have to take a brief moment to defend the validity of bringing it up.

[tux3]

It's possible that too much openness has a failure mode in indecisiveness, and acceptance of any and everything.

Not dismissing people's perspectives is one thing, but if you cannot actually understand them, will that really help you make better decisions, or are you getting lost by adding more complex dimensions to a problem you already barely understand?

Open-mindedness is beneficial in general, but it cannot be blind. Some perspectives are just wrong. How do you cut through the noise?

[slibhb]

You do have to pick a side. But you should be able to choose while keeping in mind that your choice is contingent. That is, if circumstances change, so might your choice. And even when picking a side, there's no need to purge from your mind the recognition of the relative validity of other perspectives.

[webnrrd2k]

The issue of accounting for other people's opinions and experiences is a good one to bring up - it is a broad way of framing this whole SSC controversy.

Part of the reason why it's rare is, I think, because of our schools. A lot of education pushes people to see things as having only one correct answer. That it's more important to win the debate than to explore ideas. There is not much emphasis on how one develops solid and correct ideas. There is a tendency towards justifying ideas, coming up with good-sounding reasons, whether or not they are actually true.

Also, writing that explores other perspectives in a fact-based manner can easily come across as an if-by-whiskey fallacy [1].

As far as a real answer goes - I think that it's a genuinly difficult problem. Religious figures have been talking about perspectives and empathy and compassion for thousands of years. It's clearly a big thing.

As far as the specifics of the SSC controversy, my attempt to understand both sides is this: Scott made ethical commitments as a psychiatrist, both to his clients in particular and his profession in general. The NYT made ethical commitments both to their readers in particular and to journalistic standards in general. In the SSC controversy these commitments conflict. Whose commitments should win? Whose commitments are the most important?

Scott found a way to make his ethical commitments work for him. Maybe it was a compromise, but I think it worked well enough so that his patients couldn't easily find out who he was. I think that the NYT could have easily made it work with their commitments, and everyone would have been better off.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/If-by-whiskey#:~:text=If%20w...

[covidthrow]

> Scott made ethical commitments as a psychiatrist, both to his clients in particular and his profession in general. The NYT made ethical commitments both to their readers in particular and to journalistic standards in general. In the SSC controversy these commitments conflict.

I'm sorry, what "ethical commitments" did the NYT have that required them to reveal Scott's identity? They have—over the last few years—systematically abused the privilege of anonymous sources. If this was some sort of manifest reversal of said abuse, I could maybe understand. But that's not what this was. It was a partisan choice to "out" him in a direct or incidental attempt to cancel/silence him.

They hold absolute secrecy for other sources that seek anonymity. (Or, in some cases, when revelation of that source wouldn't be a good look for their paper.) I cannot fathom any sort of ethical purpose—to their readers or to journalism—that necessitates his reveal.

Maybe you can help me understand the gymnastics of contorting ethics in such a way that this makes any logical sense, I would appreciate it. Because—from my vantage point and from innumerable other examples—the NYT has tossed every ethical framework out the window for the sake of their ego, id, wallets, power, and agenda.

They try to maintain the aire of integrity in their rapidly crumbling empire, but the emperor has no clothes. So please help me see what I'm missing.

[webnrrd2k]

I honestly don't know all of the ethical commitments that the NYT has made. But I'm assuming that they are at least broadly following some standard of journalistic ethics [1]. I believe that journalistic ethics are a fairly standard part of journalism school, and that many of the reporters at the NYT have been exposed to them.

As far as the NYT abusing their sources for the last few years, well, I could easily believe that it's true. But I think that it was clear from the context that I was speaking specifically about the current SSC controversy.

As far as doxing Scott, I agree that it was the wrong thing to do. Also, as Scott himself often discusses, it's important and worth while to try to understand the other side. For example, the New Statesman wrote about Scott's doxxing [2] earlier. It at least considers the possibility that the NYT has a reason for doxxing Scott, that they have a reason for their policies regarding anonymous sources.

It's certainly possible that the NYT is simply a bunch of slavering monsters who, as you wrote "tossed every ethical framework out the window for the sake of their ego, id, wallets, power, and agenda." But I'd bet that there was a fair bit of internal discussion over the issue. I'm willing to give them at least some credit, even if I disagree with their conclusions.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalism_ethics_and_standa...

[2] https://www.newstatesman.com/world/2020/06/why-new-york-time...

[covidthrow]

> I honestly don't know all of the ethical commitments that the NYT has made. But I'm assuming that they are at least broadly following some standard of journalistic ethics [1]. I believe that journalistic ethics are a fairly standard part of journalism school, and that many of the reporters at the NYT have been exposed to them.

I understand you aren't sure what they've enumerated for themselves. The point is that they don't follow most of the most obvious standards one could conceive on a whim. If one had no formal knowledge of ethics, but chose to engage in a quick thought experiment in which one identifies "the basis of communicating truth", the NYT (currently) do not adhere to practically any beyond "factual".

Let's say they follow the generalizations in your wikipedia link:

> ...most share common elements including the principles of truthfulness, accuracy, objectivity, impartiality, fairness, and public accountability.

Abject failure on:

- accuracy

- objectivity

- impartiality

And just a bit further down:

> ...the ethics of journalism include the principle of "limitation of harm." This may involve the withholding of certain details from reports, such as... information not materially related to the news report where the release of such information might, for example, harm someone's reputation.

Well the NYT article is an absolute rejection of this principal. (Not that you disagree.)

I'm not sure what ethical standards you do think they follow, but whatever conversation they had about whether to reveal his name (or the ethics of the article at large) clearly didn't emphasize honorable intent in good faith.

The most generous interpretation I can muster for their ethics revolves around some notion of, "for the greater good." But history is pretty clear that's an invariably evil form of ethics.

I have no doubt they think they're doing "good", but their rejection of objective standards puts them in the camp of "partisan propaganda", far away from "journalism".

[Bakary]

Editors and reporters have to reflect their audience and given them something at least somewhat relatable.

I would be careful though: we could also describe a meta-meta-perspective, where you recognize the dangerous seductiveness of thinking yourself one level of abstraction higher than others. But then that leads to an infinite recursion...

[fallingknife]

This perspective is what high end journalism like the NYT should be, but clearly isn't. I think that part of why the NYT has it in for Scott Alexander is because they know he is light years better than them.

[Nzen]

You might enjoy the 'Two ways of seeing a river' passage [0] from Mark Twain's _Life on the Mississippi_ which treats the same idea.

[0] I could not find the passage in Project Gutenberg's copy, though I found it reproduced here https://www.thoughtco.com/two-ways-of-seeing-a-river-by-mark...