[kelnos]

That's essentially a retaliatory hit piece the NYT printed because they were mad that Scott deleted his website because the NYT wanted to doxx him. Not saying there's no merit to the article, but it should be looked upon skeptically due to that bias.

[mola]

I just read this..I don't understand where the hit piece is...

Seems pretty factual.

The hysteria in the "rationalist" circles is mirroring the so called "Blue tribe" quite accurately.

[ZYbCRq22HbJ2y7]

> NYT wanted to doxx him

NYT wanted to report on who he was. He doxxed himself years before that (as mentioned in that article). They eventually also reported on that (after Alexander revealed his name, seeing that it was going to come out anyway, I guess), which is an asshole thing to do, but not doxxing, IMO.

[lmm]

> NYT wanted to report on who he was.

They wanted to report specifically his birth/legal name, with no plausible public interest reason. If it wasn't "stochastic terrorism" (as the buzzword of the day was) then it sure looked a lot like it.

> He doxxed himself years before that

Few people manage to keep anything 100% secret. Realistically private/public is a spectrum not a binary, and publication in the NYT is a pretty drastic step up.

[bccdee]

> They wanted to report specifically his birth/legal name, with no plausible public interest reason.

Siskind is a public figure and his name was already publicly known. He wanted a special exception to NYT's normal reporting practices.

> Realistically private/public is a spectrum not a binary

IIRC his name would autocomplete as a suggested search term in the Google search bar even before the article was published. He was already far too far toward the "public" end of that spectrum to throw a tantrum the way he did.

[lmm]

> He wanted a special exception to NYT's normal reporting practices.

The NYT had already profiled e.g. Kendrick Lamar without mentioning his birth/legal name, so he certainly wasn't asking for something unprecedented.

[bccdee]

Siskind is a practicing psychiatrist, which is relevant to his profile. Using his real name makes it possible to discuss that. Putting Kendrick's surname ("Duckworth") into the profile adds nothing.

Siskind is a public figure—I don't know why so many people think he is entitled to demand that NYT only discuss him in the ways he wants to be discussed (i.e. not connecting his blog to his physciatric practice).

[lmm]

> Siskind is a practicing psychiatrist, which is relevant to his profile. Using his real name makes it possible to discuss that.

The NYT of all entities should be comfortable talking about whether someone has particular qualifications or a particular job without feeling the need to publish their birth/legal name.

> Siskind is a public figure—I don't know why so many people think he is entitled to demand that NYT only discuss him in the ways he wants to be discussed (i.e. not connecting his blog to his physciatric practice).

Again the NYT of all entities should understand that there are good reasons to hide people's private details. People get very angry about some of the things Alexander writes, there are plausible threats of violence against him, and even if there weren't, everyone agrees that names are private information that shouldn't be published without good reason. His blog is public, the fact of him being or not being a practising psychiatrist may be in the public interest to talk about, but where's the argument that that means you need to publish his name specifically?