Slate Star Codex

Slate Star Codex (often abbreviated SSC) was a long-form blog written by a San Francisco Bay Area psychiatrist known by his pseudonym Scott Alexander. The blog focused on science, medicine (especially within psychiatry), philosophy, politics, and futurism. The blog's name was based on an approximate anagram of "Scott Alexander".

Slate Star Codex
Type of site
Blog
Available inEnglish
Created byScott Alexander
URLwww.slatestarcodex.com
Alexa rank 50,352 (Global, July 2019)
LaunchedFebruary 12, 2013 (2013-02-12)
Current status"kind of deleted"[1]

Slate Star Codex was taken down by its author on 23 June 2020, due to fears of having his real name published in an upcoming piece by the New York Times.[2]

Prior to starting Slate Star Codex, Alexander blogged at the rationalist community blog LessWrong.

Reception

Slate Star Codex was described by Slate as a "widely read site".[3] A post from the blog, No Time Like The Present for AI Safety Work, was reprinted as a chapter in The Technological Singularity: Managing the Journey, edited by Victor Callaghan, James Miller, Roman Yampolskiy, and Stuart Armstrong, and published by Springer. The blog has been used as an academic source on American politics.[4] Campbell and Manning's The Rise of Victimhood Culture references an SSC post in their chapter "Trigger Warnings, Safe Spaces, and the Language of Victimhood".[5]

Economist Tyler Cowen has called Scott Alexander "a thinker who is influential among other writers".[6] Articles on the blog have been regularly featured on the top 100 list of "The Best of Journalism" at The Atlantic.[7][8][9][10]

New York Times incident

Scott Alexander is the author's true first and middle name. He has attempted to conceal his last name for privacy, citing professional and safety concerns. In June 2020, he deleted most of the content on Slate Star Codex after claiming that a New York Times technology reporter intended to publish an article about the blog using his full name. According to Alexander, the reporter told him that it was newspaper policy to use real names.[1][2] The Times responded: "We do not comment on what we may or may not publish in the future. But when we report on newsworthy or influential figures, our goal is always to give readers all the accurate and relevant information we can."[11] Conservative magazine National Review criticized the Times for applying its anonymity policy inconsistently.[2] An article in Reason agreed in part with Alexander's rationale regarding the ethical obligations of his occupation, but questioned his reported fear of death threats.[12] It noted that while "publishing information about a person without their permission" was standard practice in journalism, "it's still hard to see what was about to happen to Alexander as anything other than doxxing", and perceived an inconsistency in the Times' willingness to accommodate requests for anonymity, comparing the current situation to a February article in which the Times did not use the subject's real name.[12] As reported by The Daily Beast, the criticism by Alexander and his supporters caused considerable internal debate among the New York Times' newsroom staff.[3]

References
  1. Alexander, Scott (22 June 2020). "NYT Is Threatening My Safety By Revealing My Real Name, So I Am Deleting The Blog". Slate Star Codex. Retrieved 23 June 2020.
  2. Hoonhout, Tobias (23 June 2020). "What an NYT Reporter's Doxing Threat Says about the Paper's 'Standards'". National Review. Retrieved 23 June 2020.
  3. Tani, Maxwell (2020-06-24). "The Latest Squabble Inside The New York Times". The Daily Beast. Retrieved 2020-06-26.
  4. al Gharbi, Musa (December 2018). "Race and the Race for the White House: On Social Research in the Age of Trump". The American Sociologist. 49 (4): 496–519. doi:10.1007/s12108-018-9373-5.
  5. Campbell, Bradley; Manning, Jason (2018). "Trigger Warnings, Safe Spaces, and the Language of Victimhood". The Rise of Victimhood Culture. pp. 71–104. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-70329-9_3. ISBN 978-3-319-70328-2.
  6. Cowen, Tyler (May 4, 2018). "Tyler Cowen: Holding up a mirror to intellectuals of the left". Twin Cities Pioneer Press. Retrieved July 3, 2019.
  7. Friedersdorf, Conor (July 23, 2015). "Roughly 100 Fantastic Pieces of Journalism". The Atlantic. Retrieved July 4, 2019.
  8. Friedersdorf, Conor (August 11, 2016). "Slightly More Than 100 Exceptional Works of Journalism". The Atlantic. Retrieved July 4, 2019.
  9. Friedersdorf, Conor (September 4, 2017). "More Than 100 Exceptional Works of Journalism". The Atlantic. Retrieved July 4, 2019.
  10. Friedersdorf, Conor (August 28, 2018). "Slightly More Than 100 Fantastic Articles". The Atlantic. Retrieved July 4, 2019.
  11. Athey, Amber (23 June 2020). "The death of the private citizen". Spectator USA. Retrieved 23 June 2020.
  12. Soave, Robby (24 June 2020). "The New York Times's Inconsistent Standards Drove Slate Star Codex To Self-Cancel". Reason. Retrieved 24 June 2020.
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