A note from all of a month ago↗:
Looking back, the most excruciating thing about Spiers' telling↱ is its familiarity:
It seemed reasonable enough in its moment, but time has shown it too much ask of the Rationalists. Clearly, Spiers expected too much.
I'd also like to see people who self-identify as Rationalists be a little more self-aware about when they are letting their emotions trample their logic—when they're tempted to argue that questions of justice are ancillary to question of progress, and when they, for example, get angry and project all manner of emotion onto reporters whose reporting they don't like.
But mostly, I want them to be more rigorous: to acknowledge that ideas are meaningless in a vacuum that does not include real world material conditions, and that people pursuing innovation are not the only people who matter, or even the people who matter most.
But mostly, I want them to be more rigorous: to acknowledge that ideas are meaningless in a vacuum that does not include real world material conditions, and that people pursuing innovation are not the only people who matter, or even the people who matter most.
It seemed reasonable enough in its moment, but time has shown it too much ask of the Rationalists. Clearly, Spiers expected too much.
Yes, that rationalism. That Yudkowski.
(See also: #3746935↗, "one of the more nuanced considerations of the larger circumstance is Spiers' reflection on the Slate Star debacle".)
†
Speaking of excruciating, the Spiers article will distress any number of people who, say, complain about my posts. Hers is even more so. There's a lot that goes into it, but for the moment:
I still believe Balaji is frighteningly intelligent, but I would vastly prefer that he use those powers for good than, well, whatever this is. I believe he has similar, ah, reservations about my career trajectory, and obviously believes Peter Thiel, his mentor and friend, was right about Gawker.
SSC is influential in a small but powerful corner of the tech industry. It is not, however, a site that most people, even at The New York Times, are aware exists …
If tech journalism were overwhelmingly negative, tech culture would be very different. Entrepreneurs with mediocre ideas would not be hailed as innovators. The tech industry itself would not be able to claim repeatedly, with a straight face, that everything it does is "changing the world." People would not aspire to be the next Mark Zuckerberg, even though Zuckerberg has many disturbing qualities that should not be replicated outside of computer simulations.
And last time I checked, the dominant narrative about the tech sector is that it's a desirable place to work, full of smart people who specialize in innovation, and responsible for a big chunk of our progress as a species. And tech media reflects that far more than it doesn't. The Times article referred to the tech industry as a community of iconoclasts, and somehow that is not flattering enough to some people. (My own experience of the tech industry is more akin to what Harold Rosenberg referred to as a "herd of independent minds.")
This demand for unalloyed positivity is exacerbated by a reactionary grievance culture in some corners of the tech industry that interprets critique as persecution, in part because of a widespread belief that good intentions exculpate bad behavior. Why be critical of people who are just trying to change the world? … Why be so negative all the time? Why be negative at all?
When I was the editor-in-chief of The New York Observer, my boss Jared Kushner tried a couple of times to talk me into doing "hit pieces" in the paper, and I refused. He even suggested I do one on someone who had bashed me publicly and I had to explain to him that real journalists do not do "hit pieces"; they follow the reporting wherever it goes. Jared thought they did because he conflated negative portrayals with malicious portrayals … In Jared's view, they were "out to get" his father. In Jared's mind, because this is the narrative that makes sense to him and is also the most self-serving, his father did nothing wrong. He was railroaded by Chris Christie and the media, the latter of whom wanted to take him down.
People who focus on the things about it they didn't like might miss the way it articulated why the site was powerful and compelling for a lot of people, though I think Sam Altman's quotes make that clear. Instead they focus on a line of critique that's been there from the beginning, which is that discussions around free speech often ignore the role of power in determining who gets to be an absolutist and who doesn't.
The idea that women lose interest, in the context of what Scott is saying, implies that they just, I dunno, get bored with it. In fact, they are explicitly discouraged and in some cases heavily disincentivized to pursue it. Even studies put out by big tech companies acknowledge that it's not about innate interest in the topic; it's about social dynamics: peer pressure, lack of role models, and the fact that girls are punished more heavily for failure, which is a problem when learning to code is about failing repeatedly and learning from it. Is this a nuance worthy of distinction? A lot of women think so, and sociological explanations tend to be heavily discounted on SSC.
And for all of the talk on SSC about advancing broad discussions and provocative ideas, there are a lot of recurring themes and not much deviation, which isn't a problem inherently, but puts the lie to the claim that this is all really just about unimpeded discussion of ideas.
In 2017, I met with a Silicon Valley billionaire to discuss a media property I wanted to build. He asked me the famous "Peter Thiel question", which is some variation of: what do you think is true that no one else thinks is true?
I also worked in industries that said they were meritocracies but consistently promoted less qualified white men at the expense of women and people of color. (Tech is terrible about this and in denial.) I got the sense that a lot of men in tech viewed women as NPCs—Non-Player Characters—who were simply incidental to their own narrative arcs, and not capable of self-actualization themselves.
I saw the libertarian policies that were supposed to work in theory to elevate the best things, entrench power and quash innovation and competition at its natal stages. Libertarianism came to seem like a form of codified naïveté that assumed people made rational economic decisions on the whole, and behaved in a way that took personal responsibility for adhering to ethics, and not causing harm to others. It also had a fantastical definition of freedom that asserted that absolute freedom was both socially desirable and possible, and denied that absolute freedom for some is contingent upon being willing to harm others. And that absolute freedom, in its extreme incarnation does not exist and no one wants it, not even the libertarians.
Even anarchists have norms these days.
I suggest an easier route than summoning an army of bots, oppo researchers, Dark Enlightenment (ironic labeling for whatever that constitutes) warriors, etc., to go after journalists whose work you don't like: pay careful attention to what you're afraid they're going to write, and why you wouldn't want it to be public. Then apply some rational thinking.
‡
SSC is influential in a small but powerful corner of the tech industry. It is not, however, a site that most people, even at The New York Times, are aware exists …
‡
If tech journalism were overwhelmingly negative, tech culture would be very different. Entrepreneurs with mediocre ideas would not be hailed as innovators. The tech industry itself would not be able to claim repeatedly, with a straight face, that everything it does is "changing the world." People would not aspire to be the next Mark Zuckerberg, even though Zuckerberg has many disturbing qualities that should not be replicated outside of computer simulations.
‡
And last time I checked, the dominant narrative about the tech sector is that it's a desirable place to work, full of smart people who specialize in innovation, and responsible for a big chunk of our progress as a species. And tech media reflects that far more than it doesn't. The Times article referred to the tech industry as a community of iconoclasts, and somehow that is not flattering enough to some people. (My own experience of the tech industry is more akin to what Harold Rosenberg referred to as a "herd of independent minds.")
‡
This demand for unalloyed positivity is exacerbated by a reactionary grievance culture in some corners of the tech industry that interprets critique as persecution, in part because of a widespread belief that good intentions exculpate bad behavior. Why be critical of people who are just trying to change the world? … Why be so negative all the time? Why be negative at all?
‡
When I was the editor-in-chief of The New York Observer, my boss Jared Kushner tried a couple of times to talk me into doing "hit pieces" in the paper, and I refused. He even suggested I do one on someone who had bashed me publicly and I had to explain to him that real journalists do not do "hit pieces"; they follow the reporting wherever it goes. Jared thought they did because he conflated negative portrayals with malicious portrayals … In Jared's view, they were "out to get" his father. In Jared's mind, because this is the narrative that makes sense to him and is also the most self-serving, his father did nothing wrong. He was railroaded by Chris Christie and the media, the latter of whom wanted to take him down.
‡
People who focus on the things about it they didn't like might miss the way it articulated why the site was powerful and compelling for a lot of people, though I think Sam Altman's quotes make that clear. Instead they focus on a line of critique that's been there from the beginning, which is that discussions around free speech often ignore the role of power in determining who gets to be an absolutist and who doesn't.
‡
The idea that women lose interest, in the context of what Scott is saying, implies that they just, I dunno, get bored with it. In fact, they are explicitly discouraged and in some cases heavily disincentivized to pursue it. Even studies put out by big tech companies acknowledge that it's not about innate interest in the topic; it's about social dynamics: peer pressure, lack of role models, and the fact that girls are punished more heavily for failure, which is a problem when learning to code is about failing repeatedly and learning from it. Is this a nuance worthy of distinction? A lot of women think so, and sociological explanations tend to be heavily discounted on SSC.
And for all of the talk on SSC about advancing broad discussions and provocative ideas, there are a lot of recurring themes and not much deviation, which isn't a problem inherently, but puts the lie to the claim that this is all really just about unimpeded discussion of ideas.
‡
In 2017, I met with a Silicon Valley billionaire to discuss a media property I wanted to build. He asked me the famous "Peter Thiel question", which is some variation of: what do you think is true that no one else thinks is true?
‡
I also worked in industries that said they were meritocracies but consistently promoted less qualified white men at the expense of women and people of color. (Tech is terrible about this and in denial.) I got the sense that a lot of men in tech viewed women as NPCs—Non-Player Characters—who were simply incidental to their own narrative arcs, and not capable of self-actualization themselves.
‡
I saw the libertarian policies that were supposed to work in theory to elevate the best things, entrench power and quash innovation and competition at its natal stages. Libertarianism came to seem like a form of codified naïveté that assumed people made rational economic decisions on the whole, and behaved in a way that took personal responsibility for adhering to ethics, and not causing harm to others. It also had a fantastical definition of freedom that asserted that absolute freedom was both socially desirable and possible, and denied that absolute freedom for some is contingent upon being willing to harm others. And that absolute freedom, in its extreme incarnation does not exist and no one wants it, not even the libertarians.
Even anarchists have norms these days.
‡
I suggest an easier route than summoning an army of bots, oppo researchers, Dark Enlightenment (ironic labeling for whatever that constitutes) warriors, etc., to go after journalists whose work you don't like: pay careful attention to what you're afraid they're going to write, and why you wouldn't want it to be public. Then apply some rational thinking.
Four years later, the episode and its implications seem emblematic. Not only do players like Thiel, Altman, and Zuckerberg make appearances, but the whole thing is a microcosmic glimpse into the tescreal ambition.
____________________
Notes:
Spiers, Elizabeth. "Slate Star Clusterfuck". My New Band Is. 14 February 2021. MyNewBandIs.Substack.com. 19 January 2025. https://bit.ly/3dB68My