Silicon Valley’s Risk-free Area – The New York Times

More than 7,500 folks signed a petition urging The Periods not to publish his identify, like many popular figures in the tech market. “Putting his whole name in The Moments,” the petitioners stated, “would meaningfully harm general public discourse, by discouraging private citizens from sharing their thoughts in blog variety.” On the net, several in Silicon Valley believe that, anyone has the right not only to say what they want but to say it anonymously.

Amid all this, I spoke with Manoel Horta Ribeiro, a laptop or computer science researcher who explores social networks at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne. He was apprehensive that Slate Star Codex, like other communities, was enabling extremist views to trickle into the influential tech planet. “A community like this offers voice to fringe teams,” he claimed. “It provides a system to men and women who hold much more severe views.”

But for Kelsey Piper and many other individuals, the key concern came down to the identify, and tying the man identified skillfully and legally as Scott Siskind to his influential, and controversial, writings as Scott Alexander. Ms. Piper, who is a journalist herself, for the information web page Vox, explained she did not concur with everything he experienced published, but she also felt his site was unfairly painted as an on-ramp to radical views. She worried his sights could not be reduced to a one newspaper tale.

I confident her my intention was to report on the web site, and the Rationalists, with rigor and fairness. But she felt that speaking about both of those critics and supporters could be unfair. What I desired to do, she claimed, was someway show statistically which side was right.

When I requested Mr. Altman if the dialogue on web-sites like Slate Star Codex could push men and women toward poisonous beliefs, he said he held “some empathy” for these fears. But, he included, “people need a discussion board to debate thoughts.”

In August, Mr. Siskind restored his previous blog posts to the net. And two weeks in the past, he relaunched his blog site on Substack, a company with ties to each Andreessen Horowitz and Y Combinator. He gave the web site a new title: Astral Codex 10. He hinted that Substack paid him $250,000 for a yr on the platform. And he indicated the corporation would give him all the security he essential.

In his very first submit, Mr. Siskind shared his comprehensive name.