The NYT overstated the influence of both Slate Star Codex and the Rationalist community on Silicon Valley, and falsely portrayed the tech industry as right-wing
NoahpinionNoah Smith
Context & Ripple Effects
Two days after the New York Times ran its feature tracing how the Rationalist community, with Slate Star Codex as its epicenter, connects to influential tech leaders including OpenAI's founders, Noah Smith's Noahpinion blog published a direct rebuttal arguing the paper overstated that influence and falsely cast the industry as right-wing.
The rebuttal lands on ground already mapped by the New Yorker, whose July 2020 deep dive documented the [[a:955613|rift between prominent Silicon Valley figures and journalists increasingly critical of tech]], using the same Slate Star Codex-vs-NYT clash as its case study — so this is now a running dispute between two camps, not a one-off profile.
First-order effects
The NYT's reporting on the Rationalist-to-Silicon-Valley pipeline now faces a public accuracy challenge from within tech commentary, putting pressure on the paper's framing of both Slate Star Codex's reach and the industry's politics.
The community members and founders the piece profiled — including OpenAI's founders — gain a ready-made counter-narrative to cite against the characterization.
Second-order effects
The dispute hardens the SV-figures-versus-critical-journalists standoff the New Yorker documented, giving tech leaders fresh evidence for their distrust of mainstream tech coverage and raising the cost for outlets of profiling insular online communities.
Commentary blogs like Noahpinion position themselves as the fact-checking layer between legacy media and the tech audience, siphoning credibility from whichever side overreaches.
Third-order effects
If the pattern holds, coverage of Silicon Valley's subcultures becomes contested terrain in which every major profile triggers a rebuttal cycle, pushing readers toward partisan intermediaries and making accuracy disputes part of the story itself.
The trend: Legacy-media profiles of Silicon Valley's online subcultures are increasingly met with organized counter-coverage from tech-side commentators, turning journalism about the industry into another front in the tech-media rift.
To understand the recent NYT article about Scott Alexander, you need to understand the forum SA's detractors hang out in, SneerClub. Here's how it advertises itself, on its sidebar: “the club attracts psychologically f'd-up people. Bullies, in a word”. https://archive.is/Vplke
A New York Times article about Slate Star Codex advanced the stereotype that Silicon Valley is full of fascists. That stereotype is wrong. Almost everyone out here is just a standard liberal nerd. https://noahpinion.substack.com/ ...
@nickconfessore @mattyglesias An irony is how many of the Silicon Valley types who built this machine have also built a whole subculture devoted to decrying the resulting intellectual trends
Scott Siskind and I often don't see eye to eye. But the narrative that his blog was converting Silicon Valley to fascism is a fantasy. https://noahpinion.substack.com/ ...
I think this is directionally wrong, though not very wrong, but does a MUCH better job of engaging with the controversy than Yglesias did. I recommend reading this. https://noahpinion.substack.com/ ...
“...journalism...has tilted too far...with too much room-reading and groupthink, and not enough appreciation of the value of annoying people with inconvenient observations.” @mattyglesias https://www.slowboring.com/...
Read @Noahpinion instead. There might be rabbits “...the narrative of a pipeline of fascist ideas from Rationalist blogs to the minds of the powerful people building the future is certainly a juicy one, but it just doesn't have much evidence to back it up” https://noahpinion.subs…
“the way you learn things and get smarter is to read strong writers and try to understand what they're saying. Not try to pick it apart for clout or find ways to caricature and snark about it.” @mattyglesias https://www.slowboring.com/...
The NYT article on @slatestarcodex seemed to have real trouble with the idea of broad intellectual discourse and interests, and that a wide range of people with different views could actually care. I think @mattyglesias got it roughly right in https://www.slowboring.com/...
This is a great discussion of @slatestarcodex, the rationalist community, and norms of discourse I don't agree with 100% of it, but it's a lot more well-informed & perceptive than average, and even the criticisms of the rationalists are pretty fair IMO https://www.slowboring.com/…
What's interesting about all the analysis of dunk avoidance is that I never see the antidote “unfollow all but those who post good Bolognese recipes.” Seriously. https://twitter.com/...
Probably the best take on the long awaited NYT article on @slatestarcodex. Turns out that sometimes good things don't come to those who wait. https://twitter.com/...
The notion that the Bay Area or tech industry are full of conservatives, let alone neoreactionaries, is, as a purely factual matter, abject nonsense: https://noahpinion.substack.com/ ...
“I think contemporary society is willing itself into a state of incredible stupidity by people wanting to evaluating the worthwhileness of reading something purely on the basis of whether or not it's correct.” https://www.slowboring.com/...
Is the NYT the most important paper in the world? Yes. Is any paper better? No. Is there a trend of weirdness and poor decision coming from it lately? Absolutely. Not sure what's going on over there. They need to tighten things up ASAP. https://twitter.com/...
I have to say, that other than the final sentence being a reading test for people claiming the NYT doxed the blog's author, I struggled to find any kind of strong ‘point’ to that NYT article. https://twitter.com/...
Am I the only one who finds this guy Scott Alexander's blog really boring and desperately in need of editing, setting aside the controversy over this article and his views? https://twitter.com/...
I decided to go for a walk to the beach rather than engage in the New York Times kerfuffle this time around. Matt Yglesias has a pretty nice piece on it though. https://twitter.com/...
I absolutely loved this new @mattyglesias piece. The part about how the internet is warping the way we read opposing arguments is especially choice https://www.slowboring.com/...
Some thoughts on the NYT @slatestarcodex article, but more broadly on the need for antidotes to conformism and mediocrity enforced via Twitter dunk. https://www.slowboring.com/...
Don't normally post articles at 11:15 PM on a Saturday night, but I figure most of the people interested in this topic are west coast nerds so.... https://www.slowboring.com/...
I often disagree with @mattyglesias, but this is a strong piece. Worth your time. In defense of interesting writing on controversial topics - Slow Boring https://www.slowboring.com/...
The important takeaway from @mattyglesias is that there's too much pressure for ideological conformity and not enough value on learning from writers with whom we disagree https://www.slowboring.com/...
It's debatable whether I qualify as a west coast nerd, and I'm not particular immersed in rationalist discourse or SCC, but this is a good post (especially the last section, which gets at how Twitter encourages users to unproductively engage with writers they disagree with). http…
I always prefer to read the subject victim's Statement on the New York Times Article than the article itself because that way you get the actual thinking. https://astralcodexten.substack.com/ ... https://twitter.com/...
I thought the NYT article threaded the needle fine on who it thought the article reflected on. besides that Noah makes fair points. But isn't it well understood by everyone that Silicon Valley is mostly Democrats. Media wrote stories of masses of Bernie donors https://twitter.com…
@karaswisher @nbashaw @CadeMetz Since the _New York Times_ does not have an ombudsman to ask about this, I am going to go with my friend Noah Smith's judgment on @CadeMetz: strongly negative: **Noah Smith**: _Silicon Valley Isn't Full of Fascists_ <https://noahpinion.substack.com…
“There's a small, lonely-looking lump of conservatives over on the right. That undoubtedly includes Peter Thiel and a few other prominent conservatives. But they are iconoclasts within an industry that leans very strongly to the left.” https://noahpinion.substack.com/ ...
My response to the Times article about Slate Star Codex: 1. There's no evidence it was very popular or influential in the tech world 2. Techies (including founders) are OVERWHELMINGLY liberals 3. Rationalists care mostly about esoterica, not politics https://noahpinion.substack.c…