>> In his first post [on Astral Codex Ten], Mr. Siskind shared his full name.
Did you actually read the post where Scott explains why? Because at that point it was impossible to keep it private. He was also forced to quit his job. The fact that he landed on his feet doesn't mean there wasn't a cost paid.
What was happening in this story was that Scott Alexander was demanding everyone else's assistance in maintaining his pseudonym and pretending the real identity behind it was unknowable. That's a reasonable request to make in a community of peers (it's why I'll keep using "Alexander" on HN, for instance). It is not remotely a reasonable demand to make of strangers, let alone journalists.
This is another instance of message board thought seeping into the real world, and it's always alarming to me to see that, because while message board thought is fun, it's also deeply weird and dysfunctional.
"Scott Alexander was demanding everyone else's assistance in maintaining his pseudonym and pretending the real identity behind it was unknowable."
Absolutely false. Scott admits many times that it's trivial for his real identity to be known if you search around for Scott Alexander.
Scott Alexander -> Scott Sisnick (trivial)
What Scott was concerned about what his searching his real name being resoundingly brought to Scott Alexander, a major issue for his psychiatrist-patient relationships, as he demonstrates that psychiatrists need to maintain a blank slate for their patients to project onto, so that the patients don't hide or alter the behavior knowing something about their psychiatrist. That's very mainstream psychiatry. And there were concerns about current psychiatric patients he was seeing possibly being affected by this.
Before: Scott Sisnick -> "psychiatrist, bay area, studied at X, etc."
After: Scott Sisnick -> "Scott Alexander, rationalist, providing a platform for white nationalists, racism, etc."
By way of example, a friend just told me on Twitter that it's super important that patients not be able to look up their therapists on the Internet and learn more about their personal lives. But that's definitely not a norm! I checked with several therapists I know personally.
I feel like people are scrambling to invent Internet rules that allow Alexander to coerce journalists, and I don't find that effort especially persuasive.
But, as Scott has said numerous times, he simply wanted to make it hard for his patients to google his name and find his blog, so that he could continue practicing psychiatry. That's a perfectly reasonable request to ask of anyone, including journalists.
[1] https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Technological_Singu...
These arguments about why we're all obligated to cooperate with Alexander's attempt to walk his identity back always seem to be inventing new norms, like the norm of "if a doctor slips up and writes political essays under their real name, then, for the sake of the doctor's career, every other person in the world should pretend that real name was never disclosed". It's a reasonable thing to want, but not to expect.
My name is not secret. It is, however, private.
At the start of the post but there's more further in.
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/still-alive
There's s also this from The NYT initially contacted him with his reasoning for protecting his job (which didn't work out)
>I think it’s plausible that if I became a national news figure under my real name, my patients – who run the gamut from far-left to far-right – wouldn’t be able to engage with me in a normal therapeutic way. I also worry that my clinic would decide I am more of a liability than an asset and let me go, which would leave hundreds of patients in a dangerous situation as we tried to transition their care.
https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/06/22/nyt-is-threatening-my-...
It seems like he's pretty clear that he chose to quit. He says his job was "tentatively willing to try to make it work". It appears to me that he's shown a consistent pattern of overstating the effects of his name being revealed, so I don't put a lot of stock in "tentatively".
I am quite convinced he simply didn't want his name in the paper because he knows he's said some edgy stuff (ie, explicitly comparing himself to Charles Murray).
The sources he provides as supporting the importance of therapeutic anonymity appear to be debates, as opposed to, say, APA guidelines emphasizing its importance. And that's a one sided picture, where Scott is digging for evidence to support his claim.
Part of his argument is that he has already faced threats and harassment. Okay, and he still didn't take basic steps to anonymize himself, so apparently this didn't concern him so much in the past. His argument is that he has a lot of crazy, nutso enemies. But those people could already easily find him.
He's been pretty clear about his dislike for SJWs and distrust for the news media (I mean this in the most value-neutral way possible). That's fine, but I think it's silly to make up a bunch of reasons your name shouldn't be in the paper.
He even comes out and says that it's simply his preference for anonymity:
>Why didn't I do this? Partly because it wasn't true. I don't think I had particularly strong arguments on any of these points. The amount I dislike death threats is basically the average amount that the average person would dislike them. The amount I would dislike losing my job...and et cetera. Realistically, my anonymity let me feel safe and comfortable. But it probably wasn't literally necessary to keep me alive. I feel bad admitting this, like I conscripted you all into a crusade on false pretenses. Am I an entitled jerk for causing such a stir just so I can feel safe and comfortable? I'm sure the New York Times customer service representatives who had to deal with all your phone calls thought so.
Again, he did not lose his job. They were willing to keep him, and he quit anyways.
>In the New York Times' worldview, they start with the right to dox me, and I had to earn the right to remain anonymous by proving I'm the perfect sympathetic victim who satisfies all their criteria of victimhood. But in my worldview, I start with the right to anonymity, and they need to make an affirmative case for doxxing me. I admit I am not the perfect victim. The death threats against me are all by losers who probably don't know which side of a gun you shoot someone with. If anything happened at work, it would probably inconvenience me and my patients, but probably wouldn't literally kill either of us. Still! Don't kick me in the fucking balls!
Replace "dox" with "include my name, which was found on my blog, in a news story about my blog", and yes, that's a default-allow unless you have some really extraordinary circumstances.
