The New York Times article about SlateStarCodex is finally out and it is...bad. There's a lot I could parse, but let me just walk you through one paragraph that is so misleading as to be

Take the first sentence of this paragraph. Now, technically the clause--"who proposed a link between race and IQ"--could simply modify "Murray" and have nothing to do w/ SSC.
But 99% of readers are going to assume that the clause actually defines SSC's alignment with Murray. In other words, the author is strongly implying that SSC shares Murray's racist beliefs.
And that would be big(!)...if it were at all true. It is not. Indeed, if you go to the hyperlink, you'll find that SSC's purported "alignment" has nothing to do with Murray's "Bell Curve." https://t.co/REh3Ldpokq
What SSC & Murray agree about is that poverty is partly hereditable and thus very sticky, so much so that the proposition job retraining programs will meaningfully address mass economic disruption is a pie-in-the-sky fantasy.
Funnily, this is a mundane progressive policy stance. Oh no, SSC believes poverty is...cyclical! Quelle horreur! Job retraining is a sop for politicians to show they're doing something rather than a meaningful solution to the decline of mid-20th c factory towns?? May it never be!
What the journalist is doing is lazy. If SSC says he *ever* agreed on *anything* with Charles Murray, than he *must* agree with Murray on *everything.* And since Murray has racist views on race and genetics, SSC must--by the transitive power of bad journalism--share those views.
This is dumb. If I were to propose that, say, Bernie Sanders' past expressions of admiration for socialist economies necessarily means he supports every atrocity committed by any socialist regime, you'd tell me to get a grip (and spend less time hanging out with Ben Shapiro).
Now, the second sentence in the paragraph is equally problematic, and much harder to track down since the author provided no hyperlink. Here it is.

No wonder he didn't provide a link; it doesn't say what he implies it does!

https://t.co/4Q3GrFr2zN
The author's juxtaposition of this sentence w/ the first strongly implies that SSC agrees with Murray's racist proposition. It's the same transitive illogic again.
But if you go and read the actual article, SSC is citing Murray not to agree with him but in order to parse the various ways that one might object to Murray's beliefs *as racist*.
In any case, the Times piece is chock full of sections which are, like this one, full of bad faith representation and accusation by grammatical implication. It's a bad piece that the @nytimes should yank.

More from Paul Matzko

This is a great question from @HeerJeet and it has very old roots. In my book, I discuss a similar period of anxiety in the 1960s about the possibility of Air Force officers being involved in a coup. Thread.


Given the size of the US military in WW2, afterwards there was a spike in concern that some of these demilitarized veterans would be amenable to radicalization and supportive of insurrection. These fears heightened after the coups in France/Algiers in 1958 and 1961.

This was the peak era of the Cold War, so anti-communist anxiety was layered over top. The Right feared that communist infiltrators in the government would subvert the Republic. The Left feared that anti-communist military officers would launch a preemptive, paranoid coup.

Note as well that the foundation for these fears was rooted in a novel concept that journalist Edward Hunter had recently coined, "brainwashing." The idea was that US POWs held by North Korea had been brainwashed into accepting communism & might act as a fifth column back home.

You can see that particular paranoia in cultural artifacts from the time like "The Manchurian Candidate," novel in 1959 and the hit 1962 movie starring Frank Sinatra and the incomparable Angela Lansbury. Those sneaky commies nearly infiltrated the Oval Office itself, oh no!!

More from Tech

The YouTube algorithm that I helped build in 2011 still recommends the flat earth theory by the *hundreds of millions*. This investigation by @RawStory shows some of the real-life consequences of this badly designed AI.


This spring at SxSW, @SusanWojcicki promised "Wikipedia snippets" on debated videos. But they didn't put them on flat earth videos, and instead @YouTube is promoting merchandising such as "NASA lies - Never Trust a Snake". 2/


A few example of flat earth videos that were promoted by YouTube #today:
https://t.co/TumQiX2tlj 3/

https://t.co/uAORIJ5BYX 4/

https://t.co/yOGZ0pLfHG 5/
What an amazing presentation! Loved how @ravidharamshi77 brilliantly started off with global macros & capital markets, and then gradually migrated to Indian equities, summing up his thesis for a bull market case!

@MadhusudanKela @VQIndia @sameervq

My key learnings: ⬇️⬇️⬇️


First, the BEAR case:

1. Bitcoin has surpassed all the bubbles of the last 45 years in extent that includes Gold, Nikkei, dotcom bubble.

2. Cyclically adjusted PE ratio for S&P 500 almost at 1929 (The Great Depression) peaks, at highest levels except the dotcom crisis in 2000.

3. World market cap to GDP ratio presently at 124% vs last 5 years average of 92% & last 10 years average of 85%.
US market cap to GDP nearing 200%.

4. Bitcoin (as an asset class) has moved to the 3rd place in terms of price gains in preceding 3 years before peak (900%); 1st was Tulip bubble in 17th century (rising 2200%).

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