I’d like to meet any SSC readers who will be at the American Psychiatric Association meeting this weekend in San Francisco.
I propose lunch on Saturday 5/18, 12 PM. We can meet at Room 312 (randomly chosen as a room that doesn’t seem to be occupied at the time; if I’m wrong and it’s in use we’ll congregate awkwardly by the door) then go to a nearby restaurant. I’ll be wearing a dark blue shirt (if I remember), the silver spiral necklace I use as my avatar in the comments, and a nametag with my real name (Scott S_____). Please watch this post for potential emergency changes in time/location.
If you’re thinking of coming, send me an email at scott@slatestarcodex.com with your phone number so I know how many people to expect/wait for and can contact you if needed. If you don’t send me an email on time, don’t worry, you can still show up.
Psychologists, psychiatrists and philosophers all have associations called the APA, which has long irked me. I think psychoanalysts used to call their association the APA as well, but these days it’s APsaA. The psychologists’ association is the oldest so it should rightly retain the acronym. The philosophers’ association could be APhA while the psychiatrists could go with APrcA or something 🙂
They should all change their name to APE, to be more inclusive of other primates.
The psychologists and psychiatrists can fight over ΑΨΑ, while the philosophers could have ΑΦΑ. And the rest of the APAs can fight it out.
I’m rooting for the A.P.A.
Man, you’re practically doxxing yourself. I’ve heard rumors that your identity was easy to uncover, but now I’m seeing your real first name on the blog unsolicited. Bad superhero!
I suggest you remove that, maybe put some passphrase – counterpassphrase if you’re really worried about confusion. Something from Unsong, maybe?
He wrote something before which allows relatively easy access to his full name.
It seems to me that Scott’s goal is to prevent people who google his real name to end up here, not to have full anonymity.
Interestingly, if I search on Scott’s real name, I get a message that: “Some results may have been removed under data protection law in Europe.”
I wonder if our Scott got some results removed…
Are there some results that you expected to show up that didn’t?
(Yes, no, or refuse to answer responses only, please. I’m asking the meta questions unto themselves, not trying to pick up crumbs of information about things that others want to not be widely known)
Yes. I did a search before and some results showed up that a person who would worry about the culture war intruding on his life might seek to disassociate with his name. These results were no longer there when I searched today.
Huh, 3 months ago when Scott posted “RIP Culture War Thread” I did a search on his real name and the first page of google results included a mention of his authorship of this blog but now, as you say, it’s gone.
Could someone explain to me why that would be bad? This blog is pure gold.
Some people see it as Nazi gold.
Intellectual freedom is the politically-neutral answer.
It’s easier to discuss controversial topics when you don’t have to fear judgement, and having your blog be the first result for your name on google is essentially the same as providing printouts to every single person you meet.
I googled Scott’s real first and last name and Google autocomplete suggested:
Scott S_______ alexander
Scott S_______ slatestarcodex
Scott S_______ blog
Scott S_______ psychiatry
So it is easier for someone who knows his real name to find this blog than the other way around.
Sure. It doesn’t work the other way.
…until Google changes their algorithm?
“Some results may have been removed under data protection law in Europe.”
I’m in Ireland and I get that on some searches too, so not so much Scott specifically requesting removal as general GDPR kicking in, I imagine.
I did know Scott’s real name (don’t worry, I’ve forgotten it) because yeah, back in the day it was very easy to track him down given the trail of breadcrumbs he left. The damage has already been done, if anyone is motivated or malicious enough to dig through and find out who he really is, so the next best is damage control on here (hence the restrictions on Culture Warring stuff, and even then this blog and the sub-reddit (a) often get confused and (b) are called alt-right nests of infamy and villainy anyway where we’re all sitting here typing hate posts while togged out in full Nazi regalia).
That you didn’t already know that Scott was his real first name is an indication of the difference between something “everybody knows” and truly public information. It’s far too late for Scott to have a genuine secret identity, but the evidence suggests that being at the “everybody knows” level (where it really isn’t close to everybody, it just seems like it due to effects like typical minding, etc.) does make one significantly less of a target than being fully public.
The biggest value in internet psuedonymity is in defending against attacks from the internet on your meatspace avatar. Requiring a moderate amount of actual research to do that is a good defensive step.
Like Scott, my girlfriend attends the APA conference every other year. Unfortunately, they’re out of sync.
Aw man…for this I would have gone to the APA!