We don't know for sure since the article isn't available yet. (I would link to them here, but they've all disappeared for the moment.) Indeed, according to several of the people the Times had interviewed, the story was probably going to be a fairly positive one that celebrated Alexander's prescience on some COVID-19 related topics. Alexander has penned a lot of really great pieces on a wide range of subjects: on Marxism's failings as a science, on the English settlement of the Americas, and on bureaucratic barriers to scientific research, to name just a few. The Times declined to comment to Reason, though a spokesperson stressed that "when we report on newsworthy or influential figures, our goal is always to give readers all the accurate and relevant information we can." ![]() "We had a discussion about why I wanted my real name out of the story, where I said most of the same things I said in the public post," Alexander tells Reason. "He seemed understanding but said his editor absolutely prohibited him from writing it without my name, and he thought the story was important enough that he didn't want to drop it." He also asked the reporter not to divulge his real name in the article, but this request was rejected. Eventually, the Times reached out to Alexander, who agreed to speak about his blog off the record. The reporter had contacted several of Alexander's friends, as well as a former girlfriend. In an interview with Reason, Alexander explained he had recently learned that a New York Times tech reporter was working on a story about Slate Star Codex. "In my ideal world, the New York Times realizes they screwed up, promises not to use my real name in the article, and promises to rethink their strategy of doxxing random bloggers for clicks." ![]() "I'm not sure what happens next," wrote Alexander in his last and currently only blog post. ![]() On Monday, he took the drastic step of deleting the blog after a New York Times reporter threatened to reveal his name in a forthcoming article. Scott Alexander is the pseudonymous proprietor of Slate Star Codex, a science and history blog well-liked by many libertarians and neoliberals.
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