 culture. And this is, but before we do that, I want to talk about this. Now, cancer culture is going to involve the New York Times. A lot of this will involve the New York Times. I love the discussion of cancer culture. And I mean, New York Times is just a, I think a symbol of much of what's going on in our culture. But as part of kind of the discussion of the deterioration of just the state, if you will, the state, the sad state of the New York Times, I think it's worth talking about Astor Codex 10. It just was a codex. Yes, Astor Codex 10. And what was the other one? Slate Star Codex. Those are the two. Astor Codex 10 is Slate Star Codex. Yes, I'm going to make sure I don't get the two mixed up. And let's see which is which. That's not it. This is the one I want. All right. So who is, who is Astor Codex 10? What happened to all this? Once in, let me, sorry. I've got this article and it keeps the content keeps that I'm looking for keeps disappearing. Where is his name? All right. Scott, there it is. All right. So Astor Codex 10 is Scott Alexander, a guy named Scott Alexander. And I'm not boxing him because he has come out as Scott Alexander. Scott Alexander is a young psychiatrist in Silicon Valley who about 10 years ago started a blog. And in the blog, he would talk about issues related to psychiatry, issues related to living in Silicon Valley and just issues that he was involved in, issues that he found interesting. He gained in a massive following, a massive following, primarily in Silicon Valley, but really all over the country. He became a celebrity who actually did speaking engagements around the country, but who kept his name private, who hid his name, right? So Astor Codex 10 was, was, is, is, uh, uh, I guess code name that he wrote the blog on. And the reason, no, Scott Alexander's, there's real name. His pen name was Astor Codex 10, right? He wrote this, uh, he wrote this, um, a blog and very successful and interesting. If you read it, interesting, a fresh perspective, different, generally left of center, but you know, kind of the, the rational left, the more rational left, at least in terms of some of the cultural, cultural issues, um, you know, rejected the whole cancer culture, critical race theory, all of that. Uh, but also, you know, a, a, a leftist when it comes to politics, to economics, definitely a leftist when it comes to economics. And he wrote a lot about psychiatry. And the reason he kept his name secret, quiet, the reason he wrote under pen name is because, uh, he was, uh, in practice, he was working for company as a psychologist meeting clients and he didn't want to confuse the clients. He didn't want them reading his blog post and then, then walking in and it was better. And this is, I guess, the standard practice among, uh, psychiatrists. This was better for his commentary to be in a different name, in a different name, right? And that is psychiatry practice under his real name and that people didn't confuse the two. And he was very diligent about not revealing his name. And he got very famous and, and very well known. Now in, um, in 2019, the New York Times decided to write a story about him. He started interviewing people about him and they interviewed him. And in, in conversation, um, he, he told the New York Times, look, I do not want my name revealed. Here are the reasons and please respect those reasons and do not reveal my name. The New York Times basically came back to him and said, no, we, you know, we cannot reveal the name. You, you know, why, why would we not? We're writing a story about you. We are going to write your name in. We're going to reveal your name. Now he, he obviously, I think he's probably 30, 31, 32, whatever. But Scott, you could say panicked was, was distressed, was very upset, got really angry, tried to convince the New York Times otherwise they would not relent. So they, uh, they, they basically said, no, we're going to write this article and reveal your name. That's just going to be how it is. And you know, and it wasn't just the reporter. This came from the top people from the, from editors at the New York Times. It wasn't just a reporter who was saying this. This was, he was told, he was told that this was policy, although it's not clear it's policy. Other people in New York Times later claim that it's not policy. So what he did was he basically published this in a blog post and said, if then you, I am basically now going to stop blogging. I'm going to delete all my blogs, my entire inventory of blogs, all of them are going to be deleted because I do not want to give the New York Times this ability that docks me and to, and to ruin my career. I am going to delete the entire presence of Astro Code X 10 from the internet. Right. Well, they found out his name cause they interviewed him and you know, they were referred to him and, and I guess they, they knew his address. They knew he was and part of the story about his dual identity that he had maybe hard to tell. So he burnt it. This was kind of an out of shrug moment. He said, if this is how you behaving, write your article, I'm out of here. He was signed from his psychiatric practice, this company he was working from and basically disappeared. Basically disappeared. The New York Times didn't publish the article because what were they going to publish? Right. The guy was gone. There was nobody to write an article about. Now some of the New York Times is within its legal rights to publish your name. Right. But he specifically asked not, he explained a reason why the reason is very reasonable and he and, and, and they turned him down. They were in the wrong and it's not their policy, even though fairly high ups in New York Times stuck by the story. Right. It's just, there's no reason. There was no reason for New York Times to do this unprofessional lack of decency. Really immoral to put up a young, a person like this who's, who's, who's making a living to put him in that kind of position. Anyway, he burned it all down and disappeared. Now I didn't know about any of this. I actually was told about this by, by, uh, Don Watkins a few weeks ago. Well, he mentioned, well, do you know that Astro Code X10 is back? I said, who the hell is Astro Code X10? And then he told me the story. Anyway, a few weeks ago, he came back on Substack and I don't know if you're not onto Substack, get on Substack. The best blogs now all on Substack, including Don Watkins has a blog on Substack. Anyway, Substack, he has a Substack. He came back. He published an article explaining why he did what he did, explaining what happened within New York Times, revealing his name, saying he's over it. He now, he probably overreacted he said, but he's now focused on, he's going to write this blog. He hopes people will support him. One of the nice things about Substack is like here, you can support the person writing so that they can make this a career, which reminds me, don't forget to use the super chat to support you on book show. So I can continue to make this a career. I don't know what's happened. It is, it is super chat this month, but in what it used to be. Anyway, he's now making a fortune off of his off of his Substack. So he's getting a huge amount of money from, from Substack. Bradley Thompson is also on Substack. Thanks for reminding me. Brad Thompson is on Substack. Don Watkins in the Substack. So he comes back, writes the story about the New York Times, what they did to him, why he burned it all down, why they were in the wrong. Here's his actually name. Here's his plan. He has a new plan for doing psychiatry where he's going to, he's going to get new clients in private practice and he's going to a different kind of business model in terms of a compensation. So the guy is hit a home run. He's writing, he's writing blog posts that again, I think interesting, stimulating, worth reading. I don't know if you want to support him with a lot of money, but worth reading. I think I can't remember if I've got a free subscription or if I, I think I do a minimal amount because it's entertaining. Anyway, last week, the New York Times publishes its article about him and it is a hatchet job. The original article before he burnt it all down was supposed to be positive or, you know, critical but generally positive. This one just ripped him to shreds. Try to associate him with racist views, link him to far right Silicon Valley people, people you've never met, never been associated with, linked him to the bell curve by Murray, even though he said nice things about Murray. He's never talked positively about the bell curve, but by association they try to link it. He once wrote negatively about a crazy group of feminists who he compared to Voldemort, the essence of evil. So now his view of feminism is they're all evil. He hates women in tech, he's against women in tech, even though he's been a big supporter of women in tech and has pointed out the problems in science and math education and why women drop out of it and what are the reasons and the causes and cited studies. He's very scientific in that sense, very rational. And the times just went after him. Just the worst kind of personal attack journalism you can imagine. Now, this is a guy, now I didn't say this early on because if I'd said this earlier on, you would not have kept on listening. I know you guys. This is a guy who in the Democratic primaries voted for Elizabeth Warren and then a general election voted for Joe Biden. Elizabeth Warren, he's that much of a leftist and yet he's being pilloried, not just canceled, pilloried, canceled, smeared by what used to be the leading journalistic newspaper in this country. All the news fit to print. Now, this wasn't in an editorial that somebody wrote, but was it news? What was it? It clearly wasn't reality. So what was it? Just unbelievable stuff. What we need today, what I call the new intellectual would be any man or woman who is willing to think, meaning any man or woman who knows that man's life must be guided by reason, by the intellect, not by feelings, wishes, whims or mystic revelations. Any man or woman who values his life and who does not want to give in to today's cult of despair, cynicism and impotence and does not intend to give up the world to the dark ages and to the role of the collectivist. All right, before we go on reminder, please like the show. We've got 163 live listeners right now. 30 likes. That should be at least 100. I figured at least 100 of you actually like the show. Maybe they're like 60 of the Matthews out there who hate it, but at least the people who are liking it, you know, I want to see, I want to see a thumbs up. There you go. Start liking it. I want to see that go to 100. All it takes is a click of a click of a thing, whether you're looking at this and you know the likes matter. It's not an issue of my ego. It's an issue of the algorithm. The more you like something, the more the algorithm likes it. So you know, and if you don't like the show, give it a thumbs down. Let's see your actual views being reflected in the likes. 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