The Slate Star Affair — How the New York Times Struck One Against Free Thought on the Internet

Or “Why We Can’t Have Nice Things”

A 5-Minuter from Wonk Bridge

The Slate-Star Codex

If you are familiar with the Slate Star Codex, and what has happened to it over the last several days (from the time of writing), then you need read no further — there is nothing in this article, in fact put forth or impression derived, you do not already know.

It is quite possible, however, that you are not familiar with the Slate Star Codex. If you are not, I come to you with the worst news possible — the Codex is dead. Not because the blogspace’s founder, an enigmatic Californian psychiatrist working under the pseudonym Scott Alexander, has himself died — thankfully, he is still well with us. The blog itself, though, is as deceased as any web entity can be. Not only is it newly inactive, but Alexander felt compelled to remove all of the content previously hosted on it also.

Why does the sudden deactivation and, to coin a term, obliviation of a blog unknown to you but 100-words-previous matter? Well, because the Codex may have been the most successful blog on the net dealing with a broadchurch of intellectual matters to be truly pluralistic in attitude. And, also…