Many comments pointed out that NYT does not in fact have a consistent policy of always revealing people’s true names. There’s even a news editorial about this which I point out in case you trust the fact-checking of NY Post more.
I think that leaves 3 possible explanations of what happened:
NYT has a general policy of revealing people’s true names, which it doesn’t consistently apply but ended up applying in this case for no particular reason.
There’s an inconsistently applied policy, and Cade Metz’s (and/or his editors’) dislike of Scott contributed (consciously or subconsciously) to insistence on applying the policy in this particular case.
There is no policy and it was a purely personal decision.
In my view, most rationalists seem to be operating under a reasonable probability distribution over these hypotheses, informed by evidence such as Metz’s mention of Charles Murray, lack of a public written policy about revealing real names, and lack of evidence that a private written policy exists.
Many comments pointed out that NYT does not in fact have a consistent policy of always revealing people’s true names. There’s even a news editorial about this which I point out in case you trust the fact-checking of NY Post more.
I think that leaves 3 possible explanations of what happened:
NYT has a general policy of revealing people’s true names, which it doesn’t consistently apply but ended up applying in this case for no particular reason.
There’s an inconsistently applied policy, and Cade Metz’s (and/or his editors’) dislike of Scott contributed (consciously or subconsciously) to insistence on applying the policy in this particular case.
There is no policy and it was a purely personal decision.
In my view, most rationalists seem to be operating under a reasonable probability distribution over these hypotheses, informed by evidence such as Metz’s mention of Charles Murray, lack of a public written policy about revealing real names, and lack of evidence that a private written policy exists.