I’m tired of reading about this, but this just isn’t true.

Scott Alexander built up a large and immensely influential readership completely on his own, writing a blog that, whatever its faults, stepped far outside of the narrow and parochial currents that Very Serious Media refuses to leave.

The real problem is that Slate Star Codex and the NYT were on the same beat, essentially. They were competitors. That’s why the viciousness of the feud! There were not really any unconventional views (as I think of them) on SSC, and everything was firmly within orthodox thought and convention, just as with the NYT. It was not nearly as deep as it appeared, though I did like some of the work on there — but every post needed to be thousands of words shorter.

Family feuds are always the most hard-fought ones. No different here.