I actually do know the real names of the people who wrote about Brent. It’s one of those “community insiders know who they were but it’s hard to tell from the outside” situations, like the one I described with pre-doxxing Scott Alexander. If the authors had been anonymous for real then I don’t think it would’ve worked anywhere near as well. This approach avoids most of the downsides of actually-unknown-and-unaccountable burner accounts and I do not object to it.
I actually do know the real names of the people who wrote about Brent. It’s one of those “community insiders know who they were but it’s hard to tell from the outside” situations, like the one I described with pre-doxxing Scott Alexander. If the authors had been anonymous for real then I don’t think it would’ve worked anywhere near as well. This approach avoids most of the downsides of actually-unknown-and-unaccountable burner accounts and I do not object to it.