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The official audio version of Astral Codex Ten, with an archive of posts from Slate Star Codex. It's just me reading Scott Alexander's blog posts.
I. "Telescopic altruism" is a supposed tendency for some people to ignore those close to them in favor of those further away. Like its cousi...
In 1917, some Portuguese children started seeing visions of the Virgin Mary. The Virgin told them she would enact a great miracle on a certa...
Michael Halassa: Did John Nash Really Have Schizophrenia? is a good article on the genetics of psychosis. Previous research found that schiz...
SUPPORTER: America needs to start talking to China to come up with a bilateral agreement to pause AI. The agreement would need to be transpa...
I. John Rawls was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on February 21, 1921. Not John Rawls the famous liberal philosopher (or, rather, John Rawls t...
Every few weeks, a Trump administration official comes up with an insane plan that would devastate some American industry, region, or demogr...
I hate the term "hallucinations" for when AIs say false things. It's perfectly calculated to mislead the reader - to make them think AIs are...
Guest post by David Speiser The Problem Everyone hates Congress. That poll showing that cockroaches are more popular than Congress is now th...
California lets interest groups propose measures for the state ballot. Anyone who gathers enough signatures (currently 874,641) can put thei...
Having Your Own Government Try To Destroy You Is (At Least Temporarily) Good For Business On Friday, the Pentagon declared AI company Anthro...
Last Friday, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth declared AI company Anthropic a " supply chain risk ", the first time this designation has ever b...
I. In The Argument, Kelsey Piper gives a good description of the ways that AIs are more than just "next-token predictors" or "stochastic par...
Here's my understanding of the situation : Anthropic signed a contract with the Pentagon last summer. It originally said the Pentagon had to...
Malicious streetlights are an evil trick from Dark Data Journalism. Some annoying enemy has a valid complaint. So you use FACTS and LOGIC to...
It's that time again. Even numbered years are book reviews, odd-numbered years are non-book reviews, so you're limited to books for now. Wri...
The problem: people hate crime and think it's going up. But actually, crime barely affects most people and is historically low . So what's g...
Last year, the US may have recorded the lowest murder rate in its 250 year history. Other crimes have poorer historical data, but are at lea...
[Original post: Biological Anchors: A Trick That Might Or Might Not Work ] I. Ajeya Cotra's Biological Anchors report was the landmark AI ti...
The European discourse can be - for lack of a better term - America-brained. We hear stories of Black Lives Matter marches in countries with...
[I haven't independently verified each link. On average, commenters will end up spotting evidence that around two or three of the links in e...
[previous post: Best Of Moltbook ] From the human side of the discussion: As the AIs would say, "You've cut right to the heart of this issue...
Moltbook is "a social network for AI agents", although "humans [are] welcome to observe". The backstory: a few months ago, Anthropic release...
In the comments to last year's USAID post, Fabian said : While i am happy for the existence of charity organisations, i don't get why people...
[original post: The Dilbert Afterlife ] Table of Contents: 1: Should I Have Written This At All? 2: Was I Unfair To Adams? 3: Comments On Th...
Thanks to everyone who sent in condolences on my recent death from prostate cancer at age 68, but that was Scott Adams. I (Scott Alexander)...
The Monkey's Paw Curls Isn't "may you get exactly what you asked for" one of those ancient Chinese curses? Since we last spoke, prediction m...
[previously in series: 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 ] Every city parties for its own reasons. New Yorkers party to flaunt their wealth. Ang...
One morning around 6, the police banged on our door. "OPEN UP!" they shouted, the way police shout when they definitely have an alternative...
[original post: Against Against Boomers ] Before getting started: First, I wish I'd been more careful to differentiate the following claims:...
If you're not familiar with "X years to escape the permanent underclass", see the New Yorker here , or the Laine , Bear , and Trammell/Dwark...
[Original post: Vibecession - Much More Than You Wanted To Know ] Table of Contents 1: When was the vibecession? 2: Is the vibecession just...
This year's prediction contest is live on Metaculus. They write: This year's contest draws directly from that community, with all questions...
Hating Boomers is the new cool thing. Amazon offerings include A Generation Of Sociopaths: How The Baby Boomers Betrayed America , the two a...
This holiday season, you'll see many charity fundraisers. I've already mentioned three, and I have another lined up for next week's open thr...
[I haven't independently verified each link. On average, commenters will end up spotting evidence that around two or three of the links in e...
The term "vibecession" most strictly refers to a period 2023 - 2024 when economic indicators were up, but consumer sentiment ("vibes") was d...
…the bad news is that they can't agree which one. I explained the debate more here , but the short version is: twin studies find that most t...
If we worry too much about AI safety, will this make us "lose the race with China" 1 ? (here "AI safety" means long-term concerns about alig...
Most discourse on AI is low-quality. Most discourse on consciousness is super-abysmal-double-low quality. Multiply these - or maybe raise on...
ACX has been co-running a forecasting contest with Metaculus for the past few years. Lately the "co-running" has drifted towards them doing...
Last year, I wrote that it would be very hard to decrease the number of mentally ill homeless people in San Francisco . Commenters argued th...
"Life is suffering" may be a Noble Truth, but it feels like a deepity . Yes, obviously life includes suffering. But it also includes happine...
In Jason Pargin's I'm Starting To Worry About This Black Box Of Doom , a manic pixie dream girl cajoles a shut-in incel loser to drive her a...
American Scholar has an article about people who "write for AI" , including Tyler Cowen and Gwern . It's good that this is getting more atte...
[I haven't independently verified each link. On average, commenters will end up spotting evidence that around two or three of the links in e...
Would You Like To Buy A Bahama? The Bahamas is an archipelago-nation of 400,000 people scattered across 3,000 small islands. The Bahamas' mo...
[ original post here ] The Kasina Connection In the original post, I cited ambiguous later examples of sun miracles which didn't seem to aff...
I. In my 2019 post Too Much Dark Money In Almonds , I asked: why is there so little money in politics? During the 2018 election, Americans -...
Thanks to everyone who entered or voted in the Non-Book Review Contest. The winners are: 1st: Joan of Arc , by William Friedman. William is...
Thanks to everyone who participated in ACX Grants, whether as an applicant, an evaluator, or a funder. We received 654 applications this yea...