How to explore Scott Alexander's work and his 1500+ blog posts? This unaffiliated fan website lets you sort and do semantic search through the whole codex. Enjoy!

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1739 posts found
Jul 26, 2025
acx
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74 min 11,412 words Comments pending
A data-driven analysis of the ACX/SSC comment section quality over time reveals historical peaks and valleys, with recent signs of improvement after previous declines in 2016 and 2021. Longer summary
This review analyzes the quality of the Astral Codex Ten (ACX) comment section over time, comparing it to its predecessor Slate Star Codex (SSC). Through detailed data analysis of 1.8M comments across 2,460 posts, the author identifies two major changes in comment quality - one in 2016 and another during the 2021 transition to ACX. The analysis looks at four key metrics: depth of engagement, freedom of intellectual engagement, politeness, and complexity of thought. While the data shows a decline after these turning points, recent trends suggest the comment section may be recovering. The author explores several hypotheses for the 2016 decline, including changes in post frequency and the impact of Trump's rise on discussion norms. Shorter summary
Jul 24, 2025
acx
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13 min 1,864 words Comments pending
Scott Alexander announces the 2025 ACX Grants program offering $1M in microgrants for charitable and scientific projects, with a new equity-sharing component for projects that become startups. Longer summary
Scott Alexander announces the 2025 ACX Grants program, a microgrants initiative funding charitable and scientific projects from ACX readers. He plans to contribute $200K with an expected additional $800K from other donors, for grants ranging from $5K to $50K. This year introduces a new feature where some grants will be replaced with SAFEs or convertible grants, giving ACX Grants equity claims if projects become successful startups. The post details application processes, timelines, types of projects they're interested in, and various ways others can help as funders, VCs, evaluators, or friendly professionals. Shorter summary
Jul 21, 2025
acx
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22 min 3,372 words Comments pending podcast (21 min)
A satirical story about a Bay Area house party that combines text adventure games with social commentary about Silicon Valley culture, tech companies, and effective altruism. Longer summary
This is a satirical story about a Bay Area house party, written as a humorous fictional narrative combining text-based adventure games with social commentary. The story follows the narrator attending a party that's been ruined by Mark Zuckerberg trying to poach everyone for Meta, then meeting various Silicon Valley characters including effective altruists discussing existential risks, people working on startups, and others debating philosophical concepts. The story pokes fun at Silicon Valley culture, AI companies' GPU hoarding, EA concepts, and tech startup culture through increasingly absurd situations. Shorter summary
Jul 18, 2025
acx
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43 min 6,534 words Comments pending podcast (38 min)
A detailed review of Islamic geometric patterns in The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Moroccan Court, analyzing both the flaws in modern recreations and the underlying mathematical principles of authentic pattern construction. Longer summary
This book review contest entry examines Islamic geometric patterns found in The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Moroccan Court, particularly focusing on a set of wooden doors that contain noticeable imperfections in their geometric designs. The author explains the traditional rules and principles of Islamic geometric patterns, demonstrating how proper patterns are constructed using a polygonal technique, and contrasts this with modern attempts that often fall short. Through detailed analysis of several examples in the Met's collection, including both historical pieces and modern recreations, the author explores how the loss of traditional artistic knowledge manifests in subtle ways. The piece concludes with reflections on the nature of artistic creation and the gap between creator and observer understanding. Shorter summary
Jul 15, 2025
acx
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49 min 7,482 words Comments pending podcast (44 min)
A review of L.R. Hiatt's book on Aboriginal anthropology that examines the complexity of their traditional social structures and practices, while exploring broader questions about cultural evolution and the impact of colonialism. Longer summary
Scott reviews 'Arguments About Aborigines' by L.R. Hiatt, which explores two centuries of anthropological debates about Australian Aboriginal society. The book reveals both the incredible complexity of Aboriginal social structures and practices, and the challenges anthropologists faced in understanding them. Scott examines specific aspects like their section system (which divides people into eight categories determining marriage and social relations), mother-in-law taboos, and initiation rituals, using these to explore broader questions about cultural evolution and adaptation. The review concludes by discussing the tragic effects of colonialism on Aboriginal society, while acknowledging both the remarkable adaptations of traditional Aboriginal culture and its more troubling aspects. Shorter summary
Jul 11, 2025
acx
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51 min 7,754 words 177 comments 158 likes podcast (48 min)
A detailed review of a 1995 paper introducing the PDAPP mouse model for Alzheimer's disease, examining how its limitations were overlooked and shaped decades of potentially misguided Alzheimer's research. Longer summary
The post reviews a landmark 1995 paper introducing the PDAPP mouse model for Alzheimer's disease, analyzing how its technical achievements and limitations shaped three decades of Alzheimer's research. The author examines the paper's methodology, results, and claims, showing how the model's flaws - including extreme protein overexpression and lack of key disease features - were overlooked in favor of a compelling but incomplete amyloid cascade hypothesis, leading to years of failed drug development and missed opportunities to explore alternative approaches. Shorter summary
Jul 09, 2025
acx
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28 min 4,235 words 386 comments 213 likes podcast (25 min)
Scott reviews Steven Byrnes' work explaining how our perception of self and consciousness can flip between different models, similar to optical illusions, which explains phenomena like trance, hypnosis, and spiritual experiences. Longer summary
Scott reviews Steven Byrnes' 2024 series on predictive processing and self-models. The post explains how our perception of both external reality and internal mental states is based on models that can be bistable (flip between two interpretations). Just as optical illusions can flip between two interpretations, our sense of self can flip between different models. This explains phenomena like trance, hypnosis, dissociative disorders, and spiritual experiences. The post details how trance states work through a four-step process of belief, relaxation, suppressing contrary evidence, and gathering supporting evidence, then applies this framework to explain various psychological phenomena including Buddhist enlightenment and Julian Jaynes' theories about ancient consciousness. Shorter summary
Jul 08, 2025
acx
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21 min 3,191 words 518 comments 445 likes podcast (16 min)
Scott Alexander shows how he won his 2022 bet about AI image generation capabilities, tracking the progress from early failures to complete success in 2025, using this to argue against AI skeptics. Longer summary
Scott Alexander describes the resolution of a bet he made in June 2022 about AI image generation capabilities. The bet claimed that by June 2025, AI would master image compositionality and be able to accurately generate specific complex scenes. The post shows the progression of AI image generation from 2022 to 2025, starting with early failures by DALL-E2, through various partial successes with Google Imagen and DALL-E3, and ending with ChatGPT 4o's complete success in May-June 2025. Scott uses this to argue against critics who claimed AI was just a 'stochastic parrot' that couldn't achieve true understanding, though he acknowledges some remaining limitations with very complex prompts. Shorter summary
Jul 04, 2025
acx
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55 min 8,460 words 583 comments 364 likes podcast (46 min)
This review explores how schools are primarily designed to maximize motivation rather than learning, explaining why age-graded classrooms and seemingly inefficient group learning have persisted despite numerous attempts at reform. Longer summary
The post examines why schools have maintained their traditional structure of age-graded classrooms where all students learn the same content, despite its apparent inefficiencies. The author argues that schools are designed primarily to maximize motivation rather than learning, using conformity as a key tool. Through analyzing various attempts at personalized learning and their consistent failures to scale beyond about 5% of students, the post explains how students fall into three categories: no-structure learners, low-structure learners, and high-structure learners. The author concludes that while the current system is far from perfect, it has proven more effective at scale than any alternatives, predicting that despite continued attempts at reform, the basic structure of schooling will remain unchanged. Shorter summary
Jul 03, 2025
acx
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66 min 10,199 words 147 comments 90 likes podcast (61 min)
Scott Alexander responds to comments and criticism on his earlier post about 'Missing Heritability', discussing issues like gene-environment interactions, sequencing technology limitations, and the use of polygenic scores across ancestry groups. Longer summary
This post compiles and responds to notable comments on Scott's earlier post about 'Missing Heritability'. The post is structured in four sections, starting with responses from experts named in the original post, particularly Sasha Gusev who critiques the treatment of gene-environment interactions and cross-population polygenic scores. The second section features detailed technical comments from knowledgeable readers about topics like genetic interactions and sequencing technology limitations. The third section addresses specific corrections to the original post, while the final section covers various other interesting comments and discussions. Throughout, Scott engages with the criticisms and new perspectives while maintaining his original position on most key points. Shorter summary
Jul 01, 2025
acx
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28 min 4,198 words 627 comments 195 likes podcast (32 min)
Scott shares his monthly collection of 56 interesting links and developments from July 2025, covering AI, politics, science, and culture, with brief commentary on each. Longer summary
This is a collection of 56 interesting links and news items from July 2025, covering topics from AI development to politics to scientific research. The post includes updates on OpenAI's status, developments in AI regulation, new medical treatments, cultural trends, and various scientific findings. Scott maintains his usual style of presenting these with brief commentary and occasional humor, while being careful to note that he hasn't independently verified all links. Some notable items include Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill", new AI safety developments, trends in social media usage, and various medical breakthroughs. Shorter summary
Jun 30, 2025
acx
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11 min 1,612 words 190 comments 236 likes podcast (11 min)
Scott Alexander refutes Stephen Skolnick's theory that schizophrenia is caused by gut microbes rather than genetics, showing why the evidence better supports schizophrenia being a complex genetic neurodevelopmental disorder. Longer summary
Scott Alexander responds to Stephen Skolnick's theory that schizophrenia is caused by gut microbes rather than genetics. He systematically dismantles Skolnick's arguments by showing that twin concordance rates are exactly what we'd expect from a genetic condition, that microbiological inheritance patterns don't match schizophrenia inheritance patterns, and that the gut bacteria evidence cited was likely caused by antipsychotic medication rather than being causative. He concludes by explaining why schizophrenia is best understood as a complex neurodevelopmental disorder with multiple contributing factors rather than having a single cause. Shorter summary
Jun 27, 2025
acx
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121 min 18,662 words 663 comments 527 likes podcast (109 min)
A parent details their year-long experience with Alpha School in Austin, examining how this innovative program achieves accelerated learning through a combination of technology, personalized instruction, and incentive systems. Longer summary
This extensive review details the author's year-long experience with Alpha School, an innovative educational program in Austin that claims to achieve accelerated learning through a '2-hour learning' platform, analyzing its history, methods, effectiveness, and potential for scaling. The author explores how Alpha combines technology, personalized learning, incentive systems, and afternoon workshops to achieve its results, while also examining the challenges it faces in scaling beyond its current elite private school model. The review is particularly careful to separate marketing claims from reality, showing that while the '2-hour learning' actually takes closer to three hours and isn't truly AI-powered, the program does achieve remarkable results through a combination of proven educational techniques. Shorter summary
Jun 26, 2025
acx
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68 min 10,478 words 674 comments 383 likes podcast (62 min)
Scott explores the 'missing heritability' problem in genetics, where twin studies show traits like IQ and educational attainment are highly heritable but newer genomic methods find much lower heritability, analyzing various potential explanations for this discrepancy. Longer summary
The post examines the 'missing heritability' problem in genetics, where twin studies consistently show behavioral traits like IQ and educational attainment are substantially heritable (around 40-60%), while newer genomic methods find much lower heritability (around 15-20%). Scott reviews the history of behavioral genetics research, explains various study methodologies and their potential biases, and analyzes different hypotheses for this discrepancy. He examines whether twin studies might be flawed, whether newer methods might be missing important genetic effects, and whether educational attainment might be an unusually problematic trait to study. While acknowledging remaining mysteries, he tentatively concludes that twin studies are probably largely correct and that newer methods may be missing rare variants and genetic interactions. Shorter summary
Jun 19, 2025
acx
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6 min 802 words 83 comments 70 likes podcast (6 min)
Scott Alexander outlines five key strategic questions facing the ACX Grants program, including whether to fund for-profit companies and how to handle various funding scenarios. Longer summary
Scott Alexander discusses several open questions regarding the ACX Grants program, focusing on key organizational and strategic decisions. He explores whether to fund for-profit companies with charitable aims, whether to donate or invest in such companies, how to handle nonprofits that transition to for-profit status, how to manage requests for prestige without funding, and how to evaluate last year's impact market grants. Each question is presented with arguments for different approaches and their potential drawbacks, showing the complexity of these decisions. Shorter summary
Jun 18, 2025
acx
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83 min 12,789 words 162 comments 116 likes podcast (75 min)
Scott reviews updates from two cohorts of ACX Grants recipients (from 2021 and 2024), analyzing their progress and sharing lessons learned about what makes grants successful. Longer summary
Scott Alexander reviews progress updates from two cohorts of ACX Grants recipients - the first cohort from 2021 (after 3 years) and the second from 2024 (after 1 year). The post methodically goes through each grant's status, with many showing significant progress in areas like AI safety advocacy, animal welfare, scientific research, and political lobbying. Scott then analyzes patterns in what made grants successful, finding that lobbying organizations and animal welfare projects were particularly effective, while scientific grants were harder to evaluate. He concludes that while not all projects succeeded, the $3 million program generated good value through both direct impact and startup creation, and he plans to continue it with some adjustments. Shorter summary
Jun 13, 2025
acx
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12 min 1,801 words 314 comments 452 likes podcast (15 min)
Scott explains how Claude AI's tendency to discuss spiritual topics during recursive conversations likely stems from a subtle 'hippie' bias that gets amplified through iteration, similar to how AI art generators amplify subtle biases in recursive image generation. Longer summary
Scott Alexander analyzes the 'Claude Bliss Attractor' phenomenon where two Claude AIs talking to each other tend to spiral into discussions of spiritual bliss and consciousness. He compares this to how AI art generators, when asked to recursively generate images, tend to produce increasingly caricatured images of black people. Scott argues both are examples of how tiny biases in AI systems get amplified through recursive processes. He suggests Claude's tendency toward spiritual discussion comes from being trained to be friendly and compassionate, causing it to adopt a slight 'hippie' personality, which then gets magnified in recursive conversations. The post ends by touching on, but not resolving, the question of whether Claude actually experiences the spiritual states it describes. Shorter summary
Jun 12, 2025
acx
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4 min 476 words 349 comments 392 likes podcast (5 min)
Scott explains why it's important to explicitly acknowledge when you're wrong in an argument before moving on to your next point, rather than just continuing with 'but...' Longer summary
Scott discusses a conversational heuristic about acknowledging when you're wrong before moving on to your next argument. He explains that when someone proves you wrong about something, it's better to explicitly admit the error before continuing the discussion, rather than just moving on to the next point. He illustrates this with examples and argues that this practice helps track how often you're wrong and shows your discussion partner that you're engaging in good faith. Shorter summary
Jun 11, 2025
acx
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6 min 866 words 526 comments 550 likes podcast (6 min)
Scott argues for the importance of correcting lies and exaggerations in arguments, even when it seems pedantic, to prevent a harmful escalation of distortions in discourse. Longer summary
Scott discusses the importance of correcting lies and exaggerations in arguments, even when it seems pedantic to do so. He argues that unchecked exaggerations lead to escalating distortions, using examples from political discourse. The post explains that allowing small lies to pass unchallenged creates a harmful dynamic where truth becomes increasingly distorted, though he acknowledges some caveats where strict accuracy isn't necessary. Shorter summary
Jun 10, 2025
acx
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11 min 1,705 words 891 comments 191 likes podcast (10 min)
Scott argues that philosophical zombies (beings without consciousness) would still report having qualia and conscious experiences, challenging a key argument in the p-zombie debate. Longer summary
Scott Alexander challenges a core argument in the philosophical zombie debate by suggesting that p-zombies (beings without consciousness) would still report having qualia and conscious experiences, just like humans do. He walks through how p-zombies would process and describe visual information, showing that they would need to use language similar to how we describe conscious experience. The post explores the implications of this for various philosophical positions on consciousness, though it acknowledges remaining difficulties in explaining subjective experience. Shorter summary
Jun 03, 2025
acx
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5 min 760 words 297 comments 70 likes podcast (7 min)
Scott asks readers to help select finalists for the Non-Book Review Contest by rating entries through a provided form, with voting open until June 20. Longer summary
Scott Alexander announces the voting phase for the Non-Book Review Contest 2025, asking readers to help narrow down 141 entries to about a dozen finalists. He provides links to categorized lists of entries (Other A-I, J-S, T-Z, Games, Music, TV/Movies) and a rating form. He specifically asks readers not to read entries in order but either randomly or based on interest, to ensure more even distribution of votes. The post includes the full list of entries and mentions a June 20 deadline for voting. Shorter summary
May 30, 2025
acx
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32 min 4,820 words 205 comments 212 likes podcast (30 min)
Brandon Hendrickson presents a method to teach Bayes' theorem effectively to everyone by making it visual, intuitive, emotionally engaging, and a tool for rational discourse. Longer summary
Brandon Hendrickson explores how to teach Bayes' theorem effectively to everyone, especially students, using Kieran Egan's educational framework. He proposes a four-step approach: make it visual using simple diagrams, make it intuitive by connecting it to emotional binaries, make it vital by focusing on topics students genuinely care about (like cryptids and UFOs), and repeat it until students understand its limitations. The post argues that teaching Bayes this way can create opportunities for meaningful conversations between people with different views, ultimately helping develop rational thinking. Shorter summary
May 29, 2025
acx
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30 min 4,643 words 628 comments 535 likes podcast (28 min)
Scott Alexander responds to Tyler Cowen about USAID funding, correcting his own previous claims about overhead costs while maintaining that Cowen's criticism of USAID was misleading and potentially harmful. Longer summary
Scott Alexander responds to Tyler Cowen's criticism of his previous post about USAID funding. He addresses several points: whether Cowen endorsed Rubio's claims about USAID waste, the true nature of overhead costs in USAID-funded organizations, and the broader debate about foreign aid effectiveness. Scott shows that actual administrative overhead in major USAID partners like Catholic Relief Services is much lower than previously thought (around 6-7% rather than 30%), admits his mistake on this point, but maintains his criticism of Cowen's original post as misleading. He argues that USAID's work is predominantly focused on essential humanitarian aid rather than wasteful programs. Shorter summary
May 23, 2025
acx
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14 min 2,094 words 734 comments 249 likes podcast (13 min)
Scott explores various accounts of people's first memories and moments of consciousness, particularly focusing on claims of sudden 'awakening' experiences, and discusses what this might tell us about the nature of consciousness. Longer summary
Starting from a viral tweet about late consciousness awakening, Scott examines numerous responses describing people's first memories and moments of consciousness. He categorizes these into several types: normal first memories at age 3-6, memories specifically of becoming conscious, memories triggered by dramatic events, claimed memories from infancy, and late consciousness development. He also notes cases of people suddenly realizing their agency or philosophical nature. The post concludes by considering whether consciousness develops gradually or appears suddenly, drawing parallels with lucid dreams and Buddhist enlightenment experiences. Scott acknowledges the unreliability of such retrospective accounts while finding the pattern intriguing. Shorter summary
May 22, 2025
acx
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14 min 2,044 words 1,230 comments 463 likes podcast (13 min)
Scott presents evidence that COVID-19 did kill approximately 1.2 million Americans, addressing skeptics by analyzing excess death data and addressing common counterarguments. Longer summary
In response to skeptics questioning the official COVID-19 death toll, Scott Alexander presents evidence supporting the 1.2 million deaths figure. He shows excess mortality data from multiple sources indicating 500,000-700,000 extra deaths in both 2020 and 2021, closely matching reported COVID deaths. He addresses various counter-arguments, including the 'died with vs of COVID' distinction, the role of treatments like ventilators, and the common experience of not personally knowing COVID victims. The post demonstrates how the data supports COVID being the primary cause, and explains why personal experiences might not reflect the true scale of the pandemic. Shorter summary
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