A writer pitches increasingly absurd zombie story ideas to an editor who dismisses them all as 'done', ending with a twist revealing the editor is a zombie. Longer summary

This satirical story depicts a conversation between a writer and an editor about a proposed zombie story. The writer tries to pitch various zombie story ideas, but the editor repeatedly dismisses them as 'done', highlighting the oversaturation of the zombie genre. The writer becomes increasingly desperate, proposing more and more outlandish ideas, all of which have supposedly been done. The story ends with a twist revealing that the editor is actually a zombie, ironically embodying the very trope being criticized. Shorter summary

Scott Alexander proposes a 'Thrive/Survive Theory' explaining political ideologies as optimizations for different environments, with rightism for survival and leftism for thriving in safety. Longer summary

Scott Alexander proposes a 'Thrive/Survive Theory' to explain the political spectrum. He suggests that rightism is optimized for surviving unsafe environments, while leftism is optimized for thriving in safe environments. The post explores how this theory explains various aspects of political ideologies, including their stability across cultures, correlation with other preferences, and the gradual leftward drift of society over time. Scott uses thought experiments involving zombie apocalypses and utopian futures to illustrate how different environments might shape political views. He also discusses how this theory relates to developmental psychology and historical trends. Shorter summary