Scott shares his monthly collection of interesting links from around the internet, covering topics from Jeremy Bentham's linguistic legacy to AI developments, with characteristic commentary and fact-checking caveats. Longer summary

This is Scott's monthly 'Links' post, a curated collection of interesting articles, studies, and social media posts from around the internet. The links span a wide range of topics including historical curiosities (Jeremy Bentham's word inventions, beard-wearing persecution in 19th century America), scientific oddities (a mushroom that causes gnome hallucinations), AI developments (mathematical proofs, constrained writing, dating apps), current events (Berkeley's housing permits, GLP-1 weight retention), and cultural phenomena (the Monet/AI art prank). Scott includes his typical epistemic disclaimers about not having verified all links independently and provides commentary throughout. The post ends with a note that he accumulated too many links and will publish the second half next week. Shorter summary

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

A collection of 41 interesting links and news items from April 2025, covering AI, politics, culture, and science, with Scott's commentary on each. Longer summary

This is a links roundup post featuring various interesting news, studies, and curiosities from April 2025. The post covers a wide range of topics including AI developments (particularly around OpenAI and truth-seeking AI), political updates (about Trump, immigration policy, and minimum wage effects), cultural items (like etymology of cowboy terms and medieval perception), and scientific findings. Scott maintains a light, sometimes humorous tone while sharing these diverse pieces of information, occasionally adding his own analysis or perspective on controversial topics. Shorter summary

Scott argues that debates about prioritizing Americans over foreigners in the PEPFAR controversy miss the point, as cancelled foreign aid money wouldn't automatically fund effective domestic programs but would instead be spent much less efficiently. Longer summary

Scott Alexander critiques recent discussions about PEPFAR, a successful AIDS program in Africa that was briefly paused. He argues that debates about whether we should prioritize Americans over foreigners miss the key point: money saved from canceling highly effective programs like PEPFAR wouldn't automatically go to equally effective domestic programs. Instead, it would likely fund much less effective initiatives or get lost in general federal spending. The post explains how government spending tends to be inefficient, and argues that even if you value American lives more than foreign ones, the effectiveness gap between PEPFAR and likely alternative uses of the money is so large (around 100x) that you would need to value foreign lives at literally zero to justify canceling it. Shorter summary

The post examines the compatibility of Islam and liberal democracy by analyzing six Muslim-majority countries, finding a wide spectrum of outcomes and concluding that Islam often acts as an obstacle to liberal democracy. Longer summary

This post examines the compatibility of Islam and liberal democracy by analyzing six Muslim-majority countries: United Arab Emirates, Tunisia, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Iran, and Lebanon. The authors review each country's history, constitution, democratic institutions, and human rights record to assess the extent to which liberal democracy has taken hold. They find a wide spectrum, from Tunisia's robust democracy to Iran's theocratic regime, with the other countries falling in between. The authors conclude that while it's possible for Muslim countries to adopt liberal democracy, Islam often acts as an obstacle, and most Muslim countries have only taken small steps in that direction so far. Shorter summary