Scott categorizes California's 60 gubernatorial candidates into humorous types rather than covering them individually, from generic top-tier politicians to increasingly bizarre fringe candidates with conspiracy theories, supernatural visions, and incomprehensible platforms. Longer summary

Scott gives up on covering all 60 California gubernatorial candidates individually and instead categorizes them into amusing types: top-tier Democrats and Republicans who are all generic and interchangeable, conflict theorists who think fraud and Marxism are the problem, mistake theorists with shower-thought solutions, media getters who pay for fake magazine covers and polls, candidates with personal vendettas from lost court cases, AI natives whose campaigns appear AI-generated, nominative determinists who changed their names to things like 'LivingForGod AndCountry', college students ranging from socialist protesters to Catholic philosophers, anti-Semites with conspiracy theories, people on missions from God who received supernatural visions, entrepreneurs selling their platforms for $1000, those just having fun (like a single-issue pro-movie candidate), musicians with campaign songs, and increasingly bizarre candidates including one merging edtech with interdimensional pirate captains and another whose site randomly links to the Book of Enoch. Shorter summary

Scott Alexander explains postmodernism to rationalists, using the Dark Age debate as an example, and discusses its applications, risks, and critiques. Longer summary

Scott Alexander attempts to explain postmodernism to rationalists, using the debate about the existence of a European Dark Age as an example. He describes postmodernism as focusing on how politically-motivated people weave facts to tell specific stories, rather than on the facts themselves. The post discusses how this applies to various fields and how everyone uses postmodernist thinking sometimes. Scott also explores the potential risks of postmodernism collapsing into ignoring disagreeable facts and addresses critiques of the philosophy. He concludes by comparing rationalist and postmodernist approaches to dealing with subjectivity and bias. Shorter summary

Scott Alexander analyzes Trump's likely PR strategy as president, predicting a focus on symbolic 'job-saving' victories that will be effective in shaping public perception despite limited real impact. Longer summary

Scott Alexander expresses concern about Trump's PR strategy as president, focusing on highly publicized 'victories' in keeping jobs in the US. He argues that these will be largely symbolic, not scalable, and potentially corrupt, but effective in shaping public perception. Scott compares this to Batman's approach of personally fighting crime rather than using his resources for systemic change. He predicts that this strategy will be a central part of Trump's public relations over the next year, despite not significantly impacting overall job numbers. Shorter summary