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

Scott analyzes Ted Cruz's database of 'woke' NSF grants and finds that only 40% were actually woke, with many regular science grants included simply for having a mandatory diversity statement. Longer summary

Scott Alexander analyzes Ted Cruz's database of supposedly 'woke' NSF grants, sampling 100 grants at random. He finds that only 40% were actually woke, with another 20% borderline cases, and 40% completely unrelated to wokeness. Most non-woke grants appeared in the database because they included a seemingly mandatory sentence about helping minorities or women, likely added to satisfy grant requirements. Of the genuinely woke grants, only 10-20% were egregiously bad, while others were mostly benign STEM outreach programs. Scott argues that sorting genuine woke grants from regular science would be easy, taking only a week of work, and criticizes both the Biden administration for requiring diversity statements and Republicans for targeting legitimate research. Shorter summary