Scott Alexander defends the practice of looking to idealized traditions for inspiration, arguing it's a common and useful human approach to creativity and innovation.

Scott examines why fantasy universes share common elements, arguing they're designed to let ordinary people imagine becoming heroes without exceptional skills.

Scott Alexander reviews a book about Chinese education, comparing it to criticisms of US schools and examining evidence for discipline-focused vs. creativity-focused approaches to education.

Scott Alexander discusses unintentional plagiarism in his writing, reflecting on how writers blend their influences at various levels of recognition.

Scott Alexander explores GPT-2's unexpected capabilities and argues that it demonstrates the potential for AI to develop abilities beyond its explicit programming, challenging skepticism about AGI.

Scott Alexander argues that creativity comes from mining external sources of 'noise' or 'disruption' rather than just thinking hard.

Scott Alexander suggests humans have 'negative creativity' due to cognitive 'ruts', and explores ways to escape these ruts, arguing that AI might have an advantage in creative thinking.