Scott introduces an irregular classifieds thread for readers to advertise in various categories, providing guidelines and related resources. Longer summary

This post introduces an irregular classifieds thread where readers can advertise various things in the comments. Scott provides guidelines for organizing responses into categories like Employment, Dating, Read My Blog, Consume My Product/Service, Meetup, or Other. He emphasizes being respectful, especially regarding dating ads, and provides links to related resources such as job boards and dating directories. Shorter summary

Scott Alexander reviews popular Substack blogs from various categories, offering humorous commentary and insights on each. Longer summary

Scott Alexander explores various Substack blogs across different categories, offering humorous commentary and insights on each. He starts with a popular culture blog about celebrity gossip, moves on to a top political newsletter, then examines blogs on faith and spirituality, business, food and drink, music, international affairs, and sports. Throughout, Scott mixes analysis of the content with witty observations about the nature of blogging and the diverse 'universes' represented by different Substack niches. Shorter summary

Scott Alexander announces the 2022 Book Review Contest, detailing rules, submission guidelines, and prizes for participants. Longer summary

Scott Alexander announces the 2022 Book Review Contest, inviting readers to submit reviews of books. The post outlines the contest rules, including submission guidelines, word count suggestions, and prize details. Participants are asked to submit their entries through a Google Form, ensuring the reviews are anonymous for fair judging. The contest offers cash prizes for the top three winners, along with free publicity and ACX subscriptions for all finalists. Shorter summary

Scott Alexander explores reasons why some readers think his writing quality has declined, addressing various factors from idea exhaustion to intellectual progression. Longer summary

Scott Alexander responds to readers' claims that his writing quality has declined since 2013-2016. He explores several potential reasons, including having exhausted his backlog of ideas, the rationalist community's evolution, improved media quality, reduced need to criticize 'wokeness', psychological impacts of criticism, changing writing style with blog growth, and intellectual progression to more nuanced topics. He also addresses specific theories about selling out or being scared into submission, which he says don't match his experience. Shorter summary

Scott Alexander recounts his experience with Substack's advance payment offer, demonstrating that the company's strategy was likely motivated by genuine revenue predictions rather than sinister intentions. Longer summary

Scott Alexander shares his personal experience with Substack's advance payment offer, countering claims that Substack's strategy is sinister. He describes how Substack convinced him to join by offering a large advance based on their revenue predictions. Scott reveals that his actual subscriber-generated revenue slightly exceeded Substack's prediction, suggesting that Substack's offer was genuine and not manipulative. He also mentions Matt Yglesias's similar experience, indicating that their cases might be typical of Substack's approach. Shorter summary

Scott Alexander responds to a New York Times article about him, addressing what he sees as unfair claims and misrepresentations. Longer summary

Scott Alexander responds to a recent New York Times article about him and his blog, which he perceives as negative and retaliatory. He addresses four main claims from the article, explaining why he feels they are unfair or misrepresented. Scott denies being aligned with Charles Murray's controversial views on race, clarifies his comments about feminists, defends his stance on women in tech, and addresses his alleged connections to right-wing figures in Silicon Valley. He expresses concern about the article's impact on his friends, family, and patients, and requests that people not contact him about the situation. Shorter summary

Scott Alexander announces the final rules and details for his postponed book review contest, including submission guidelines, prizes, and publication plans. Longer summary

Scott Alexander announces the final rules for his book review contest, which was originally planned for last summer but postponed due to his hiatus. He outlines the submission deadline, prizes, judging process, and publication plans for both finalist and non-finalist entries. Scott also clarifies submission format requirements and rights granted to him for publishing the reviews. Shorter summary

Scott Alexander details the logistics of his new blog on Substack, including subscription options and content plans, while addressing reader concerns. Longer summary

Scott Alexander explains his transition to Substack, addressing concerns about the platform and discussing the logistics of his new blog. He outlines the subscription model, emphasizing that most content will remain free but subscribers will get some extra benefits. Scott also touches on his plans for a new medical practice, his stance on publicity, and updates on previous commitments like advertising refunds and the book review contest. Shorter summary

Scott Alexander announces the launch of his new blog, Astral Codex Ten, and provides the URL. Longer summary

This is a brief announcement post by Scott Alexander introducing his new blog, Astral Codex Ten. He thanks readers for their patience during the transition period and provides the URL for the new blog. Scott also mentions that he's working on securing a more user-friendly domain name in the near future. Shorter summary

Scott Alexander describes deleting his blog Slate Star Codex due to a doxxing threat, the aftermath, and his decision to return to blogging under his real name. Longer summary

Scott Alexander recounts his experience of deleting his popular blog Slate Star Codex after the New York Times threatened to reveal his real name. He discusses the reasons behind his decision, the unexpected consequences, and the outpouring of support he received. Scott reflects on the importance of online anonymity and explains his decision to restart his blog under his real name, as well as his plans for the future. Shorter summary

Scott Alexander maintains a list of significant mistakes in his blog posts, providing corrections and updates in reverse chronological order. Longer summary

Scott Alexander maintains a list of significant mistakes he has made in his blog posts, providing corrections and updates. He acknowledges errors in data interpretation, misunderstandings of studies, incorrect predictions, and instances where he changed his mind based on new evidence or reader feedback. The list is presented in reverse chronological order and covers a wide range of topics including medicine, economics, psychology, and social issues. Shorter summary

Scott Alexander introduces his new blog, Astral Codex Ten, centered around the concept of ṛta and exploring topics related to rationality, science, and human cognition. Longer summary

Scott Alexander introduces his new blog, Astral Codex Ten, explaining that it focuses on the concept of ṛta, an ancient Sanskrit word related to order, truth, and rationality. He describes the blog's main topics, including reasoning, science, psychiatry, medicine, ethics, genetics, AI, economics, and politics. Scott emphasizes the importance of understanding cognitive biases and how they influence our perceptions and judgments. He mentions his connections to the rationalist and effective altruist communities, as well as his background in psychiatry, and expresses his commitment to fostering an engaged readership. Shorter summary

Scott Alexander deletes his blog Slate Star Codex to prevent the New York Times from revealing his real name, citing professional and safety concerns. Longer summary

Scott Alexander announces the deletion of his blog Slate Star Codex due to a New York Times reporter planning to reveal his real name in an article. He explains his reasons for maintaining pseudonymity, including professional concerns as a psychiatrist and personal safety. Scott expresses hope that the NYT will reconsider their policy, allowing him to restore the blog. He provides alternative platforms for his community and asks supporters to politely contact the NYT about their doxxing policy. The post includes later edits addressing the eventual publication of the NYT article and its negative tone. Shorter summary

Scott Alexander discusses the problems with paywalled articles and proposes solutions to improve internet users' experience. Longer summary

Scott Alexander criticizes paywalls on articles, arguing that they create artificial curiosity, hinder public discourse, and make information searching frustrating. He explains how paywalls can negatively impact user experience by creating clickbait, limiting access to important discussions, and complicating information searches. Scott proposes several solutions, including search engine options to hide or mark paywalled articles, browser extensions to identify paywalled links, and better practices for bloggers and social media users when sharing links. He commits to implementing some of these practices in his own writing. Shorter summary

Scott Alexander announces a book review contest for Slate Star Codex, outlining submission guidelines and prizes for the winners. Longer summary

Scott Alexander announces a book review contest for his blog Slate Star Codex. Participants are invited to write a book review similar to Scott's style and submit it by August 5th, 2020. The post outlines submission guidelines, formatting requirements, and prizes for the winners. Scott will select finalists, publish them on the blog, and readers will vote for the best. The contest aims to discover new writing talent and generate interesting content for the blog. Shorter summary

Less Wrong is hosting a party in Berkeley for Bay Area SSC readers, with Scott Alexander and the Less Wrong team attending. Longer summary

Less Wrong is hosting a party in Berkeley this Saturday and is inviting Bay Area SSC readers as an experiment to see if inviting people to parties via blog is effective. The party will be held at a private house at 2412 MLK Jr Way, starting at 7 PM. Scott Alexander will be attending, along with the Less Wrong website team and other interesting people. A Facebook event page is provided for more details. Shorter summary

Scott Alexander clarifies that his blog Slate Star Codex is not strictly representative of the rationalist community, and addresses common misconceptions about the blog's relationship to rationalism and effective altruism. Longer summary

Scott Alexander clarifies several points about his blog Slate Star Codex (SSC) and its relationship to the rationalist community. He emphasizes that SSC is not strictly a 'rationalist blog', comparing it to a 'rationalist picnic' rather than a 'rationalist monastery'. Scott expresses skepticism about claims of rationality's practical utility in everyday life, and points readers to other resources for more intensive rationalist and effective altruist content. He stresses that while he's not distancing himself from the rationalist community, SSC should not be seen as representative of or equivalent to the broader rationalist movement. The post aims to address common misconceptions and set appropriate expectations for readers. Shorter summary

Scott Alexander offers ten tips for effective nonfiction writing, emphasizing structure, variety, flow, and persuasion techniques. Longer summary

Scott Alexander provides advice on nonfiction writing, covering topics such as text structure, variety in writing, maintaining flow of ideas, repetition, humor, concrete examples, persuasion techniques, anticipating counterarguments, and using concept handles. He emphasizes the importance of developing instincts and not forcing the application of these rules. Shorter summary

Scott Alexander compares his inability to allocate time for work tasks despite blogging regularly to heroin addicts' inability to allocate money for medication despite buying drugs. Longer summary

Scott Alexander discusses the parallel between heroin addicts' inability to allocate money for medication and his own struggle to allocate time for work tasks despite having time to blog. He explains that just as addicts can find money for drugs but not for medication, he can find time for blogging but struggles to find time for other tasks. Scott suggests that the real bottleneck is energy/willpower rather than time, and that blogging, being his 'addiction', doesn't require this resource. He acknowledges this is unfair to those waiting on him and mentions he should be less busy in the coming weeks. Shorter summary

Scott shares a comedic video about people praising a non-existent Pope, using it to humorously critique Catholic tendency to believe in nonexistent father figures. Longer summary

Scott humorously reflects on his inability to consistently produce clever but slightly unfair zingers about religious people, a skill needed for atheism blogging. He shares a video where comedians ask people on the street about a non-existent new Pope, noting how quickly Catholics praise this nonexistent father figure under mild social pressure. Scott's reaction draws a parallel between this behavior and broader Catholic beliefs, demonstrating his improving ability to create the kind of zingers common in atheist blogging. Shorter summary

Scott Alexander introduces his new blog, Slate Star Codex, and explains its ethos of 'charity over absurdity' in intellectual discourse. Longer summary

Scott Alexander introduces his new blog, Slate Star Codex, explaining its name and ethos. The blog's central principle is 'charity over absurdity,' which means trying to understand opposing viewpoints rather than dismissing them outright. Scott explains this concept using Chesterton's Fence analogy and emphasizes the importance of charitable interpretation in intellectual discourse. He argues that this approach is not only ethically sound but also intellectually advantageous, as it can lead to a deeper understanding of complex issues. Shorter summary