The independent Scott Alexander archive
Essays, arguments, and unexpected connections. An independent archive of Slate Star Codex, Astral Codex Ten, and LessWrong.
The post examines prediction markets for Trump's 2024 chances, Musk's Twitter deal, and the impact of the Dobbs decision, while also discussing new forecasting initiatives and other current events.
Scott Alexander defends his analysis of the 2020 US homicide spike against various counterarguments, maintaining that it was primarily caused by changes in policing following protests.
A review of 'The Outlier' by Kai Bird, examining Jimmy Carter's life and presidency, highlighting his unconventional approach and mixed legacy.
Scott Alexander examines the poor quality of research on homework effectiveness, finding only one well-designed study showing positive effects for high school algebra.
Scott Alexander analyzes a study showing Concerta improves ADHD children's attention but not their learning, and speculates on the reasons behind this unexpected result.
Scott Alexander shares 57 diverse links on topics including politics, science, technology, and culture, providing brief summaries and commentary on each.
A review of 'The Internationalists', which argues for the significance of the 1928 Kellogg-Briand Peace Pact in outlawing war and shaping modern international relations.
Scott Alexander shares reader comments on his 'San Fransicko' book review, covering homelessness, crime statistics, and urban policy debates.
Scott Alexander presents evidence that the 2020 US homicide spike was caused by Black Lives Matter protests rather than the COVID-19 pandemic.
The post updates on charter cities, covering the repeal of Honduras' ZEDE law, Disney's Reedy Creek dissolution, and new projects like Afropolitan, while discussing ongoing developments and challenges.
A review of Richard Hanania's book arguing that public choice theory, not grand strategy, explains US foreign policy decisions and their often devastating consequences.
A detailed review of Michael Shellenberger's 'San Fransicko', examining its critiques of San Francisco's progressive policies on homelessness, drugs, and crime.
A plasma physicist reviews 'The Future of Fusion Energy', explaining fusion basics and predicting its achievement by 2035-2040 based on recent developments.
Scott Alexander provides a detailed guide on understanding, preventing, and treating nightmares, covering causes, lifestyle changes, therapies, and medications.
Scott Alexander reviews recent predictions and forecasts on topics including monkeypox, the Ukraine war, AI development, and US politics.
Scott Alexander argues against Gary Marcus's critique of AI scaling, discussing the potential for future AI capabilities and the nature of human intelligence.
A critical review of 'The Dawn of Everything' by Graeber and Wengrow, examining their challenge to standard prehistory narratives and proposing an alternative hypothesis.
Scott Alexander critiques the claim that 'America has two X-wing parties' as meaningless or misleading, urging for more precise political comparisons.
Scott Alexander examines which US political party has become more extreme faster, concluding Democrats have moved further left on policy since 1994, while results vary for other aspects of extremism.
Scott Alexander bets that AI models will quickly overcome current limitations, based on how GPT-3 improved on GPT-2's shortcomings identified by Gary Marcus.
Scott writes a satirical poem about clickbait content, repeating the refrain 'It's bad on purpose to make you click' to critique manipulative media practices.
A comprehensive review of 'The Castrato' by Martha Feldman, exploring the history, biology, and social impact of castrati singers in Italy.
Scott Alexander explores new data on birth order effects among his blog readers, finding social factors likely explain firstborns' overrepresentation.
Scott Alexander experiments with DALL-E 2 to create stained glass window designs, exploring the AI's capabilities and limitations in interpreting complex prompts.
A review of 'The Anti-Politics Machine' by James Ferguson, discussing its critique of development projects and implications for Effective Altruism.
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