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RPG emergency!
Scott Alexander urgently seeks a new 'Apologist' player for a Dungeons and Discourse game session happening within five hours.
2 min read 217 words
The independent Scott Alexander archive
Scott Alexander, collected.
Essays, arguments, and unexpected connections. An independent archive of Slate Star Codex, Astral Codex Ten, and LessWrong.
The collection
2,008 essaysSSC
Polyamory Is Boring
Scott Alexander shares his journey from skepticism to acceptance of polyamory, challenging common misconceptions and describing his personal experiences.
15 min read 2,243 words
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Poor Folks Do Smile…For Now
Scott Alexander discusses Robin Hanson's vision of a future with emulated humans, debating the preservation of human values and the nature of future societal coordination.
16 min read 2,355 words
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Investment and Inefficient Charity
Scott Alexander discusses Robin Hanson's idea of investing charitable donations for later use, exploring psychological resistance and attempting to debunk it with various arguments.
14 min read 2,063 words
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Lies, Damned Lies, And Facebook (Part 1 of ∞)
Scott Alexander debunks a viral image about minimum wage and apartment affordability, showing how its methodology is flawed and recalculating more realistic figures.
9 min read 1,311 words
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Lies, Damned Lies, And Facebook (Part 2 of ∞)
Scott Alexander debunks a misleading Facebook meme about Google autocomplete suggestions for disabled people, showing that Google's suggestions are universally negative for almost all groups.
8 min read 1,124 words
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Against Anton-Wilsonism
Scott criticizes the approach to mysticism popularized by Robert Anton Wilson, arguing it provides false rewards and promotes harmful dabbling instead of genuine practice.
10 min read 1,501 words
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A good pun is its own reword
Scott Alexander explores what makes puns truly great, providing numerous examples and discussing various types of exceptional wordplay.
8 min read 1,112 words
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Thank you for doing something ambiguously between smoking and not smoking
Scott Alexander argues that e-cigarettes are likely replacing regular cigarettes rather than non-smoking, making them beneficial for public health despite government attempts to ban them.
12 min read 1,738 words
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My Thoughts On The First 40 Pages Of Alastair MacIntyre’s “After Virtue”, Expressed In The Form Of A Slightly Modified XKCD Comic
Scott Alexander presents his thoughts on Alasdair MacIntyre's 'After Virtue' through a humorous modified XKCD comic, highlighting the complexity of philosophical debates.
1 min read 6 words
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The death of wages is sin
Scott Alexander critiques a plan to cure youth unemployment by abolishing minimum wage, arguing that unemployment might be preferable to miserable employment at extremely low wages.
7 min read 1,078 words
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Book Review: Infinite Jest (alternate title: “Look At Me! I Read Infinite Jest!”)
A review of David Foster Wallace's 'Infinite Jest', exploring its themes, structure, and critique of postmodern society through comparison with 'Illuminatus' and analysis of its complex narrative.
24 min read 3,598 words
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If opposites attract, why is my sister so pretty?
Scott explores the conflicting evidence on whether humans are attracted to genetically similar or dissimilar partners, concluding with a paradoxical observation that both seem true in different contexts.
8 min read 1,127 words
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Links for March
A collection of interesting links covering various topics from government plots and scientific studies to religious news and technological developments.
7 min read 997 words
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My objections to “objectification”
Scott argues against the concept of 'objectification', claiming it unnecessarily stigmatizes harmless attractions and prevents potentially beneficial relationships.
8 min read 1,172 words
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Not just a mere political issue
Scott examines the concept of political tolerance, questioning where and why society draws the line between acceptable and unacceptable political views.
14 min read 2,127 words
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Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum: habemus officium!
Scott Alexander announces his acceptance into a psychiatry residency in Michigan, reflecting on the competitive nature of medical residencies and his unexpected positive experiences following a previous rejection.
12 min read 1,754 words
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Valleys have two sides
Scott Alexander critiques the Reactionary 'uncanny valley' argument for dictatorship, highlighting its practical flaws and drawing parallels with Communist regimes.
8 min read 1,127 words
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Fermat’s Last Stand: Game Rosters
Scott Alexander organizes online groups for the game 'Fermat's Last Stand', providing player lists and DM contact information, and invites potential replacements to comment.
3 min read 464 words
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Good vibrations and subjective temporal granularity
Scott Alexander explores subjective temporal granularity, its relation to meditation, and how it might allow for intervening in thought construction.
7 min read 1,018 words
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Hitting Below The (Bible) Belt
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.
2 min read 185 words
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We Sail Tonight For Singapore
Scott Alexander compares Singapore to Hong Kong, Macau, and Sweden using various socioeconomic indicators to challenge the claim that Singapore's success is due to its Reactionary policies.
11 min read 1,602 words
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We Wrestle Not With Flesh And Blood, But Against Powers And Principalities
Scott argues that even if past cultures were superior, restoring them is impossible because cultures evolve to fit their technological conditions, which have changed dramatically.
26 min read 3,942 words
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Yet Another Parable On The Importance Of Controlling Your Experiments
Scott attempts to test a productivity hack using calligraphy study, but discovers calligraphy itself is captivating, leaving the experiment inconclusive.
2 min read 235 words
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A Thrive/Survive Theory Of The Political Spectrum
Scott Alexander proposes a 'Thrive/Survive Theory' explaining political ideologies as optimizations for different environments, with rightism for survival and leftism for thriving in safety.
24 min read 3,584 words
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