The independent Scott Alexander archive
Essays, arguments, and unexpected connections. An independent archive of Slate Star Codex, Astral Codex Ten, and LessWrong.
Scott analyzes results from a 166-person Less Wrong survey covering demographics, probability estimates on various topics, and philosophical positions, finding a highly educated, mostly male, atheist, politically libertarian/liberal community with surprisingly accurate collective knowledge but notable gaps between stated beliefs and actions.
Scott explores how small inconveniences can powerfully shape behavior, from China's Great Firewall to rebate forms to credit card spending, and discusses policy implications including opt-out government programs.
Scott announces the official survey is ready with a link, noting it uses percentage format for probabilities and will be open for about a week before results are calculated.
Scott argues that affirmations (repeatedly stating goals aloud) might actually work based on evidence that subconscious beliefs affect success and that verbal repetition influences subconscious beliefs, though he acknowledges this needs proper scientific study.
Scott explains the "typical mind fallacy" - the tendency to assume everyone's mind works like your own - using examples from mental imagery, personality differences, and social behavior, arguing that rationality requires overcoming this bias.
Scott discovers and shares links to the Bayesian Cabaret, a real biennial event where statisticians perform songs and skits about Bayesian probability theory.
Scott proposes a LessWrong community survey to gather demographics and opinions, shares a draft, and asks readers to suggest additional questions and weigh in on privacy concerns about releasing raw data.
Scott analyzes why people are more curious about pseudoscience than real science, arguing that our sense of mystery is an evolutionary algorithm that responds to solvability, worldview-altering potential, social status, and human-level problems rather than actual importance.
Scott explains that while people naturally use emotivism (the 'yay/boo' theory) for moral reasoning, this creates serious problems by lumping everything into 'good' or 'bad' categories, and argues that converting moral debates into specific questions about actions and applying utilitarianism provides a better framework for resolving complicated issues.
Scott argues that "extreme rationality" (x-rationality) - the formal study of rationality beyond normal intelligent thinking - provides much less practical benefit than the rationalist community believes, estimating a correlation of only 0.1 with success.
Scott analyzes why multiple groups in America simultaneously claim persecution, identifying psychological motivations behind these claims and warning against the rhetorical trick of presenting oneself as both persecuted underdog and inevitable winner.
Scott examines the universal human bias toward supporting underdogs, presents evidence it significantly influences opinions, and asks why evolution would favor such an apparently irrational strategy.
Scott presents Horace Miner's satirical essay describing American culture as an exotic tribe called the 'Nacirema,' demonstrating how framing effects and cultural expectations shape anthropological interpretation.
Scott identifies five logical fallacies in a popular anecdote about Steve Jobs rejecting Indian spirituality, arguing it succeeded through tribal appeal rather than logical merit, and uses it as a case study for why careful argument analysis must become automatic.
Scott recounts the case of Simon Browne, an 18th-century preacher who claimed to have lost his soul and consciousness after killing a robber in self-defense, yet continued to write and reason brilliantly, potentially representing a real-world philosophical zombie.
Scott presents Aleister Crowley's rationalist approach to mysticism and religious experience, arguing that Crowley's empirically-focused system for achieving enlightenment offers valuable insights that both religious and rationalist perspectives typically miss.
Scott distinguishes between bias as a cognitive process versus bias as a faulty belief, then proposes using the Implicit Association Test to empirically test whether debiasing techniques work by either fighting bias directly or routing around it.
Scott explains the Implicit Association Test (IAT), which measures unconscious associations by testing reaction times when categorizing concepts, and argues it's better understood as measuring distances in conceptual space rather than as a simple test for prejudice.
Scott explains two psychological techniques for detecting hidden attitudes: the Bogus Pipeline (a fake lie detector that reduces conscious lying) and the Bona Fide Pipeline (a reaction-time computer test that measures unconscious associations).
Scott distinguishes between a statement's denotation (factual content) and connotation (emotional implications), showing how technically true statements can mislead through subtext, and proposes ADBOC as a response technique.
Scott defends a 'soft positivism' in which meaningful statements can be reduced to testable claims, and argues that statements that resist such reduction, like 'Islam is a religion of peace', often smuggle in emotion and prejudice.
Scott shares and comments on favorite rationalist poetry by Pope, Omar Khayyam, Piet Hein and Byron to show that poetry and rationality have long been allies.
Scott argues that to persuade people rather than just demolish them, you should leave them a social line of retreat by being genuinely nice and not treating the discussion as a status contest.
Scott surveys research on priming, including studies showing it can sway political judgments and votes, and suggests deciding important matters in a neutral environment.
Scott proposes testing untestable humanities claims by mixing one sincere argument with several deliberately fabricated ones, inspired by the Ern Malley poetry hoax, and seeing whether experts can tell them apart.
Start with a reader favorite, or follow an idea somewhere unexpected.