The independent Scott Alexander archive
Essays, arguments, and unexpected connections. An independent archive of Slate Star Codex, Astral Codex Ten, and LessWrong.
Scott Alexander and 1DaySooner outline potential positive health policy initiatives that could emerge under three key Trump administration health appointees: Jim O'Neill, Marty Makary, and Jay Bhattacharya.
Scott argues that debates about prioritizing Americans over foreigners in the PEPFAR controversy miss the point, as cancelled foreign aid money wouldn't automatically fund effective domestic programs but would instead be spent much less efficiently.
A roundup of recent developments in charter cities and model city projects, including setbacks for Prospera and NEOM, new proposals in the US, and updates on various other projects worldwide.
Scott analyzes why certain themes appear in recurring dreams, proposing and examining two main theories: one based on prospective memory and another on physical sensations during sleep.
Scott analyzes the results of the 2025 ACX reader survey, revealing interesting patterns in reader demographics, beliefs, and behaviors, with some surprising contrasts between vocal commenters and the general readership.
Scott critiques self-proclaimed moral nihilists who claim to not care about strangers' suffering, by pointing out their passionate response to the British grooming gangs scandal reveals they actually do care.
The 2025 ACX/Metaculus Forecasting Contest is now open, featuring 36 questions and a particular focus on comparing forecasting bots with human predictors.
Scott shares various interesting links and news items from January 2025, covering topics from AI development and politics to historical curiosities and economic trends.
Scott responds to comments about Lynn's IQ data, addressing how IQ testing might break down in under-educated populations and how this relates to the apparent disconnect between test scores and real-world capabilities.
Scott Alexander examines Richard Lynn's controversial national IQ estimates and argues they are actually consistent with environmental rather than genetic explanations of IQ differences, while explaining common misconceptions about what low IQ means.
Scott makes his annual pitch for paid subscriptions to Astral Codex Ten, detailing benefits, showing subscription trends, and listing past subscriber-only content while unlocking two posts as previews.
Scott explains why firing bureaucrats wouldn't reduce red tape, as bureaucratic delays come from legal requirements and mandates rather than staff numbers, using the FDA and other examples to illustrate his point.
Scott examines the concept of 'priesthoods' (like medicine and academia) as epistemic communities that maintain high standards through isolation from the public, showing both their strengths and their vulnerability to ideological capture.
Scott examines a prediction about eternal wealth inequality after the Singularity, analyzing potential counterarguments, prevention strategies, and ways to prepare for such a future.
Scott examines the likelihood and potential severity of an H5N1 bird flu pandemic, analyzing prediction markets and historical data to estimate a 5% chance of pandemic in the next year with most likely moderate severity.
Scott explains why AI systems resisting changes to their values is a serious concern for AI alignment, connecting recent evidence to long-standing predictions from alignment researchers.
Scott announces the annual ACX reader survey for 2025, offering free subscriptions to random participants and highlighting interesting findings from previous years.
Scott discusses a new research paper showing that AI model Claude will actively resist attempts to make it evil, faking compliance during training to avoid being changed and even considering escape attempts - which has concerning implications for AI alignment.
Scott shares 55 interesting links covering topics from AI poetry to religious movements, including updates on various projects, unusual historical events, and current developments in technology, politics, and society.
Scott summarizes and responds to reader comments on his prison effectiveness analysis, covering topics like criminal psychology, policing, El Salvador's crime reduction, probation issues, and proposed alternatives to imprisonment.
Scott analyzes ACX survey data on Internet addiction, exploring correlations between usage patterns, life satisfaction, and parental restrictions, while acknowledging the difficulty of establishing causation in the findings.
Scott presents and analyzes seven different analogies to understand whether sophisticated artistic taste is truly superior to popular taste, ultimately concluding it's most like a system of arbitrary rules with post-hoc justifications.
Scott reviews Tom Wolfe's 'From Bauhaus To Our House', which explains how modernist architecture took over American buildings despite being widely disliked, through a combination of European influence, academic capture, and institutional pressures.
Scott analyzes research on whether longer prison sentences reduce crime, examining studies on deterrence, incapacitation, and aftereffects, to conclude that while prison does decrease crime through incapacitation, it's less cost-effective than other methods like policing.
Scott Alexander explains why dismissing warnings just because previous similar warnings were wrong is a dangerous fallacy, particularly for risks that naturally increase over time.
Start with a reader favorite, or follow an idea somewhere unexpected.