ACX
My 2024 Presidential Debate
Scott Alexander presents a satirical 2024 presidential debate between Biden and Trump, featuring increasingly absurd positions on various issues.
27 min read 4,116 words
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debate
Essays tagged “debate”. Follow an idea across the archive.
Essays on debate
89 essaysACX
Contra Stone On EA
Scott Alexander critiques Lyman Stone's arguments against Effective Altruism, defending the movement's impact, methodology, and philosophical foundations.
35 min read 5,420 words
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Highlights From The Comments On Hanson And Health Care
Scott Alexander summarizes comments on his healthcare effectiveness debate with Robin Hanson, including clarifications, study author responses, and reader perspectives on various healthcare topics.
40 min read 6,106 words
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Response to Hanson On Health Care
Scott Alexander responds to Robin Hanson's reply on medical effectiveness, clarifying interpretations and reiterating arguments about the limitations of insurance experiments in evaluating medical care.
41 min read 6,243 words
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Desperately Trying To Fathom The Coffeepocalypse Argument
Scott Alexander dissects and criticizes a common argument against AI safety that compares it to past unfulfilled disaster predictions, finding it logically flawed and difficult to steelman.
17 min read 2,526 words
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Practically-A-Book Review: Rootclaim $100,000 Lab Leak Debate
Scott Alexander reviews a $100,000 debate on COVID-19 origins, where the zoonotic hypothesis unexpectedly won against the lab leak theory.
118 min read 18,207 words
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Highlights From The Comments On Capitalism & Charity
Scott Alexander responds to comments on his capitalism vs charity post, clarifying his argument and addressing various counterpoints and suggested capitalist charities.
37 min read 5,649 words
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Contra DeBoer On Movement Shell Games
Scott Alexander defends effective altruism against Freddie deBoer's criticism, arguing for its distinctiveness, practical value, and positive marginal effects.
20 min read 3,071 words
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Hardball Questions For The Next Debate
Scott Alexander presents a satirical, fictional Republican primary debate with absurd rules to highlight candidate personalities and critique political debate formats.
15 min read 2,209 words
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Pause For Thought: The AI Pause Debate
Scott Alexander reviews a debate on AI development pauses, discussing various strategies and their potential impacts on AI safety and progress.
38 min read 5,768 words
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Contra Kirkegaard On Evolutionary Definitions Of Mental Illness
Scott Alexander critiques Emil Kirkegaard's evolutionary definition of mental illness, arguing for separate terms to distinguish between social dysfunction and evolutionary fitness concepts.
15 min read 2,312 words
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Highlights From The Comments On Dating Preferences
Scott Alexander discusses reader comments on his post about dating preferences, covering various perspectives and addressing critiques of 'dating docs'.
40 min read 6,114 words
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Highlights From The Comments On Housing Density And Prices
Scott Alexander responds to criticism of his post on housing density and prices, refining but largely maintaining his argument that increased density can raise local prices.
51 min read 7,868 words
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Contra Kavanagh On Fideism
Scott Alexander defends his thorough analysis of ivermectin studies, arguing that dismissing controversial topics without addressing evidence can inadvertently promote conspiracy theories.
23 min read 3,470 words
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Highlights From The Comments On Jhanas
Scott Alexander summarizes comments debating the reality and implications of jhanas, a meditative state of extreme bliss.
47 min read 7,250 words
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Highlights From The Comments On Criticism Of Criticism Of Criticism
Scott Alexander responds to comments on his post about criticism of EA, addressing various points about scientific paradigms, types of criticism, and the ethics of evangelism.
31 min read 4,662 words
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Somewhat Contra Marcus On AI Scaling
Scott Alexander argues against Gary Marcus's critique of AI scaling, discussing the potential for future AI capabilities and the nature of human intelligence.
29 min read 4,485 words
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My Bet: AI Size Solves Flubs
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.
25 min read 3,787 words
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Highlights From The Comments On "Sadly, Porn"
Scott Alexander presents and discusses diverse reader reactions to his review of 'Sadly, Porn', touching on the book's controversial ideas and writing style.
56 min read 8,675 words
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Yudkowsky Contra Christiano On AI Takeoff Speeds
Scott Alexander summarizes a debate between Yudkowsky and Christiano on whether AI progress will be gradual or sudden, exploring their key arguments and implications.
55 min read 8,479 words
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Highlights From The Comments On Justice Creep
Scott Alexander discusses reactions to his 'Justice Creep' article, exploring different perspectives on framing social issues as matters of justice.
38 min read 5,844 words
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Highlights From The Comments On Acemoglu And AI
Scott Alexander responds to comments on his AI risk post, discussing AI self-awareness, narrow vs. general AI, catastrophe probabilities, and research priorities.
37 min read 5,613 words
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Contra Acemoglu On...Oh God, We're Doing This Again, Aren't We?
Scott Alexander critiques Daron Acemoglu's Washington Post article on AI risks, highlighting flawed logic and unsupported claims about AI's current impacts.
16 min read 2,326 words
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Weyl Contra Me On Technocracy
Glen Weyl responds to Scott Alexander's critique of his technocracy essay, clarifying his position and defending his arguments while acknowledging some limitations.
8 min read 1,183 words
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Hardball Questions For The Next Debate (2020)
Scott Alexander presents satirical and absurd 'hardball questions' for 2020 Democratic presidential candidates, showcasing clever wordplay and humorous connections.
7 min read 1,013 words