The reader’s shortlist
Essays ranked by captured source likes. Essays without a saved count are listed last.
Scott Alexander reviews Tom Davidson's model predicting AI will progress from automating 20% of jobs to superintelligence in about 4 years, discussing its implications and comparisons to other AI forecasts.
Scott Alexander summarizes and responds to reader comments on his Elon Musk book review, covering various aspects of Musk's life, work, and personality.
Scott Alexander summarizes and responds to various comments on his kidney donation post, covering a wide range of related topics and perspectives.
Scott Alexander examines Matt Yglesias's public predictions and discusses the implications for evaluating pundits and the future of prediction-based journalism.
Scott Alexander argues against Gary Marcus's critique of AI scaling, discussing the potential for future AI capabilities and the nature of human intelligence.
Scott Alexander analyzes the threat of ancient diseases from thawing permafrost, arguing that recent human plagues pose a greater risk than prehistoric ones.
Scott discusses comments on his previous post about liberalism and communities, exploring various perspectives on how wealth and societal structures affect community formation and maintenance.
Scott summarizes and responds to comments on his previous article about nerds and hipsters, covering various topics and reflecting on personal identity and social signaling.
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.
Scott Alexander responds to critiques of his 2021 ivermectin analysis, acknowledging some errors but maintaining his conclusion that ivermectin likely doesn't work for COVID-19.
Scott Alexander examines Redwood Research's attempt to create an AI that avoids generating violent content, using Alex Rider fanfiction as training data.
Scott Alexander examines recent studies on the Fraternal Birth Order Effect, finding evidence for a broader sibling birth order effect on homosexuality, though its exact nature and mechanism remain debated.
Scott Alexander argues that missing a year or two of school is unlikely to have significant long-term effects on children's education, presenting evidence and critiquing contrary studies.
Scott examines data on COVID-19 lockdown effectiveness, finding they likely reduced transmission but at significant costs, with targeted measures being most effective.
A review of Guy Debord's 'The Society of the Spectacle', examining its critique of capitalism and mass media, and relating its ideas to modern issues.
Scott explores the recent British economic decline, examining various statistics and theories about its causes and impact.
Scott Alexander analyzes survey data on different schooling types, finding home schooling associated with highest satisfaction but noting significant limitations in the data.
A review of 'Safe Enough?' by Thomas Wellock, exploring the history and limitations of Probabilistic Risk Assessment in nuclear safety.
Scott Alexander reviews 'America Against America', a 1988 book by Chinese political scientist Wang Huning, analyzing his observations of US society and institutions after a brief stay in Iowa.
Scott investigates the claim that cold-related deaths account for 10% of global mortality, exploring various factors and potential impacts of global warming on death rates.
Scott announces the finalist selection phase for the 2026 Book Review Contest, asking readers to help rate 162 entries using a new website built by Rob Ennals.
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 announces the annual ACX reader survey for 2025, offering free subscriptions to random participants and highlighting interesting findings from previous years.
Scott discusses how people's subjective self-assessments are often miscalibrated, using his own exam experiences and research on physical attractiveness and likeability to argue for replacing internal feelings with objective external measurements.
Scott proposes that guilt evolved as a costly signal to prove trustworthiness to potential cooperation partners, explaining why guilt involves public self-punishment and can even occur when someone hasn't done anything wrong.