ACX
Subscrive Drive 2024 + Free Unlocked Posts
Scott Alexander conducts his yearly subscription drive for Astral Codex Ten, listing benefits and unlocking some subscriber-only content to encourage sign-ups.
6 min read 908 words
The reader’s shortlist
Worth a second thought.
Essays ranked by captured source likes. Essays without a saved count are listed last.
Most liked essays
2,008 essaysACX
The Passage Of Polymarket
Scott examines the recent crackdown on Polymarket, critiques US policy on prediction markets, and discusses the future and potential of both prediction markets and cryptocurrency.
19 min read 2,918 words
ACX
Diseasonality
Scott Alexander examines theories for disease seasonality, proposing a dynamic model where seasonal factors entrain waning immunity cycles.
20 min read 3,002 words
ACX
Highlights From The Comments On "The Origin Of Woke"
Scott Alexander summarizes and responds to comments on his review of 'The Origins of Woke', covering various aspects of civil rights law, workplace discrimination, and the spread of 'wokeness'.
91 min read 14,068 words
ACX
The Low-Hanging Fruit Argument: Models And Predictions
Scott proposes a 'low-hanging fruit' model to explain trends in scientific discovery, using a foraging analogy to illustrate why early scientists make more discoveries and at a younger age.
13 min read 1,861 words
ACX
Contra Hanania On Partisanship
Scott Alexander challenges Richard Hanania's explanation for liberal dominance in institutions, attributing it instead to shifting coalition systems described by Thomas Piketty.
21 min read 3,171 words
ACX
Highlights From The Comments On Geography Of Madness
Scott Alexander discusses reader comments on his 'Geography of Madness' review, revising views on culture-bound syndromes and exploring various mental health topics.
22 min read 3,377 words
ACX
Obscure Pregnancy Interventions: Much More Than You Wanted To Know
Scott Alexander examines obscure pregnancy interventions that may improve child outcomes, rating them by evidence quality and potential impact.
80 min read 12,326 words
ACX
Your Book Review: Viral
A review of 'Viral' by Chan and Ridley explores competing hypotheses about COVID-19's origins, critiquing institutional responses and emphasizing ongoing uncertainty.
47 min read 7,270 words
LW
The Trouble With "Good"
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.
13 min read 1,962 words
ACX
Highlights From The Comments On Telemedicine Regulations
Scott Alexander responds to comments on his post about new telemedicine regulations, addressing various concerns and criticisms raised by readers.
33 min read 4,965 words
ACX
Long COVID: Much More Than You Wanted To Know
Scott Alexander examines the current research on Long COVID, analyzing its prevalence, symptoms, and potential impacts to assess personal risk and societal implications.
50 min read 7,628 words
ACX
Who Predicted 2022?
Scott Alexander analyzes results from a 2022 prediction contest, discussing top performers and methods for improving forecast accuracy.
24 min read 3,720 words
LW
2011 Less Wrong Census / Survey
Scott announces a new Less Wrong census and survey to replace the outdated 2009 version, maintaining its structure for comparison while fixing problems and updating questions.
2 min read 260 words
ACX
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
LW
Prospect Theory: A Framework for Understanding Cognitive Biases
Scott explains prospect theory, Kahneman and Tversky's model of how people actually make decisions, showing how its value and probability weighting functions predict numerous cognitive biases including loss aversion, scope insensitivity, and framing effects.
8 min read 1,202 words
ACX
Asterisk/Zvi on California's AI Bill
Scott Alexander analyzes California's AI regulation bill SB1047, finding it reasonably well-designed despite misrepresentations, and ultimately supporting it as a compromise between safety and innovation.
19 min read 2,928 words
ACX
Eight Hundred Slightly Poisoned Word Games
Scott Alexander conducts an experiment playing a word game 800 times under varying CO2 levels, finding no correlation between indoor carbon dioxide and cognitive performance.
8 min read 1,161 words
ACX
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
ACX
Link: Troof On Nootropics
Scott Alexander discusses a replication of his nootropics survey, expressing skepticism about the results due to potential placebo effects and biases in participant ratings.
5 min read 711 words
ACX
Non-Cognitive Skills For Educational Attainment Suggest Benefits Of Mental Illness Genes
Scott Alexander examines a genetic study distinguishing cognitive and non-cognitive skills in educational attainment, revealing unexpected correlations with mental health conditions.
8 min read 1,173 words
ACX
Why Do People Prefer My Old Blog's Layout To Substack's?
Scott Alexander explores why readers prefer his old amateur blog layout to Substack's professional design, presenting survey data and considering various explanations for this unexpected preference.
6 min read 876 words
LW
The Power of Positivist Thinking
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.
18 min read 2,712 words
ACX
Addendum To Luvox Post
Scott provides updates on efforts to get FDA approval for fluvoxamine as a COVID-19 treatment and reports on the early approval of Paxlovid.
3 min read 396 words
ACX
Initial Conditions
Scott Alexander examines the prevalence of people going by initials, particularly those starting with 'J', and explores various theories to explain this trend.
4 min read 476 words