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Confirmation Bias As Misfire Of Normal Bayesian Reasoning
Scott Alexander proposes that confirmation bias might be a misapplication of normal Bayesian reasoning rather than a separate cognitive phenomenon.
4 min read 531 words
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2,008 essaysSSC
Conflict Vs. Mistake
Scott Alexander explores the conflict vs. mistake theory dichotomy in politics, reflecting on his own mistake theory bias and considering the merits of conflict theory.
19 min read 2,885 words
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Confounder Of The Day: How Sexy Your Parents Were
Scott Alexander examines studies linking parental age to psychiatric disorders in children, revealing that the father's age at first child, not at conception, is the key factor.
5 min read 754 words
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Considerations On Cost Disease
Scott Alexander examines the phenomenon of cost disease, where costs for basic services like education and healthcare have increased dramatically without corresponding improvements in quality or wages.
47 min read 7,274 words
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CONSTANT VIGILANCE!
Scott Alexander argues that rationality should be viewed as habit cultivation rather than a limited resource, drawing parallels with aikido and lucid dreaming techniques.
8 min read 1,099 words
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Axiology, Morality, Law
Scott explores moral offsetting, introducing a framework distinguishing axiology, morality, and law to argue that we can offset axiological but not moral violations.
22 min read 3,353 words
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Contra Caplan On Arbitrary Deploring
Scott Alexander argues that public outrage over specific misdeeds is not arbitrary, but a strategic way to enforce important social norms with limited resources.
9 min read 1,273 words
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Contra Caplan on Mental Illness
Scott Alexander critiques Bryan Caplan's argument that psychiatric diseases are unusual preferences rather than real illnesses, providing counterarguments and evidence to show this view is untenable.
32 min read 4,853 words
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Contra Contra Contra Caplan On Psych
Scott Alexander critiques Bryan Caplan's constraints vs preferences model of mental illness, proposing instead a goals vs urges framework that better explains both mental and physical health issues.
28 min read 4,232 words
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Contra Grant On Exaggerated Differences
Scott Alexander critiques Adam Grant's article on gender differences in tech, arguing Grant misrepresents evidence and ignores key factors like innate interest differences between men and women.
45 min read 6,903 words
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Contra Hallquist On Scientific Rationality
Scott Alexander defends Less Wrong and Eliezer Yudkowsky against accusations of being anti-scientific, arguing that developing rational thinking skills beyond traditional scientific methods is valuable and necessary.
70 min read 10,781 words
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Contra Huemer On Morals
A dialogue critiques Michael Huemer's view on objective moral truths, arguing that moral changes are driven by wealth and societal conditions rather than convergence on objective truth.
19 min read 2,897 words
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Contra NYT On Economists On Education
Scott Alexander criticizes a New York Times article for misrepresenting economists' views on education vouchers, showing the data actually indicates more support than opposition among economists.
4 min read 517 words
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Contra Robinson On Public Food
Scott Alexander argues against Nathan Robinson's proposal for public cafeterias, instead favoring a system of food vouchers with taxes and subsidies to promote healthy eating.
34 min read 5,158 words
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Contra Robinson On Schooling
Scott Alexander critiques arguments against school vouchers, discussing potential efficiency gains and drawbacks of privatization in education, while proposing experimental approaches to school reform.
41 min read 6,286 words
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Contra Simler on Prestige
Scott critiques Simler's theory of prestige, finding it insufficient for human behavior, and proposes five alternative explanations for the phenomenon.
23 min read 3,468 words
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Contrarians, Crackpots, and Consensus
Scott explores the nature of scientific contrarianism, discussing how ideas spread through the scientific community and the challenges faced by both crackpots and legitimate contrarians.
23 min read 3,495 words
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Conversation Deliberately Skirts The Border Of Incomprehensibility
The post explores how neurotypical social interactions often involve indirect communication, which can be confusing for autistic individuals, and suggests that conversations may be deliberately designed to be unpredictable.
7 min read 1,076 words
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Cooperation Un-Veiled
Scott Alexander examines contractualism and its limitations using a thought experiment of 100 men with varying strengths, exploring how power dynamics affect moral agreements.
16 min read 2,353 words
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Coronalinks 3/19/20
Scott Alexander provides updates and speculations on various aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic, including case estimates, strategies, medical issues, and societal responses.
24 min read 3,668 words
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Coronalinks 3/27/20: We’re Number One
Scott Alexander discusses various aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic, including strategies, mysteries, controversies, and global impacts.
43 min read 6,534 words
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Coronalinks 4/10: Second Derivative
Scott Alexander provides updates on coronavirus trends, discusses various pandemic-related topics, and analyzes different countries' responses and policy proposals.
25 min read 3,781 words
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Coronalinks 5/18/20: When All You Have Is A Hammer, Everything Starts Looking Like A Dance
Scott Alexander explores various COVID-19 topics including lockdown effectiveness, infection rate variations, transmission risks, prediction markets, and ethical considerations of pandemic response.
38 min read 5,870 words
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Correction To Circumcision ACC
Scott Alexander apologizes for changing an essay title about circumcision, which caused confusion about its content, and asks readers to consider the original title when voting.
1 min read 122 words
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[PARTIALLY RETRACTED] Cortical Neuron Number Matches Intuitive Perceptions Of Moral Value Across Animals
Scott Alexander finds a correlation between animals' cortical neuron count and people's intuitive perception of their moral value, based on a small survey.
6 min read 874 words