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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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"All Lawful Use": Much More Than You Wanted To Know
Scott analyzes the legal controversy around AI companies contracting with the Department of War, showing that 'all lawful use' permits mass surveillance and autonomous weapons through existing legal loopholes, despite OpenAI's claims of safeguards.
27 min read 4,148 words
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Why Do I Suck?
Scott Alexander explores reasons why some readers think his writing quality has declined, addressing various factors from idea exhaustion to intellectual progression.
23 min read 3,437 words
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How Did You Do On The AI Art Turing Test?
Scott presents results from his AI art Turing test showing most people struggled to distinguish AI from human art, with professionals doing slightly better and participants unexpectedly preferring AI art.
42 min read 6,465 words
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H5N1: Much More Than You Wanted To Know
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.
34 min read 5,141 words
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The Good News Is That One Side Has Definitively Won The Missing Heritability Debate
Scott examines a new genetic study on missing heritability that both hereditarians and nurturists claim vindicates their position, concluding that despite the study's advances, the fundamental debate over how heritable traits like IQ actually are remains unresolved.
13 min read 1,961 words
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My AI Opinions
Scott provides detailed probabilistic timelines and beliefs about AGI development, AI safety, geopolitics, and future outcomes, with his median expectation being AGI in 2031 and 20% probability of existential catastrophe given current safety efforts.
43 min read 6,520 words
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The Types Of Candidate You Find In The California Gubernatorial Race
Scott categorizes California's 60 gubernatorial candidates into humorous types rather than covering them individually, from generic top-tier politicians to increasingly bizarre fringe candidates with conspiracy theories, supernatural visions, and incomprehensible platforms.
47 min read 7,172 words
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Book Review: The Geography Of Madness
Scott reviews a book on culture-bound syndromes, expanding the discussion to how all mental illnesses are influenced by culture to varying degrees.
57 min read 8,723 words
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How Should We Think About Race And "Lived Experience"?
Scott Alexander analyzes the Elizabeth Hoover case to explore the complexities of racial identity, lived experience, and the ethics of cultural appropriation.
26 min read 3,958 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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Suddenly, Trait-Based Embryo Selection
Scott analyzes the sudden emergence of commercial trait-based embryo selection services, discussing both the scientific validity and ethical implications of selecting embryos for health outcomes, intelligence, and physical traits.
56 min read 8,637 words
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Testing AI's GeoGuessr Genius
Scott tests OpenAI's o3 model's ability to identify locations from photos, finding it has remarkable success even with minimal visual information, raising questions about AI capabilities.
28 min read 4,281 words
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Bounded Distrust
Scott Alexander explores how to navigate bias in media and expert opinions through understanding the unwritten rules of misrepresentation.
19 min read 2,818 words
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A Theoretical "Case Against Education"
Scott Alexander examines the effectiveness of education by analyzing knowledge retention, questioning the value of schooling beyond basic skills.
18 min read 2,678 words
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Every Debate On Pausing AI
A satirical dialogue showing how opponents of AI pause proposals often ignore that advocates explicitly call for bilateral agreements with China, not unilateral pauses.
8 min read 1,207 words
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Contra Pritchard On Liberal Happiness
Scott defends liberalism against claims it has failed by explaining that happiness scales logarithmically with income, so our 225x wealth increase since medieval times correctly predicts the 3-point happiness gain we've actually seen, and recent declines are due to COVID rather than systemic failure.
13 min read 1,920 words
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Political Backflow From Europe
Scott examines how American political discourse absorbs European narratives that don't fit the US context, particularly around immigration and crime statistics.
14 min read 2,052 words
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Your Incentives Are Not The Same As Media Companies'
Scott Alexander critiques toxic Twitter behavior, explaining its personal and social costs, and warns against imitating confrontational media tactics.
5 min read 699 words
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Intellectual Hipsters and Meta-Contrarianism
Scott introduces the concept of "meta-contrarianism" - where highly intelligent people signal their status by rejecting contrarian positions and returning to simpler views, similar to how hipsters adopt uncool styles to seem cooler.
16 min read 2,358 words
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The Quest For Caffeine You Can Have At Night
Scott reviews three methods for reducing caffeine's half-life to enable evening coffee consumption without sleep disruption, ultimately recommending paraxanthine as the safest and most effective option.
31 min read 4,776 words
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Notes From The Progress Studies Conference
Scott Alexander reports on the Progress Studies Conference, discussing advances in energy, AI, housing policy, and other fields, with an overall optimistic tone about recent developments and potential for future progress.
36 min read 5,549 words
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The Phrase "No Evidence" Is A Red Flag For Bad Science Communication
Scott Alexander criticizes the misleading use of 'no evidence' in science communication and suggests more nuanced alternatives.
10 min read 1,478 words
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You Don't Want A Purely Biological, Apolitical Taxonomy Of Mental Disorders
Scott Alexander argues that a purely biological, apolitical taxonomy of mental disorders is impossible due to ethical and practical considerations that inevitably influence classifications.
10 min read 1,456 words
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Against The Generalized Anti-Caution Argument
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.
14 min read 2,033 words