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Those Modern Pathologies
The post satirically portrays ancient concepts as 'modern pathologies' to criticize aspects of contemporary society.
10 min read 1,529 words
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2,008 essaysSSC
Three Great Articles On Poverty, And Why I Disagree With All Of Them
Scott Alexander critiques three articles on poverty, proposing a framework to categorize poverty approaches, and reluctantly advocates for basic income as the best available solution despite its flaws.
16 min read 2,461 words
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Three More Articles On Poverty, And Why They Disagree With Each Other
Scott Alexander examines three conflicting articles on poverty and attempts to reconcile their findings, ultimately becoming more optimistic about alleviating extreme poverty through money transfers.
7 min read 969 words
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To The Great City!
Scott Alexander completes his medical residency and announces his return to San Francisco, reflecting on his experiences and his enduring connection to the rationalist community there.
8 min read 1,111 words
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To Understand Polarization, Understand Conservativism’s Failures
Scott Alexander examines how Republicans' failure to achieve smaller government despite holding power contributes to increased polarization and the election of more extreme candidates.
5 min read 747 words
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Tolerance Troubles
Scott Alexander explores the complexities and inconsistencies of drug tolerance in psychiatry, highlighting how different drugs can produce varying tolerance effects across individuals.
14 min read 2,119 words
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Too Good To Be True
Scott Alexander critiques psychological studies claiming large effects from simple interventions, suggesting their impressive results may be due to flawed research rather than genuinely effective treatments.
7 min read 945 words
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Too Many People Dare Call It Conspiracy
Scott Alexander explores the overuse of the term 'conspiracy theory' and provides heuristics for evaluating the plausibility of conspiratorial claims.
19 min read 2,801 words
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Too Much Dark Money In Almonds
Scott Alexander compares political spending to the almond industry, revealing surprisingly low amounts in politics due to coordination problems.
13 min read 1,968 words
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Toward A Predictive Theory Of Depression
Scott proposes a speculative theory of depression as pathologically low confidence in neural predictions within the predictive processing framework, explaining how this could account for various depressive symptoms.
13 min read 1,978 words
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Transhumanist Fables
Scott Alexander rewrites classic fairy tales to illustrate transhumanist and rationalist concepts, each ending with a moral lesson related to these philosophies.
6 min read 822 words
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Translating Predictive Coding Into Perceptual Control
Scott Alexander argues that Free Energy/Predictive Coding and Perceptual Control Theory are fundamentally the same, and proposes using PCT's more intuitive terminology to help understand FE/PC.
9 min read 1,386 words
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Treating The Prodrome
The post examines the theory of treating schizophrenia's prodrome stage, exploring how early intervention might prevent full-blown schizophrenia and discussing the biological mechanisms behind the disease's progression.
19 min read 2,918 words
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Trouble Walking Down The Hallway
Scott Alexander analyzes two conflicting studies on gender bias in STEM hiring, exploring reasons for their contradictory results and the challenges in reaching a definitive conclusion.
20 min read 3,019 words
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Trump: A Setback For Trumpism
Scott Alexander examines how Trump's presidency has unexpectedly decreased support for his own policies, analyzing polls and proposing several explanations for this counterintuitive trend.
11 min read 1,600 words
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Trump And The Batman Effect
Scott Alexander analyzes Trump's likely PR strategy as president, predicting a focus on symbolic 'job-saving' victories that will be effective in shaping public perception despite limited real impact.
8 min read 1,224 words
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Tuesday Shouldn’t Change The Narrative
Scott Alexander argues that the 2016 US election outcome shouldn't drastically change our understanding of politics, given how close the race is.
8 min read 1,158 words
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Tumblr on MIRI
The post analyzes a debate about the effectiveness of MIRI, an AI safety organization, focusing on critiques of their academic output and defenses of their outreach efforts.
49 min read 7,446 words
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Two Attitudes In Psychiatry
Scott Alexander explores two contrasting attitudes in psychiatry, discussing their merits and pitfalls, while reflecting on his own tendency to favor a more straightforward approach.
16 min read 2,354 words
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Two Dark Side Statistics Papers
Scott Alexander reviews two papers exposing statistical manipulation techniques in psychology research and addiction treatment program evaluations.
14 min read 2,049 words
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Two Kinds Of Caution
Scott criticizes an article downplaying AI risks in favor of mundane technologies, arguing this represents misplaced caution given AI's potential existential threat.
13 min read 1,903 words
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Two Wolves And A Sheep
Scott Alexander presents multiple satirical scenarios of 'two wolves and a sheep deciding what to have for dinner' to critique various aspects of democracy and political behavior.
3 min read 462 words
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Typical Mind and Disbelief In Straight People
Scott Alexander examines how the 'typical mind fallacy' might lead some closeted gay individuals to support anti-gay positions, potentially influencing broader anti-gay arguments.
4 min read 563 words
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Typical mind and gender identity
Scott Alexander discusses the concept of gender identity, relating it to his personal experience and scientific understanding, and poses questions about the nature of gender identity in cisgender individuals.
10 min read 1,492 words
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