The Best of Scott Alexander
10+ most popular Scott Alexander articles, as voted by our community.
I have a place where I say complicated things about philosophy and science. That place is my blog. This is where I make terrible puns.
Scott Alexander on Artificial Intelligence
Scott Alexander on Astrology
Forer Statements As Updates And Affirmations
Shared by 533, including Nathan Baschez 📧, Nir Eyal
Scott Alexander on Books
Book Review: From Oversight To Overkill
Shared by 211, including Jason Crawford, Nir Eyal
Your Book Review: Cities And The Wealth Of Nations/The Question Of Separatism
Finalist #1 in the Book Review Contest
Scott Alexander on Censorship
Moderation Is Different From Censorship
Shared by 278, including Mathew Ingram, Scott Monty, Katja Evertz
«A minimum viable product for moderation without censorship is for a platform to do exactly the same thing they’re doing now - remove all the same posts, ban all the same accounts - but have an opt-in setting, “see banned posts”.»
Scott Alexander on Health
Fact Check: Do All Healthy People Have Mystical Experiences?
Shared by 348, including Steven Pinker
«Of total respondents, 21% reported having a spiritual experience, plus an additional 18% giving the “unclear” answer. Of the very mentally healthy, only 17% reported having a spiritual experience, plus 14% giving the “unclear” answer.»
Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted To Know
Shared by 229, including Massimiliano Aroffo, Dion Almaer, Nando 💪🇦🇺🇦🇷, Patrick Collison, Gavin Andresen
Scott Alexander on Peter Thiel
Book Review: Zero To One
I. Zero To One might be the first best-selling business book based on a Tumblr. Stanford student Blake Masters took Peter Thiel’s class on startups. He posted his notes on Tumblr after each l…
Scott Alexander on Philanthropy
Against Against Billionaire Philanthropy
[Conflict of interest notice: I’ve volunteered for both private and public charities, but more often private. I received a small amount of money for work done for a private charity ten years …
Scott Alexander on Psychiatry
Two Attitudes In Psychiatry
Attitude 1 says that patients know what they want but not necessarily how to get it, and psychiatrists are there to advise them. So a patient might say “I want to stop being depressed”,…
Scott Alexander on Silicon Valley
Scott Alexander on Society
Declining Sperm Count: Much More Than You Wanted To Know
Shared by 236, including Paul Kedrosky
«After ejaculation, sperm count decreases and takes a while to build back up again; if your community’s ejaculation frequency is changing (eg people have gained access to online porn), that will change its average sperm count.»
Popular
These are some all-time favorites with Refind users.
Peer Review: Nightmares
Shared by 754, including Mathew Ingram
«the brain processes data by creating predictive models, then double-checking them against reality»
Give Up Seventy Percent Of The Way Through The Hyperstitious Slur Cascade
Shared by 475, including Steven Pinker
«hyperstition is a belief which becomes true if people believe it’s true»
Selection Bias Is A Fact Of Life, Not An Excuse For Rejecting Internet Surveys
Shared by 457
A Failure, But Not Of Prediction
I. Vox asks What Went Wrong With The Media’s Coronavirus Coverage? They conclude that the media needs to be better at “not just saying what we do know, but what we don’t know”. This rai…
A Guide To Asking Robots To Design Stained Glass Windows
Shared by 338, including Steven Pinker, Gary Marcus, Ross Dawson, Esther Schindler
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