Scott Alexander

This is much like how he first said Donald Trump was amazing, but didn't endorse him.

Then said he was endorsing Hillary Clinton, but only for his own safety.

Then endorsed libertarian Gary Johnson?

Question marks in brackets.

Then, when it looked like Trump would win again, he walked it back and said obviously he'd really been for Trump the whole time.

If someone else had won, he would have spun a story where his endorsement of them had been real.

He admits all of this.

So someone who is charitably inclined to Adams can tell a story where he's a great predictor, has always done everything for good patriotic altruistic reasons, and only teaches persuasion so that people can better understand themselves and their world.

Someone who is uncharitably inclined can tell a different story where his predictions are mostly wrong, he does everything for selfish reasons, and uses persuasion to manipulate others and enrich himself.

I usually try to err on the side of charity, but Adams is wearing a metaphorical I am going to use your charitable instincts to manipulate you t-shirt.

So I'm happy to suspend charity in this case and judge him on some kind of average of his conflicting statements, or even to default to the less advantageous one to make sure he can't get away with it.

So here are the updates I made based on your comments.

1.

Adams wasn't an ivermectin true believer, and although my piece very narrowly avoided saying that he was, I should have been clearer about this and avoided implying it.

2.

Adams' manipulation coexisted with his being a nice person who cared about others.

I shouldn't have described him thinking of his manipulation targets as lesser humans in a way that implied this was a conscious thought, as opposed to, as I claim, a background stance his actions indirectly implied.

And three, Adams' podcast was a bigger deal than I thought, and many people thought it seriously improved their lives.

I should have concentrated more on this.

Since we last spoke, prediction markets have gone to the moon, rising from millions to billions in monthly volume.