Astral Codex Ten Podcast

The Good News Is That One Side Has Definitively Won The Missing Heritability Debate

17 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

…the bad news is that they can't agree which one. I explained the debate more here, but the short version is: twin studies find that most traits ar...

Why AI Safety Won't Make America Lose The Race With China

02 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

If we worry too much about AI safety, will this make us "lose the race with China"1? (here "AI safety" means long-term concerns about alignment and ho...

The New AI Consciousness Paper

02 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Most discourse on AI is low-quality. Most discourse on consciousness is super-abysmal-double-low quality. Multiply these - or maybe raise one to the e...

Suggest Questions For Metaculus/ACX Forecasting Contest

02 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

ACX has been co-running a forecasting contest with Metaculus for the past few years. Lately the "co-running" has drifted towards them doing all the ...

What Happened To SF Homelessness?

02 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Last year, I wrote that it would be very hard to decrease the number of mentally ill homeless people in San Francisco. Commenters argued that no, it ...

In What Sense Is Life Suffering?

02 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

"Life is suffering" may be a Noble Truth, but it feels like a deepity. Yes, obviously life includes suffering. But it also includes happiness. Many p...

The Bloomer's Paradox

02 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In Jason Pargin's I'm Starting To Worry About This Black Box Of Doom, a manic pixie dream girl cajoles a shut-in incel loser to drive her and her mys...

Writing For The AIs

23 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

American Scholar has an article about people who "write for AI", including Tyler Cowen and Gwern. It's good that this is getting more attention, b...

Links For October 2025

23 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

[I haven't independently verified each link. On average, commenters will end up spotting evidence that around two or three of the links in each links ...

Model City Monday 10/27/25

23 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Would You Like To Buy A Bahama? The Bahamas is an archipelago-nation of 400,000 people scattered across 3,000 small islands. The Bahamas' most populou...

Highlights From The Comments On Fatima

23 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

[original post here] The Kasina Connection In the original post, I cited ambiguous later examples of sun miracles which didn't seem to affect everyone...

Tech PACs Are Closing In On The Almonds

20 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

I. In my 2019 post Too Much Dark Money In Almonds, I asked: why is there so little money in politics? During the 2018 election, Americans - candidate...

Non-Book Review Contest 2025 Winners

20 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Thanks to everyone who entered or voted in the Non-Book Review Contest. The winners are: 1st: Joan of Arc, by William Friedman. William is a history ...

ACX Grants Results 2025

08 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Thanks to everyone who participated in ACX Grants, whether as an applicant, an evaluator, or a funder. We received 654 applications this year, and...

Fascism Can't Mean Both A Specific Ideology And A Legitimate Target

08 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The following three things can't all be true simultaneously: Many Americans are fascists Fascists are an acceptable target for political violence P...

The Fatima Sun Miracle: Much More Than You Wanted To Know

23 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/the-fatima-sun-miracle-much-more 0: Here Comes The Sun In 1917, three Portuguese children reported a vision of the V...

Your Review: The Russo-Ukrainian War

05 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

[This is one of the finalists in the 2025 review contest, written by an ACX reader who will remain anonymous until after voting is done. I'll be posti...

Sources Say Bay Area House Party

05 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/sources-say-bay-area-house-party [previously in series: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7] Something is off about this Bay ...

Your Review: Project Xanadu - The Internet That Might Have Been

26 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

[This is one of the finalists in the 2025 review contest, written by an ACX reader who will remain anonymous until after voting is done. I'll be posti...

Defining Defending Democracy: Contra The Election Winner Argument

26 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Someone argues that Donald Trump threatens democracy, maybe because he's asserting authority against the judiciary or the media or the NGOs. Someone e...

Your Review: The Synaptic Plasticity and Memory Hypothesis

24 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

[This is one of the finalists in the 2025 review contest, written by an ACX reader who will remain anonymous until after voting is done. I'll be posti...

Book Review: If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies

12 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

I. Eliezer Yudkowsky's Machine Intelligence Research Institute is the original AI safety org. But the original isn't always the best - how is Mesopota...

Links For September 2025

10 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

[I haven't independently verified each link. On average, commenters will end up spotting evidence that around two or three of the links in each links ...

Your Review: Participation in Phase I Clinical Pharmaceutical Research

10 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

[This is one of the finalists in the 2025 review contest, written by an ACX reader who will remain anonymous until after voting is done. I'll be posti...

What Is Man, That Thou Art Mindful Of Him?

10 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

"You made him lower than the angels for a short time..." God: …and the math results we're seeing are nothing short of incredible. This Terry Tao g...

Open Letter To The NIH

02 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

You can sign the letter here. The Trump administration has been retaliating against its critics, and people and groups with business before the adm...

In Search Of AI Psychosis

02 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

AI psychosis (NYT, PsychologyToday) is an apparent phenomenon where people go crazy after talking to chatbots too much. There are some high-profile a...

Your Review: Ollantay

24 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Finalist #9 in the Review Contest [This is one of the finalists in the 2025 review contest, written by an ACX reader who will remain anonymous until a...

My Responses To Three Concerns From The Embryo Selection Post

24 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

[original post here] #1: Isn't it possible that embryos are alive, or have personhood, or are moral patients? Most IVF involves getting many embryos,...

Your Review: Dating Men In The Bay Area

24 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Finalist #8 in the Review Contest [This is one of the finalists in the 2025 review contest, written by an ACX reader who will remain anonymous until a...

In Defense Of The Amyloid Hypothesis

20 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

A guest post by David Schneider-Joseph The "amyloid hypothesis" says that Alzheimer's is caused by accumulation of the peptide amyloid-β. It's the le...

Highlights From The Comments On Liberalism And Communities

15 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

[Original post: Should Strong Gods Bet On GDP?] 1: Comments About The Theory 2: Comments About Specific Communities 3: Other Comments Comments About ...

Your Review: My Father's Instant Mashed Potatoes

15 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

[This is one of the finalists in the 2025 review contest, written by an ACX reader who will remain anonymous until after voting is done. I'll be posti...

Should Strong Gods Bet On GDP?

15 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Slightly contra Fukuyama on liberal communities Francis Fukuyama is on Substack; last month he wrote Liberalism Needs Community. As always, read the w...

Your Review: Joan of Arc

07 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Finalist #6 in the Review Contest [This is one of the finalists in the 2025 review contest, written by an ACX reader who will remain anonymous until a...

Suddenly, Trait-Based Embryo Selection

05 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

[see footnote 4 for conflicts of interest] In 2021, Genomic Prediction announced the first polygenically selected baby. When a couple uses IVF, they ...

My Heart Of Hearts

03 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

I promised some people longer responses: Thomas Cotter asks why people think "consistency" is an important moral value. After all, he says, the N...

Your Review: The Astral Codex Ten Commentariat ("Why Do We Suck?")

03 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Jul 26, 2025 Finalist #5 in the Review Contest [This is one of the finalists in the 2025 review contest, written by an ACX reader who will remain anon...

Apply For An ACX Grant (2025)

30 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We're running another ACX Grants round! If you already know what this is and just want to apply for a grant, use the form here (should take 15 - 30 ...

Press Any Key For Bay Area House Party

23 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

[previously in series: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6] It is eerily silent in San Francisco tonight. Since Mayor Lurie's crackdown, the usual drug hawkers, ca...

Your Review: Islamic Geometric Patterns In The Metropolitan Museum Of Art

22 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

[This is one of the finalists in the 2025 review contest, written by an ACX reader who will remain anonymous until after voting is done. I'll be posti...

Book Review: Arguments About Aborigines

18 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

I. A thought I had throughout reading L.R. Hiatt's Arguments About Aborigines was: What are anthropologists even doing? The book recounts two centuri...

Your Review: Of Mice, Mechanisms, and Dementia

15 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

[This is one of the finalists in the 2025 review contest, written by an ACX reader who will remain anonymous until after voting is done. I'll be posti...

Practically-A-Book Review: Byrnes on Trance

11 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Steven Byrnes is a physicist/AI researcher/amateur neuroscientist; needless to say, he blogs on Less Wrong. I finally got around to reading his 2024 s...

Now I Really Won That AI Bet

11 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

  In June 2022, I bet a commenter $100 that AI would master image compositionality by June 2025. DALL-E2 had just come out, showcasing the potent...

Your Review: School

11 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

[This is one of the finalists in the 2025 review contest, written by an ACX reader who will remain anonymous until after voting is done. It was origin...

Highlights From The Comments On Missing Heritability

07 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

[Original thread here: Missing Heritability: Much More Than You Wanted To Know] 1: Comments From People Named In The Post 2: Very Long Comments From ...

Links For July 2025

07 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

[I haven't independently verified each link. On average, commenters will end up spotting evidence that around two or three of the links in each links ...

Contra Skolnick On Schizophrenia Microbes

07 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Stephen Skolnick is a gut microbiome expert blogging at Eat Shit And Prosper. His most recent post argues that contra the psychiatric consensus, schiz...

Your Review: Alpha School

04 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

[This is one of the finalists in the 2025 review contest, written by an ACX reader who will remain anonymous until after voting is done. I'll be posti...

Missing Heritability: Much More Than You Wanted To Know

01 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Story So Far The mid-20th century was the golden age of nurture. Psychoanalysis, behaviorism, and the spirit of the '60s convinced most experts th...

Open Questions For Future ACX Grants Rounds

01 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Related to: ACX Grants 1-3 Year Updates https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/open-questions-for-future-acx-grants

ACX Grants 1-3 Year Updates

29 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The first cohort of ACX Grants was announced in late 2021, the second in early 2024. In 2022, I posted one-year updates for the first cohort. Now, as...

The Claude Bliss Attractor

18 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This is a reported phenomenon where if two copies of Claude talk to each other, they end up spiraling into rapturous discussion of spiritual bliss, B...

"But" vs. "Yes, But"

18 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This is another heuristic from the same place as If It's Worth Your Time To Lie, It's Worth My Time To Correct You. If someone proves you are absolut...

If It's Worth Your Time To Lie, It's Worth My Time To Correct It

14 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

People don't like nitpickers. "He literally did the WELL AKTUALLY!" If you say Joe Criminal committed ten murders and five rapes, and I object that it...

P-Zombies Would Report Qualia

14 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

There's a long-running philosophical argument about the conceivability of otherwise-normal people who are not conscious, aka "philosophical zombies". ...

Choose Nonbook Review Finalists 2025

14 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

It's time to narrow the 141 entries in the Non-Book Review Contest to about a dozen finalists. I can't read 141 reviews alone, so I need your help. P...

Bayes For Everyone

14 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

A guest post by Brandon Hendrickson [Editor's note: I accept guest posts from certain people, especially past Book Review Contest winners. Brandon Hen...

Sorry, I Still Think MR Is Wrong About USAID

14 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Tyler Cowen of Marginal Revolution continues to disagree with my Contra MR On Charity Regrants. Going through his response piece by piece, slightly ...

Moments Of Awakening

05 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Consciousness is the great mystery. In search of answers, scientists have plumbed every edge case they can think of - sleep, comas, lucid dreams, LSD ...

Contra MR On Charity Regrants

05 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

I often disagree with Marginal Revolution, but their post today made me a new level of angry: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/contra-mr-on-charity-...

The Evidence That A Million Americans Died Of COVID

05 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Many commenters responded to yesterday's post by challenging the claim that 1.2 million Americans died of COVID... https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/...

The Other COVID Reckoning

05 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Five years later, we can't stop talking about COVID. Remember lockdowns? The conflicting guidelines about masks - don't wear them! Wear them! Maybe we...

Book Review: Selfish Reasons To Have More Kids

03 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Bryan Caplan's Selfish Reasons To Have More Kids is like the Bible. You already know what it says. You've already decided whether you believe or not....

In Search Of /r/petfree

03 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Ask Redditors what's the worst subreddit, and a few names always come up. /r/atheism and /r/childfree are unpopular, but if I read them with an open ...

Highlights From The Comments On AI Geoguessr

03 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Thanks to everyone who commented on the original post.   https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/highlights-from-the-comments-on-ai  

Testing AI's GeoGuessr Genius

23 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Some of the more unhinged writing on superintelligence pictures AI doing things that seem like magic. Crossing air gaps to escape its data center. Bui...

Moldbug Sold Out

23 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Cathy Young's new hit piece on Curtis Yarvin (aka Mencius Moldbug) doesn't mince words. Titled The Blogger Who Hates America, it describes him as an "...

The Populist Right Must Own Tariffs

23 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

President Trump's approval rating has fallen to near-historic lows. With economic disruption from the tariffs likely to hit next month, his numbers w...

AI Futures: Blogging And AMA

23 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

AI Futures Project is the group behind AI 2027. I've been helping them with their blog. Posts written or co-written by me include: Beyond The Last Ho...

Links For April 2025

22 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

[I haven't independently verified each link. On average, commenters will end up spotting evidence that around two or three of the links in each links ...

Highlights From The Comments On POSIWID

22 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

(original post: Come On, Obviously The Purpose Of A System Is Not What It Does) … Thanks to everyone who commented on this controversial post. Many...

Come On, Obviously The Purpose Of A System Is Not What It Does

14 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

(see Wikipedia: The Purpose Of A System Is What It Does) Consider the following claims The purpose of a cancer hospital is to cure two-thirds of can...

My Takeaways From AI 2027

14 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Here's a list of things I updated on after working on the scenario. Some of these are discussed in more detail in the supplements, including the compu...

AI 2027 (Full Recording with Footnotes and Text Boxes)

14 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We predict that the impact of superhuman AI over the next decade will be enormous, exceeding that of the Industrial Revolution. We wrote a scenario th...

Introducing AI 2027

14 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Or maybe 2028, it's complicated In 2021, a researcher named Daniel Kokotajlo published a blog post called "What 2026 Looks Like", where he laid out wh...

The Colors Of Her Coat

14 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In Ballad of the White Horse, G.K. Chesterton describes the Virgin Mary: Her face was like an open word When brave men speak and choose, The very col...

"Deros And The Ur-Abduction" In Asterisk

03 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Asterisk invited me to participate in their "Weird" themed issue, so I wrote five thousand words on evil Atlantean cave dwarves. As always, I thought ...

More Drowning Children

28 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

People love trying to find holes in the drowning child thought experiment. This is natural: it's obvious you should save the child in the scenario, bu...

Misophonia: Beyond Sensory Sensitivity

28 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Jake Eaton has a great article on misophonia in Asterisk. Misophonia is a condition in which people can't tolerate certain noises (classically chewin...

OpenAI Nonprofit Buyout: Much More Than You Wanted To Know

21 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Last month, I put out a request for experts to help me understand the details of OpenAI's forprofit buyout. The following comes from someone who has ...

The Ozempocalypse Is Nigh

21 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Sorry, you can only get drugs when there's a drug shortage. Three GLP-1 drugs are approved for weight loss in the United States: Semaglutide (Ozempic...

What Happened To NAEP Scores?

21 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Most headlines have said something like New NAEP Scores Dash Hope Of Post-COVID Learning Recovery, which seems like a fair assessment. I feel bad abo...

Everything-Except-Book Review Contest 2025

11 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

I enjoy the yearly book review contest, but it feels like last year's contest is barely done, and I want to give you a break so you can read more book...

Why Should Intelligence Be Related To Neuron Count?

11 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Intelligence seems to correlate with total number of neurons in the brain. Different animals' intelligence levels track the number of neurons in thei...

Links For February 2025

11 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

[I haven't independently verified each link. On average, commenters will end up spotting evidence that around two or three of the links in each links ...

Why I Am Not A Conflict Theorist

06 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Conflict theory is the belief that political disagreements come from material conflict. So for example, if rich people support capitalism, and poor pe...

Highlights From The Comments On Tegmark's Mathematical Universe

06 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

[Original thread here: Tegmark's Mathematical Universe Defeats Most Arguments For God's Existence.] 1: Comments On Specific Technical Points 2: Comme...

Lives Of The Rationalist Saints

06 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

St. Felix publicly declared that he believed with 79% probability that COVID had a natural origin. He was brought before the Emperor, who threatened h...

Tegmark's Mathematical Universe Defeats Most Proofs Of God's Existence

06 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

It feels like 2010 again - the bloggers are debating the proofs for the existence of God. I found these much less interesting after learning about Ma...

Only About 40% Of The Cruz "Woke Science" Database Is Woke Science

17 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

From the Commerce Department: U.S. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz (R-Texas) released a database identifying over 3,400 grants, totaling...

Deliberative Alignment, And The Spec

17 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In the past day, Zvi has written about deliberative alignment, and OpenAI has updated their spec. This article was written before either of these and ...

1DaySooner's Trump II Health Policy Proposals

17 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

As RFK Jr. fights to be confirmed in Congress, the rest of Trump's health team is already taking shape. 1DaySooner is an ACX grantee organization that...

Money Saved By Canceling Programs Does Not Immediately Flow To The Best Possible Alternative

10 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

I. PEPFAR - a Bush initiative to send cheap AIDS drugs to Africa - has saved millions of lives and is among the most successful foreign aid programs ...

Model City Monday 2/3/25

10 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Prospera Declared Unconstitutional The Honduras Supreme Court has declared charter cities, including Prospera, unconstitutional. The background: in t...

Why Recurring Dream Themes?

10 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

An observant Jewish friend told me she has recurring dreams about being caught unprepared for Shabbat. (Shabbat is the Jewish Sabbath, celebrated ev...

ACX Survey Results 2025

10 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Thanks to the 5,975 people who took the 2025 Astral Codex Ten survey. See the questions for the ACX survey See the results from the ACX Survey (click ...

Everyone's A Based Post-Christian Vitalist Until The Grooming Gangs Show Up

10 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Whenever I talk about charity, a type that I'll call the "based post-Christian vitalist" shows up in the comments to tell me that I've got it all wron...

Try The 2025 ACX/Metaculus Forecasting Contest

10 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This is normally when I would announce the winners of the 2024 forecasting contest, but there are some complications and Metaculus has asked me to wai...