Astral Codex Ten Podcast
Episodes
Adversarial Collaboration Contest Results
29 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Grand Prize ($1000): Does The Education System Adequately Serve Advanced Students? Editor's Choice ($500): Should Transgender Children Transition? H...
The Tails Coming Apart as Metaphor for Life
29 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
A neglected gem from Less Wrong: Why The Tails Come Apart, by commenter Thrasymachus. It explains why even when two variables are strongly correlated...
Treating the Prodrome
23 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
A prodrome is an early stage of a condition that might have different symptoms than the full-blown version. In psychiatry, the prodrome of schizophren...
Book Review: The Black Swan
21 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
I. Writing a review of The Black Swan is a nerve-wracking experience. First, because it forces me to reveal I am about ten years behind the times in...
The Omnigenic Model as a Metaphor for Life
15 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The collective intellect is change-blind. Knowledge gained seems so natural that we forget what it was like not to have it. Piaget says children gain ...
In the Balance
13 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
When you first take the Artifact, you will see a vision of ALPHANION, Demon-Sultan of the Domain of Order, who appears as a grid of spheres connected ...
Time to Vote!
10 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
This is the bi-weekly visible open thread (there are also hidden open threads twice a week you can reach through the Open Thread tab on the top of the...
[ACC Entry] Should Transgender Children Transition?
09 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
[This is an entry to the Adversarial Collaboration Contest by flame7926 and a_reader.] [Content note: suicide, depression, transphobia, self-harm] ...
[ACC Entry] Should Childhood Vaccination Be Mandatory?
08 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
This is an entry to the Adversarial Collaboration Contest by Mark Davis and Mark Webb, who sent the following introduction along with their entry: ...
[ACC Entry] Are Islam and Liberal Democracy Compatible?
07 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
[This is an entry to the Adversarial Collaboration Contest by John Buridan and Christian Flanery.] Matter: To what extent does liberalism and democ...
[ACC Entry] Does the Education System Adequately Serve Advanced Students?
06 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
[This is an entry to the Adversarial Collaboration Contest by TracingWoodgrains and Michael Pershan (a k-12 math teacher), on advanced students in t...
This Week: Adversarial Collaboration Entries
04 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
This week I'll be presenting entries from the adversarial collaboration contest. Remember, an adversarial collaboration is where two people with oppos...
Bureaucracy as Active Ingredient
31 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Commenters on yesterday's post brought up an important point: sometimes bureaucracies aren't just inefficient information gathering and processing m...
Bulls**t Jobs (Part 1 of ∞)
31 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
A surprisingly common part of my life: a patient asks me for a doctor's note for back pain or something. Usually it's a situation like their work chai...
Elegy for John McCain
29 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Say a prayer for John McCain Who passes from his earthly pain His eyes are shut upon his brow He warmongers to angels now Beyond the sky, where sorrow...
Carbon Dioxide: An Open Door Policy
24 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
[Content note: reading this post might cause feelings of suffocation or provoke panic attacks in susceptible individuals. Epistemic status is very spe...
Practically-a-Book Review: EA Hotel
22 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Effective altruism ("EA") is a movement dedicated to redirecting charity-related resources to the most important and successful charities. In practice...
The Parentheses Riddle
18 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Because I hate you, I included this question on the SSC survey: It's a weird trick question, but I would say B is right. Imagine converting "(" to X a...
SSC Survey: Scattered Negative Results
17 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Traffic to this blog is declining. I need to act decisively to draw people back. Write something so interesting it can't help but go viral. I'm goi...
SSC Survey Results: ADHD and Rejection Sensitivity
16 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Introduction ADHD is typically considered a disorder of attention and focus. There are various other traits everyone knows are linked – officially, ...
SSC Meetups 2018: Times and Places
09 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Thanks to everyone who offered to host a meetup. We're scheduled for meetups in 77 cities (and one ship!) in 23 countries, soundly beating last year's...
Before You Get Too Excited About That Trigger Warning Study...
08 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
STUDY: Trigger Warnings Are Harmful To College Students says the Daily Wire, describing a study whose participants' average age was 37 and which did...
Cancer Progress: Much More Than You Wanted to Know
07 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Official statistics say we are winning the War on Cancer. Cancer incidence rates, mortality rates, and five-year-survival rates have generally been mo...
The Toxoplasma of Rage [Classic]
03 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
"Nobody makes an IRC channel for no reason. Who are we doing this versus?" — topic of #slatestarcodex I. Some old news I only just heard about: P...
Verses Composed upon Reading a Review from Tripadvisor
27 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The Tourist Board of Xanadu Did recently impose a fee On those who travel far from home To visit Kubla's pleasure dome Of $20, 9 – 3 So twice five m...
Value Differences as Differently Crystallized Metaphysical Heuristics
27 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
[Previously in sequence: Fundamental Value Differences Are Not That Fundamental, The Whole City Is Center. This post might not make a lot of sense i...
The Whole City is Center
21 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Related to yesterday's post on people being too quick to assume value differences: some of the simplest fake value differences are where people make a...
Fundamental Value Differences Are Not That Fundamental
21 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Ozy (and others) talk about fundamental value differences as a barrier to cooperation. On their model (as I understand it) there are at least two k...
Did a Melatonin Patent Inspire Current Dose Confusion?
14 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Yesterday I wrote about melatonin, mentioning that most drugstore melatonin supplements were 10x or more the recommended dose. A commenter on Faceboo...
Melatonin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know
12 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
[I am not a sleep specialist. Please consult with one before making any drastic changes or trying to treat anything serious.] Van Geiklswijk et al de...
The Craft and the Codex
08 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The rationalist community started with the idea of rationality as a martial art – a set of skills you could train in and get better at. Later the ...
SSC Journal Club: Dissolving the Fermi Paradox
06 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
I'm late to posting this, but it's important enough to be worth sharing anyway: Sandberg, Drexler, and Ord on Dissolving the Fermi Paradox. (You may ...
Highlights from the Comments on Piketty
01 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Chris Stucchio recommended Matt Rognlie's criticisms of Piketty (paper, summary, Voxsplainer). Rognlie starts by saying that Piketty didn't correc...
List of Passages I Highlighted in My Copy of Capital in the Twenty-First Century
29 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
[Original review is here. Don't worry, people who had interesting comments on the review – I'll try to get a comments highlights thread up eventual...
Book Review: Capital in the Twenty-First Century
27 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
[Epistemic status: I am not an economist. Many people who are economists have reviewed this book already. I review it only because if I had to slog th...
Cost Disease in Medicine: the Practical Perspective
23 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Sometimes I imagine quitting my job and declaring war on cost disease in medicine. I would set up a practice with a name like Cheap-O Psychiatry. The ...
Contra Caplan on Arbitrary Deploring
23 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Last year, Bryan Caplan wrote about what he called The Unbearable Arbitrariness Of Deploring: Let's start with the latest scandal. People all over t...
The GATTACA Trilogy
21 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
[Few people realize that the 1997 cult hit GATTACA was actually just the first film in a three-movie trilogy. The final two movies, directed by the le...
HPPD and the Specter of Permanent Side Effects
08 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
I recently worked with a man who took LSD once in college and never stopped hallucinating. It's been ten years now and it's still going. We can contro...
In Search of Missing US Suicides
03 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
[Content warning: suicide. Thanks to someone on Twitter I forget for alerting me to this question] Among US states, there's a clear relationship betwe...
Highlights from the Comments on Basic Jobs
30 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
These are some of the best comments from Basic Income, Not Basic Jobs: Against Hijacking Utopia. I'm sorry I still haven't gotten a chance to read ev...
Should Psychiatry Test for Lead More?
26 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Dr. Matthew Dumont treated a 44 year old woman with depression, body dysmorphia, and psychosis. She failed to respond to most of the ordinary treatmen...
Can Things Be Both Popular and Silenced?
25 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The New York Times recently reported on various anti-PC thinkers as "the intellectual dark web", sparking various annoying discussion. The first ta...
Basic Income, Not Basic Jobs: Against Hijacking Utopia
19 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Some Democrats angling for the 2020 presidential nomination have a big idea: a basic jobs guarantee, where the government promises a job to anybody w...
Varieties of Argumentative Experience
10 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In 2008, Paul Graham wrote How To Disagree Better, ranking arguments on a scale from name-calling to explicitly refuting the other person's central p...
Book Review: History of the Fabian Society
03 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
I. A spectre is haunting Europe. Several spectres, actually. One of them is the spectre of communism. The others are literal ghosts. They live in aban...
Adversarial Collaboration Contest: Loose Ends and Registration
01 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Thanks to everyone who expressed interest in the adversarial collaborations contest. There was a lot of good discussion in the last thread, with lot...
Call for Adversarial Collaborations
29 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
An adversarial collaboration is an effort by two people with opposing opinions on a topic to collaborate on a summary of the evidence. Just as we hope...
Mental Health on a Budget
27 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Everyone knows medical care in the US is expensive even with insurance and prohibitively expensive without it. I have a lot of patients who are uninsu...
Gupta on Enlightenment
21 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
That story about the blockchain-based dating site gets better: its designer is an enlightened being. I got this from Vinay Gupta's wiki, which desc...
Highlights from the Comments on Survey Harassment Rates
20 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
[Content warning: harassment. This discusses the comments to SSC Survey Results: Sexual Harassment Levels By Field] brmic writes: Thank you for pos...
SSC Survey Results: Sexual Harassment Levels by Field
19 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
[content note: sexual harassment] I. Recent discussion of sexual harassment at work has focused on a few high-profile industries. But there has been r...
Recommendations vs. Guidelines
14 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Medicine loves guidelines. But everywhere else, guidelines are still underappreciated. Consider a recommendation, like "Try Lexapro!" Even if Lexapro ...
Highlights from the Comments on DC Graduation Rates
13 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Bizzolt writes: DC Public Schools HS teacher here (although I'm not returning next year, as is the case with many of my colleagues). As noted, one o...
Why DC's Low Graduation Rates?
12 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
[Some changes to the conclusions in this post; see edit at the end and entry 21 on Mistakes page] US News: DC Schools Brace For Catastrophic Drop In ...
Adult Neurogenesis – A Pointed Review
06 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
[I am not a neuroscientist and apologize in advance for any errors in this article.] Hey, let's review the literature on adult neurogenesis! This'll b...
Highlights from the Comments on Twelve Rules
05 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
From sclmlw: While I don't agree with lots of Jordan Peterson, I think Scott fundamentally missed the boat in some of his criticisms because he syst...
Are the Amish Unhappy? Super Happy? Just Meh?
04 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Recently on Marginal Revolution: Are the Amish unhappy? The average levels of life satisfaction [among the Amish] was 4.4; just above the neutral po...
The Hour I First Believed
02 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
There's a Jewish tradition that laypeople should only speculate on the nature of God during Passover, because God is closer to us and such speculation...
Book Review Twelve Rules for Life
28 Mar 2018
Contributed by Lukas
I got Jordan Peterson's Twelve Rules For Life for the same reason as the other 210,000 people: to make fun of the lobster thing. Or if not the lobst...
Navigating And:Or Avoiding the Inpatient Mental Health System
24 Mar 2018
Contributed by Lukas
This is in response to questions I get about how to interact (or not interact) with the inpatient mental health system and involuntary commitment. The...
The Dark Rule Utilitarian Argument for Science Piracy
21 Mar 2018
Contributed by Lukas
I sometimes advertise sci-hub.tw – the Kazakhstani pirate site that lets you get scientific papers for free. It's clearly illegal in the US. But i...
SSC Journal Club Friston on Computational Mood
12 Mar 2018
Contributed by Lukas
A few months ago, I wrote Toward A Predictive Theory Of Depression, which used the predictive coding model of brain function to speculate about mood ...
I Can Tolerate Anything Except the Outgroup [Classic]
09 Mar 2018
Contributed by Lukas
I'm traveling and not in a position to record "SSC Journal Club: Friston on Computational Mood" so I thought I'd release this SSC classic to tide peop...
God Help Us, Let's Try to Understand Friston on Free Energy
05 Mar 2018
Contributed by Lukas
I've been trying to delve deeper into predictive processing theories of the brain, and I keep coming across Karl Friston's work on "free energy". At ...
SSC Journal Club Cipriani on Antidepressants
27 Feb 2018
Contributed by Lukas
I. The big news in psychiatry this month is Cipriani et al's Comparative efficacy and acceptability of 21 antidepressant drugs for the acute treatmen...
Highlights from the Comments on Technological Unemployment
23 Feb 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Thanks to everyone who commented on the post about technological unemployment. From Onyomi: Not saying I necessarily think this is what is going on...
Current Affairs' "Some Puzzles for Libertarians", Treated as Writing Prompts for Short Stories
22 Feb 2018
Contributed by Lukas
[Taken from here.] I. Deep in the forest, thousands of miles from civilization, there is an isolated village. It has not seen contact with any other...
Technological Unemployment Much More Than You Wanted to Know
20 Feb 2018
Contributed by Lukas
[I am not an economist or an expert on this topic. This is my attempt to figure out what economists and experts think so I can understand the issue, a...
Five More Years
16 Feb 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Those yearly "predictions for next year" posts are starting to reach the limit of their usefulness. Not much changes from year to year, and most of ...
Even More Search Terms That Led People to This Blog
15 Feb 2018
Contributed by Lukas
[Previously in series: Search Terms That Have Led People To This Blog and More Search Terms That Have Led People To This Blog. Content warning: pro...
More Testimonials for SSC
14 Feb 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Last post I thanked some of the people who have contributed to this blog. But once again, it's time to honor some of the most important contributors:...
We've Got Five Years, What a Surprise
14 Feb 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Today is the fifth anniversary of Slate Star Codex. Overall I'm very happy with how this project is going so far, and I want to take this opportunity ...
Guyenet on Motivation
08 Feb 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Rereading The Hungry Brain, I notice my review missed one of my favorite parts: the description of the motivational system. It starts with studies ...
Predictions for 2018
06 Feb 2018
Contributed by Lukas
At the beginning of every year, I make predictions. At the end of every year, I score them. So here are a hundred more for 2018. Some changes this y...
Powerless Placebos
01 Feb 2018
Contributed by Lukas
[All things that have been discussed here before, but some people wanted it all in a convenient place] The most important study on the placebo effect ...
The Invention of Moral Narrative
31 Jan 2018
Contributed by Lukas
H/T Robin Hanson: Aeon's The Good Guy / Bad Guy Myth. "Pop culture today is obsessed with the battle between good and evil. Traditional folktales nev...
Highlights from the Comments on Conflict vs. Mistake
30 Jan 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Thanks to everyone who commented on the posts about conflict and mistake theory. aciddc writes: I'm a leftist (and I guess a Marxist in the same se...
SSC Survey Data on Models of Political Conflict
26 Jan 2018
Contributed by Lukas
There were a lot of good comments on yesterday's conflict vs. mistake post. Some were very appropriate challenges: for example, doesn't public choice ...
Conflict Vs. Mistake
25 Jan 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Jacobite – which is apparently still a real magazine and not a one-off gag making fun of Jacobin – summarizes their article Under-Theorizing G...
Practically-A-Book Review Luna Whitepaper
18 Jan 2018
Contributed by Lukas
They say money can't buy love. But that was the bad old days of fiat money. Now there are dozens of love-based cryptocurrencies – LoveCoin, CupidCoi...
Bundles of Joy
17 Jan 2018
Contributed by Lukas
On December's survey, I asked readers who had children whether they were happy with that decision. Here are the results, from 1 (very unhappy) to 5 (...
Maybe the Real Superintelligent AI Is Extremely Smart Computers
16 Jan 2018
Contributed by Lukas
By Ted Chiang, on Buzzfeed: The Real Danger To Civilization Isn't AI: It's Runaway Capitalism. Chiang's science fiction is great and I highly recommen...
Meditations on Moloch [Classic]
13 Jan 2018
Contributed by Lukas
[Content note: Visions! omens! hallucinations! miracles! ecstasies! dreams! adorations! illuminations! religions!] I. Allan Ginsberg's famous poem, M...
Self-Serving Bias
12 Jan 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Alex Tabarrok beat me to the essay on Oregon's self-service gas laws that I wanted to write. Oregon is one of two US states that bans self-service g...
Fight Me, Psychologists Birth Order Effects Exist and Are Very Strong
08 Jan 2018
Contributed by Lukas
"Birth order" refers to whether a child is the oldest, second-oldest, youngest, etc. in their family. For a while, pop psychologists created a whole i...
Book Review Madness and Civilization
05 Jan 2018
Contributed by Lukas
I started reading Foucault's Madness And Civilization with the expectation that it would be tedious and incomprehensible. You know, the stereotype t...
2017 Predictions Calibration Results
03 Jan 2018
Contributed by Lukas
At the beginning of every year, I make predictions. At the end of every year, I score them. Here are 2014, 2015, and 2016. And here are the predict...
Adderall Risks Much More Than You Wanted to Know
29 Dec 2017
Contributed by Lukas
I didn't realize how much of a psychiatrist's time was spent gatekeeping Adderall. The human brain wasn't built for accounting or software engineering...
A History of the Silmarils in the Fifth Age
27 Dec 2017
Contributed by Lukas
The Silmarillion describes the fate of the three Silmarils. Earendil kept one, and traveled with it through the sky, where it became the planet Venu...
Preregistration of the Hypotheses for the SSC Survey
26 Dec 2017
Contributed by Lukas
[This post is about the 2018 SSC Survey. If you've read at least one blog post here before, please take the survey if you haven't already. Please do...
Please Take The 2018 SSC Reader Survey
22 Dec 2017
Contributed by Lukas
If you're reading this and have previously read at least one Slate Star Codex post, please take the 2018 SSC Survey. This year's survey is in three s...
What to Make of New Positive NSI-189 Results?
08 Dec 2017
Contributed by Lukas
I wanted NSI-189 to be real so badly. Pharma companies used to love antidepressants. Millions of people are depressed. Millions of people who aren't d...
Tax Bill 3 Don't Mess With Taxes
08 Dec 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Thanks to everyone who commented on my last two posts, especially the many people who disagreed with me. Two things I will admit I got mostly wrong: 1...
Response to Comments The Tax Bill is Still Very Bad
07 Dec 2017
Contributed by Lukas
There was some good pushback on yesterday's article on taxes. But sorry, I'm still right. Many people responded with generic low-tax anti-government p...
The Tax Bill Compared to Other Very Expensive Things
05 Dec 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Here is the cost of the current GOP tax bill placed in the context of other really expensive things. Although it's not quite enough money to solve w...
Against Overgendering Harassment
05 Dec 2017
Contributed by Lukas
About 30% of the victims of sexual harassment are men. About 20% of the perpetrators of sexual harassment are women. Don't believe me? In a Quinnipia...
Book Review: Inadequate Equilibria
01 Dec 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Eliezer Yudkowsky's catchily-titled Inadequate Equilibria is many things. It's a look into whether there is any role for individual reason in a worl...
Contra Robinson on Public Food
22 Nov 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Earlier this year, Nathan Robinson of Current Affairs wrote an article against school vouchers. He argued that private schools would be so focused ...
List of Passages I Highlighted in My Copy of Legal Systems Very Different From Ours
16 Nov 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Question I'd never thought to ask before: are we sure it's a good idea to let people know what the laws are? The Chinese legal system originated some...