Astral Codex Ten Podcast
Episodes
Book Review Contest 2023 Winners
22 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Thanks to everyone who entered or voted in the book review contest. The winners are: 1st: The Educated Mind, reviewed by Brandon Hendrickson. Brando...
Book Review: Elon Musk
22 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Not the new one, sorry This isn't the new Musk biography everyone's talking about. This is the 2015 Musk biography by Ashlee Vance. I started reading ...
Highlights From The Comments On Last Week's Model Cities Post
12 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Comments On The Solano County City Ecorche writes: The Public's Radio article has a map in it that gives a better idea of the location. It looks like...
Vote In The 2023 Book Review Contest
12 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
If you've read the finalists of this year's book review contest, vote for your favorite here. Voting will stay open until Wednesday. Thanks to a help...
Contra Kirkegaard On Evolutionary Definitions Of Mental Illness
12 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Emil Kirkegaard proposes a semi-objective definition of "mental illness". He's partly responding to me, but I think he mangles my position; he seems t...
Model City Monday 9/4/23: California Dreamin'
09 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Tech moguls plan new city in Solano County Guardian: Silicon Valley Elites Revealed As Buyers Of $800 Million In Land To Build Utopian City. The speci...
My Presidential Platform
09 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The American people deserve a choice. They deserve a candidate who will reject the failed policies of the past and embrace the failed policies of the ...
Your Book Review: Zuozhuan
05 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Finalist #16 in the Book Review Contest To tell the story of the fall of a realm, it's best to start with its rise. More than three thousand years ago...
Here's Why Automaticity Is Real Actually
05 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
"Literal Banana" on Carcinization writes Against Automaticity, which they describe as: An explanation of why tricks like priming, nudge, the placebo ...
Highlights From The Comments On Fetishes
05 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Original post: What Can Fetish Research Tell Us About AI? Table Of Contents: 1: Alternative Theories Of Fetishes 2: Comments Including Testable Pre...
Mantic Monday 8/28/23
02 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Superconductor autopsy -- Prediction mutual funds -- Flight delays Sorry guys, LK-99 doesn't work. The prediction markets have dropped from highs in t...
Your Book Review: Why Nations Fail
02 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Finalist #15 in the Book Review Contest [This is one of the finalists in the 2023 book review contest, written by an ACX reader who will remain ...
Meetups Everywhere 2023: Times & Places
30 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Thanks to everyone who responded to my request for ACX meetup organizers. Volunteers have arranged meetups in 169 cities around the world, from Baghda...
Highlights From The Comments On Dating Preferences
30 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Original post here. And I forgot to highlight a link to the directory of dating docs. Table Of Contents 1: Comments That Remain At Least Sort Of Again...
More Thoughts On Critical Windows
30 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
On the fetish post, I discussed people who had some early sexual experience - like seeing a sexy cartoon character - and reacted in some profound way,...
Critical Periods For Language: Much More Than You Wanted To Know
30 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Scott Young writes about Seven Expert Opinions I Agree With That Most People Don't. I like most of them, but #6, Children don't learn languages faster...
What Can Fetish Research Tell Us About AI?
30 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Epistemic status: Ha ha, only serious... Arguing about gender is like taking OxyContin. There can be good reasons to do it. But most people don't...
Your Book Review: The Mind Of A Bee
24 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
[This is one of the finalists in the 2023 book review contest, written by an ACX reader who will remain anonymous until after voting is done. I'll be ...
Bride Of Bay Area House Party
20 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
[previously in series: 1, 2, 3] You spent the evening agonizing over which Bay Area House Party to attend. The YIMBY parties are always too crowded. V...
In Defense Of Describable Dating Preferences
20 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The New York Times has an article on "dating docs". These are a local phenomenon - I think an ex of mine might have been Patient Zero. I don't begrudg...
Your Book Review: The Weirdest People in the World
20 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Finalist #13 in the Book Review Contest [This is one of the finalists in the 2023 book review contest, written by an ACX reader who will remain anonym...
Highlights From The Comments On Putin
18 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
[original post: Dictator Book Club: Putin] Table of Contents: 1. Comments Further Illuminating Putin's Rise To Power 2. Comments Questioning Masha Ges...
Links for August 2023
18 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
[Remember, I haven't independently verified each link. On average, commenters will end up spotting evidence that around two or three of the links i...
Your Book Review: The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
12 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
[This is one of the finalists in the 2023 book review contest, written by an ACX reader who will remain anonymous until after voting is done. I'll ...
More Memorable Passages From "The Man Without A Face"
12 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Actual serious review here, Amazon link to the book here. These were just some extra parts that stuck out to me. https://astralcodexten.substack.com/...
Dictator Book Club: Putin
09 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Review of Masha Gessen's "The Man Without A Face" [previously in series: Erdogan, Modi, Orban, Xi] I. Vladimir Putin's Childhood As Metaphor For Life ...
Meetups Everywhere Fall 2023 - Call For Organizers
09 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
You can find the meetup organizer volunteer form here. If you want to know if anyone has signed up to run a meetup for your city, you can view that he...
Mantic Monday 7/31/23: Room Temperature Superforecaster
04 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Plus more CFTC, X, and UFOs https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/mantic-monday-73123-room-temperature
Your Book Review: On the Marble Cliffs
04 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Finalist #11 in the Book Review Contest [This is one of the finalists in the 2023 book review contest, written by an ACX reader who will remain anonym...
Bad Definitions Of "Democracy" And "Accountability" Shade Into Totalitarianism
04 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Suppose there's freedom of religion: everyone can choose what religion to practice. Is there some sense in which this is "undemocratic"? Would it be m...
Highlights From The Comments On Social Model Of Disability
01 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
[original post: Contra The Social Model Of Disability] Table Of Contents 1: Comments Defending The Social Model 2: Comments About The Social Model Bei...
We're Not Platonists, We've Just Learned The Bitter Lesson
30 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Machine Alignment Monday, 7/24/23 Intelligence explosion arguments don't require Platonism. They just require intelligence to exist in the normal fuzz...
Your Book Review: The Laws of Trading
30 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
[This is one of the finalists in the 2023 book review contest, written by an ACX reader who will remain anonymous until after voting is done. I'll be ...
Highlights From The Comments On British Economic Decline
30 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
People are talking about British economic decline. Not just the decline from bestriding the world in the 19th century to today. A more recent, more pr...
The Extinction Tournament
25 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
This month's big news in forecasting: the Forecasting Research Institute has released the results of the Existential Risk Persuasion Tournament (XPT)...
Contra The xAI Alignment Plan
20 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Elon Musk has a new AI company, xAI. I appreciate that he seems very concerned about alignment. From his Twitter Spaces discussion: I think I have...
Your Book Review: The Educated Mind
20 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
[This is one of the finalists in the 2023 book review contest, written by an ACX reader who will remain anonymous until after voting is done. I'll be ...
Contra The Social Model Of Disability
17 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What is the Social Model Of Disability? I'll let its proponents describe it in their own words (emphases and line breaks mine) The Social Model Of Dis...
Why Match School And Student Rank?
14 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Matt Yglesias' five-year old son asks: why do we send the top students to the best colleges? Why not send the weakest students to the best colleges, s...
Your Book Review: Secret Government
13 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Finalist #8 in the Book Review Contest [This is one of the finalists in the 2023 book review contest, written by an ACX reader who will remain anonymo...
Links For July 2023
13 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
[Remember, I haven't independently verified each link. On average, commenters will end up spotting evidence that around two or three of the links in e...
Tales Of Takeover In CCF-World
13 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Machine Alignment Monday, 7/3/2023 Tom Davidson's Compute-Centric Framework report forecasts a continuous but fast AI takeoff, where people hand contr...
Your Book Review: Safe Enough?
06 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
[This is one of the finalists in the 2023 book review contest, written by an ACX reader who will remain anonymous until after voting is done. I'll be ...
Is There An Illusion Of Moral Decline?
06 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
[Epistemic status: very uncertain about Part II; more convinced about Part III] I. This is the big question in the paper du jour, The Illusion Of Mora...
Sure, Whatever, Let's Try Another Contra Caplan On Mental Illness
02 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
I. Bryan Caplan thinks he's debating me about mental illness. He's not. Sometimes he posts some thoughts he has been having about mental illness, with...
Every Flashing Element On Your Site Alienates And Enrages Users
01 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Warning: This post might give vulnerable people new sensory sensitivities Everyone hates flashing banner ads, but maybe they're a necessary evil. C...
"Through A Glass Darkly" In Asterisk Magazine
01 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
(Includes full article narration.) I have an article summarizing attempts to forecast AI progress, including a five year check-in on the predictions i...
Your Book Review: Public Citizens
30 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
[This is one of the finalists in the 2023 book review contest, written by an ACX reader who will remain anonymous until after voting is done. I'll be ...
Davidson On Takeoff Speeds
25 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Machine Alignment Monday 6/19/23 The face of Mt. Everest is gradual and continuous; for each point on the mountain, the points 1 mm away aren't too mu...
Your Book Review: Njal's Saga
23 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Finalist #5 in the Book Review Contest [This is one of the finalists in the 2023 book review contest, written by an ACX reader who will re...
Your Incentives Are Not The Same As Media Companies'
18 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Unfortunately I hate many of you. Only the ones with Twitter accounts. If you don't have one of those, you're fine. But if you do have one, there's a ...
The Canal Papers
18 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
You know all the stuff we've been talking about here the past few years - mental mountains, trapped priors, relaxed beliefs under psychedelics? The n...
Your Book Review: Man's Search for Meaning
14 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Finalist #4 in the Book Review Contest [This is one of the finalists in the 2023 book review contest, written by an ACX reader who will remain anonymo...
Attempts To Put Statistics In Context, Put Into Context
09 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Sometimes people do a study and find that a particular correlation is r = 0.2, or a particular effect size is d = 1.1. Then an article tries to "put t...
Highlights From The Comments On The Academic Job Market
09 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Original post: Why Is The Academic Job Market So Weird? Table Of Contents Comments With More Information On Academic Hiring 2. Comments About How Thi...
Your Book Review: Why Machines Will Never Rule the World
04 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Finalist #3 in the Book Review Contest [This is one of the finalists in the 2023 book review contest, written by an ACX reader who will remain anonymo...
Links For May 2023
04 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/links-for-may-2023 [Remember, I haven't independently verified each link. On average, commenters will end up spo...
All Medications Are Insignificant In The Eyes Of God And Traditional Effect Size Criteria
04 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this post, the author suggests that the standard metrics for assessing the efficacy of medications, especially antidepressants, may be flawed and r...
Are Woo Non-Responders Defective?
04 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
This post explores the differing responses to alternative wellness practices, suggesting various explanations, and highlights the challenge of discern...
Your Book Review: Lying for Money
02 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
[This is one of the finalists in the 2023 book review contest, written by an ACX reader who will remain anonymous until after voting is done. I'll be ...
Hypergamy: Much More Than You Wanted To Know
27 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
"Female hypergamy" (from now on, just "hypergamy") is a supposed tendency for women to seek husbands who are higher-status than themselves. Arguing ab...
Mantic Monday 5/22/23
25 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/mantic-monday-52223 Whales v. Minnows // US v. Itself // EPJ v. The Veil Of Time // Balaji v. Medlock Manifold i...
Your Book Review: Cities And The Wealth Of Nations/The Question Of Separatism
21 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
[This is one of the finalists in the 2023 book review contest, written by an ACX reader who will remain anonymous until after voting is done. I'll be ...
Why Is The Academic Job Market So Weird?
19 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Bret Devereaux writes here about the oddities of the academic job market. His piece is comprehensive, and you should read it, but short version: profe...
Galton, Ehrlich, Buck - An exploding generational bomb
19 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Adam Mastroianni has a great review of Memories Of My Life, the autobiography of Francis Galton. Mastroianni centers his piece around the question: ho...
Highlights From The Comments On Long COVID And Bisexuality
17 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Table of Contents 1. Summary Of Best Comments And Overall Updates 2. Comments Proposing Explanations Based On Response Patterns 3. Comments Proposing ...
Highlights From The Comments On Housing Density And Prices
14 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/highlights-from-the-comments-on-housing Table Of Contents: 1. Comments About Whether Density Causes Desirabilit...
Constitutional AI: RLHF On Steroids
12 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/constitutional-ai-rlhf-on-steroids A Machine Alignment Monday post, 5/8/23 What Is Constitutional AI? AIs like ...
Raise Your Threshold For Accusing People Of Faking Bisexuality
10 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/raise-your-threshold-for-accusing I. Many comments in yesterday's post about self-identified bisexuals getting ...
Replication Attempt: Bisexuality And Long COVID
10 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/replication-attempt-bisexuality-and I learned from Pirate Wires that CDC data show bisexuals were about 50% mor...
Change My Mind: Density Increases Local But Decreases Global Prices
08 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/change-my-mind-density-increases Matt Yglesias tries to debunk the claim that building more houses raises local...
Highlights From The Comments On Nerds And Hipsters
04 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/highlights-from-the-comments-on-nerds Table of contents: 1: Comments By The Author Of The Original Post 2: Comm...
Mantic Monday 4/24/23
29 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/mantic-monday-42423 Can AIs Predict The Future? By Which We Mean The Past? If we asked GPT-4 to play a predictio...
Links For April 2023
29 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/links-for-april-2023 [Remember, I haven't independently verified each link. On average, commenters will e...
Contra Kriss On Nerds And Hipsters
22 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Sam Kriss has a post on nerds and hipsters. I think he gets the hipsters right, but bungles the nerds. Hipsters, he says, are an information sorting a...
[CLASSIC POST] Book Review: The Hungry Brain
22 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
[Content note: food, dieting, obesity] I. The Hungry Brain gives off a bit of a Malcolm Gladwell vibe, with its cutesy name and pop-neuroscience styl...
Highlights From The Comments On IRBs
21 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Table of Contents 1: Comments From The Author Of The Book 2: Stories From People In The Trenches 3: Stories From People In Other Industries 4: Stories...
Book Review: From Oversight To Overkill
14 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/book-review-from-oversight-to-overkill I. Risks May Include AIDS, Smallpox, And Death Dr. Rob Knight studies ho...
Spring Meetups Everywhere 2023
14 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/spring-meetups-everywhere-2023 Many cities have regular Astral Codex Ten meetup groups. Twice a year, I try to ...
Book Review: The Arctic Hysterias
09 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/book-review-the-arctic-hysterias I. Strange things are done in the midnight sun, say the poets who wrote of old...
Most Technologies Aren't Races
09 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/most-technologies-arent-races [Disclaimer: I'm not an AI policy person, the people who are have thought about t...
Highlights From The Comments On Telemedicine Regulations
09 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/highlights-from-the-comments-on-telemedicine [Original post: The Government Is Making Telemedicine Hard And Inc...
MR Tries The Safe Uncertainty Fallacy
04 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/mr-tries-the-safe-uncertainty-fallacy The Safe Uncertainty Fallacy goes: The situation is completely uncertai...
The Government Is Making Telemedicine Hard And Inconvenient Again
04 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/the-government-is-making-telemedicine [I'm writing this quickly to deal with an evolving situation and I'm not ...
Turing Test
30 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/turing-test The year is 2028, and this is Turing Test!, the game show that separates man from machine! Our star ...
Half An Hour Before Dawn In San Francisco
25 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/half-an-hour-before-dawn-in-san-francisco I try to avoid San Francisco. When I go, I surround myself with peopl...
Why Do Transgender People Report Hypermobile Joints?
25 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/why-do-transgender-people-report [Related: Why Are Transgender People Immune To Optical Illusions?] I. Ehlers-D...
Why I Am Not (As Much Of) A Doomer (As Some People)
25 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Machine Alignment Monday 3/13/23 https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/why-i-am-not-as-much-of-a-doomer (see also Katja Grace and Will Eden's related...
Links For March 2023
25 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/links-for-march-2023 [Remember, I haven't independently verified each link. On average, commenters will end up s...
Give Up Seventy Percent Of The Way Through The Hyperstitious Slur Cascade
09 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/give-up-seventy-percent-of-the-way I. Someone asks: why is "Jap" a slur? It's the natural shortening of "Japane...
Issue Two Of Asterisk
09 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/issue-two-of-asterisk …the new-ish rationalist / effective altruist magazine, is up here. It's the food issue....
Kelly Bets On Civilization
09 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/kelly-bets-on-civilization Scott Aaronson makes the case for being less than maximally hostile to AI development...
Impact Market Mini-Grants Update
09 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/impact-market-mini-grants-update Impact markets are a charity analogy to private equity. Instead of prospective...
Against Ice Age Civilizations
09 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/against-ice-age-civilizations There's a good debate about this on the subreddit; see also Robin Hanson and Samo...
OpenAI's "Planning For AGI And Beyond"
06 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/openais-planning-for-agi-and-beyond Planning For AGI And Beyond Imagine ExxonMobil releases a statement on clim...
Highlights From The Comments On Geography Of Madness
05 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Plus: A case for culture-bound mental disorder skepticism https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/highlights-from-the-comments-on-geography [Original p...
Announcing Forecasting Impact Mini-Grants
05 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/announcing-forecasting-impact-mini I still dream of running an ACX Grants round using impact certificates, but ...
Book Review: The Geography Of Madness
04 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/book-review-the-geography-of-madness Around the wide world, all cultures share a few key features. Anthropologi...
Grading My 2018 Predictions For 2023
04 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/grading-my-2018-predictions-for-2023 To celebrate the fifth anniversary of my old blog, in 2018, I made some pr...
Declining Sperm Count: Much More Than You Wanted To Know
18 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/declining-sperm-count-much-more-than Is Sperm Count Declining? People say it is. Levine et al 2017 looks at 1...