Content deleted Content added
Trivialist (talk | contribs) copyedit |
resolve old template:as of tag Tags: Mobile edit Mobile app edit iOS app edit App section source |
||
| (7 intermediate revisions by 7 users not shown) | |||
Line 1:
{{Use mdy dates|date=February 2024}}{{Italic title}}
{{CS1 config|mode=cs1}}
Line 32:
'''''Astral Codex Ten''''' (ACX), formerly '''''Slate Star Codex''''' (SSC), is a [[blog]] focused on [[science]], [[medicine]] (especially [[psychiatry]]), [[philosophy]], [[politics]], and [[futures studies|futurism]]. The blog is written by Scott Alexander Siskind,<ref name="TheVerge"/> a [[San Francisco Bay Area]] [[psychiatrist]],<ref name=nytssc/> under the pen name Scott Alexander.
''Slate Star Codex'' was launched in 2013 and was temporarily discontinued on June 23, 2020.
Alexander also blogged at the [[
== Content ==
The site was a primary venue of the [[rationalist community]] and also attracted wider audiences.<ref name=NewYorker/> The ''[[New Statesman]]'' characterizes it as "a nexus for the rationalist community and others who seek to apply reason to debates about situations, ideas, and moral quandaries."<ref name=":2">{{Cite web |last=Jackson |first=Jasper |date=25 June 2020 |title=Why is the New York Times threatening to reveal blogger Scott Alexander's true identity? |url=https://www.newstatesman.com/world/2020/06/why-new-york-times-threatening-reveal-blogger-scott-alexander-s-true-identity |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200627185403/https://www.newstatesman.com/world/2020/06/why-new-york-times-threatening-reveal-blogger-scott-alexander-s-true-identity |archive-date=27 June 2020 |access-date=28 June 2020 |website=[[New Statesman]] |language=en}}</ref> ''The New Yorker'' describes Alexander's fiction as "delightfully weird" and his arguments "often counterintuitive and brilliant".<ref name="NewYorker" /> Economist [[Tyler Cowen]] calls Scott Alexander "a thinker who is influential among other writers".<ref name="TwinCitiesPioneerPress">{{cite web|last=Cowen|first=Tyler|date=4 May 2018|title=Tyler Cowen: Holding up a mirror to intellectuals of the left|url=https://www.twincities.com/2018/05/04/tyler-cowen-holding-up-a-mirror-to-intellectuals-of-the-left/|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200621114822/https://www.twincities.com/2018/05/04/tyler-cowen-holding-up-a-mirror-to-intellectuals-of-the-left/|archive-date=21 June 2020|access-date=3 July 2019|website=Twin Cities Pioneer Press}}</ref>
''[[The New Yorker]]'' states that the volume of content Alexander has written on ''Slate Star Codex'' makes the blog difficult to summarize, with an e-book of all posts running over nine thousand pages in PDF form.<ref name="NewYorker">{{cite magazine|last=Lewis-Kraus|first=Gideon|date=9 July 2020|title=Slate Star Codex and Silicon Valley's War Against the Media|magazine=[[The New Yorker]]|url=https://www.newyorker.com/culture/annals-of-inquiry/slate-star-codex-and-silicon-valleys-war-against-the-media|url-status=live|access-date=10 July 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200710020419/https://www.newyorker.com/culture/annals-of-inquiry/slate-star-codex-and-silicon-valleys-war-against-the-media|archive-date=10 July 2020}}</ref> Many posts are book reviews (typically of books in the fields of social sciences or medicine) or reviews of a topic in the scientific literature. For example, the March 2020 blog post "Face Masks: Much More Than You Wanted To Know" analyzes available medical literature and comes to a conclusion that contrary to early guidance by the [[Centers for Disease Control and Prevention|CDC]], [[Face masks during the COVID-19 pandemic|masks]] are likely an effective protection measure against [[COVID-19]] for the general public under certain conditions.<ref name="NewYorker" /><ref>{{Cite web|last=Alexander|first=Scott|date=23 March 2020|title=Face Masks: Much More Than You Wanted To Know|url=https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/03/23/face-masks-much-more-than-you-wanted-to-know/|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200820015532/https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/03/23/face-masks-much-more-than-you-wanted-to-know/|archive-date=20 August 2020|access-date=|website=Slate Star Codex}}</ref> Some posts are prefaced with a note on their "epistemic status", an assessment of Alexander's confidence in the material to follow.<ref name="NewYorker" />
Line 44:
In 2017, ''Slate Star Codex'' ranked fourth on a survey conducted by Rethink Charity of how [[effective altruism|effective altruists]] first heard about effective altruism, after "personal contact", "''[[LessWrong]]''", and "other books, articles and blog posts", and just above "''[[80,000 Hours]]''."<ref>{{Cite web|last1=Mulcahy|first1=Anna|last2=Barnett|first2=Tee|last3=Hurford|first3=Peter|date=17 November 2017|title=EA Survey 2017 Series Part 8: How do People Get Into EA?|url=https://rtcharity.org/ea-survey-2017-part-8/|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190429135314/https://rtcharity.org/ea-survey-2017-part-8/|archive-date=29 April 2019|access-date=9 September 2020|website=Rethink Charity}}</ref> The blog discusses moral questions and dilemmas relevant to effective altruism, such as moral offsets (the proposition that good acts can cancel out bad acts), ethical treatment of animals, and trade-offs of pursuing systemic change for charities.<ref>{{multiref2
| {{Cite book|last1=Chan|first1=Rebecca|url=|title=Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion|last2=Crummett|first2=Dustin|date=29 August 2019|publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]|isbn=978-0-19-188069-8|___location=Oxford|pages=|chapter=Moral Indulgences: When Offsetting is Wrong|doi=10.1093/oso/9780198845492.003.0005|oclc=1126149885|chapter-url=https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/oso/9780198845492.001.0001/oso-9780198845492-chapter-5|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200909014312/https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/oso/9780198845492.001.0001/oso-9780198845492-chapter-5|archive-date=9 September 2020}}
| {{Cite journal|last=Syme|first=Timothy|date=7 February 2019|title=Charity vs. Revolution: Effective Altruism and the Systemic Change Objection|url=https://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10677-019-09979-5|journal=Ethical Theory and Moral Practice|language=en|volume=22|issue=1|pages=93–120|doi=10.1007/s10677-019-09979-5|s2cid=150872907|issn=1386-2820|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200909014311/https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10677-019-09979-5|archive-date=9 September 2020|via=|url-access=subscription}}
| {{Cite journal|last=Kissel|first=Joshua|date=2017|title=Effective Altruism and Anti-Capitalism: An Attempt at Reconciliation|url=https://www.pdcnet.org/eip/content/eip_2017_0018_0001_0068_0090|journal=Essays in Philosophy|volume=18|issue=1|pages=68–90|doi=10.7710/1526-0569.1573|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200909014310/https://www.pdcnet.org/eip/content/eip_2017_0018_0001_0068_0090|archive-date=9 September 2020|via=|doi-access=free|url-access=subscription}}
| {{Cite journal|last=Foerster|first=Thomas|date=15 January 2019|title=Moral Offsetting|url=https://academic.oup.com/pq/article/69/276/617/5289640|journal=The Philosophical Quarterly|language=en|volume=69|issue=276|pages=617–635|doi=10.1093/pq/pqy068|issn=0031-8094|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200909014319/https://academic.oup.com/pq/article-abstract/69/276/617/5289640?redirectedFrom=fulltext|archive-date=9 September 2020|via=|url-access=subscription}}}}</ref>
=== Artificial intelligence ===
Alexander regularly
In the long essay "Meditations On Moloch", he analyzes [[Game theory|game-theoretic]] scenarios of cooperation failure like the [[prisoner's dilemma]] and the [[tragedy of the commons]] that underlie many of humanity's problems and argues that [[Existential risk from artificial intelligence|AI risks]] should be considered in this context.<ref>{{multiref2
Line 101:
[[Category:Philosophy blogs]]
[[Category:Science blogs]]
[[Category:LessWrong rationalists]]
| |||