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PODCAST

Astral Codex Ten Podcast

The official audio version of Astral Codex Ten, with an archive of posts from Slate Star Codex. It"s just me reading Scott Alexander"s blog posts.

technology

All Episodes

08:29

Nobody Can Make You Feel Genetically Inferior Without...

Astral Codex Ten Podcast ·

2024/06/23

I. Lately we’ve been discussing some of the ethics around genetics and embryo selection. One question that comes up in these debates is - are we claiming that some people are genetically inferior to other people? If we’re trying to select schizophrenia genes out of the population - even setting aside debates about whether this would work and whether we can do it non-coercively - isn’t this still in some sense claiming that schizophrenics are genetically inferior? And do we really want to do this? I

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01:14

Unsong Available In Paperback

Astral Codex Ten Podcast ·

2024/06/23

Seven years ago, I wrote an online serial novel, Unsong, about alternate history American kabbalists. You can read the online version here. The online version isn’t going anywhere, but lots of people asked for a hard copy. I tried to get the book formally published, but various things went wrong and I procrastinated. Commenter Pycea finally saved me from myself and helped get it published on Amazon (thank you!) You can now buy the book here, for $19.99. I think the published version is an

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31:29

Contra Stone On EA

Astral Codex Ten Podcast ·

2024/06/23

I. Lyman Stone wrote an article Why Effective Altruism Is Bad. You know the story by now, let’s start with the first argument: The only cities where searches for EA-related terms are prevalent enough for Google to show it are in the Bay Area and Boston…We know the spatial distribution of effective altruist ideas. We can also get IRS data on charitable giving… Stone finds that Google Trends shows that searches for “effective altruism” concentrate most in the San Francisco Bay Area and Boston. So

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36:52

Links for May 2024

Astral Codex Ten Podcast ·

2024/06/10

[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 post are wrong or misleading. I correct these as I see them, and will highlight important corrections later, but I can’t guarantee I will have caught them all by the time you read this.] https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/links-for-may-2024

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15:15

A Theoretical "Case Against Education"

Astral Codex Ten Podcast ·

2024/06/10

There’s been renewed debate around Bryan Caplan’s The Case Against Education recently, so I want to discuss one way I think about this question. Education isn’t just about facts. But it’s partly about facts. Facts are easy to measure, and they’re a useful signpost for deeper understanding. If someone has never heard of Chaucer, Dickens, Melville, Twain, or Joyce, they probably haven’t learned to appreciate great literature. If someone can’t identify Washington, Lincoln, or either Roosevelt, they

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09:17

What Is Going On In IFS?

Astral Codex Ten Podcast ·

2024/06/10

In my book review of The Others Within Us, I wrote: [An Internal Family Systems session] isn’t supposed to be just the therapist walking you through guided imagery, or you making up a story you tell yourself. The therapist asks you “Look inside until you find the part that’s sabotaging your relationship”, and you are supposed to discover - not invent, discover - that your unconscious gives it the form of a snake called Sabby. And you are supposed to hear as in a trance - again, not invent - Sabby

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42:20

Book Review: The Others Within Us

Astral Codex Ten Podcast ·

2024/06/10

Internal Family Systems, the hot new psychotherapy, has a secret. “Hot new psychotherapy” might sound dismissive. It’s not. There’s always got to be one. The therapy that’s getting all the buzz, curing all the incurable patients, rocking those first few small studies. The therapy that was invented by a grizzled veteran therapist working with Patients Like You, not the out-of-touch elites behind all the other therapies. The therapy that Really Gets To The Root Of The Problem. There’s always got to be

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05:57

Choose Book Review Finalists 2024

Astral Codex Ten Podcast ·

2024/06/02

It's time to narrow the 150 entries in the Book Review Contest to about a dozen finalists. I can't read 150 reviews alone, so I need your help. You'll find the entries in six Google Docs (thanks to a reader for collating them): A - D E - I L - P R - S Th - The N The O - Y Please pick as many as you have time for, read them, and rate them using this form. Don’t read them in order! If you read them in order, I’ll have 1,000 votes on the first review, 500 on the second, and so on to none

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24:58

Profile: The Far Out Initiative

Astral Codex Ten Podcast ·

2024/06/02

Suffering is part of the human condition, except when it isn't. I met a man at an ACX meetup once who claimed he has never felt anxiety, not even the littlest bit. His father was the same way, so maybe it's genetic. Some people feel more pain than others. The “more pain” category includes some big demographic groups like redheads, who seem to feel some types of pain more intensely and may need up to 20% more anaesthetic, though their exact processing differences are complicated. But there are also

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30:28

Mantic Monday 5/13/24

Astral Codex Ten Podcast ·

2024/05/30

Manifold pivot || Lab leak hindcasting || CFTC extra-double-bans prediction markets https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/mantic-monday-51324

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38:29

Highlights From The Comments On Hanson And Health Care

Astral Codex Ten Podcast ·

2024/05/30

Most recent post here. Table Of Contents: 1: Comments From Robin 2: Comments About/From Goldin et al 3: Comments From The Rest Of You Yokels https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/mantic-monday-51324

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09:15

The Emotional Support Animal Racket

Astral Codex Ten Podcast ·

2024/05/28

If you’re from a country that doesn’t have emotional support animals, here’s how it works. Sometimes places ban or restrict animals. For example, an apartment building might not allow dogs. Or an airline might charge you money to transport your cat. But the law requires them to allow service animals, for example guide dogs for the blind. A newer law also requires some of these places to allow emotional support animals, ie animals that help people with mental health problems like depression or

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16:48

Asterisk/Zvi on California's AI Bill

Astral Codex Ten Podcast ·

2024/05/28

California’s state senate is considering SB1047, a bill to regulate AI. Since OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and Meta are all in California, this would affect most of the industry. If the California state senate passed a bill saying that the sky was blue, I would start considering whether it might be green, or colorless, or maybe not exist at all. And people on Twitter have been saying that this bill would ban open-source AI - no, all AI! - no, all technology more complicated than a toaster! So I

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01:13:59

Highlights From The Comments On "The Origin Of Woke"

Astral Codex Ten Podcast ·

2024/05/24

Original post here. Table Of Contents: 1: Response From The Author 2: Attempted Fact Checks 3: People With Personal Experience At Their Workplace 4: People With Personal Experience In Civil Rights 5: The Origins Of Modern Wokeness 6: Other Countries 7: EEOC Lawsuits 8: Other Good Comments 9: Conclusions And Updates https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/highlights-from-the-comments-on-the-cf9

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43:16

Book Review: The Origins Of Woke

Astral Codex Ten Podcast ·

2024/05/10

The Origins Of Woke, by Richard Hanania, has an ambitious thesis. And it argues for an ambitious thesis. But the thesis it has isn’t the one it argues for. The claimed thesis is “the cultural package of wokeness is downstream of civil rights law”. It goes pretty hard on this. For example, there’s the title, The Origins Of Woke. Or the Amazon blurb: “The roots of the culture lie not in the culture itself, but laws and regulations enacted decades ago”. Or the banner ad:= The other thesis, the one it

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33:33

Response to Hanson On Health Care

Astral Codex Ten Podcast ·

2024/05/10

Robin Hanson replied here to my original post challenging him on health care here. On Straw-Manning Robin thinks I’m straw-manning him. He says: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/response-to-hanson-on-health-care

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08:18

Survey Results: PMS Symptoms

Astral Codex Ten Podcast ·

2024/05/10

In November 2022, Aella posted this Twitter poll: 19% of women without pre-menstrual symptoms believed in the supernatural, compared to 39% of women with PMS. I can’t do chi-squared tests in my head, but with 1,074 votes this looks significant. Weird! Here’s another one Now 72% of people with PMS self-describe as neurotic, compared to only 45% without. Aella writes more about this here, and sebjenseb confirms here. I’m less weirded out by this one, because you can imagine that people feel

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13:14

Desperately Trying To Fathom The Coffeepocalypse...

Astral Codex Ten Podcast ·

2024/05/03

One of the most common arguments against AI safety is: Here’s an example of a time someone was worried about something, but it didn’t happen. Therefore, AI, which you are worried about, also won’t happen. I always give the obvious answer: “Okay, but there are other examples of times someone was worried about something, and it did happen, right? How do we know AI isn’t more like those?” The people I’m arguing with always seem so surprised by this response, as if I’m committing some sort of betrayal

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43:44

Contra Hanson On Medical Effectiveness

Astral Codex Ten Podcast ·

2024/05/03

Robin Hanson of Overcoming Bias more or less believes medicine doesn’t work [EDIT: see his response here, where he says this is an inaccurate summary of his position. Further chain of responses here and here] This is a strong claim. It would be easy to round Hanson’s position off to something weaker, like “extra health care isn’t valuable on the margin”. This is how most people interpret the studies he cites. Still, I think his current, actual position is that medicine doesn’t work. For example, he

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17:28

Ye Olde Bay Area House Party

Astral Codex Ten Podcast ·

2024/05/03

[previously in series: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5] When that April with his sunlight fierce The rainy winter of the coast doth pierce And filleth every spirit with such hale As horniness engenders in the male Then folk go out in crop tops and in shorts Their bodies firm from exercise and sports And men gaze at the tall girls and the shawties And San Franciscans long to go to parties. https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/ye-olde-bay-area-house-party

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