Top all-time · #51
Scott Alexander
Personal blog · astralcodexten.substack.comsciencephilosophy
Scott Alexander writes Astral Codex Ten, a personal blog at astralcodexten.substack.com about science and philosophy. Since 2021, 522 different Hacker News readers have linked it 1,267 times, most often “Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-30, and you can follow it by feed.
Sometimes recommended · 12 of 40 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Scott Alexander's Astral Codex Ten to back up points on heuristics, prediction markets, medicine and institutions, and as a recommended blog. Most comments cite individual posts as sources.
- Recommended for · 12 comments
- Called a great writeup, a decent overview, worth reading as a book summary, and 'a couple of good posts'; one commenter calls the author incredibly talented.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 40 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
P(A|B) = [P(A)*P(B|A)]/P(B), all the rest is commentary. Click to read Astral Codex Ten, by Scott Alexander, a Substack publication.
Most-linked posts?
- Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know32 people · 40 mentions · first linked 2021-11-17
- SlateStarCodex Is Back24 people · 25 mentions · first linked 2021-01-21
- Book Review: Progress and Poverty23 people · 37 mentions · first linked 2021-04-16
- Lockdown Effectiveness: much more than you wanted to know19 people · 19 mentions · first linked 2021-07-07
- WebMD, and the Tragedy of Legible Expertise18 people · 18 mentions · first linked 2021-02-05
- Know Your Amphetamines16 people · 18 mentions · first linked 2021-01-25
- If we prefer trad architecture by a large margin, why did we stop making it?16 people · 17 mentions · first linked 2021-09-24
- The Phrase “No Evidence” Is a Red Flag for Bad Science Communication15 people · 20 mentions · first linked 2021-12-17
- Book Review: The Future of Fusion Energy12 people · 15 mentions · first linked 2022-06-17
- Drug users use a lot of drugs12 people · 12 mentions · first linked 2021-06-09
What Hacker News says?
> I can understand why an umbrella term such as "colored people" could be problematic. However, if that is the case, I don't understand why "people of color" should be any more socially acceptable Scott Alexander explains this as a way for upper-class people to maintain their privileges: "The whole point is to make sure the working-class white guy whose best friends are black and who marries a black woman and has be…
Comment linking /p/a-modest-proposal-for-republicans
on “GitHub, fuck your name change”Submitted Heuristics that almost always work as a story · 1000 points
HN discussionIt's also funny that he didn't even put it in the post. I'm not sure it's because of length restrictions, since the post is 4,495 words long. Maybe he wanted to keep under 4,500. Also perplexing: footnote 2 mentions the car tire paradox. (Traction is determined by weight and coefficient of traction, and those two things only. So why do high performance cars have wider tires, which shouldn't make a difference? Becaus…
Comment linking /p/trapped-priors-as-a-basic-problem
on “Willingness to look stupid”Submitted Still alive as a story · 898 points
HN discussionYou are right. Had a brain fart moment there. Still a good place to check as some of these official statements from the two leading public health bodies communicate the agreed-upon response to the disease. On Astral Codex Ten's piece, I assume you are talking about this one [0] The whole piece is such a doosie. Am almost sure 90%+ of the non-core audiences that landed on the page never scrolled to the end. If you ar…
Comment linking /p/ivermectin-much-more-than-you-wanted
on “Open letter from the BMJ to Mark Zuckerberg”Submitted Statement on New York Times Article as a story · 866 points
HN discussionRight, no objection there. Scott Alexander outright dubs this observation Marx’s Fallacy[1]: > What I sometimes call Marx’s Fallacy is that if we burnt down the current system, some group of people who optimized for things other than power would naturally rise to the top. Wrong. People who most brutally and nakedly optimized for power would gain power; that's what “optimize” means. I was only saying that the surface…
Comment linking /p/webmd-and-the-tragedy-of-legible
on “The Big [Censored] Theory”Submitted Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know as a story · 735 points
HN discussionYou must hang out in a very different place, then. I see much more outcry when 3rd parties come between willing speakers and recipients, with most of the rest being people misrepresenting censorship as moderation because it allows them to justify it. In that vein, this went up on HN the other day: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/moderation-is-differen...
Comment linking /p/moderation-is-different-from-censorship
on “Ex-Reddit CEO on Twitter moderation”Submitted Asking robots to design stained glass windows as a story · 477 points
HN discussionScott Alexander's review is worth reading to get a summary of this book: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/book-review-why-were-p...
Comment linking /p/book-review-why-were-polarized
on “Ex-Reddit CEO on Twitter moderation”Submitted Moderation is different from censorship as a story · 380 points
HN discussion"Fusion is always 30 years away" is a heuristic that almost always works. https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/heuristics-that-almost...
Comment linking /p/heuristics-that-almost-always-work
on “Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy”Submitted Idol Words as a story · 271 points
HN discussionYou might like https://astralcodexten.substack.com/ and Slate Star Codex.
Comment linking /
on “Tell HN: Happy Thanksgiving Everyone”Submitted Does Georgism work? Is land a big deal? as a story · 268 points
HN discussionScott actually did a great writeup on Webmd specifically: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/webmd-and-the-tragedy-...
Comment linking /p/webmd-and-the-tragedy-of-legible
on “Heuristics that almost always work”Submitted Fictional Cryptocurrencies as a story · 213 points
HN discussionWith regard to having kids in particular, I found this argument fairly persuasive: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/please-dont-give-up-on...
Comment linking /p/please-dont-give-up-on-having-kids
on “Ask HN: Comment here about whatever you're passionate about at the moment”Submitted Drug users use a lot of drugs as a story · 178 points
HN discussionI see it in Chrome. Here's a link https://astralcodexten.substack.com/subscribe?utm_source=men...
Comment linking /subscribe?utm_source=menu&simple=true&next=https%3A%2F%2Fastralcodexten.substack.com%2Fp%2Fstill-alive
on “Still alive”Submitted Chilling Effects as a story · 167 points
HN discussionHow is "rationalist" pathetic? What's it's revealing of? In what ways does it signal that he's right? Did you even read why he uses that term? [0] > the type of person who surrounds themselves with other hardcore Tolkien fans and makes subtle Tolkien references in everyday life don't tend to be what you'd call the most well-adjusted people Yeah, God forbid I surround myself with people who really enjoy similar thing…
Comment linking /p/youre-probably-wondering-why-ive
on “Still alive”Submitted Lavender's Game: Silexan for Anxiety as a story · 144 points
HN discussion> psuedo-intellectuals This is so deliciously ironic. > runs a psychiatry called "Lorien", lives in a group-housing-community called "Valinor" Um...okay? What's your point? That those are funny names? No one gives a damn what they're called, and I fail to see what the problem is with running a psychiatry or living in a housing community. Do you also hate on ophthalmologists that run their own firms and college stude…
Comment linking /p/youre-probably-wondering-why-ive
on “Still alive”Submitted Book Review: Fussell on Class as a story · 136 points
HN discussionScott has written an intro post about this on the new blog: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/youre-probably-wonderi... The about page also has some links to more popular articles on the old blog: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/about
Comment linking /about
on “Still alive”Submitted Trapped priors as a basic problem of rationality as a story · 131 points
HN discussionFor context this is Scott's answer to this argument: [from https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/still-alive ] > Some of the savvy people giving me advice suggested I fight back against this. [...] Say why it was necessary for my career to publish those papers under my real name. > Why didn't I do this? Partly because it wasn't true. I don't think I had particularly strong arguments on any of these points. [...] > B…
Comment linking /p/still-alive
on “Statement on New York Times Article”Submitted Book Review: Double Fold as a story · 125 points
HN discussion
