Astral Codex Ten Podcast

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/highlights-from-the-comments-on-aducanumab These are highlights from the comments of Adumbrations Of Aducanumab , Details Of The Infant Fish Oil Story , and discussion of those posts elsewhere. C_B writes : I agree with this post's overall point that the FDA is not, on average, too lax, and that the Atlantic article's take that the aducanumab approval is a sig...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/links-for-august   [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 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 thi...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/kids-can-recover-from-missing-even I. Introduction Back when the public schools were closed or online, someone I know burned themselves out working overtime to get the money to send their kid to a private school. They figured that all the other parents would do it, their kid would fall hopelessly behind, and then they'd be doomed to whatever sort of horrible f...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/blindness-schizophrenia-and-autism   Some weird psychiatric trivia: no congenitally blind person ever gets schizophrenia ( journal article , popular article ). "Trivia" is exactly the right word for this fact; it's undeniably interesting, but what do you do with it? So far nobody has done anything, other than remark "hmm, that's funny". I was thinking about th...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/contra-hanania-on-partisanship Support the author on Substack: astralcodexten.substack.com Then support the podcast: www.patreon.com/sscpodcast Richard Hanania of the Center For The Study Of Partisanship And Ideology asks " why is everything liberal ?" Given that there are approximately equal numbers of Trump voters and Biden voters in elections, how come we h...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/outdoor-careful-meetups-everywhere Support the author on Substack: astralcodexten.substack.com Then support the podcast: www.patreon.com/sscpodcast https://forms.gle/mvueraFmq2hSqdH27 There are ACX-affiliated meetup groups all over the world. Lots of people are vaguely interested, but don't try them out until I make a big deal about it on the blog. Since learn...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/eight-hundred-slightly-poisoned-word Support the author on Substack: astralcodexten.substack.com Then support the podcast: www.patreon.com/sscpodcast   In 2012, a Berkeley team found that indoor carbon dioxide had dramatic negative effects on cognition ( paper , popular article ). Subjects in poorly ventilated environments did up to 50% worse on a test of reas...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/contra-drum-on-the-fish-oil-story Support the author on Substack: astralcodexten.substack.com Then support the podcast: www.patreon.com/sscpodcast I. Kevin Drum questions my interpretation of the infant fish oil story . (it's actually more complicated - I posted a shorter version, later corrected it with a longer version based on the account of one of the doct...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/details-of-the-infant-fish-oil-story   I. In my recent post on the FDA, I mentioned a story about a fish-oil-based infant nutritional fluid called Omegaven. The FDA took too long to approve it, and lots of infants died. I plucked that from the anti-FDA blogosphere, where it had been floating around for a while in various incarnations. I tried to check it befor...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/highlights-from-the-comments-on-acemoglu Eugene Norman writes: This… "People have said climate change could cause mass famine and global instability by 2100. But actually, climate change is contributing to hurricanes and wildfires right now! So obviously those alarmists are wrong and nobody needs to worry about future famine and global instability at all." …is...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/adumbrations-of-aducanumab   Lots of people have been writing about aducanumab, but this Atlantic article in particular bothers me. Backing up: aducanumab, aka Aduhelm, is a new "Alzheimers drug" recently approved by the FDA. I use the scare quotes because it's pretty unclear whether it actually treats Alzheimers. It definitely treats beta-amyloid plaques, and...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/what-should-we-make-of-sasha-chapins   I. Substack blogger Sasha Chapin writes that COVID-19 Took My Sense Of Smell, LSD Brought It Back . He got coronavirus, and like many people lost his sense of smell (medical term: dysosmia or anosmia ). Ten days after recovery, he still couldn't smell anything. He looked on Twitter and found some anecdotal reports that ps...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/model-city-monday-8221 Support the author here: astralcodexten.substack.com Then, you can support this podcast at: www.patreon.com/sscpodcast Greenhouse Effect Honduras remains the country to watch in the charter city sphere, with its ZEDE law allowing unprecedented levels of freedom and protection. I'd previously written about two Honduran projects, the high-...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/updated-look-at-long-term-ai-risks   The last couple of posts here talked about long-term risks from AI, so I thought I'd highlight the results of a new expert survey on exactly what they are. There have been a lot of these surveys recently, but this one is a little different. Starting from the beginning: in 2012-2014, Muller and Bostrom surveyed 550 people wi...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/when-does-worrying-about-things-trade On yesterday's post , some people tried to steelman Acemoglu's argument into something like this: There's a limited amount of public interest in AI. The more gets used up on the long-term risk of superintelligent AI, the less is left for near-term AI risks like unemployment or autonomous weapons. Sure, maybe Acemoglu didn'...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/contra-acemoglu-onoh-god-were-doing The Washington Post has published yet another "luminary in unrelated field discovers AI risk, pronounces it stupid" article. This time it's Daron Acemoglu. I respect Daron Acemoglu and appreciate the many things his work has revealed about economics. In particular, I respect him so much that I wish he would stop embarrassing...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/mantic-monday-726 This Week In Markets PredictIt remains easy to use, high-volume, and focused almost entirely on horse-race political questions. At least we might get rid of Cuomo. Polymarket remains a fun alternative way to learn about the news. I only heard about the monkeypox issue a few days ago, and hearing "22% chance of it spreading" is both faster and...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/links-for-july   [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 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://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/things-i-learned-writing-the-lockdown   Lockdown Effectiveness: Much More Than You Wanted To Know is the most ambitious post I've tried to write since starting the new blog. I posted an early draft for subscribers only and tried crowdsourcing opinions. Most of the comments I got on Substack weren't too helpful, but several people sent me private emails that we...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/highlights-from-the-comments-on-crazy Some good discussion of PTSD, culminating in a link to the ACOUP blog, which says : I cannot speak for all pre-modern, ancient or medieval armies. But for the periods where I have read a wide chunk of the primary source material, I'd say there is vanishingly little evidence that people in the ancient Mediterranean or medie...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/peer-review-request-ketamine   I'm trying to build up a database of mental health resources on my other website, Lorien Psychiatry . Whenever I post something here, people have had good comments, so I want to try using you all as peer review. This is a rough draft of my page on depression. I'm interested in any feedback you can give, including: 1. Typos 2. Pla...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/please-take-the-reader-survey All right, here goes. This is a project to support studies by ACX community members, by getting readers to fill out research surveys. You'll fill out the General Demographic Information survey first, then however many additional surveys you have the patience for. Please start with Survey #0 (general demographics). After that, in o...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/book-review-crazy-like-us We talk a lot about falling biodiversity. Sometimes we apply the same metaphor to the human world, eg "falling linguistic biodiversity" when minority languages get replaced by English or whatever. In Crazy Like Us , Ethan Watters sounds the alarm about falling psychiatric biodiversity. Along with all the usual effects of globalization...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/reader-survey-final-check-in I accidentally missed some Book Review Contest entries, so I want to make sure I have everything lined up right for the Reader Survey. Below is a list of surveys I'm currently planning to include. If you sent me an email before the deadline, please confirm that your name is there. If it's not,  please don't email me about it  - we'...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/use-prediction-markets-to-fund-investigative Support the author: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/subscribe   Then support the creation of the pocast:  www.patreon.com/sscpodcast   Hindenburg Research  has a great business model: 1. Investigate companies 2. ...until they find one that is committing fraud 3. Short the fraudulent company 4. Publicly reveal th...