Astral Codex Ten Podcast

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/your-book-review-humankind   [ This is the twelfth of many finalists in the book review contest. It's not by me - it's by an ACX reader who will remain anonymous until after voting is done, to prevent their identity from influencing your decisions. I'll be posting about two of these a week for several months. When you've read all of them, I'll ask you to vote...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/peer-review-request-depression   I'm trying to build up a database of mental health resources on my other website,  Lorien Psychiatry . Every time I post something, people here have made 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...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/book-review-arabian-nights   I. One Thousand And One Nights  is a book about love, wonder, magic, and morality. About genies, ape-people, and rhinoceroses who run around with elephants impaled on their horns. About how to use indexical uncertainty to hack the simulation running the universe to return the outcome you want. But most of all, it's a book about how...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/your-book-review-the-accidental-superpower   [ This is the eleventh of many finalists in the book review contest. It's not by me - it's by an ACX reader who will remain anonymous until after voting is done, to prevent their identity from influencing your decisions. I'll be posting about two of these a week for several months. When you've read all of them, I'll...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/links-for-may   [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/highlights-from-the-comments-on-culture   Some of the best comments were on the history of 4Chan. Mr. Doolittle  writes : The rise of 4chan is actually an interesting story of its own. A large chunk of the early user base came from another site called somethingawful.com. As you may expect from the name, somethingawful was a place where a mixture of ironic and...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/your-book-review-addiction-by-design   [ This is the tenth of many finalists in the book review contest. It's not by me - it's by an ACX reader who will remain anonymous until after voting is done, to prevent their identity from influencing your decisions. I'll be posting about two of these a week for several months. When you've read all of them, I'll ask you...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/highlights-from-the-comments-on-cbt   Several people in the comments pointed out existing lower-cost CBT-i apps! This was news to me - I'd searched pretty comprehensively and hadn't found any besides the VA's CBT-i Coach, which is not intended for individual use. They were: 1:   Night Owl , seems good but only available for iOS 2:   Sleepedy  is more of a serv...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/welcome-to-the-terrible-world-of   Trouble falling asleep? You could take sleeping pills, but they've got side effects. Guidelines recommend you try Cognitive Behavioral Therapy For Insomnia (CBT-i), a medication-free process where you train yourself to fall asleep by altering your schedule and sleep conditions. The journals are full of articles begging doctor...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/theses-on-the-current-moment   [followup to  The Rise And Fall Of Online Culture Wars ] 1. The Salem Witch Hunts might not be the right metaphor We usually stick to the same stock examples of repression and retaliation against nonconformists - the Salem Witch Trials, the Red Scare, the Cultural Revolution. These are rightly remembered as awful, and reminders o...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/the-rise-and-fall-of-online-culture [Followup to: New Atheism: The Godlessness That Failed] I. Introduction You've probably seen these graphs before: They tell a familiar story: America is becoming increasingly obsessed with racism and sexism. Identity issues are dominating our politics more and more with no end in sight. But what does Google Trends have to sa...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/your-book-review-the-years-of-lyndon   [ This is the ninth of many finalists in the book review contest. It's not by me - it's by an ACX reader who will remain anonymous until after voting is done, to prevent their identity from influencing your decisions. I'll be posting about two of these a week for several months. When you've read all of them, I'll ask you...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/your-book-review-through-the-eye   [ This is the eighth of many finalists in the book review contest. It's not by me - it's by an ACX reader who will remain anonymous until after voting is done, to prevent their identity from influencing your decisions. I'll be posting about two of these a week for several months. When you've read all of them, I'll ask you to...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/why-is-it-hard-to-acknowledge-preferences   I recently stayed at a B&B owned by a nice elderly couple. Very, very nice. The moment I stepped in the door, they asked how my flight was, where I was from, what I did, how I'd enjoyed my three minutes of visiting their city so far, what kind of food I liked, what my favorite color was, et cetera. I played along - n...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/book-review-a-brief-history-of-neoliberalism   I. Around 1970, something went wrong. The global economy, after twenty-five years of good post-war growth, suddenly blipped. The post-WWII-but-pre-1970 economic world - the world of "embedded liberalism" - was a pleasant place. There were corporations, but they didn't do anything garish like  compete  with each ot...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/if-you-can-be-bad-you-can-also-be Support the author Scott Alexander on Substack. https://astralcodexten.substack.com/ Spotted  on Reddit  about the rationalist community: I like the culture while hating a lot of the specifics...however[,] there is no such thing as "rationality" that is free from ideology. I've got to admit, I hate this argument. Also related...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/your-book-review-the-wizard-and-the   [ This is the seventh of many finalists in the book review contest. It's not by me - it's by an ACX reader who will remain anonymous until after voting is done, to prevent their identity from influencing your decisions. I'll be posting about two of these a week for several months. When you've read all of them, I'll ask you...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/your-book-review-double-fold   [ This is the sixth of many finalists in the book review contest. It's not by me - it's by an ACX reader who will remain anonymous until after voting is done, to prevent their identity from influencing your decisions. I'll be posting about two of these a week for several months. When you've read all of them, I'll ask you to vote...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/nootropics-survey-2020-results   Thanks to the 852 of you who took the 2020 SSC nootropics survey. I asked people to rate various nootropics on whether they "worked" or not, deliberately leaving the question kind of vague. This is using a broad definition of "nootropics" - any supplement or taken-outside-the-usual-medical-system drug that's purported to have m...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/mantic-monday-predictions-for-2021   At the beginning of every year, I  make predictions . At the end of every year, I  score them . This year I'm really late. So here are a hundred plus for 2021. Rules: unless otherwise stated, all predictions are about what will be true on/by January 1, 2022. Some predictions about my personal life, or that refer to the pers...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/your-book-review-why-buddhism-is   [ This is the fifth of many finalists in the book review contest. It's not by me - it's by an ACX reader who will remain anonymous until after voting is done, to prevent their identity from influencing your decisions. I'll be posting about two of these a week for several months. When you've read all of them, I'll ask you to v...

[ This is the fourth of many finalists in the book review contest. It's not by me - it's by an ACX reader who will remain anonymous until after voting is done, to prevent their identity from influencing your decisions. I'll be posting about two of these a week for several months. When you've read all of them, I'll ask you to vote for your favorite, so remember which ones you liked. - SA ] Book Rev...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/book-review-global-economic-history   This book  is subtitled "A Very Short Introduction" and is one of the smallest books I've ever seen, about three ounces. Three ounces is exactly the amount of global economic history that my brain can absorb before turning to mush, so I was glad to find it. Why is the West richer than the rest of the world? Why have some n...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/no-really-why-are-so-many-christians   I enjoyed reading a recent Washington Post article, subtitled  Why Are So Many Christians In [Colombia] Converting To Orthodox Judaism?  It had good interviews and beautiful photos. The only thing it lacked was any explanation of why so many Christians in Colombia were converting to Orthodox Judaism, unless you count expl...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/mantic-monday-grading-my-trump-predictions   I had many opinions on Donald Trump. I tried to back some of those opinions up with predictions about what would happen during his administration. Now that the dust has cleared, it's time to see how I did. The summary: Of 48 specific predictions about Trump, I got 37 directionally right, although this is kind of mea...