Astral Codex Ten Podcast

I. In the gods' great scramble for human followers, Nodens would seem to have lost decisively. We know him only from vague inscriptions at two archaeological sites near the Welsh-English border. One might have been his...

These are all excerpts from Josiah Royce's 1886 book, A History Of California From Conquest In 1846 To The Second Vigilance Committee In San Francisco: A Study Of American Character , which terminates in 1856. I've...

The Story So Far Mechanistic interpretability is the science of "reading an AI's mind". Large language models are "grown, not built". Researchers run training data through a neural network. Eventually this creates a...

Finalist #8 in the Book Review Contest This is one of the finalists in the 2026 book review contest, written by an ACX reader who will remain anonymous until after voting is done. I'll be posting about one of these a...

I am Daniel Böttger 1 . In 2023, my review of On The Marble Cliffs took second in the ACX book review contest, and Scott offered me the right to pitch him more essays. I have worked as a neuroscientist, so in 2024 I...

I. Econblogger Nicholas Decker is not a fan of AI 2040 : One of the centerpieces of AI 2040 is the proposal that we pause the development of AI at a high level, use the AI to research alignment, and only then proceed. I...

Finalist #7 in the Book Review Contest [ This is one of the finalists in the 2026 book review contest, written by an ACX reader who will remain anonymous until after voting is done. I'll be posting about one of these a...

[Original post: Why I'm Staying Out Of The Substack Religion Debate ] Ben Smith writes : This post sure reads like participating in the object level debate, not just "writing a post about how I won't participate". I did...

In early July, Cassie Pritchard argued on Twitter that liberalism had failed; it bet the farm on economic progress making people happier, but although it delivered impressive economic progress, happiness had failed to...

[ This is one of the finalists in the 2026 book review contest, written by an ACX reader who will remain anonymous until after voting is done. I'll be posting about one of these a week for several months. When you've...

I. Matthew Adelstein (aka Bentham's Bulldog) and Richard Chappell debate the existence of God . So do JP Andrew , Benjamin Tettu , Sangwon Lee , Ethan Muse , other Ethan , and "Atheistic Journals" , all within this...

[ This is one of the finalists in the 2026 book review contest, written by an ACX reader who will remain anonymous until after voting is done. I'll be posting about one of these a week for several months. When you've...

Since the beginning of time, mankind has yearned to drink a cup of coffee at 5 PM and go to sleep at 10. But now there's an entire scientific subfield and several companies pandering to this absurd fantasy. Here's a...

[previously in series: 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 ] Paul Graham once said that every city sends a message. New York says you should make more money. Berkeley says you should live better. Boston says you should be...

Old Scottish joke: A man at the bar is complaining: "You see that bridge there? I built it with my own hands! But do they call me 'MacGregor The Bridge-Builder'? No! And I raised five beautiful children! But do they...