Scott Alexander

[[File:Scott Alexander.png|thumb|right|165px|Alexander in 2024]]
{{LessWrong}}
'''Scott Alexander''' {{lived|1985|}}<ref>[https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/theres-a-time-for-everyone "There's A Time for Everyone,"] ''Astral Codex Ten'', January 12, 2022 "Last week I got married. ... I’m getting married at 37, a lot later than I would have liked."</ref> is the pen-name of [[LessWrong]]-[[rationalist]] blogger and [[psychiatrist]] '''Scott Alexander Siskind'''. Alexander began writing on LessWrong under the name '''Yvain''', and then branched out into his own blog, '''Slate Star Codex''' (a near-anagram of "Scott Alexander"). SSC became one of the top-tier blogs for LessWrong-style rationalists, this and his related [[Tumblr]] being linchpins of the LessWrong Diaspora.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20200526145020/https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Rationalist_movement Rationalist movement] ''LessWrong Wiki'' (archived from March 26, 2020).</ref> His current blog is now '''Astral Codex Ten'''. Over the years he has repeatedly hinted, and eventually stated, that IQ is really important, [[Racialism|races differ substantially in IQ]], and the world would be better if [[eugenics|smart people had more babies and stupid people had fewer]].  

==Medical and blogging careers==
Scott Alexander spent his young adulthood studying in various states and countries.  He received a bachelor’s degree ''magna cum laude'' in [[Psychology]] or [[Philosophy]] from Hamilton College in New York state in 2006,<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20200304173211/http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/03/13/five-years-and-one-week-of-less-wrong/ Five Years And One Week Of Less Wrong] by Scott Alexander (March 13, 2014) ''Slate Star Codex'' (archived from March 4, 2020).</ref><ref>''Hamilton College Commencement'', May 21, 2006 https://www.hamilton.edu/documents//commencement/2006Program.pdf</ref> then qualified in medicine at University College Cork - National University of Ireland, Cork in 2012.<ref>https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/topics/scott-alexander</ref> and then completed postgraduate training certified by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education in the discipline of psychiatry.  He completed medical residency at a hospital in Michigan in then moved to the San Francisco Bay area in California in 2017 to work as a psychiatrist.<ref>https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/07/03/to-the-great-city/</ref> During medical school and residency, he read a great deal on the Internet, and launched his own blog ''Slate Star Codex'' in March 2009.

As is customary in the writing of psychiatrists and psychologists, he mashes up details of different patients when he writes about them, so as to fictionalize the accounts and avoid his patients being identified, as well as using a [[pseudonym]] himself. He blogs on ''many'' subjects other than psychiatry. He has mentioned controversial subjects such as [[eugenics]], censorship, and IQ. Like [[Eliezer Yudkowsky]], he sometimes invents a new name for a well-known concept which makes it hard for his readers to find the prior research by experts. After dabbling in online polls during his medical education and noticing that some people filled them in with nonsense, he called this "lizardman's constant" whereas social scientists and pollsters have found that the rate of "bogus responses" is not constant.<ref>Scott Alexander, [https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/12/noisy-poll-results-and-reptilian-muslim-climatologists-from-mars/ Lizardman's Constant is 4%], ''Slate Star Codex'', April 12, 2013 </ref><ref>Courtney Kenedy et al., [https://www.pewresearch.org/methods/2020/02/18/assessing-the-risks-to-online-polls-from-bogus-respondents/Assessing the Risks to Online Polls From Bogus Respondents], ''Pew Research Center'', February 18, 2020</ref> Knowing his name lets you amuse people at parties, knowing the academic name lets you educate yourself further.

SSC posts are often very long. Alexander uses [[Twitter]]<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20200418012355/https://twitter.com/slatestarcodex Scott Alexander] ''Twitter'' (archived from April 18, 2020).</ref> and (formerly) Tumblr<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20200623093348/https://slatestarscratchpad.tumblr.com/ Slate Star  Scratchpad] ''Tumblr'' (archived from June 23, 2020).</ref> to post shorter reactions, puns, and jokes.

Notable internet publications include his giant anti-[[neoreactionary]] FAQ,<ref name=faq/> his giant anti-[[libertarian]] FAQ,<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20200222053906/http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/22/repost-the-non-libertarian-faq/ The Non-Libertarian FAQ] by Scott Alexander (February 22, 2017) ''Slate Star Codex'' (archived from February 22, 2020).</ref> his map of the rationalist blogosphere,<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20200303151720/http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/05/mapmaker-mapmaker-make-me-a-map/ Mapmaker, Mapmaker, Make Me a Map] by Scott Alexander (September 5, 2014) ''Slate Star Codex'' (archived from March 3, 2020).</ref> and a long collection of quotations from actual computer scientists on the subject of why we should take [[AI]] risk seriously.<ref name="Alexander AI Risk"/> Additionally, he posted a lengthy and famed criticism<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20200221020248/http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/01/01/untitled/ Untitled] by Scott Alexander (January 1, 2015) ''Slate Star Codex'' (archived from February 21, 2020).</ref> of feminism, which had been spurred by a feminist backlash<ref>[http://www.newstatesman.com/laurie-penny/on-nerd-entitlement-rebel-alliance-empire On Nerd Entitlement: White male nerds need to recognise that other people had traumatic upbringings, too - and that’s different from structural oppression.] by Laurie Penny (29 December 2014) ''New Statesman''.</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.rawstory.com/2014/12/mit-professor-explains-the-real-oppression-is-having-to-learn-to-talk-to-women/ |title=MIT professor explains: The real oppression is having to learn to talk to women |author=Amanda Marcotte |date=December 30, 2014}}</ref> against a blog comment<ref>[http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=2091#comment-326664 Walter Lewin: Comment #171] by Scott Aaronson (December 14<sup>th</sup>, 2014 at 10:21 pm) ''Shtetl-Optimized: The Blog of Scott Aaronson''.</ref> by MIT professor Scott Aaronson. He is also the author of <i>Unsong</i>, an extensive fantasy novel about [[Kabbalah|kabbalistic magic]].

Alexander is a frequent visitor of local LessWrong-rationalist meetups<ref>[https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Meetups Less Wrong meetup groups] ''LessWrong Wiki''.</ref> in the US, and organizes some of them himself.

The Slate Star Codex blog was taken down on 23 June 2020, on the expressed basis that a ''[[New York Times]]'' article on the Slate Star Codex subculture by Cade Metz was going to use Alexander's real name, and he feared for his safety as he had been harassed previously at work over his blogging. (This just happened to coincide with the reporter starting to get in touch with SSC ''critics'', and not just cheerleaders.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20200623184053/https://twitter.com/melissamcewen/status/1275493977672777733 I did recommend that the reporter talk to some people with expertise in neoreactionaries like @ElSandifer or in AI bias, it is interesting he'd delete his blog just as the reporter was going to start looking at more critical sources] by Melissa McEwen (11:20 AM - 23 Jun 2020) ''Twitter'' (archived from June 23, 2020).</ref>) Alexander recommended readers move to the [[Reddit]] forums /r/slatestarcodex and /r/themotte.<ref>[https://archive.vn/ZXo37 NYT Is Threatening My Safety By Revealing My Real Name, So I Am Deleting The Blog] by Scott Alexander (23 June 2020) ''Slate Star Codex'' (archived from 23 Jun 2020 08:43:57 UTC).</ref> Later he launched a new blog on [[Substack]] and opened a private psychiatric practice so controversy about his writing could not affect his employer.<ref>"About" https://www.astralcodexten.com/about</ref> He is among the bloggers who receives specific benefits from Substack in exchange for using their services:

{{cquote|I’d feel safer with a lot of diverse income streams, and Substack has made me an extremely generous offer. Many people gave me good advice about how I could monetize my blog without Substack – I took these suggestions very seriously, and without violating a confidentiality agreement all I can answer is that Substack’s offer was ''extremely'' generous.<ref>Scott Alexander, [https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/09/11/update-on-my-situation/ "Update on my Situation,"] ''SlateStarCodex'', September 11, 2020</ref>}}

Although he does not name the deal, Substack started to offer what it calls Substack Pro to select authors in the same month that Alexander said he had accepted the offer.<ref>Hamish Mckenzie, [https://on.substack.com/p/why-we-pay-writers Why We Pay Writers], ''On Substack'', March 12, 2021 Especially interesting are the comments by Substack exec Chris Best: {{quotebox|There are only just over 30 writers have participated in Pro so far (21 March 2021), out of many thousands on Substack. Those writers still get readers pay to subscribe to them like anyone else.

We started experimenting with Pro in September 2020. By that point there were hundreds of thousands of paying subscribers across the Substack network, and there were already publishers making more than a million dollars in annualized revenue.}} and writer Sara Zarr {{quotebox|I think if you’re going to position yourself as a publisher (which, by directly paying advances, you are), then you look to publishing for how that’s handled. Publishers don’t try to keep their book deals on the D.L. Deals are regularly announced via trade mags like Publishers Weekly. These do not include amounts of money or anything like that. Just hey, this publisher acquired this book by this author. It’s very normal and standard and helps everyone see what different publishers are putting out. It’s not a privacy issue.}}</ref> It also offers legal aid called Defender.<ref>Brian Heater, [https://techcrunch.com/2020/07/15/substack-launches-defender-a-program-offering-legal-support-to-independent-writers/ Substack launches Defender, a program offering legal support to independent writers], ''TechCrunch'', July 15, 2020</ref>

==Political and social views==
Alexander does not consistently [[censor]] [[racist]] and [[sexist]] opinions in his comments section (except on open threads, where race and gender discussions are always banned), a decision about which some of his fellow LessWrong-style rationalists have expressed concerns.<ref>[https://www.quora.com/How-true-is-the-statement-the-comment-threads-on-Slate-Star-Codex-are-a-nightmare-to-read-through/answer/Caio-Camargo How true is the statement 'the comment threads on Slate Star Codex are a nightmare to read through'?] by Caio Camargo (December 25, 2014) ''Reddit''.</ref> 

[[Iran]]ian [[secular]]ist Kaveh Mousavi, while agreeing with Alexander that the [[Moonbat|intellectually bankrupt]] sections of the [[social justice]] community should be heavily critiqued, has nonetheless criticized Alexander himself for having an [[Americentrism|Americentric]] view of social issues and of creating a [[Balance fallacy|false equivalence]] between social justice advocates and [[social conservative]]s, as well as of downplaying [[discrimination]] against women and minorities in Western countries.<ref>[http://www.patheos.com/blogs/marginoferr/2015/06/16/the-irregular-symmetry/ The Irregular Symmetry] by Kaveh Mousavi (June 16, 2015) ''Patheos: On the Margins of Error''.</ref> However, Alexander has been willing to defend aspects of social justice he views as worthwhile, such as uses for [[trigger warning]]s<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20200214081811/http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/05/30/the-wonderful-thing-about-triggers/ The Wonderful Thing about Triggers] by Scott Alexander (May 30, 2014) ''Slate Star Codex'' (archived from February 14, 2020).</ref> and acknowledging discrimination still exists and has massive economic costs.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20200502022053/https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/20/social-justice-for-the-highly-demanding-of-rigor/ Social Justice For The Highly-Demanding-Of-Rigor] by Scott Alexander (April 20, 2013) ''Slate Star Codex'' (archived from May 2, 2020).</ref>

===Neoreaction and racialism===
{{main|1=Neoreactionary movement|3=Racialism}}
Alexander is critical of neoreactionaries, having written what is generally regarded as the definitive takedown of neoreaction.<ref name=faq>[https://web.archive.org/web/20200618174909/https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/10/20/the-anti-reactionary-faq/ The Anti-Reactionary FAQ] by Scott Alexander (October 20, 2013 ) ''Slate Star Codex'' (archived from June 18, 2020).</ref> His blogroll is full of neoreactionaries and his comment section contains a lot of neoreactionary discussion, because he knows a pile of them personally, and he keeps discussing their ideas in his blog and for example, he considers Mencius Moldbug's ''Unqualified Reservations'' blog an obvious go-to reference his readers will immediately understand when he's talking about [[gay]] relationship counselling.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20200406135821/https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/12/01/setting-the-default/ Setting The Default] by Scott Alexander (December 1, 2015) ''Slate Star Codex'' (archived from April 6, 2020).</ref>

In 2014, Siskind sent an email that described how he thought that [[RationalWiki]] was uninformative, while at the same time describing the benefits of reading neoreactionaries and racialist (HBD) proponents.<ref name=topherbrennan/>

{{cquote|Compare RationalWiki and the neoreactionaries. RationalWiki provides a steady stream of mediocrity. Almost nothing they say is outrageously wrong, but almost nothing they say is especially educational to someone who is smart enough to have already figured out that homeopathy doesn't work. Even things of theirs I didn't know — let's say some particular study proving homeopathy doesn't work that I had never read before — doesn't provide me with real value, since they fit exactly into my existing worldview without teaching me anything new (ie. I so strongly assume such studies should exist that learning they actually exist changes nothing for me).

The Neoreactionaries provide a vast stream of garbage with occasional nuggets of absolute gold in them. Despite considering myself pretty smart and clueful, I constantly leam new and important things (like the crime stuff, or the WWII history, or the HBD) from the Reactionaries. Anything that gives you a constant stream of very important new insights is something you grab as tight as you can and never let go of.

The garbage doesn't matter because I can tune it out.|||Scott Alexander.<ref name=topherbrennan/>}}

{{cquote|To make one of a dozen extremely obvious points here, Scott’s “it’s good to listen to fascists because I can tune the garbage out” only works if Scott has a 100% accurate bullshit detector. Otherwise he’s going to internalize fashy garbage at a gradual increase. And he did.|||@ElSandifer@twitter.com<ref>Elizabeth Sandifer @ElSandifer@twitter.com, February 17, 2021 https://archive.ph/tDaNV</ref>}}

{{cquote|In the past two months I have inexplicably and very very suddenly become much more conservative.

This isn’t the type of conservativism where I agree with any conservative policies, mind you. Those still seem totally wrong-headed to me. It’s the sort of conservativism where, even though conservatives seem to be wrong about everything, often in horrible or hateful ways, they seem like probably mostly decent people deep down, whereas I have to physically restrain myself from going on Glenn Beck style rants about how much I hate leftists and how much they are ruining everything. Even though I mostly agree with the leftists whenever they say something.

(In fact, it seems like an important observation that there is a state of mind in which, no matter what your intelligence or rationality level, Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh-style rants against The Left seem justifiable and fun to listen to. I cannot communicate this state of mind and don’t know why it occurs.)

[...] The explanation I like least is that it comes from reading too much neoreaction. I originally rejected this hypothesis because I don’t believe most what I read. But I’m starting to worry that there are memes that, like Bohr’s horseshoe, affect you whether you believe them or not: memes that crystallize the wrong pattern, or close the wrong feedback loop. I have long suspected social justice contains some of these. Now I worry neoreaction contains others.|||Scott Alexander, ''The Right is the new Left''.<ref>https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/04/22/right-is-the-new-left/</ref>}}

His justification for suddenly becoming "very very suddenly much more conservative" is a self-invented theory about class and "fashion."

===Feminism===
Alexander identifies as neither a [[feminist]] or an [[anti-feminist]],<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20151230120520/https://slatestarcodex.com/ssc-on-feminism/ SSC On Feminism] ''Slate Star Codex'' (archived from December 30, 2015).</ref> expressing that he has been unfairly associated with both groups.

He talked of "the sane 30%-or-so of feminists"<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20200520065517/https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/10/20/the-anti-reactionary-faq/ The Anti-Reactionary FAQ] by Scott Alexander (October 20, 2013 ) ''Slate Star Codex'' (archived from May 20, 2020).</ref>{{efn|He specified in the comments: The word “sane” in that context should not be taken to mean “stupid” or even “holds stupid views”, but rather “willing to hold rational discussions about their views with someone they are tempted to consider an evil enemy, based on the Principle of Charity”<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20200418001100/http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/10/20/the-anti-reactionary-faq/ The Anti-Reactionary FAQ] by Scott Alexander (October 20, 2013) ''Star Slate Codex'' (archived from April 18, 2020).</ref> The evil enemy in question being [[neoreaction]]aries.}} and described some essays as “blurring the already thin line between feminism and literally Voldemort”.<ref>Scott Alexander, [http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/31/radicalizing-the-romanceless/ Radicalizing the Romanceless]. ''Slate Star Codex'', August 31, 2014</ref> He apparently regrets the popularity of this phrase, saying "NO NEED TO TAKE THIS ONE SENTENCE OUT OF CONTEXT AND TRY TO SPREAD IT ALL OVER THE INTERNET", though it really doesn't improve at all ''with'' context.<ref group=note>I dunno, you fuck ''one'' pony.</ref>

In the post meant to clarify his position on feminism and feminist issues, he described his negative attitudes towards the movement as:

{{quotebox|I think there’s a whole corner of Internet feminism – the Jezebel, Gawker, and Modal Tumblr User faction – which is really scary. …

This strain is absolutely not the entirety of the movement – but it has become a big enough piece of the movement, and sufficiently dangerous to anybody who doesn’t share their views, that I think it really needs talking about and can’t be dismissed as “a few bad apples”. …

I will sometimes complain about “feminists” in a way that doesn’t necessarily mean the millions of feminists who follow good discussion norms and treat other people with respect. I’m trying to generalize less now and be much more precise about how I mean only a certain strain, but I have left the older posts untouched.<ref>Scott Alexander, [https://archive.ph/Zmxcj SSC on feminism]. Archived from Slate Star Codex, 2016.</ref>}}

As this quote suggests, Alexander mostly engages with the feminism of social media and chatty magazines, rather than books and academia and face-to-face activism.  Of the 99 modern books which Alexander reviewed until September 2024, only seven were by women, and none was on feminism.<ref>"The Walled Marketplace of Ideas: A Statistical Critique of SSC Book Reviews" Timeline Topography Tales, 17 October 2024 https://titotal.substack.com/p/the-walled-marketplace-of-ideas-a</ref>

Alexander enthusiastically supported [[James Damore]]'s {{wpl|Google's Ideological Echo Chamber|Google's Ideological Echo Chamber: How Bias Clouds Our Thinking About Diversity and Inclusion}} which suggested that the gender imbalance in tech fields was at least partly due to a greater proportion of men than women having the kinds of interests, inclinations, and talents that drew them to tech jobs, and suggested that changing [[Google]]'s requirements for tech jobs might be needed to attract more women. This was after Alexander's fans on Reddit /r/slatestarcodex had spotted<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20170813140041/https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/6rv2ib/did_the_ssc_post_on_gender_imbalances_and/ Did the SSC post on Gender Imbalances and Offensive Attitudes inspire the Google SWE's Anti-Diversity manifesto?] by church_on_a_hill (05 Aug 2017) ''Slate Star Codex'' (archived from August 13, 2017).</ref> that it was largely a restatement of Alexander's arguments in his post "Gender Imbalances Are Mostly Not Due To Offensive Attitudes".<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20200108033015/https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/01/gender-imbalances-are-mostly-not-due-to-offensive-attitudes/ Gender Imbalances Are Mostly Not Due To Offensive Attitudes] by Scott Alexander (August 1, 2017) ''Slate Star Codex'' (archived from January 8, 2020).</ref> Alexander wrote:

{{quotebox|And if you're reading this — sorry, huge respect for what you're trying, but it's pretty doomed. The best hope is a Fabian strategy of making sure enough there's enough of an underground of people who know what's up that they can quietly self-sort, form bubbles of liveability, and curb the worst excesses without forming a clear target for anybody. If you actually go riding in on a white horse waving a paper marked "ANTI-DIVERSITY MANIFESTO", you're just providing justification for the next round of purges.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20200624140851/https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/6rv2ib/did_the_ssc_post_on_gender_imbalances_and/dl84whf/ Did the SSC post on Gender Imbalances and Offensive Attitudes inspire the Google SWE's Anti-Diversity manifesto?] by Scott Alexander Feb 26, 2014) ''Reddit'' (archived from June 24, 2020).</ref>}}

He invited [[Ozy Brennan]], a queer blogger who had become involved in rationalism, for a guest post titled "Anti-[[Heartiste]] FAQ", in similar vein to his famous Anti-Libertarian FAQ and Anti-Reactionary FAQ.<ref>https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/20/ozys-anti-heartiste-faq/</ref> Alexander said that Ozy's blog was different from other "blogs on gender" because he could read it without wanting to smash something.<ref>Scott Alexander, "Typical mind and gender identity," ''Slate Star Codex'', February 18, 2013 https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/02/18/typical-mind-and-gender-identity/</ref>

===Libertarianism===
{{cquote|I feel pretty okay about both being sort of a libertarian and writing an essay arguing against libertarianism, because the world generally isn't libertarian enough but the sorts of people who read long online political essays generally are way more libertarian than can possibly be healthy.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20200425120113/http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/06/09/all-debates-are-bravery-debates/ All Debates Are Bravery Debates] by Scott Alexander (June 9, 2013) ''Slate Star Codex'' (archived from April 25, 2020).</ref>}}
{{cquote|I take no pleasure in reporting this; I disagree with socialism as a philosophy, but they had some good ideas, could have helped some people, and would have been a breath of fresh air after a decade of unremitting [[woke|wokeness]].<ref>https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/the-rise-and-fall-of-online-culture</ref>}}
Scott Alexander describes himself as a "bleeding-heart libertarian" or "left-libertarian", which supports free markets, market based solutions to socioeconomic problems and taxes to correct for externalities.<ref>https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/12/08/a-something-sort-of-like-left-libertarianism-ist-manifesto/</ref>

===Communism===
He is highly critical of [[communism]], and has more generally been persistently critical of what he views as millenarian ideologies, i.e., a catastrophe will destroy the current system, [[handwave]], a new [[Golden Age]] will arise from the ashes.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20200604215627/https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/09/28/ssc-endorses-clinton-johnson-or-stein/ SSC Endorses Clinton, Johnson, Or Stein] by Scott Alexander (September 28, 2016) ''Slate Star Codex'' (archived from June 4, 2020).</ref> Much as with neoreaction, this hasn't stopped him from writing long book reports and getting ''very'' interested, for example, in the details of central planning in the [[USSR]].<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20200205105914/http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/24/book-review-red-plenty/ Book Review: Red Plenty] by Scott Alexander (September 24, 2014) ''Slate Star Codex'' (archived from February 5, 2020).</ref>

===Existential risks===
<!-- TODO: Split this out into a separate page - a lot of people have commented on this interesting debate, which is sure to run and run, and Alexander is more of a bit player, basically echoing the comments of others -->
{{main|Existential risk}}

Alexander believes that the risks of superintelligent [[AI]]s (e.g. the risk of them misconstruing our goals and turning us all into paperclips) have been repeatedly misrepresented and downplayed by the media, that while immediate disaster is unlikely, the threat is worth taking seriously, and now is a good time to research it.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20200611025109/https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/05/29/no-time-like-the-present-for-ai-safety-work/ No Time Like The Present For AI Safety Work] by Scott Alexander (May 29, 2015) ''Slate Star Codex'' (archived from June 11, 2020).</ref>

However, Alexander, who echoes the views of Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI), [[Stephen Hawking]], [[Elon Musk]] and Nick Bostrom on this, is not an AI researcher, nor a computer scientist (and the same goes for most of the "researchers" at MIRI, including [[Eliezer Yudkowsky]]). An actual AI researcher, Richard Loosemore, has criticized the assumptions behind many of the MIRI-style superintelligent AI [[doomsday scenario]]s, pointing out that an AI that thought it could correctly interpret the core goals of humanity but got them so hideously wrong would not in fact be worthy of the name "intelligent" at all, and that this is not merely a naming issue but a basic design issue for AIs.<ref>[http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/loosemore20140724 The Maverick Nanny with a Dopamine Drip: Debunking Fallacies in the Theory of AI Motivation] by Richard Loosemore (Jul 24, 2014) ''Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies''.</ref> Alexander has compiled a list of renowned and accomplished AI researchers expressing concerns about AI.<ref name="Alexander AI Risk">[https://web.archive.org/web/20200426171315/https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/05/22/ai-researchers-on-ai-risk/ AI Researchers On AI Risk] by Scott Alexander (May 22, 2015) ''Slate Star Codex'' (archived from April 26, 2020).</ref>

===Effective altruism===
{{main|Effective altruism}}
Alexander is a big supporter of [[charity]], or if not at least effective altruism, on similar grounds and often gives speeches on efficient charity,<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20200408000304/https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/05/investment-and-inefficient-charity/ Investment and Inefficient Charity] by Scott Alexander (April 5, 2013) ''Slate Star Codex'' (archived from April 8, 2020).</ref> and has supported the Giving What We Can project which attempts to separate effective charities from inefficient ones.<ref>[https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/ Giving What We Can]</ref>

===Race and IQ===
Alexander identifies with the 'hereditarian left',<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20200403110538/https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/05/09/links-517-rip-van-linkle/ Links 5/17: Rip Van Linkle] by Scott Alexander (May 9, 2017) ''Slate Star Codex'' (archived from April 3, 2020).{{cquote|The Politics Of The Gene: “Contrary to expectations, however, we find little evidence that it is more common for whites, the socioeconomically advantaged, or political conservatives to believe that genetics are important for health and social outcomes.”<br/>
Related: the hereditarian left. This seems like as close to a useful self-identifier as I’m going to get.}}</ref><ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20200111125910/https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/04/12/clarification-to-sacred-principles-as-exhaustible-resources/ Clarification To "Sacred Principles As Exhaustible Resources"] by Scott Alexander (April 12, 2017) ''Slate Star Codex'' (archived from January 11, 2020).{{cquote|[...] and my impression of Murray is positive (he’s the only public figure I know who shares my view that genetic meritocracy is really scary insofar as it means that many people are poor through no fault of their except but bad genes, and who agrees with me that the most ethical response would be a universal basic income). I think both of these people deserve the protection of free speech, and I tried to make that clear throughout the essay.}}</ref> He has also expressed support for [[Gregory Cochran]] and Henry Harpending's [[hypothesis]], the [[Natural History of Ashkenazi Intelligence]], that claims that the frequency of congenital diseases among Ashkenazi [[Jews]] (of which Alexander is one) is caused by [[Racialism|selection for intelligence]],<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20200217031805/https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/05/26/the-atomic-bomb-considered-as-hungarian-high-school-science-fair-project/ The Atomic Bomb Considered As Hungarian High School Science Fair Project] by Scott Alexander (May 26, 2017) ''Slate Star Codex'' (archived from February 17, 2020).</ref> as opposed to the multiple bottlenecks and founder effects for which there is actual evidence.<ref>[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1216062/ A Population-Genetic Test of Founder Effects and Implications for Ashkenazi Jewish Diseases] Montgomery Slatkin (2004) ''Am. J. Hum. Genet.'' 75(2): 282–293. doi:10.1086/423146.</ref> There is almost nothing he won't try to apply [[human biodiversity]] to, e.g. ''[[Harry Potter]]''.<ref>[http://mugasofer.tumblr.com/post/136807550038/the-latest-idea-of-the-metapedia-team-is-to-make-a slatestarscratchpad] by mugasofer (Jan 7<sup>th</sup>, 2016) ''Tumblr''.{{cquote|This is dumb. What I want is a Harry Potter fanfic set in a world where blood purism is correct. [...] A good exploration of this topic would treat it as the morally complex issue it is - can we really exclude brilliant wizards like Hermione from the community on purely statistical grounds? Is it possible to believe that Voldemort’s methods were unspeakably evil, but that it would be ethical to pursue the same goals by more “nudge” style methods like incentivizing pureblood wizards to only breed with one another? Is this why the Sorting Hat is under orders to stick so many of them together in Slytherin House? I wouldn’t expect the Metapedia folks to be able to do this correctly, but that they don’t even try is more evidence that fascists are utterly incompetent at everything.}}</ref>

After the NYT article on Slate Star Codex was published,<ref>https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/13/technology/slate-star-codex-rationalists.html</ref> Alexander’s fans were ''outraged'' that they could ''dare'' smear Alexander by association with ''scientific racists''. After about a week of that, Alexander’s ex-friend Topher Brennan (who used to blog as Christopher Hallquist, his name before marriage) posted the receipts: an email from 2014 in which Alexander earnestly pleads with Topher to take up the banner of [[racialism]], in its Human Biodiversity variant, explicitly recommending such luminaries as [[Steve Sailer]], Hbdchick, and various neoreactionaries: "I am monitoring Reactionaries to try to take advantage of their insight and learn from them."<ref name=topherbrennan>[https://twitter.com/TopherTBrennan/status/1362108632070905857 Twitter thread] ([https://web.archive.org/web/20210217195335/https://twitter.com/TopherTBrennan/status/1362108632070905857 archive])</ref>  

In January 2025 Alexander addressed the topic in public with a blog post on [[Richard Lynn]]'s estimates of national IQ which admitted that "nobody does high-quality IQ tests on the entire population of Malawi; to get his numbers, Lynn would often find some IQ-ish test given to some unrepresentative sample of some group related to Malawians and try his best to extrapolate from there." then enthused:<ref>https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/how-to-stop-worrying-and-learn-to</ref>

{{quotebox|Isn't It Super-Racist To Say That People In Sub-Saharan African Countries Have IQs Equivalent To Intellectually Disabled People?

No. In fact, it would be super-racist ''not'' to say this! We shouldn’t conflate advocacy with science.
}}

And suggested that the real reason people objected to Lynn's estimates was [[Silent_Majority|fear of sounding racist]].<ref>If you like the deep lore (or are a masochist) Alexander already made this argument in 2018, when a blogger argued that [https://everythingstudies.com/2018/04/26/a-deep-dive-into-the-harris-klein-controversy/ race science enthusiasts were just practicing 'cognitive decoupling'] (https://archive.ph/30Jg3) and considering a fascinating hypothesis regardless of the moral implications if it were true.  [https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/8fnch2/high_decouplers_and_low_decouplers/ Alexander replied] {{cquote|I like the concept, but I feel like you're being too generous in applying it to the (Ezra) Klein vs. (Sam) Harris [[E. O. Wilson#Sam_Harris_vs._Ezra_Klein|race-science debate]]. ... I don't think it's a question of fixed cognitive styles. I think it's just politics, pure and simple.}} (https://archive.ph/BeMWo) Even another member of Alexander's subreddit noticed "Come on Scott, OP is saying race science denial can be explained by irrationality and you're criticizing this for being too generous? What happened to the principle of charity?" Back in 2015, Topher Brennan believed that many Lesswrongers and neoreactionaries believed that [https://topherhallquist.wordpress.com/2015/08/17/reply-to-scott-alexander/ scientists agreed with racists about black people] but were trying to hide the truth; anyone who has watched ''The X-Files'' or argued with creationists has encountered this gambit.</ref> Fellow traveler Nick Bostrom had also tried to switch the discussion from ''are there large racial differences in intelligence?'' to ''how much of this difference is genetic?'' when apologizing for a "disgusting" email on race and IQ.<ref>https://thetab.com/2023/01/12/senior-oxford-uni-academic-argues-blacks-are-more-stupid-than-whites-in-unearthed-emails</ref>

Someone could take Alexander's arguments that race determines IQ and IQ determines success in life, and his arguments for allowing doctors to experiment on humans without passing an ethical review,<ref>Scott Alexander, "My IRB Nightmare," ''Slate Star Codex'' https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/29/my-irb-nightmare/ archived https://archive.ph/xvnFW</ref><ref>Scott Alexander, "Highlights From The Comments On My IRB Nightmare," ''Slate Star Codex'', 31 August 2017 https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/31/highlights-from-the-comments-on-my-irb-nightmare/ archived https://archive.ph/KbFLX</ref> and produce an argument for sterilizing 
the feebleminded
 uppity poor brown and immigrant people, as many {{wpl|Eugenics in California|US states}} and {{wpl|Compulsory sterilization in Canada|Canadian provinces}} did in the 20th century. Back in 2013; Alexander said that he was familiar with this argument but not completely convinced:

{{quotebox|Even though I like both basic income guarantees and eugenics, I don’t think these are two things that go well together – making the income conditional upon sterilization is a little too close to coercion for my purposes. Still, probably better than what we have right now.<ref>Scott Alexander, comment to "A Something Sort Of Like Left-Libertarianism-ist Manifesto," ''Slate Star Codex'', 8 December 2017 https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/12/08/a-something-sort-of-like-left-libertarianism-ist-manifesto/ archived https://archive.ph/WY3kO</ref>}}

Most people would not say that helping the poor if they agree to be sterilized first is "better than what we (in the USA) have right now"!  And medical researchers today have to answer "bizarre questions" like “Will prisoners be used in the study?" because researchers before them did just that.

===Are we the baddies?===
In April 2025, Alexander published a (paywall-protected) dialogue, "Twilight of the Edgelords," in which characters ask whether people who sound a lot like the LessWrongers had something to do with the rise of Elon Musk and Donald Trump in the United States.<ref>https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/twilight-of-the-edgelords</ref><ref>https://www.writingruxandrabio.com/p/the-edgelords-were-right-a-response archived https://archive.ph/zUd9L</ref><ref>https://superbowl.substack.com/p/confessions-of-a-cringe-soy-redditor archived https://archive.ph/HrC42</ref> 

{{quotebox|We wanted to be able to prevent biological men with testosterone-boosted muscles from competing in women’s sports leagues. And somehow that morphed into a world where whenever someone with more subtlety than Attila the Hun tries to stake out a position on anything, roving bands of dead-eyed reply guys interject “HOW MANY GENDERS ARE THERE? BET YOU CAN’T ANSWER THAT HAR HAR HAR!”}}

Alexander followed up with a [[Socratic method|Socratic dialogue]] on whether eugenics is bad,<ref>https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/galton-ehrlich-buck</ref> and a complaint that [[Curtis Yarvin]] had sold out to the Trump regime and gone directly against the principles of his early writing.<ref>Scott Alexander, "Moldbug Sold Out," ''Astral Codex Ten'', May 7, 2025 https://archive.ph/jfki4</ref> This sounds a lot like western [[Marxist]]s complaining that [[Mao]] and the [[Bolsheviks]] were giving [[communism]] a bad name, and real Marxism had never been tried. The dialogue has a [[Whataboutism|strange argument]] that because Paul Ehrlich was not cancelled for supporting compulsory sterilization in India in the 1970s, therefore nobody in the USA cares about forced sterilization in principle (it seems more likely that hardly anyone in the USA has heard of this program let alone that Paul Ehrlich was for it, because the world is big and the space for foreigners on US news is small). He also praised Sam Altman, the CEO of [[OpenAI]] (people who worked with Altman described him as "not consistently candid in his communications" which is how you say "[[Deceit|liar]]" in [[Public relations|press-release]]).<ref>https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2023/11/18/pivot-to-ai-replacing-sam-altman-with-a-very-small-shell-script/</ref>

==/r/slatestarcodex==
As usual, you can make anything worse by adding [[Reddit]]. /r/slatestarcodex is an unofficial fan forum for the blog. Scott comments occasionally and is a moderator. The culture wars (a regular weekly thread, until it was recently branched off to the Scott-endorsed /r/themotte) and [[pseudoscientific]] [[racialism]] of "human biodiversity" are regular and upvoted topics (literally advocating the [[Fourteen Words]] will get you 40+ upvotes<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20180912215243/https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/6j9yse/what_are_some_true_beliefs_deep_down_you_knew/djde7xb/ What are some true beliefs deep down you knew were true but didn't believe at one time because they were too uncomfortable to accept?] by u/Danplanck (Feb 26, 2014) ''Reddit'' (archived from February 23, 2019).</ref> and admiring replies). Of course, much more offensive than the racism is ''objecting to'' the racism, which gets you a day's ban.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20170915200521/https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/6klt0b/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_following_july_1/djtr9ml/?context=1 Slate Star Codex: In a Mad World, All Blogging is Psychiatry Blogging] (Feb 26, 2014) ''Reddit'' (archived from September 15, 2017).</ref> According to one moderator, "A belief in HBD doesn’t automatically equate to racism"{{fact}}, somehow.

The moderators have a partial registry of bans.<ref>[https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/wiki/bans Slate Star Codex: Registry of bans] (Created Feb 26, 2014) ''Reddit''.</ref>

After pressure from his friends, Alexander banned "culture war" discussions from /r/slatestarcodex and moved them to a new subreddit, /r/themotte — which is now a haven for race realism and for the sort of [[white nationalism]] that thinks it's erudite.<ref>David Thorstad, "Human biodiversity (Part 6: The Motte)," ''Reflective Altruism'' https://reflectivealtruism.com/2025/02/20/human-biodiversity-part-6-the-motte/</ref> Alexander simultaneously disclaimed /r/themotte and kept recommending it. /r/themotte has since been pushed off Reddit by the site moderators, and is now at themotte.org.{{fact}}

==Private life==
In his early blog posts Alexander sometimes mentioned girlfriends, the frustration of breakups and dating, and his rage that physically abusive men could find women while he was often unable.<ref>eg. [https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/03/21/if-opposites-attract-why-is-my-sister-so-pretty/ "If opposites attract, why is my sister so pretty?"] ''Slate Star Codex'', March 21, 2013</ref> He rarely mentioned names. In 2013 he said he was trying [[polyamory]] because he enjoyed romance more than [[sex]] and did not feel sexual jealousy (polyamory is trendy with LessWrongers).<ref>Scott Alexander, [https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/06/polyamory-is-boring/ "Polyamory Is Boring,"] ''Slate Star Codex'', April 6, 2013 archived https://archive.ph/4qwTF</ref> In 2014 he had a romantic relationship with [[Ozy Brennan]] whose career he encouraged.<ref>[https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/22/ssc-gives-a-wedding-speech/ "SSC Gives A Wedding Speech,"] ''Slate Star Codex'', September 22, 2014</ref><ref>[https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/02/27/book-review-the-seven-principles-for-making-marriage-work/ "Book Review: The Seven Principles For Making Marriage Work,"] ''Slate Star Codex'', February 27, 2020</ref> (Rationalists very often date or play with each other).

In January 2022, Alexander married a women whom he had met two years earlier at a party organized by [[Aella]].<ref>[https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/theres-a-time-for-everyone "There's A Time For Everyone,"] ''Astral Codex Ten'', January 12, 2022</ref> At the end of 2023 they had twins.<ref>[https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/in-the-long-run-were-all-dad "In the Long Run We're All Dad,"] ''Astral Codex Ten'', December 22, 2023</ref>

==In popular culture==
[[Dark Enlightenment]] philosopher Nick Land's 2014 psychological horror novella ''Phyl-Undhu'' includes a technological cult reminiscent of LessWrong, and a character called "Alex Scott" expressing some of Scott's ideas on the Doomsday Hypothesis, with [[Roko's basilisk|an intelligence at the end of time you can communicate with]], and a cultist pushed out of the [[cult]] who "wants to have not thought certain things."

==External links==
* [https://astralcodexten.substack.com/ Astral Codex Ten]
* [http://slatestarcodex.com/ Slate Star Codex]
* [http://slatestarscratchpad.tumblr.com Slate Star Scratchpad] (his Tumblr)
* [https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex Slate Star Codex on Reddit] &mdash; unofficial fan club, with occasional participation from Scott
* [https://twitter.com/slatestarcodex Scott Alexander on Twitter]
* segyges, [https://www.tumblr.com/segyges/793458078662197248/the-scott-alexander-emails-an-explainer The Scott Alexander Email: An Explainer] Archived at https://archive.ph/NuQu4 Summarizes the wordy or linkrotted neoreactionary posts which Alexander endorsed and expands the arguments which are just sketched in.

==Notes==
{{reflist|group=note}}

==References==
{{reflist|2|80%}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Alexander, Scott}}

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Categories: Antifeminism, Blogs, Bloggers, California, Eugenics supporters, Internet kooks, Jews, LessWrong, Living people, Physicians, Pissed at us, Psychologists, Racialism, Rationalism