Astral Codex Ten Podcast

Mar 20 2025 1033 ep. 25 mins 1.4k

Astral Codex Ten Podcast artwork

The official audio version of Astral Codex Ten, with an archive of posts from Slate Star Codex. It's just me reading Scott Alexander's blog posts.

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OpenAI Nonprofit Buyout: Much More Than You Wanted To Know

Mar 20 2025 25 mins

Last month, I put out a request for experts to help me understand the details of OpenAI’s forprofit buyout. The following comes from someone who has looked into the situation in depth but is not an insider. Mistakes are mine alone. Why Was OpenAI A Nonprofit In The First Place? In the early 2010s, the AI companies hadn’t yet discovered scaling laws, and so underestimated the a

The Ozempocalypse Is Nigh

Mar 20 2025 10 mins

Sorry, you can only get drugs when there's a drug shortage. Three GLP-1 drugs are approved for weight loss in the United States: Semaglutide (Ozempic®, Wegovy®, Rybelsus®) Tirzepatide (Mounjaro®, Zepbound®) Liraglutide (Victoza®, Saxenda®) …but liraglutide is noticeably worse than the others, and most people prefer either semaglutide or tirzepatide. These cost about $100

What Happened To NAEP Scores?

Mar 20 2025 9 mins

Most headlines have said something like New NAEP Scores Dash Hope Of Post-COVID Learning Recovery, which seems like a fair assessment. I feel bad about this, because during lockdowns I argued that kids’ educational outcomes don’t suffer long-term from missing a year or two of school. Re-reading the post, I still think my arguments make sense. So how did I get it so wrong? Whe

Everything-Except-Book Review Contest 2025

Mar 10 2025 3 mins

I enjoy the yearly book review contest, but it feels like last year’s contest is barely done, and I want to give you a break so you can read more books before we start over. So this year, let’s do something different. Submit an ACX-length post reviewing something, anything, except a book. You can review a movie, song, or video game. You can review a product, restaurant, or tour

Why Should Intelligence Be Related To Neuron Count?

Mar 10 2025 9 mins

Intelligence seems to correlate with total number of neurons in the brain. Different animals’ intelligence levels track the number of neurons in their cerebral cortices (cerebellum etc don’t count). Neuron number predicts animal intelligence better than most other variables like brain size, brain size divided by body size, “encephalization quotient”, etc. This is most obvi

Links For February 2025

Mar 10 2025 42 mins

[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://www.astralcodexten.com/p/links-for

Why I Am Not A Conflict Theorist

Mar 05 2025 26 mins

Conflict theory is the belief that political disagreements come from material conflict. So for example, if rich people support capitalism, and poor people support socialism, this isn’t because one side doesn’t understand economics. It’s because rich people correctly believe capitalism is good for the rich, and poor people correctly believe socialism is good for the poor. Or i

Highlights From The Comments On Tegmark's Mathematical Universe

Mar 05 2025 36 mins

[Original thread here: Tegmark’s Mathematical Universe Defeats Most Arguments For God’s Existence.] 1: Comments On Specific Technical Points 2: Comments From Bentham’s Bulldog’s Response 3: Comments On Philosophical Points, And Getting In Fights https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/highlights-from-the-comments-on-tegmarks

Lives Of The Rationalist Saints

Mar 05 2025 8 mins

St. Felix publicly declared that he believed with 79% probability that COVID had a natural origin. He was brought before the Emperor, who threatened him with execution unless he updated to 100%. When St. Felix refused, the Emperor was impressed with his integrity, and said he would release him if he merely updated to 90%. St. Felix refused again, and the Emperor, fearing revolt, pr

Tegmark's Mathematical Universe Defeats Most Proofs Of God's Existence

Mar 05 2025 8 mins

It feels like 2010 again - the bloggers are debating the proofs for the existence of God. I found these much less interesting after learning about Max Tegmark’s mathematical universe hypothesis, and this doesn’t seem to have reached the Substack debate yet, so I’ll put it out there. Tegmark’s hypothesis says: all possible mathematical objects exist. Consider a mathematical