Slate Star Codex
Slate Star Codex is a blog pseudonymously written by Scott Alexander, a practising psychiatrist, and occasional guest bloggers. The blog covers a wide range of topics including psychiatry, psychopharmacology, scientific methodology, and political and social issues.
Content
Notable topics covered by blog posts on Slate Star Codex have included:
- Science and statistics - p-hacking, the replication crisis (e.g. on growth mindset[1]), and reviews of topics and papers
- Issues in psychiatry such as end-of-life care, psychopharmacology[2] and regulation of prescription drug prices[3]
- The phenomenon of cost disease in certain sectors of the US economy,[4] including in Alexander's own profession, psychiatry.[5] Alexander argues that a lot of contemporary political debates actually stem from certain costs - education, healthcare - being much higher than they used to be.[5]
- The political psychology behind the thinking of liberals who cheered the death of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher but condemned those who cheered the death of notorious terrorist Osama Bin Laden[6]
- Allegations of overt racism made by some journalists and commentators against Donald Trump, which Alexander argues are over the top and not justified by the facts[7][8]
- Neoreaction, a far-right political philosophy. Alexander has written two key essays on neoreaction - the first a summary of what neoreactionaries believe, and the second a rebuttal.[9]
Alexander periodically posts book reviews on Slate Star Codex. Slate Star Codex has regular "open threads" under which commenters can discuss anything they like, and regular links posts summarising interesting links from around the Web.
Slate Star Codex posts often begin with an "epistemic status" disclaimer, briefly describing how confident the author is about the beliefs they express in the post, and sometimes giving reasons why readers of the post might want to treat their conclusions cautiously. Sometimes they also start with "content warnings". A content warning is sort of a generalised version of a trigger warning, which covers not only trauma triggers that might be in the post, but anything considered significant enough to mention that might cause certain readers discomfort or distress.
Main author
Alexander is a psychiatrist at a hospital in the United States. He is an atheist liberal[7] and considers himself part of the rationalist movement.
Reception
The blog has been listed among top blogs by liberal journalist Ezra Klein.[10]
Megan McArdle, blogging on Bloomberg View, recommended the SSC post on cost disease.[11] The same post was linked from Marginal Revolution by Tyler Cowen, who called the post "very excellent".[12]
Bryan Caplan, blogging at EconLog, called Scott Alexander "a fascinating new thinker to read – someone who makes me say, 'Tell me everything'" and elaborated that "he's better than me on several dimensions I deeply value".[13]
Steve Hsu has called SSC posts "excellent".[14]
External links
- Slate Star Codex
- Associated Reddit subreddit
- The Anti-Reactionary FAQ - Alexander's critique of neoreaction
References
- ^ Gelman, Andrew (7 October 2015). "Mindset interventions are a scalable treatment for academic underachievement — or not?". Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference and Social Science (Andrew Gelman's blog). Retrieved 18 March 2017.
- ^ Wipond, Rob. "Psychiatrists Still Promoting Low-Serotonin Theory of Depression". Mad in America.
- ^ Kliff, Sarah. "Red tape at the FDA doesn't explain America's high drug prices". Vox. Retrieved 18 March 2017.
- ^ Smith, Noah (16 February 2017). "Market failure is the likely culprit in rising costs". Standard Examiner. Retrieved 17 March 2017.
- ^ a b Last, Jonathan V. (23 February 2017). "The Scourge of Cost Disease". The Weekly Standard. Retrieved 17 March 2017.
- ^ McArdle, Megan (18 February 2015). "Crusaders, Haters and Common Ground". Bloomberg View. Retrieved 17 March 2017.
- ^ a b Last, Jonathan V. (27 November 2016). "Are Donald Trump and His Voters Racist?". The Weekly Standard. Retrieved 17 March 2017.
- ^ Dreher, Rod (17 November 2016). "'Stop It, Lefties, You're Making Us Crazy'". The American Conservative. Retrieved 17 March 2017.
- ^ Auerbach, David (10 June 2015). "The Curious Case of Mencius Moldbug". Slate. Retrieved 17 March 2017.
- ^ Klein, Ezra. "What Andrew Sullivan's exit says about the future of blogging". Vox. Retrieved 18 March 2017.
- ^ Megan McArdle (February 14, 2017). "Why Some Consumer Costs Just Grow and Grow". Bloomberg View. Retrieved February 19, 2017.
- ^ Tyler Cowen (February 10, 2017). "What is behind the cost disease?". Marginal REVOLUTION. Retrieved March 18, 2017.
- ^ Caplan, Bryan (October 28, 2014). econlib.org/archives/2014/10/read_scott_alex.html "Read Scott Alexander". EconLog. Library of Economics and Liberty. Retrieved February 11, 2017.
{{cite web}}: Check|url=value (help) - ^ Steve Hsu. "Slate Star Codex on ability, effort, and achievement". Information Processing. Blogger. Retrieved February 11, 2017.
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