My Favorite SlateStarCodex Articles
Warning: This post might get longer over time. That is partly a joke, but “long post is long” is a frequent warning on the old Slatestarcodex blog, whose author has now moved to Astral Codex Ten. While the New York Times has issued a sloppy, poorly researched rant fit for a rag, in contrast Scott Alexander has responded, debunking their falsehoods with a statement. But since I’ve shared links to SSC articles many times over the years, I wanted to respond to the NYT as they seem to think SSC readers are evil. This is the internet, so I’m sure you can find bad people in the comments, just as you can in the comments section when the NYT shares articles on social media. But while the articles are long, and I use the term article because they are better than the posts you’ll read in the NYT, if you read some I suspect you’ll see why I like it.
Before we get started, I should point out that I rarely completely agree with Scott Alexander on any topic! Rather, his articles make me think. His style of writing and rationalism isn’t that everyone should agree with him, though he makes compelling cases on certain topics, but instead his mode of thinking helps me to come at subjects in my own way. Everything from history, fiction, scientific research, crime, education, etc. Lively discussion in the comments is a staple of SSC readership. Since this is the internet you’ll find all sorts of evil trolls in the comments, and Scott did have temporary bans for bad behavior. But many articles have in excess of 30,000 comments, and there are even more comments on reddit and facebook forums that aren’t controlled by Scott, so please don’t take the first 1,000 comments or so as representative of SSC readership! Without further ado:
And I Show You How Deep The Rabbit Hole Goes. This is one of my favorite pieces of short fiction. Reminds me of The Last Question, by Isaac Asimov.
Book Reviews. I particularly enjoyed the book review of Albion’s Seed because it is 800 pages long.
Singer on Marx lays out why nobody needs to read Marx ever again.
The Categories Were Made for Man, Not Man for the Categories. This post is about cringey internet atheism, but as an anthropology major I find the writing for Solomon’s responses delightfully funny. It also works for pedants.
Things That Sometimes Help If You Have Depression. This article helped me understand therapy works for some people, and medication works for some people and different people respond to different treatments.
Contra Robinson on Pubic Food. This is an ode to grocery stores, the first wonder of the developed world. Indeed, there are lots of great articles about how to think about public policy, including: Seeing Like A State, Bureaucracy As The Active Ingredient, Beware the Man With One Study, Asymmetric Weapons Gone Bad, Against Against Billionaire Philanthropy, Caution on Bias Arguments, and The Spirit Of The First Amendment.
There are even more bits I vaguely remember but can’t find at the moment, fragments embedded in other topics that I found meaningful. If you are an SSC reader, please share your favorite articles in the comments!
