Tech News
← Home  ·  All topics

Scott Alexander

2 GoKawiil briefs on this topic

Essay criticizes rationalist bloggers for excessive length over clarity

A blogger critiques the rationalist writing community, citing examples like Eliezer Yudkowsky's million-word 'sequences' and a 9,000-word Gwern post on nicotine, arguing these posts are needlessly long and tedious. The author contrasts this with their own 2,700-word piece on Catholic miracle apologetics, which cut 70% of its draft text, to argue brevity serves readers better.

Essay argues the 'ideas are getting harder to find' thesis is wrong

A researcher pushes back on the popular claim—voiced by commentators like Scott Alexander and Holden Karnofsky and researcher Dean Keith Simonton—that scientific low-hanging fruit has been exhausted and discovery is inevitably slowing. The author, prompted by a discouraged research assistant, argues this view is mistaken and discourages people from pursuing original research.