Podcast appearances and mentions of Scott Alexander

Clara Collier recently reviewed If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies in Asterisk Magazine. I've been a reader of Asterisk since the beginning and had high hopes for her review. And perhaps it was those high hopes that led me to find the review to be disappointing. Collier says “details matter,” and I absolutely agree. As a fellow rationalist, I've been happy to have nerds from across the internet criticizing the book and getting into object-level fights about everything from scaling laws to neuron speeds. While they don't capture my perspective, I thought Scott Alexander and Peter Wildeford's reviews did a reasonable job at poking at the disagreements with the source material without losing track of the big picture. But I did not feel like Collier's review was getting the details or the big picture right. Maybe I'm missing something important. Part of my motive for writing this “rebuttal” is [...] ---Outline:(01:38) FOOM(13:47) Gradualism(20:27) Nitpicks(35:35) More Was PossibleThe original text contained 3 footnotes which were omitted from this narration. --- First published: September 20th, 2025 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/JWH63Aed3TA2cTFMt/contra-collier-on-iabied --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

ABOUT THIS EPISODE: In this episode, host Megan Cole talks to Scott Alexander Howard. Scott's book The Other Valley is a finalist for the 2025 Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize. On the episode Scott talks about why we're so drawn to the idea of time travel. He also talks about the real life experiences that inspired his take on time travel For more about The Other Valley: https://bcyukonbookprizes.com/project/the-other-valley/ To view the 2025 BC and Yukon Book Prizes shortlists: bcyukonbookprizes.com/2025/04/10/bc-…sts-announced/ ABOUT SCOTT ALEXANDER HOWARD: Scott Alexander Howard lives in Vancouver, British Columbia. He has a PhD in philosophy from the University of Toronto and was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard, where his work focused on the relationship between memory, emotion, and literature. The Other Valley is his first novel. ABOUT MEGAN COLE: Megan Cole the Interim Executive Director for the BC and Yukon Book Prizes. She is also a writer based on the territory of the Tla'amin Nation. Megan writes creative nonfiction and has had essays published in Chatelaine, This Magazine, The Puritan, Untethered, and more. She has her MFA in creative nonfiction from the University of King's College and is working her first book. Find out more about Megan at megancolewriter.com ABOUT THE PODCAST: Writing the Coast is recorded and produced on the traditional territory of the Tla'amin Nation. As a settler on these lands, Megan Cole finds opportunities to learn and listen to the stories from those whose land was stolen. Writing the Coast is a recorded series of conversations, readings, and insights into the work of the writers, illustrators, and creators whose books are nominated for the annual BC and Yukon Book Prizes. We'll also check in on people in the writing community who are supporting books, writers and readers every day. The podcast is produced and hosted by Megan Cole.

Puedes descargar (gratis) el GPT que empleo para lograr pensamiento crítico. Es un asistente escéptico y no tendrá ningún problema en criticar tu punto de vista y evitar que te autoengañes: https://pildorasdelconocimiento.com/gpt-criticoncillo/ ¿Qué harías si pudieras pensar mejor… todos los días? En este episodio converso con Val Muñoz (Polymatas) sobre pensamiento crítico de alto nivel: cómo evitar sesgos, distinguir correlación de causalidad y tomar decisiones con más claridad (sin caer en la parálisis por análisis). Hablamos de ciencia como ecosistema que se fiscaliza, de metacognición, de falacias y de cómo construir un hombre de acero antes de debatir. ✔️ Dónde falla el “escéptico puro” y qué le falta para pensar bien. ✔️ Herramientas prácticas: “por qué / cómo”, pausa de Sistema 2 y abogado del diablo. ✔️ Estadística útil para la vida (muestra, media vs. mediana). ✔️ Dieta informativa: menos ruido, más fuentes sólidas y diversas. ✔️ Pronóstico y decisión: flexibilidad cognitiva y actualización constante. Si te interesan la claridad mental, las decisiones difíciles y la verdad por encima de la tribu, este episodio te va a encantar. ⏳ ÍNDICE DEL EPISODIO 00:00 – Introducción y por qué importa el pensamiento crítico 01:05 – Quién es Val Muñoz y qué es Polymatas 02:33 – Definición sencilla: “búsqueda sistemática de la verdad” 05:05 – Escepticismo necesario… pero no suficiente 08:29 – Correlación vs. causalidad: cómo se prueba de verdad 11:04 – Buenas prácticas: intervención, ciegos y tamaño muestral 12:42 – Crisis de replicación y preregistro: incentivos en ciencia 16:16 – Conocerte a ti mismo: limitaciones y sesgos propios 17:30 – Metacognición: pensar sobre tu pensamiento 19:12 – Hipótesis (inducción/abducción) vs. realidad 22:32 – Ciencia, poder y por qué sigue siendo la mejor herramienta 24:25 – Populismo, carisma y heurísticos para no caer 26:31 – Filósofos, citas y sesgo de autoridad 29:15 – Estadística práctica: media vs. mediana (salarios) 31:33 – Falacias: hombre de paja y ad hominem 35:33 – “Hombre de acero” y el sesgo del punto ciego 41:13 – Referentes que piensan a varios ángulos (Pinker, Feynman, Scott Alexander) 43:46 – Kit táctico: preguntas, pausas, refutación y amigos que te lleven la contraria 46:20 – Dieta informativa: poco, variado y de calidad 47:57 – Superpronosticadores: flexibilidad cognitiva 50:14 – Dunning–Kruger y el autoengaño del muy listo 52:08 – La Biblioteca Polymata y debatir sin marrullería 52:38 – Curso de Pensamiento Crítico (10 meses) 52:57 – Cierre Descarga gratis el libro «Nacidos para aprender»: https://pildorasdelconocimiento.com/libro-nacidos-para-aprender/ ✉️ Únete a mi lista de correos para ideas que te hacen pensar (y decidir mejor): https://pildorasdelconocimiento.com/ EL METAJUEGO: máster en complejidad estratégica: https://pildorasdelconocimiento.com/cursos/metajuego/ Asistente de IA para criticar tus propios pensamientos: https://pildorasdelconocimiento.com/gpt-criticoncillo/ Val Muñoz (Polymatas): Polymatas – Artículos, podcast y recursos para pensar mejor y entender el mundo con rigor y curiosidad. https://www.polymatas.com/ Biblioteca Polymatas – Comunidad de lectores donde leemos los 50 libros más importantes para comprender el mundo. https://www.polymatas.com/la-biblioteca-polymata/ Curso Avanzado de Pensamiento Crítico – Programa de 10 meses para razonar con más claridad, detectar sesgos y analizar discursos. https://www.polymatas.com/curso-pensamiento-critico/ Mis redes: X (Twitter) → https://x.com/Lualobus Instagram personal → https://instagram.com/fernando_pdc Instagram oficial → https://instagram.com/pildorasdelconocimiento

Puedes descargar (gratis) el GPT que empleo para lograr pensamiento crítico. Es un asistente escéptico y no tendrá ningún problema en criticar tu punto de vista y evitar que te autoengañes: https://pildorasdelconocimiento.com/gpt-criticoncillo/ ¿Qué harías si pudieras pensar mejor… todos los días? En este episodio converso con Val Muñoz (Polymatas) sobre pensamiento crítico de alto nivel: cómo evitar sesgos, distinguir correlación de causalidad y tomar decisiones con más claridad (sin caer en la parálisis por análisis). Hablamos de ciencia como ecosistema que se fiscaliza, de metacognición, de falacias y de cómo construir un hombre de acero antes de debatir. ✔️ Dónde falla el “escéptico puro” y qué le falta para pensar bien. ✔️ Herramientas prácticas: “por qué / cómo”, pausa de Sistema 2 y abogado del diablo. ✔️ Estadística útil para la vida (muestra, media vs. mediana). ✔️ Dieta informativa: menos ruido, más fuentes sólidas y diversas. ✔️ Pronóstico y decisión: flexibilidad cognitiva y actualización constante. Si te interesan la claridad mental, las decisiones difíciles y la verdad por encima de la tribu, este episodio te va a encantar. ⏳ ÍNDICE DEL EPISODIO 00:00 – Introducción y por qué importa el pensamiento crítico 01:05 – Quién es Val Muñoz y qué es Polymatas 02:33 – Definición sencilla: “búsqueda sistemática de la verdad” 05:05 – Escepticismo necesario… pero no suficiente 08:29 – Correlación vs. causalidad: cómo se prueba de verdad 11:04 – Buenas prácticas: intervención, ciegos y tamaño muestral 12:42 – Crisis de replicación y preregistro: incentivos en ciencia 16:16 – Conocerte a ti mismo: limitaciones y sesgos propios 17:30 – Metacognición: pensar sobre tu pensamiento 19:12 – Hipótesis (inducción/abducción) vs. realidad 22:32 – Ciencia, poder y por qué sigue siendo la mejor herramienta 24:25 – Populismo, carisma y heurísticos para no caer 26:31 – Filósofos, citas y sesgo de autoridad 29:15 – Estadística práctica: media vs. mediana (salarios) 31:33 – Falacias: hombre de paja y ad hominem 35:33 – “Hombre de acero” y el sesgo del punto ciego 41:13 – Referentes que piensan a varios ángulos (Pinker, Feynman, Scott Alexander) 43:46 – Kit táctico: preguntas, pausas, refutación y amigos que te lleven la contraria 46:20 – Dieta informativa: poco, variado y de calidad 47:57 – Superpronosticadores: flexibilidad cognitiva 50:14 – Dunning–Kruger y el autoengaño del muy listo 52:08 – La Biblioteca Polymata y debatir sin marrullería 52:38 – Curso de Pensamiento Crítico (10 meses) 52:57 – Cierre Descarga gratis el libro «Nacidos para aprender»: https://pildorasdelconocimiento.com/libro-nacidos-para-aprender/ ✉️ Únete a mi lista de correos para ideas que te hacen pensar (y decidir mejor): https://pildorasdelconocimiento.com/ EL METAJUEGO: máster en complejidad estratégica: https://pildorasdelconocimiento.com/cursos/metajuego/ Asistente de IA para criticar tus propios pensamientos: https://pildorasdelconocimiento.com/gpt-criticoncillo/ Val Muñoz (Polymatas): Polymatas – Artículos, podcast y recursos para pensar mejor y entender el mundo con rigor y curiosidad. https://www.polymatas.com/ Biblioteca Polymatas – Comunidad de lectores donde leemos los 50 libros más importantes para comprender el mundo. https://www.polymatas.com/la-biblioteca-polymata/ Curso Avanzado de Pensamiento Crítico – Programa de 10 meses para razonar con más claridad, detectar sesgos y analizar discursos. https://www.polymatas.com/curso-pensamiento-critico/ Mis redes: X (Twitter) → https://x.com/Lualobus Instagram personal → https://instagram.com/fernando_pdc Instagram oficial → https://instagram.com/pildorasdelconocimiento

Host Michael Tamblyn spoke with novelist Scott Alexander Howard, winner of the 2025 Kobo Emerging Writer Prize and author of The Other Valley. It's the story of Odile Ozanne, a young girl who lives in a small village in a valley. In the next valley over, in the west, there is an identical village where events from 20 years ago are taking place, and in the valley to the east there is another village where it's 20 years in the future. Occasionally, and under the strictest controls and in a disguise rendering them unidentifiable, people will visit the other valleys, looking forward, or backward in time.   One day, visitors from the east—that is, from the future—are recognized by Odile, and she has to carry on pretending she hasn't seen what she knows she saw.  Scott Alexander Howard on the border-crossings between present and past

Host Michael Tamblyn spoke with novelist Scott Alexander Howard, winner of the 2025 Kobo Emerging Writer Prize and author of The Other Valley. It's the story of Odile Ozanne, a young girl who lives in a small village in a valley. In the next valley over, in the west, there is an identical village where events from 20 years ago are taking place, and in the valley to the east there is another village where it's 20 years in the future. Occasionally, and under the strictest controls and in a disguise rendering them unidentifiable, people will visit the other valleys, looking forward, or backward in time.   One day, visitors from the east—that is, from the future—are recognized by Odile, and she has to carry on pretending she hasn't seen what she knows she saw.  Scott Alexander Howard on the border-crossings between present and past

We're very sorry about the disrupted service over this summer! It's been hectic with work and a house move and various things. To tide you over, here's a formerly paywalled episode: our very first one.…If you've ever done a diversity training session at work, you'll almost certainly have learned about unconscious bias, microaggressions, stereotype threat, and trigger warnings. Prejudice, racism, and trauma are apparently simmering constantly, just under the surface of our conscious minds.It turns out that each of these concepts has been subject to a lot of scientific research. It also turns out, perhaps unsurprisingly, that they're all extremely controversial. In this first paid-subscriber-only episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart look at each of them in turn and try to decide which of them—if any—stand up to scrutiny.To listen to the full version of this episode and see the show notes, you'll need to be a paid subscriber to The Studies Show podcast on Substack. See below, or go to www.thestudiesshowpod.com/subscribe, for the options.If you're already a paid subscriber: thank you!Show Notes* Unconscious bias:* The Implicit Association Test at Harvard* The 2019 meta-analysis on experiments that try to change implicit, explicit, and behavioural biases* Article by Patrick Forscher, meta-analysis co-author, on unconscious bias training in CapX* Equality & Human Rights Commission Report on unconscious bias training* Microaggressions:* Original 2007 American Psychologist paper on microaggressions* Scott Lilienfeld's 2017 critique of microaggression research* His article in Aeon summarising the critique* Response to Lilienfeld by Monnica Williams* Lilienfeld's reply to Williams* Stereotype threat:* In the UK, girls now do better than boys at maths* 2015 meta-analysis on sex-related stereotype threat for maths* 2018 follow-up study by the same authors* 2019 meta-analysis on sex- and race-related stereotype threat* Planned meta-analysis on the decline effect in stereotype threat research* Trigger warnings:* The 2023 meta-analysis on trigger warning research* Scott Alexander on “The Wonderful Thing About Triggers”* Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff's book The Coddling of the American MindCreditsThe Studies Show is produced by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada Productions. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thestudiesshowpod.com/subscribe

Jeffrey Pritchard, Legal Director of the Coalition for Political Forecasting, analyzes lawsuits about Kalshi's sports contracts and their implications for prediction markets. Rule3O3 discusses Indian-American gender divides and the impact of childhood grievances on politics. Timestamps 0:11: Chougule introduces segment with Pritchard 1:07: Chougule introduces Rule3O3 segment 1:28: Mamdani victory 2:10: Intro ends 4:10: Pritchard segment begins 4:13: Why Kalshi wants to be regulated under federal law 4:41: State regulation 6:34: CFTC 7:24: State compliance costs 7:43: Kalshi's goal 9:09: Liquidity 10:59: Criticisms of Kalshi 11:08: Zubkoff tweet 12:40: Pritchard agreement with Zubkoff 12:54: Contradictions in Kalshi's position 13:41 : Mansour response to Zubkoff 14:37: Pritchard response to Mansour 16:28: Chougule's view of Kalshi sports contracts 18:28: Chougule defends Kalshi 19:46: Market demand for sports betting 20:24: The need to attract sports bettors  21:22: Regulatory environment 22:53: Retail traders 24:01: Gaming industry 29:48: Lawsuits 29:58: Nevada 30:37: New Jersey 31:15: Maryland 31:23: Illinois 31:46: Third Circuit 32:11: Timing 32:24 : Pritchard segment ends 32:39: Rule 3O3 segment begins 32:41: Gender divides among Indian-Americans 32:54: Saira Rao 33:22: White women 35:51: Finding an edge through elite thinking 36:06: Childhood trauma 36:57: Outsider psychology 37:34: Political biographies 38:20: UVA rape accusation 40:31: Crime demographics in mainstream media 42:41: Rule3O3 segment ends 42:57: DC August Forecasting and Prediction Markets meetup Star Spangled Gamblers is a podcast on betting and winning real money on politics. SUPPORT US: Patreon: www.patreon.com/starspangledgamblers FOLLOW US ON TWITTER/X: @ssgamblers VISIT OUR WEBPAGE: www.starspangledgamblers.com  Trade at Polymarket.com, the world's largest prediction market. Join us for our monthly DC Forecasting & Prediction Markets meetup on Thursday, August 14 from 6-9pm. We're returning to Rocklands BBQ in Arlington a few blocks from the Virginia Sq-GMU metrorail stop on the Orange/Silver line. Free parking also available. We'll be in the private space upstairs; head to the back of the restaurant, and up the stairs on your left. Our guest speaker this month is Ambassador Tom Miller. A 29-year career diplomat, Ambassador Miller's experience in the Foreign Service spanned many continents, including posts in Greece, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Cyprus, Thailand as well as the State Department in Washington, where he worked on North Africa, the Middle East, and counter-terrorism issues. From 2019 to 2022, Tom was Chair of the Board of the US subsidiary of Intralot, Inc., a US corporation that runs lotteries in 11 states. Last-minute/onsite walk-in RSVPs here on this Partiful event page are welcomed! https://partiful.com/e/2VIW9cQaw6pexbaQSmUh?f=1&photo=all Who are we? We are prediction market traders on prediction markets like Kalshi, Manifold, PredictIt, and Polymarket, forecasters (e.g. on Metaculus and Good Judgment Open), sports bettors (e.g. on FanDuel, DraftKings, and other sportsbooks), consumers of forecasting (or related) content (e.g. Star Spangled Gamblers, Nate Silver's Silver Bulletin, Scott Alexander's Astral Codex Ten), effective altruists, rationalists, futurists, and data scientists. Forecast on Manifold how many people will attend meetups this year: https://manifold.markets/dglid/how-many-attendees-will-there-be-at?play=true This meetup is hosted by the Forecasting Meetup Network. Help us grow the forecasting community to positively influence the future by supporting us with an upvote, comment, or pledge on Manifund: https://manifund.org/projects/forecasting-meetup-network---washington-dc-pilot-4-meetups Get notified whenever a new meetup is scheduled and learn more about the Forecasting Meetup Network here: https://bit.ly/forecastingmeetupnetwork Join our Discord to connect with others in the community between monthly meetups: https://discord.com/invite/hFn3yukSwv

Essays like Paul Graham's, Scott Alexander's, and Eliezer Yudkowsky's have influenced a generation of people in how they think about startups, ethics, science, and the world as a whole. Creating essays that good takes a lot of skill, practice, and talent, but it looks to me that a lot of people with talent aren't putting in the work and developing the skill, except in ways that are optimized to also be social media strategies. To fix this problem, I am running the Inkhaven Residency. The idea is to gather a bunch of promising writers to invest in the art and craft of blogging, through a shared commitment to each publish a blogpost every day for the month of November. Why a daily writing structure? Well, it's a reaction to other fellowships I've seen. I've seen month-long or years-long events with exceedingly little public output, where the people would've contributed [...] --- First published: August 2nd, 2025 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/CA6XfmzYoGFWNhH8e/whence-the-inkhaven-residency --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

Picture the scene: You're a young screenwriter getting your first taste of success — but it's with a movie that didn't quite come out the way you wanted and the victory feels hollow. Suddenly, you find yourself being typecast as a writer of silly comedies while the industry boxes you out and the opportunities and (self)respect begin to slip away. What do you do? If you're Larry Karaszewski (and long time screenwriting partner Scott Alexander) you swerve hard out of that lane and typecast YOURSELF as auteurs of your own re-invented genre: The Anti-Biopic! Out of this savvy strategy the enduring classic ED WOOD is born and you are swept up in Hollywood's warm and loving embrace. Cut to a montage of THE PEOPLE VS. LARRY FLYNT, MAN ON THE MOON, BIG EYES and a lifetime of accolades, happiness and total fulfillment. THE END! On this episode we talk to Larry about going to inappropriate movies at the drive-in with his dad, a college experience that actually paid off, writing PROBLEM CHILD and then watching Robert DeNiro watch it, having a roommate that wrote HEATHERS, resurrecting Frank Perry, producing AUTO FOCUS, David Schwimmer as Robert Kardashian, orphan films, Milos Forman, and we pick the best(!!!) New York movies.

This week on Heavy Metal Tones, I chat with Scott Alexander from Australian alt-rock outfit Terrestrials about their brand new album Iridescent. We dive into Scott's journey through the alt-rock scene, the band's evolution, and the inspiration behind their bold, emotive sound. Plus, we're cranking up two standout tracks from the record – Triggers and Perennial Trials. It's a deep dive into passion, process, and powerful emotions.Don't miss out on any of the bands info head to the link below to learn more and buy some fantastic merch from the lads.https://terrestrialsmusic.com/homeIf you feel like supporting the show for $2 bucks a month over on Patreon you can have add free episodes and help me keep the show running patreon.com/heavymetaltones Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jeffrey Pritchard, attorney and writer at Comped.com, returns to discuss developments in prediction market regulation under the Trump administration. Timestamps 0:00: Intro begins 0:37: CFTC prediction market roundtable 1:40: Polymarket investigation 3:02: Regulatory entrepreneurship 5:43: Intro ends 7:43: Interview begins 8:16: Comped.com 9:51: Trump administration 11:41: Quintenz 14:34: Pham 15:15: Kalshi's strategy 18:27: Prediction market roundtable 20:26: Gaming law 26:35: Reaction to Kalshi sports markets 31:53: Kalshi lawsuits 32:51: CEA 34:45: Federalism 37:03: Injunctions 38:21: Maryland case Follow Star Spangled Gamblers Twitter: @ssgamblers YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@starspangledgamblers1029 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@starspangledgambl7 Trade on Polymarket.com, the world's largest prediction market. Join us for our monthly DC Forecasting & Prediction Markets meetup on Thursday, July 31. https://partiful.com/e/NIWa277GHtddC5sxSTU6 Our guest speaker this month will be former U.S. diplomat Thomas Miller, who previously served as the non-executive chairman of the U.S. subsidiary of Intralot, one of world's largest lottery/sports betting operators. Meet and socialize with others interested in forecasting, prediction markets, political gambling, sports betting, or anything else relating to predicting the future. We're returning to Rocklands BBQ in Arlington a few blocks from the Virginia Sq-GMU metrorail stop on the Orange/Silver line. Free parking also available. We'll be in the private space upstairs; head to the back of the restaurant, and up the stairs on your left. Food and drink available for purchase. Open to all ages. Last-minute/onsite walk-in RSVPs here on this Partiful event page are welcomed! Who are we? We are prediction market traders on Manifold (and other prediction markets like PredictIt, Kalshi, and Polymarket), forecasters (e.g. on Metaculus and Good Judgment Open), sports bettors (e.g. on FanDuel, DraftKings, and other sportsbooks), consumers of forecasting (or related) content (e.g. Star Spangled Gamblers, Nate Silver's Silver Bulletin, Scott Alexander's Astral Codex Ten), effective altruists, rationalists, and data scientists. Forecast on Manifold how many people will attend meetups this year: https://manifold.markets/dglid/how-many-attendees-will-there-be-at?play=true This meetup is hosted by the Forecasting Meetup Network. Help us grow the forecasting community to positively influence the future by supporting us with an upvote, comment, or pledge on Manifund: https://manifund.org/projects/forecasting-meetup-network---washington-dc-pilot-4-meetups Get notified whenever a new meetup is scheduled and learn more about the Forecasting Meetup Network here: https://bit.ly/forecastingmeetupnetwork Join our Discord to connect with others in the community between monthly meetups: https://discord.com/invite/hFn3yukSwv

Seconds out! Round one! Ding ding! And other boxing terms. We've found a topic on which Tom and Stuart actually disagree. Kind of. In this episode of The Studies Show, they use the examples of “the worm wars” (does deworming kids in developing countries help them stay in school?) and a new craze for “tooth bacteria” (can colonizing your mouth with a genetically-modified bacterium stop you getting cavities?) to argue about how we should make our minds up about uncertain—but potentially promising—medical treatments.The Studies Show is brought to you by Works in Progress magazine. On the show this week we discuss one of the articles in their newest issue, on “the end of lead”—the history of countries slowly removing lead from pipes, paint, and the rest, and how much work still needs to be done. Find it, and a wealth of other fascinating free articles, at worksinprogress.co.Show notes* Tom's Unherd article about the Worm Wars* The famous 2004 paper that sparked the wars* “Deworming Debunked”, from the BMJ* The 2014 follow-up of the original dewormed Kenyan kids* GiveWell's re-analysis of both studies* And another more recent analysis by the same org* The third study in the same kids, from 2020* 2019 paper on “resolving the worm wars”* Scott Alexander's article on “defying cavity”—on the Lumina bacteria* Guy who claims the Lumina bacteria made him go blind* Saloni Dattani's useful thread on Lumina* 90% of drugs in preclinical trials don't make it to become medicine* Tom's frankly cruel tweet where he refers to Stuart as “Goofus”CreditsThe Studies Show is produced by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada Productions. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thestudiesshowpod.com/subscribe

This is a link post. I donated my left kidney to a stranger on April 9, 2024, inspired by my dear friend @Quinn Dougherty (who was inspired by @Scott Alexander, who was inspired by @Dylan Matthews). By the time I woke up after surgery, it was on its way to San Francisco. When my recipient woke up later that same day, they felt better than when they went under. I'm going to talk about one complication and one consequence of my donation, but I want to be clear from the get: I would do it again in a heartbeat.I met Quinn at an EA picnic in Brooklyn and he was wearing a shirt that I remembered as saying "I donated my kidney to a stranger and I didn't even get this t-shirt." It actually said "and all I got was this t-shirt," which isn't as funny. I went home [...] The original text contained 6 footnotes which were omitted from this narration. --- First published: July 9th, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/yHJL3qK9RRhr82xtr/my-kidney-donation Linkpost URL:https://cuttyshark.substack.com/p/my-kidney-donation-story --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

Thank you to Arepo and Eli Lifland for looking over this article for errors. I am sorry that this article is so long. Every time I thought I was done with it I ran into more issues with the model, and I wanted to be as thorough as I could. I'm not going to blame anyone for skimming parts of this article. Note that the majority of this article was written before Eli's updated model was released (the site was updated june 8th). His new model improves on some of my objections, but the majority still stand. Introduction: AI 2027 is an article written by the “AI futures team”. The primary piece is a short story penned by Scott Alexander, depicting a month by month scenario of a near-future where AI becomes superintelligent in 2027,proceeding to automate the entire economy in only a year or two [...] ---Outline:(00:43) Introduction:(05:19) Part 1: Time horizons extension model(05:25) Overview of their forecast(10:28) The exponential curve(13:16) The superexponential curve(19:25) Conceptual reasons:(27:48) Intermediate speedups(34:25) Have AI 2027 been sending out a false graph?(39:45) Some skepticism about projection(43:23) Part 2: Benchmarks and gaps and beyond(43:29) The benchmark part of benchmark and gaps:(50:01) The time horizon part of the model(54:55) The gap model(57:28) What about Eli's recent update?(01:01:37) Six stories that fit the data(01:06:56) ConclusionThe original text contained 11 footnotes which were omitted from this narration. --- First published: June 19th, 2025 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/PAYfmG2aRbdb74mEp/a-deep-critique-of-ai-2027-s-bad-timeline-models --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:

Émission traverser l'écran, abolir les frontières et plonger dans le réel. Nous on aime le cinéma, cinéma, cinéma. Les films en technicolor, les trucages les décors. Rien que vous et nous, on s'envolera ce soir au cinéma. Cinéma... Avec vous. Enfin bref, il est 19h...Dispo itou on da tube :Au programme cette semaine :Émission spéciale De l'immersion au cinéma, ouvrage co-dirigé par Marc Christie, JB Massuet et Grégory Wallet. Nous revenons en compagnie du camarade Massuet sur TOUS les aspects que recouvrent cette notion, aussi en termes techniques que théoriques.Notre émission consacrée à Douglas Trumbull.Et notre spéciale Cinéma Virtuel.Coups de cœur:THOMAS: Ayyappanum Koshiyum (Shachy)THIBAUT: revoir Le Prince Harry en concert DOC ERWAN: Impeachment: American Crime Story (Scott Alexander et Larry Karaszewski)JB: Jigarthanda DoubleX (Karthik Subbaraj)PLAYLISTPrégénérique / Extrait AvatarM.O.B. Members of Byrdgang / Life's Like A Movie (Feat. Jim Jones, Stack Bundles, Mel Matrix & Max B)

This is a link post. Thank you to Arepo and Eli Lifland for looking over this article for errors. I am sorry that this article is so long. Every time I thought I was done with it I ran into more issues with the model, and I wanted to be as thorough as I could. I'm not going to blame anyone for skimming parts of this article. Note that the majority of this article was written before Eli's updated model was released (the site was updated june 8th). His new model improves on some of my objections, but the majority still stand. Introduction: AI 2027 is an article written by the “AI futures team”. The primary piece is a short story penned by Scott Alexander, depicting a month by month scenario of a near-future where AI becomes superintelligent in 2027,proceeding to automate the entire economy in only [...] ---Outline:(00:45) Introduction:(05:21) Part 1: Time horizons extension model(05:27) Overview of their forecast(10:30) The exponential curve(13:18) The superexponential curve(19:27) Conceptual reasons:(27:50) Intermediate speedups(34:27) Have AI 2027 been sending out a false graph?(39:47) Some skepticism about projection(43:25) Part 2: Benchmarks and gaps and beyond(43:31) The benchmark part of benchmark and gaps:(50:03) The time horizon part of the model(54:57) The gap model(57:31) What about Eli's recent update?(01:01:39) Six stories that fit the data(01:06:58) ConclusionThe original text contained 11 footnotes which were omitted from this narration. --- First published: June 19th, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/KgejNns3ojrvCfFbi/a-deep-critique-of-ai-2027-s-bad-timeline-models Linkpost URL:https://titotal.substack.com/p/a-deep-critique-of-ai-2027s-bad-timeline --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

This is a link post. Thank you to Arepo and Eli Lifland for looking over this article for errors. I am sorry that this article is so long. Every time I thought I was done with it I ran into more issues with the model, and I wanted to be as thorough as I could. I'm not going to blame anyone for skimming parts of this article. Note that the majority of this article was written before Eli's updated model was released (the site was updated june 8th). His new model improves on some of my objections, but the majority still stand. Introduction: AI 2027 is an article written by the “AI futures team”. The primary piece is a short story penned by Scott Alexander, depicting a month by month scenario of a near-future where AI becomes superintelligent in 2027,proceeding to automate the entire economy in only [...] ---Outline:(00:45) Introduction:(05:27) Part 1: Time horizons extension model(05:33) Overview of their forecast(10:23) The exponential curve(13:25) The superexponential curve(20:20) Conceptual reasons:(28:38) Intermediate speedups(36:00) Have AI 2027 been sending out a false graph?(41:50) Some skepticism about projection(46:13) Part 2: Benchmarks and gaps and beyond(46:19) The benchmark part of benchmark and gaps:(52:53) The time horizon part of the model(58:02) The gap model(01:00:58) What about Eli's recent update?(01:05:19) Six stories that fit the data(01:10:46) ConclusionThe original text contained 11 footnotes which were omitted from this narration. --- First published: June 19th, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/KgejNns3ojrvCfFbi/a-deep-critique-of-ai-2027-s-bad-timeline-models Linkpost URL:https://titotal.substack.com/p/a-deep-critique-of-ai-2027s-bad-timeline --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

A while ago I saw a person in the comments on comments to Scott Alexander's blog arguing that a superintelligent AI would not be able to do anything too weird and that "intelligence is not magic", hence it's Business As Usual. Of course, in a purely technical sense, he's right. No matter how intelligent you are, you cannot override fundamental laws of physics. But people (myself included) have a fairly low threshold for what counts as "magic," to the point where other humans can surpass that threshold. Example 1: Trevor Rainbolt. There is an 8-minute-long video where he does seemingly impossible things, such as correctly guessing that a photo of nothing but literal blue sky was taken in Indonesia or guessing Jordan based only on pavement. He can also correctly identify the country after looking at a photo for 0.1 seconds. Example 2: Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán. He ran [...] --- First published: June 15th, 2025 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/FBvWM5HgSWwJa5xHc/intelligence-is-not-magic-but-your-threshold-for-magic-is --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

This week, Noah Smith and Erik Torenberg explore persistent economic myths and recent developments—from cost disease in services like healthcare and education to stagnating manufacturing productivity, rising higher education costs, drug pricing policies, and student loan debates—while also reflecting on broader intellectual shifts driven by culture wars and foreign aid discussions. – SPONSORS: NetSuite More than 41,000 businesses have already upgraded to NetSuite by Oracle, the #1 cloud financial system bringing accounting, financial management, inventory, HR, into ONE proven platform. Download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine learning: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://netsuite.com/102⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ AdQuick The easiest way to book out-of-home ads (like billboards, vehicle wraps, and airport displays) the same way you would order an Uber. Ready to get your brand the attention it deserves? Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://adquick.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ today to start reaching your customers in the real world. – SEND US YOUR Q's FOR NOAH TO ANSWER ON AIR: Econ102@Turpentine.co – FOLLOW ON X: @noahpinion @eriktorenberg @turpentinemedia – RECOMMENDED IN THIS EPISODE: Noahpinion: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.noahpinion.blog/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  – TAKEAWAYS: Healthcare & Education Cost Trends Reversing: Healthcare price growth has slowed significantly since 2009 and is now growing slower than average costs. Technology's Role in Services: AI potentially solving education through personalized one-on-one tutoring (referencing "The Diamond Age"). Student Loans & Market Dynamics: Marginal students are dropping out of college, reducing demand. Pharmaceutical Pricing: Americans actually pay less on average for pharmaceuticals due to cheaper generics. Cultural Commentary: Discussing intellectual debates between prominent thinkers (Tyler Cowen vs. Scott Alexander on foreign aid, Scott Alexander vs. Curtis Yarvin on governance), emphasizing the importance of not getting trapped in the cultural moment of 2020-2021.

Can adults still grow new neurons in their brains? You'd think we might know the answer to the question of adult “neurogenesis” after more than half a century of neuroscience research. But it turns out we don't.In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart look into the suprisingly controversial question of adult neurogenesis. Are you “stuck with” the number of brain cells you had as a child, or can you add to that number by making the right choices as an adult? And does it even matter?This podcast is brought to you by Works in Progress magazine, which this week has a new article explaining why nuclear power is so expensive (spoiler: it relies on an incorrect scientific model that we've discussed in previous podcast episodes: the “linear no threshold” model. For a full explanation, along with articles on a dizzying array of other progress-related topics, take a look at www.worksinprogress.co. Show notes* Summary post on the debate by Scott Alexander from 2018* 2000 PNAS study on the brains of London taxi drivers* 2021 retrospective review of taxi driver studies* Study comparing passed vs. failed cabbies on “The Knowledge”* Study putting together neuroimaging research on when the brain peaks in volume and other measures* 1962 Science study on neurogenesis in rats* 1999 BrdU study in macaque monkeys* Famous 1998 study on neurogenesis in the human hippocampus* 2006 PNAS sudy on testing neocortical neurogenesis using Carbon-14 dating* 2013 study using similar methods on the hippocampus* 2018 Nature paper claiming no adult neurogenesis* Associated commentary article* Atlantic article describing the controversy by Ed Yong* 2018 paper finding neurogenesis occuring up to age 79* 2019 Nature Medicine paper claiming “abundant” adult neurogenesis* Fair-minded 2019 review paper* Somewhat angrier 2021 review paperCreditsThe Studies Show is produced by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada Productions. We're grateful to Claire Wang for her help with researching this episode. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thestudiesshowpod.com/subscribe

Register for the webinar:Use an SBA Loan to Start a Roll-Up - TODAY May 22nd - https://bit.ly/4jgfQSYCovid forced Scott Alexander to pivot & rebuild the marketing agency he'd acquired just one year earlier. It worked.Topics in Scott's interview:Buying a digital marketing agencyDisappointment with the sellerUnderstanding customer churnPost-transition surprises with bookkeepingTurning around a bad company cultureWartime CEO vs Peacetime CEORevenue devastated during CovidRebranding and redirecting the companyUsing Facebook for medical salesMarketing Agency 101References and how to contact Scott:LinkedInJason Andrews on Acquiring Minds: How I Bought & Sold a Healthcare Business for 8 FiguresScott@jairusmarketing.comJairus MarketingGet a complimentary IT audit of your target business:Email Nick Akers at nick@inzotechnologies.com, and tell him you're a searcherLearn more about Walker Deibel's done-with-you buy-side advisory:The Acquisition LabGet complimentary due diligence on your acquisition's insurance & benefits program:Oberle Risk Strategies - Search Fund TeamConnect with Acquiring Minds:See past + future interviews on the YouTube channelConnect with host Will Smith on LinkedInFollow Will on TwitterEdited by Anton RohozovProduced by Pam Cameron

This is part two of a series about Jonathan Pageau (  @JonathanPageau  ) and John Verkvaeke (  @johnvervaeke  ) and their respective views on Spirit and pneumatology. I mention Jonathan Pageau, John Vervaeke, Paul Vander Klay, Elizabeth Oldfield, Kale Zelden, Rod Dreher, Grim Grizz, , Ed Hutchins, Tucker Carlson, St. Anthony of the Desert, Athanasius, David Sloan Wilson, John Calvin, Tanya Luhrmann, Charles Taylor, Chuck Colson, Will Barlow, Scott Alexander, Robert Falconer, Richard Schwarz, Chris Masterpietro (Vervaeke's collaborator), Jung (Carl Jung), Michael (Archangel), Jesus Christ, Satan, Andre Antunes, Daniel (prophet), Mary Harrington, Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, Meno, Gregory of Nyssa, Father John Bear, Hank (presumably Hank Green from a referenced conversation), Barack Obama, John Locke, Immanuel Kant, George Cybenko, Kurt Hornik, Jonathan Losos, Richard Dawkins, Jordan Peterson, Baldwin (James Mark Baldwin), Alex O'Connor, Nero Caesar, Adam, Plotinus, Spinoza (Benedict de Spinoza), Dan Wagenmaker, (Upton) Sinclair, Bishop VT Williams, Raphael (Raff), Anderson Day, William Desmond, Charles StangMidwestuary Info and Tickets - https://www.midwestuary.com/Part 1 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMjEY3BOPPI&t=928sDavid Sloan Wilson Dialogue - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CAyvVdNSzIWill Barlow - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DoIgcSWJnE&t=4065s

Eneasz and Liam discuss Scott Alexander's post “Twilight of the Edgelords,” an exploration of Truth, Morality, and how one balances love of truth vs not destabilizing the world economy and political regime. CORRECTION: Scott did make an explicitly clear pro … Continue reading →

The Studies Show LIVE (with special guest Jesse Singal) is next Friday, 9th of May, at Conway Hall in London. Get your tickets right HERE! Or go to bit.ly/tss_live. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. can't be wrong about literally everything, can he? His latest controversial statement is that he wants to find the “environmental exposure” that has been causing the huge spike in autism rates over the past few decades.In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart look into whether there really is an autism epidemic in the first place—and if there isn't, why the diagnoses might be going up so quickly anyway.The Studies Show is brought to you by Works in Progress magazine. This week we discussed the article from the most recent issue about the UK's land value tax—a cautionary tale of a policy that might sound good on paper, but was utterly cursed in practice. Find this and so many more fascinating articles about human progress at worksinprogress.co.Show notes* RFK Jr's latest claims about autism (and his plans to gather data)* His statement “I believe autism comes from vaccines”, from 2023* His “Children's Health Defence” org from 2015* CDC data on autism rates in the US* And similar data from the UK* A paper on the much lower rates in 1966* “Early infantile autism” - the original 1944 paper by Leo Kanner* Hans Asperger's similarly-timed research* And on his collaboration with the Nazis* On “refrigerator mothers”* Data from after the MMR vaccine was split in Yokohama, Japan* The DSM-V checklist for autism spectrum disorder* Scott Alexander's controversial piece “Against against autism cures”* 2023 paper on the prevalence of profound autism* Article on the growing waiting lists for autism diagnoses* More details on the same* 2022 paper on the genetics of autism* Article on rates of extra time in exams in the UK* Adam Hunt's post about Renée Thornton, hot-air balloonist* The Economist's Bagehot column on the “tyranny of turning up”* Underdiagnosed autism in girlsCreditsWe're grateful to Adam Hunt for talking to us about psychiatric diagnoses for this episode. The Studies Show is produced by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada Productions. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thestudiesshowpod.com/subscribe

Don't forget THE STUDIES SHOW LIVE—on 9 May in London! You can buy tickets at this link, or by going to bit.ly/tss_live.What's going to be the next pandemic? For a long time you might've seen news stories about the current threat of H5N1 bird flu, but you probably haven't paid much attention. In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart try and work out how worried we should be. Are COVID-scarred people freaking out over nothing? Or are we at the start of something much scarier?The Studies Show is brought you by Works in Progress magazine, a beautifully-produced magazine about science and technological progress. In the current issue you can read articles about new fertility technologies, land value tax, and the one we mentioned in the show, about prehistoric psychopaths. Find it all at worksinprogress.co.Show notes* The UK's “Influenza Pandemic Preparedness Strategy”* “Of course the UK had a herd immunity strategy”* Tom's article on “the men who failed Britain”* The CDC on types of influenza virus* 2025 Harvard Medical School article on H5N1 bird flu* Article on the wild animal deaths caused by bird flu in the current outbreak* And the same for domestic animals* Egg prices! 1, 2* 2011 paper on haemagglutinin in avian flu viruses and its infectiousness to humans * Pigs as the “mixing vessel” for flu viruses* And the potential for cows to be the same* The controversial 2012 Science paper that modified a blue flu virus to be more infectious* The WHO's seeming low level of concern about the bird flu outbreak* Pasteurised milk and its effects on bird flu transmission* The Swift Centre's forecasts for the bird flu outbreak* Scott Alexander's big piece on bird flu* The evidence for the effect of antivirals on bird flu* DOGE cuts to a programme that monitored bird flu in dairy products, and to animal monitoringCreditsWe're very grateful to Claire Wang for her help with researching this episode. The Studies Show is produced by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada Productions. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thestudiesshowpod.com/subscribe

Matt and Nic are back for another week of news and deals. In this episode:  What's the deal with the tariffs? Are the tariffs 4D chess? STABLE Act advances from committee Galaxy settles with the NYAG for touting Luna Trump pardons the BitMEX founders Coinlist returns to the US FDUSD has a depeg amidst Justin Sun drama Fidelity launches a no-fee crypto IRA product Larry Fink is bullish bitcoin Content mentioned: AI 2027, by Daniel Kokotajlo, Scott Alexander, Thomas Larsen, Eli Lifland, Romeo Dean

Scott and Daniel break down every month from now until the 2027 intelligence explosion.Scott Alexander is author of the highly influential blogs Slate Star Codex and Astral Codex Ten. Daniel Kokotajlo resigned from OpenAI in 2024, rejecting a non-disparagement clause and risking millions in equity to speak out about AI safety.We discuss misaligned hive minds, Xi and Trump waking up, and automated Ilyas researching AI progress.I came in skeptical, but I learned a tremendous amount by bouncing my objections off of them. I highly recommend checking out their new scenario planning document, AI 2027Watch on Youtube; listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.----------Sponsors* WorkOS helps today's top AI companies get enterprise-ready. OpenAI, Cursor, Perplexity, Anthropic and hundreds more use WorkOS to quickly integrate features required by enterprise buyers. To learn more about how you can make the leap to enterprise, visit workos.com* Jane Street likes to know what's going on inside the neural nets they use. They just released a black-box challenge for Dwarkesh listeners, and I had blast trying it out. See if you have the skills to crack it at janestreet.com/dwarkesh* Scale's Data Foundry gives major AI labs access to high-quality data to fuel post-training, including advanced reasoning capabilities. If you're an AI researcher or engineer, learn about how Scale's Data Foundry and research lab, SEAL, can help you go beyond the current frontier at scale.com/dwarkeshTo sponsor a future episode, visit dwarkesh.com/advertise.----------Timestamps(00:00:00) - AI 2027(00:06:56) - Forecasting 2025 and 2026(00:14:41) - Why LLMs aren't making discoveries(00:24:33) - Debating intelligence explosion(00:49:45) - Can superintelligence actually transform science?(01:16:54) - Cultural evolution vs superintelligence(01:24:05) - Mid-2027 branch point(01:32:30) - Race with China(01:44:47) - Nationalization vs private anarchy(02:03:22) - Misalignment(02:14:52) - UBI, AI advisors, & human future(02:23:00) - Factory farming for digital minds(02:26:52) - Daniel leaving OpenAI(02:35:15) - Scott's blogging advice Get full access to Dwarkesh Podcast at www.dwarkesh.com/subscribe

With listener insights, we take another look at the film that marked the Marxes' Hollywood debut and stands out as the only one featuring a manicurist we can name. This episode highlights the distinctiveness of Monkey Business, as comments explore how it stands apart from both their earlier work and later films. We'll dive into praise for Thelma Todd and even Zeppo, alongside the random nitpicks Marx fans are famous for. Joe Adamson, Scott Alexander and Eddie Deezen are among those contributing. Jay Hopkins would have as well, if he could figure out how to do it.

Malcolm Collins and his wife Simone are the hosts are (  @SimoneandMalcolm  ). Malcolm is a leading pronatalist, entreprenuer, and a new right intellectual and thought leader. We talk about the birth rate collapse and crisis, artificial intelligence, how to build cultures and religions that can resist this crisis, how to save civilization and whether victory might be possible. We mention Elon Musk, JK Rowling, JD Vance, Robert F Kennedy Jr, Ayan Hirsi Ali, Grimes, Mike Solana, Aaron Renn, Scott Alexander, Hasan Piker, Stephen Colbert, John Fetterman, and more.

Nelson G from “Average Home Theater Reviews” & I are joining forces to discuss our favorite episodes from each season & both movies. In our third episode, we'll discuss 6 episodes from Season 3.Ep1 "Loved to Death" from Tales from the Crypt #25. Directed by Tom Mankiewicz. Written by Joe Minion and John Mankiewicz. Originally aired on June 15, 1991.Aspiring screenwriter Edward Foster (Andrew McCarthy) has a crush on his neighbor, aspiring actress Miranda Singer (Mariel Hemingway). After failing to get Miranda to notice him, Edward finally gains her affection with a potion given to him by his woman-hating landlord (David Hemmings). Eventually, Edward begins to regret his choice after Miranda's newfound obsession with him becomes too much for him to handle. Also starring Kathleen Freeman as the next-door neighbor.Ep2 "Carrion Death" from Shock Suspense Stories #9. Written & directed by Steven E. de Souza. Originally aired on June 15, 1991.Earl Raymond Diggs (Kyle MacLachlan), a murderer who has recently escaped prison, is running for the Mexican border. He is pursued by a state trooper (George DelHoyo) who ends up slapping handcuffs on him. Diggs manages to kill the trooper, but the trooper manages to swallow the key before dying. With no other options to remove the cuffs, Diggs is forced to drag the trooper'sEp3 "The Trap" from Shock Suspense Stories #18. Directed by Michael J. Fox. Written by Scott Alexander. Originally aired on June 15, 1991.Lou Paloma (Bruce McGill), an obnoxious, egotistical, mean-spirited deadbeat who cannot hold down a job, is horribly in debt, and is both unfaithful and abusive (verbally and physically) to his wife, Irene (Teri Garr) ropes her and his brother, Billy (Bruno Kirby), into a plan to fake his own death, collect his life insurance money, and escape to a new life in Rio de Janeiro. Unfortunately, Lou is unaware that both his long-suffering wife and brother, who have developed an attraction to one another, are planning to double-cross him.Ep4 "Abra Cadaver" from Tales from the Crypt #37 (as "Dead Right!"). Directed by Stephen Hopkins. Written by Jim Birge. Originally aired on June 19, 1991.Years ago, Carl Fairbanks (Tony Goldwyn) and his brother Martin (Beau Bridges) were medical students. Carl played a prank on Martin which unexpectedly gave him a stroke and paralyzed one of his hands. In the present day, Carl becomes a successful surgeon whereas Martin's paralysis limits him to a medical research job. Martin gets his revenge by injecting Carl with an experimental serum that stops Carl's heart but keeps his brain alive, essentially trapping Carl in his own body. Note: Based on the story "Dead Right!" renamed for television.Ep7 "The Reluctant Vampire" from The Vault of Horror #20. Directed by Elliot Silverstein. Written by Terry Black. Originally aired on July 10, 1991.Ep13 "Spoiled" from The Haunt of Fear #26. Directed by Andy Wolk. Written by Connie Johnson & Doug Ronning. Originally aired on August 21, 1991.In a meta-layered spoof of daytime soap operas, Janet (Faye Grant), a housewife who is obsessed with the soap opera There's Always Tomorrow and watches the program religiously, is annoyed that her doctor husband, Leon (Alan Rachins), is more obsessed with experimenting on a rabbit than spending time with her. When her TV loses picture at a crucial moment in the show, Janet calls in a cable man named Abel (Anthony LaPaglia), to have cable installed. Inspired by There's Always Tomorrow's no-nonsense main character, Fuschia Monroe (Anita Morris), Janet begins a steamy affair with Abel while Leon is distracted with his work. When Leon catches the two of them in the act, he soon wonders if he could try his experiment on human subjects. Check out Nelson's YouTube Channel at https://youtu.be/gyd0D5sCPYU?si=_jRO4WpXDUC8i01DSupport this podcast at https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/fave-five-from-fans/support

From Martin & Lewis to Abbott & Costello... from Joe Besser to Curly-Joe DeRita... from Tor Johnson to Groucho Marx... one legendary artist has chronicled the greats, near-greats, and semi-greats of show business with a mix of love, tenderness, and liver-spotted frankness. We talk to Drew Friedman about his long career, his favourite subjects, and the new documentary "Drew Friedman: Vermeer of the Borscht Belt." "Drew Friedman: Vermeer of the Borscht Belt" plays in Los Angeles at the Aero Theater on March 29, 7:30pm, followed by a panel discussion featuring Friedman, director Kevin Dougherty, Scott Alexander, Larry Karaszewski, Steven Weber, Dana Gould, KAZ, Leonard Maltin, Kliph Nesteroff, and Merrill Markoe. Get tickets here: https://www.americancinematheque.com/now-showing/drew-friedman-vermeer-of-the-borscht-belt-3-29-25/

It had to happen eventually: this week The Studies Show is all about philosophy. As we look at science in general, how do we decide what those studies are actually showing? Tom and Stuart take a look at the Big Two of philosophy of science: Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn, with their respective theories of falsificationism and paradigm shifts. Both are theories that almost everyone interested in science has heard of—but both make far more extreme claims than you might think.The Studies Show is sponsored by Works in Progress magazine, the best place to go online for fact-rich, data-dense articles on science and technology, and how they've made the world a better place—or how they might do so in the future. To find all their essays, all for free, go to worksinprogress.co.Show notes* Tom's new book, Everything is Predictable: How Bayes' Remarkable Theorem Explains the World* Wagenmakers's 2020 study asking scientists how they think about scientific claims* David Hume's 1748 Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding* Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on the problem of induction * Bertrand Russell's 1946 book History of Western Philosophy* Popper's 1959 book The Logic of Scientific Discovery* Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on Popper* Kuhn's 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions* Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on Kuhn* 2019 Scott Alexander review of the book* Michael Strevens's 2020 book The Knowledge Machine* Daniel Lakens's Coursera course on “improving your statistical inferences”CreditsThe Studies Show is produced by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada Productions. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thestudiesshowpod.com/subscribe

Scott Alexander Howard: Das andere Tal | Übers.: Anke Caroline Burger | Diogenes Verlag 2024 | Preis: 25 Euro Von der hr2-Partnerbuchhandlung „Büchergilde Buchhandlung & Galerie“ in Wiesbaden

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.liveLast week's episode dealt with the state of the American Right post-election. Today we ask: Where is the American Left going? How will it respond to Trump? “There is a palpable sense of passivity on the Left,” says Damir Marusic. “What I've seen is resignation or weird, detached analysis,” says Samuel Kimbriel. Is there more going on than we see? We invited WoC contributor Osita Nwanevu, writer for the New Republic and author of an upcoming book about American democracy, to tell us more.Osita begins by distinguishing between the Democratic Party and the movement Left. While the Democrats are a loose coalition in broad disarray, the Left simply stands for “a grand reform of political economy to empower workers.” The Left, Osita argues, was not surprised that Trump won. The problem lies it how it can create a platform that will appeal to American voters. There is too much despair. Too many on the Left, Osita argues, have been left in a state of “political hopelessness” after the election, wondering what to do in a country where most people voted for Donald Trump. But such an attitude is “antithetical to democratic thought and what we need to do for practical politics.”Damir and Osita go on to engage the question of whether a Left that stands for universal human values, rather than in-group, national concerns, is able to win. Osita argues that there is not necessary contradiction between a universal value and a local interest. When it comes to climate change, for example, the Left isn't asking voters to care about “the Maldives,” but about “fires in LA and storms in Florida.” Damir is not so sure. The conversation touches on symbolic politics versus real politics, whether protest movements can actually transform society, whether Trump is the true revolutionary force in American politics, and whether the Left actually has intellectual leaders and a utopian vision today. In our bonus section for paid subscribers, Sam argues that the Left needs an idea of transcendence, Osita talks about transcendence without god, and Damir pushes both on whether personal philosophical convictions actually have any bearing on real-life politics.Required Reading:* Osita's website.* Sam on why the Left needs ideas (WoC).* Damir's post-election reaction (WoC). * Osita on BLM (Pairagraph).* Osita's debate with Oliver Traldi about democracy and ideology (WoC).* Vincent Bevins, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution (Amazon).* “Nancy Pelosi Insists the Election was Not a Rebuke of the Democrats” (New York Times).* On the Gushers BLM post mentioned by Osita (New York Times).* “Costco Teamsters vote to authorize US-wide strike, union says” (Reuters).* “Costco shareholders just destroyed an anti-DEI push” (CNN).* History of hospitals (Britannica).* Scott Alexander, “Everyone's A Based Post-Christian Vitalist Until The Grooming Gangs Show Up” (Astral Codex Ten).This post is part of our collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Governance and Markets.Wisdom of Crowds is a platform challenging premises and understanding first principles on politics and culture. Join us!

BONUS: Gojko Adzic on Optimizing Products for Long-Tail Users (Agile Online Summit 2024 Replay) In this BONUS episode, we revisit Gojko Adzic's insightful interview at the Agile Online Summit 2024. Gojko, an award-winning author and software expert, unpacks the principles behind his latest book, Lizard Optimization, offering a fresh perspective on improving product usability by addressing the needs of long-tail users. From learning from unexpected user behaviors to refining products with a systematic approach, this episode is filled with practical tips for product teams and Agile practitioners. What is Lizard Optimization? Drawing from his experiences as a product developer, Gojko introduces the idea of Lizard Optimization. He discusses how observing unexpected user behaviors led him to refine his SaaS tools like Narakeet and MindMup. By focusing on usability challenges and unusual patterns, he has turned serendipity into actionable insights. “Users aren't stupid—they're just finding creative ways to get value from your product. Listen to them.” Gojko explains the inspiration behind the metaphor of the “Lizardman constant,” a concept from a Scott Alexander blog post. He describes how this principle applies to product optimization: understanding and addressing the 4% of surprising, unexplainable behaviors can uncover opportunities for innovation. “The job isn't to judge users—it's to explore why they're doing what they're doing and how we can help them succeed.” The High-Level Process of Lizard Optimization Gojko outlines the systematic process described in his book to leverage unexpected user behavior: Observe Misuse: Identify how users deviate from expected patterns. Extract Insights: Focus on one unexpected behavior as a signal. Remove Obstacles: Help users achieve their goals more easily. Monitor Impacts: Detect and adjust for unintended consequences. “Start monitoring for the predictable but unexpected—those hidden gems can unlock your next big feature.” Practical Advice for Product Teams For teams ready to apply these concepts, Gojko emphasizes the importance of expanding observability tools to include product metrics and not just technical ones. He shares how tracking unpredictable user actions can inspire impactful changes. “About a third of what we do delivers value—focus on finding where unexpected value lies.” Recommended Resources To dive deeper into these ideas, Gojko recommends: Trustworthy Online Controlled Experiments by Ron Kohavi Evidence Guided by Tim Herbig LizardOptimization.org “Experimentation and evidence-based decision-making are the keys to building better products.” Closing Thoughts: “Look for the Unexpected” Gojko's parting advice for Agile practitioners is simple yet powerful: Look for the unexpected. By embracing surprises in user behavior, teams can transform minor inconveniences into major opportunities for growth. “The unexpected is where innovation begins.” About Gojko Adzic Gojko Adzic is an award-winning author, speaker, and product creator. His books, including Lizard Optimization, Impact Mapping, and Specification by Example, have become essential reads for Agile practitioners and product teams worldwide. Gojko is a 2019 AWS Serverless Hero, the winner of the 2016 European Software Testing Outstanding Achievement Award, and the 2011 Most Influential Agile Testing Professional Award. He has also co-founded several successful SaaS tools, including Narakeet, MindMup, and Votito. You can link with Gojko Adzic on LinkedIn.

Dr. Cruse (@predoctit) argues that Pete Hegseth, Trump's nominee for Secretary of Defense, is much less likely to get confirmed than the current markets prices indicate. Dr. Cruse and Pratik Chougule also discuss the universe of Republican senators who are willing to vote against Trump nominees. Timestamps 0:00: Pratik introduces episode 0:11: Thune whip count on Hegseth 8:05: Intro ends 10:06: Interview with Cruse begins 10:42: Trump nominees' confirmation prospects 11:24: Democratic Senators 12:11: Rubio 15:44: Most controversial nominees 16:27: Hegseth scandals 31:14: Factors in likelihood of confirmation 33:46: Republican Senators 46:41: Influence of Hegseth markets 46:56: Sexual harrassment allegations Follow Star Spangled Gamblers on Twitter @ssgamblers  Trade on Hegseth's nomination at Polymarket.com, the world's largest prediction market. https://polymarket.com/event/of-senate-votes-to-confirm-hegseth-as-secretary-of-defense?tid=1736804670342 https://polymarket.com/event/which-trump-picks-will-be-confirmed/will-pete-hegseth-be-confirmed-as-secretary-of-defense?tid=1736804692254 https://polymarket.com/event/who-will-be-trumps-defense-secretary/will-pete-hegseth-be-trumps-defense-secretary?tid=1736804733018 Join us for our first DC Forecasting & Prediction Markets meetup of the year! This will be a very casual meetup to meet and socialize with others interested in forecasting, prediction markets, political gambling, sports betting, or anything else relating to predicting the future. Location is TBD but you'll be notified when we've finalized a venue. Last-minute/onsite walk-in RSVPs here on this Partiful event page are welcomed! Who are we? We are prediction market traders on Manifold (and other prediction markets like PredictIt, Kalshi, and Polymarket), forecasters (e.g. on Metaculus and Good Judgment Open), sports bettors (e.g. on FanDuel, DraftKings, and other sportsbooks), consumers of forecasting (or related) content (e.g. Star Spangled Gamblers, Nate Silver's Silver Bulletin, Scott Alexander's Astral Codex Ten), effective altruists, rationalists, and data scientists. Forecast on Manifold how many people will attend this month: https://manifold.markets/dglid/how-many-people-will-attend-a-forec-OzPZILyc5C?play=true Forecast on Manifold how many people will attend meetups this year: https://manifold.markets/dglid/how-many-attendees-will-there-be-at?play=true This meetup is hosted by the Forecasting Meetup Network. Help us grow the forecasting community to positively influence the future by supporting us with an upvote, comment, or pledge on Manifund: https://manifund.org/projects/forecasting-meetup-network---washington-dc-pilot-4-meetups Get notified whenever a new meetup is scheduled and learn more about the Forecasting Meetup Network here: https://bit.ly/forecastingmeetupnetwork Join our Discord to connect with others in the community between monthly meetups: https://discord.com/invite/hFn3yukSwv

With the enormous increase in the power of AI (specifically LLMs) people are using them for all sorts of things, hoping to find areas where they're better, or at least cheaper than humans. FiveThirtyNine (get it?) is one such attempt, and they claim that AI can do forecasting better than humans.  Scott Alexander, of Astral Codex Ten, reviewed the service and concluded that they still have a long way to go. I have no doubt that this is the case, but one can imagine that this will not always be the case. What then? My assertion would be that at the point when AI forecasting does “work” (should that ever happen) it will make the problems of superforecasting even worse.2  I- The problems of superforecasting What are the problems of superforecasting? ...

Freddie deBoer has a post on what he calls “the temporal Copernican principle.” He argues we shouldn't expect a singularity, apocalypse, or any other crazy event in our lifetimes. Discussing celebrity transhumanist Yuval Harari, he writes: What I want to say to people like Yuval Harari is this. The modern human species is about 250,000 years old, give or take 50,000 years depending on who you ask. Let's hope that it keeps going for awhile - we'll be conservative and say 50,000 more years of human life. So let's just throw out 300,000 years as the span of human existence, even though it could easily be 500,000 or a million or more. Harari's lifespan, if he's lucky, will probably top out at about 100 years. So: what are the odds that Harari's lifespan overlaps with the most important period in human history, as he believes, given those numbers? That it overlaps with a particularly important period of human history at all? Even if we take the conservative estimate for the length of human existence of 300,000 years, that means Harari's likely lifespan is only about .33% of the entirety of human existence. Isn't assuming that this .33% is somehow particularly special a very bad assumption, just from the basis of probability? And shouldn't we be even more skeptical given that our basic psychology gives us every reason to overestimate the importance of our own time? (I think there might be a math error here - 100 years out of 300,000 is 0.033%, not 0.33% - but this isn't my main objection.) He then condemns a wide range of people, including me, for failing to understand this: Some people who routinely violate the Temporal Copernican Principle include Harari, Eliezer Yudkowsky, Sam Altman, Francis Fukuyama, Elon Musk, Clay Shirky, Tyler Cowen, Matt Yglesias, Tom Friedman, Scott Alexander, every tech company CEO, Ray Kurzweil, Robin Hanson, and many many more. I think they should ask themselves how much of their understanding of the future ultimately stems from a deep-seated need to believe that their times are important because they think they themselves are important, or want to be. I deny misunderstanding this. Freddie is wrong. https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/contra-deboer-on-temporal-copernicanism 

GGACP celebrates the 30th anniversary of the classic comedy-drama "Ed Wood" (released September 28, 1994) with this ENCORE of an interview with the film's screenwriters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski. In this episode, Scott and Larry talk about the Ed Wood-Bela Lugosi relationship, the exuberance of Milos Forman, the bizarro cinema of Rudy Ray Moore and their Eddie Murphy vehicle, “Dolemite is My Name.” Also, Jim Carrey pranks Danny DeVito, Tim Burton befriends Vincent Price, Ray Walston “replaces” Peter Sellers and Scott and Larry remember the late, great Martin Landau. PLUS: Appreciating Robert Morse! The legacy of William Goldman! Mae West seduces 007! The Marx Brothers meet the Master of Disaster! And the boys pick their favorite big-screen biopics! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1999, director Milos Forman reunited with his People Vs. Larry Flynt screenwriters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski for another biopic of an iconoclast, Man on the Moon. Rebounding from the Oscar snub for The Truman Show, Jim Carrey took on the role of Andy Kaufman and according to history, took it a bit too seriously. The film received … Continue reading "310 – Man on the Moon"

Adam creates a hypnosis session inspired by a book called Rhinoceros Success by Scott Alexander which Adam read over 25 years before. The book uses a rhino as a metaphor for focus, resilience, determination, and massive action-taking - and Adam uses these principles in this original hypnosis session.  Adam's course Hypnotic Wealth can be found here: https://www.adamcox.co.uk/hypnotic-wealth.html  Coming Soon - The Hypnotists's Secret Circle: Adam will soon be launching a new low-cost membership to access his entire hypnosis archive without the intro, outro, and explanation and an exclusive community only for members. In the meantime you can secure a free sleep download here: https://tr.ee/MCuZqKPnEg  Adam Cox is one of the world's most innovative hypnotists and is known for being the hypnotherapist of choice for Celebrities, CEO's and even Royalty. To book a free 30-minute consultation call to consider working with Adam go to: https://go.oncehub.com/AdamCox Adam's rates for hypnotherapy in pounds and US dollars are here: https://www.adamcox.co.uk/hypnotherapist.html  You can contact Adam at adam@adamcox.co.uk Further information on Adam is here: https://linktr.ee/AdamCoxOfficial  Tags: Adam Cox, the hypnotist, NLP, asmr, hypnosis, hypnotherapy, hypnotist, stress, sleep, worry, meditation, guided meditation, hypnotism, anxiety, hypnosis for abundance, hypnosis for business success, hypnosis to feel enthusiastic about business, hypnosis for financial success, wealth hypnosis, abundance hypnosis, manifestation hypnosis, rhino success, rhinoceros success by Scott Alexander, 

What do lizards have to do with product growth? In this episode, Gojko Adzic reveals how unusual user behaviors can unlock massive opportunities for product innovation. Discover the four steps to mastering "Lizard Optimization" and learn how you can turn strange user actions into game-changing insights. Overview In this episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast, host Brian Milner chats with Gojko Adzic about his new book, Lizard Optimization. Gojko explains the concept of finding product growth signals in strange user behaviors, sharing examples where unexpected user actions led to product breakthroughs. He outlines a four-step process for optimizing products by learning, zeroing in, removing obstacles, and double-checking. Gojko also discusses helpful tools like session recorders and observability tools that can enhance product development by uncovering and addressing unique user behaviors. References and resources mentioned in the show: Gojko Adzic 50% OFF Lizard Optimization by Gojko Adzic Mismatch: How Inclusion Shapes Design by Kat Holmes Trustworthy Online Experiments by Ron Kohavi Advanced Certified Scrum Product Owner® Subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast Join the Agile Mentors Community Want to get involved? This show is designed for you, and we’d love your input. Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at podcast@mountaingoatsoftware.com This episode’s presenters are: Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and training at Mountain Goat Software. He's passionate about making a difference in people's day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work. Gojko Adzic is an award-winning software consultant and author, specializing in agile and lean quality improvement, with expertise in impact mapping, agile testing, and behavior-driven development. A frequent speaker at global software conferences, Gojko is also a co-creator of MindMup and Narakeet, and has helped companies worldwide enhance their software delivery, from large financial institutions to innovative startups. Auto-generated Transcript: Brian (00:00) Welcome in Agile Mentors. We're back for another episode of the Agile Mentors podcast. I'm with you as always, Brian Milner. And today, very special guest we have with us. have Mr. Goiko Atshich with us. I hope I said that correctly. Did I say it correctly? Close enough. Okay. Well, welcome in, Goiko. Glad to have you here. Gojko (00:15) Close enough, close enough. Brian (00:21) Very, very, very happy to have Goiko with us. If you're not familiar with Goiko's name, you probably are familiar with some of his work. One of the things I was telling him that we teach in our advanced product owner class every time is impact mapping, which is a tool that Goiko has written about and kind of come up with on his own as well. Gojko (00:21) Thank you very much for inviting me. Brian (00:47) But today we're having him on because he has a new book coming out called Lizard Optimization, Unlock Product Growth by Engaging Long Tail Users. And I really wanted to talk to him about that and help him explain, have him explain to us a little bit about this idea, this new concept that his new book is about. So, Goiko, let's talk about it. Lizard Optimization, in a nutshell, what do you mean by that? What is it? Gojko (01:14) We're going to jump into that, but I just need to correct one of the things you said. I think it's very, very important. You said I came up with impact mapping and I didn't. I just wrote a popular book about that. And it's very important to credit people who actually came up with that. It's kind of the in -use design agency in Sweden. And I think, you know, they should get the credit for it. I literally just wrote a popular book. Brian (01:19) Okay. Gotcha. Gotcha, gotcha. Apologies for that incorrect. Thank you for making that correction. So lizard optimization. Gojko (01:44) So, lizard optimization. Good. So, lizard optimization is an idea to find signals for product ideas and product development ideas in strange user behaviors. When you meet somebody who does something you completely do not understand, why on earth somebody would do something like that? Brian (02:03) Okay. Gojko (02:11) and it looks like it's not done by humans, it looks like it's done by somebody who follows their own lizard logic, using stuff like that as signals to improve our products. Not just for lizards, but for everybody. So the idea came from a very explosive growth phase for one of the products I'm working on, where it... had lots of people doing crazy things I could never figure out why they were doing it. For example, one of the things the tool does is it helps people create videos from PowerPoints. You put some kind of your voiceover in the speaker notes, the tool creates a video by using text to speech engines to create voiceover from the speaker notes, aligns everything and it's all kind of for you. People kept creating blank videos and paying me for this. I was thinking about why on earth would somebody be creating blank videos and it must be a bug and if it's a bug then they want their money back and they'll complain. So I chased up a few of these people and I tried to kind of understand what's going on because I originally thought we have a bug in the development pipeline for the videos. So... I started asking like, you know, I'm using some, I don't know, Google slides or, you know, keynote or whatever to produce PowerPoints. Maybe there's a bug how we read that. And the person, no, no, we, know, official Microsoft PowerPoint. They said, well, can you please open the PowerPoint you uploaded? Do you see anything on the slides when you open it? And the person, no, it's blank. Right? Okay, so it's blank for you as well. I said, yeah. So. Brian (03:48) Yeah. Gojko (03:54) What's going on? so what I've done is through UX interviews and iterating with users and research, we've made it very, very easy to do advanced configuration on text -to -speech. And it was so much easier than the alternative things that people were creating blank PowerPoints just to use the text -to -speech engines so they can then extract the audio track from it. Brian (03:54) Yeah, why? Gojko (04:23) and then use that and it was this whole mess of obstacles I was putting in front of people to get the good audio. It wasn't the original intention of the tool. It wasn't the original value, but people were getting unintended value from it. And then I ended up building just a very simple screen for people to upload the Word document instead of PowerPoints. And it was much faster for users to do that. A month later, there was many audio files being built as videos. Two months later, audio... production overtook video production. then at the moment, people are building many, many more audio files than video files on the platform. So it was an incredible growth because of this kind of crazy insight of what people were doing. kind of usually, at least kind of in the products I worked on before, when you have somebody abusing the product, product management fight against it. There's a wonderful story about this in... Founders at work a book by Jessica Livingston and she talks about this kind of group of super smart people in late 90s who Came up with a very very efficient Cryptography algorithm and a way to compute the cryptography so they can run it on low -power devices like Paul pilots Paul pilots were you know like mobile phones, but in late 90s and Then they had to figure out, how do we monetize this? Why would anybody want to do this? So they came up with the idea to do money transfer pumping, Palm pilots, you know, why not? And kind of the built a website. This was the late nineties as a way of just demoing this software to people who didn't have a Palm pilot device next to them. The idea was that you'd kind of see it on the website, learn about it, then maybe download the Palm pilot app and use it in anger. People kept just using the website, they're not downloading the Palm Pilot app. So the product management really wasn't happy. And they were trying to push people from the website to the Palm Pilot app. were trying to, they were fighting against people using this for money transfer on the web and even prohibiting them from using the logo and advertising it. They had this whole thing where nobody could explain why users were using the website because it was a demo thing. It was not finished. It was not sexy. It was just silly. And Jessica kind of talks to one of these people who insists that it was totally inexplicable. Nobody could understand it. But then a bit later, they realized that the website had one and half million users and that the Pongpilot app had 12 ,000 users. So they kind of decided, well, that's where the product is really. And that's like today, people know them as PayPal. They're one of the biggest payment processes in the world because kind of, you know, they realized this is where the product is going. And I think in many, many companies, people Brian (07:03) Ha ha. Gojko (07:18) stumble upon these things as happy accidents. And I think there's a lot more to it. We can deliberately optimize products by looking for unintended usage and not fighting it, just not fighting it. just understand this is what people are getting as value. And I think for me as a solo product founder and developer and product manager on it, One of the really interesting things is when you have somebody engaging with your product in an unexpected way, most of the difficult work for that user is already done. That person knows about you, they're on your website or they're using your product, the marketing and acquisition work is done. But something's preventing them from achieving their goals or they're achieving some value that you did not really know that they're going to achieve. you know, that's something the product can do to help them and remove these obstacles to success. So that's kind of what lizard optimization is making this process more systematic rather than relying on happy accidents. And by making it more systematic, then we can help product management not fight it and skip this whole phase of trying to fight against our users and claim that users are stupid or non -technical or... They don't understand the product, but they're trying to figure out, well, that's what the real goals are. And then following that. Brian (08:47) That's awesome. So the pivot, right? The pivot from here's what we thought our problem was we were solving to now here's what we're actually solving and we should organize around this actual problem, right? Gojko (09:02) or here's what we're going to solve additionally. This is the problem we've solved, but hey, there's this problem as well. And then the product can grow by solving multiple problems for people and solving related problems and solving it for different groups of people, for example. And that's the really interesting thing because I think if you have a product that's already doing something well for your users and a subset of them are misusing it in some way, then kind of... Brian (09:04) Yeah. Gojko (09:30) The product might already be optimized for the majority of users, but there might be a new market somewhere else. So there might be a different market where we can help kind of a different group of users and then the product can grow. Brian (09:43) Yeah, I like to focus on the user. There's an exercise that we'll do in one of our product owner classes where we have a fake product that is a smart refrigerator. And one of the exercises we try to get them to brainstorm the different kinds of users that they might have for it. And one of the things that always comes out in that class is as they're going through and trying to describe the types of users, they inevitably hit to this crossroads where they start to decide Well, yes, we're thinking of this as a home product, something for people to use in their homes. But then the idea crosses their mind, well, what about commercial kitchens? What about people who might use this in another setting? And it's always an interesting conversation to say, well, now you've got a strategic choice to make, because you can target both. You can target one. You can say, we're ignoring the other and we're only going in this direction. So to me, I think that's kind of one of the interesting crossroad points is to say, how do I know when it's time to not just say, great, we have this other customer segment that we didn't know about, but actually we should start to pivot towards that customer segment and start to really target them. Gojko (11:03) Yeah, think that's a fundamental question of product development, isn't it? Do you keep true to your vision even if it's not coming out or if something else is there that's kind more important than I think? For me, there's a couple of aspects to that. One is, laser focus is really important to launch a product. You can't launch a product by targeting... the whole market and targeting a niche type, figuring out, you know, user personas, figuring out like really, really, this is the product who we think the product, this is the group who we think the product is for and giving them a hundred percent of what they need is much better than giving 2 % to everybody because then the product is irrelevant. But then to grow the product, we need to kind of grow the user base as well. And I think one of the things that... is interesting to look at and this comes from a book called Lean Analytics. It's one of my kind of favorite product management books is to look at the frequency and urgency of usage. If you have a group that's kind of using your product, a subgroup that's using your product very frequently compared to everybody else, that might be kind of the place where you want to go. The more frequently, the more urgently people reach for your product when they have this problem. the more likely they are going to be a good market for it. with kind of another product that I've launched in 2013, we originally thought it's going to be a product for professional users. And we aimed at the professional users. And then we found that a subcategory that we didn't really expect, were kind of teachers and children in schools. we're using it a lot more frequently than professional users. And then we started simplifying the user interface significantly so that it can be used by children. And it's a very, very popular tool in schools now. We are not fighting against other professional tools. We were kind of really one of the first in the education market there. And it's still a very popular tool in the education market because we figured a subgroup that's using it very frequently. Brian (13:14) Hmm. Yeah, that's awesome. How do you know when, you know, what kind of threshold do you look for to determine that, this is, because, you know, in your book, you're talking about, you know, behaviors that are not normal, right? People using your product in a way that you didn't anticipate. And what kind of threshold do you look for to that says, hey, it's worth investigating this? You know, I've got this percentage or this number of people who are using it in this strange way. At what point do you chase that down? Gojko (13:49) I think it's wrong to look at the percentages there. I think it's wrong to look at the percentages because then you get into the game of trying to justify economically helping 0 .1 % of the users. And that's never going to happen because what I like about this is an idea from Microsoft's Inclusive Design and the work of Kat Holmes who wrote a book called Mismatch on Brian (13:52) Okay. Gojko (14:17) assistive technologies and inclusive design for disabled people. And she talks about how it's never ever ever going to be economically justified to optimize a product to help certain disabilities because there's just not enough of them. And there's a lovely example from Microsoft where, Microsoft Inclusive Design Handbook where they talk about three types of, Brian (14:34) Yeah. Gojko (14:44) disabilities, one are permanent. So you have like people without an arm or something like that. And I'm going to kind of throw some numbers out now, order of magnitude stuff. I have these details in the book and there's kind of the micro -inclusive design handbook. Let's say at the moment, the 16 ,000 people in the U .S. without one arm or with a disabled arm. And then you have these kind of situational disabilities where because of an occupation like you have a bartender who needs to carry something all the time or a worker who does it, one arm is not available and they only have one arm to work on and this temporary like a mother carrying a child or something like that. So the other two groups are order of magnitude 20 -30 million. We're not, by making the software work well with one hand, we're not helping 16 ,000 people, we are helping 50 million people. But you don't know that you're helping 50 million people if you're just thinking about like 16 ,000. I think they have this kind of, one of the key ideas of inclusive design is solve for one, kind of help, design for one, but solve for many. So we are actually helping many, many people there. So think when you figure out that somebody is doing something really strange with your product, you're not helping just that one person. Brian (15:45) Right, right. Hmm. Gojko (16:13) you're helping a whole class of your users by making the software better, removing the obstacles to success. this is where I, you know, going back to the PowerPoint thing I mentioned, once we started removing obstacles for people to build the audios quickly, lots of other people started using the product and people started using the product in a different way. And I think this is a lovely example of what Bruce Torazzini talks about is the complexity paradox because He's a famous UX designer and he talks about how once you give people a product, their behavior changes as a result of having the product. So the UX research we've done before there is a product or there is a feature is not completely relevant, but it's a changed context because he talks about people have a certain amount of time to do a task. And then when they have a tool to complete the task faster, they can take on a more complicated task or they can take on an additional task or do something else. I think removing obstacles to use a success is really important. Not because we're helping 0 .1 % of people who we don't understand, but because we can then improve the product for everybody. And I think that's kind of the magic of lizard optimization in a sense, where if we find these things where somebody's really getting stuck. but if we help them not get stuck, then other people will use the product in a much better way. And I think this is, know, the name lizard optimization comes from this article by Scott Alexander, who talks about the lizard man's constant in research. And the article talks about his experiences with a survey that combined some demographic and psychological data. So they were looking at where you live and what your nationality is and what gender you are and then how you respond to certain psychological questions. he said, like there's about 4 % of the answers they could not account for. And one person wrote American is gender. Several people listed Martian as nationality and things like that. some of these, he says some of these things will be people who didn't really understand the question. they were distracted, they were doing something else, or they understood the question but they filled in the wrong box because, know, the thick thumbs and small screens, or they were kind of malicious and just, you know, wanted to see what happens. when you kind of add these people together, they're not an insignificant group. kind of, he says 4%. And if... we can help these people, at least some of these people, and say reduce churn by 1%. That can compound growth. Reducing churn, keeping people around for longer is an incredible way to kind of unlock growth. going back to what we were talking about, some people might be getting stuck because they don't understand the instructions. Some people might be getting stuck because they're using the product in a way you didn't expect. And some people might just like not have the mental capacity to use it the way you expected them to be used. But if we can help these people along, then normal users can use it much, easier. And you mentioned a smart fridge. I still remember there was this one wonderful bug report we had for my other product, which is a collaboration tool. we had a bug report a while ago. that the software doesn't work when it's loaded on a fridge. And it's like, well, it was never intended to be loaded on a fridge. I have no idea how you loaded it on a fridge. It's a mind mapping diagramming tool. It's intended to be used on large screens. Where does a fridge come in? And then we started talking to this person. This was before the whole kind of COVID and work from home disaster. The user was a busy mother and she was kind of trying to collaborate with her colleagues while making breakfast. breakfast for kids and kind of running around the kitchen she wasn't able to kind of pay attention to the laptop or a phone but her fridge had a screen so she loaded the software on the fridge and was able to kind of pay attention to collaboration there and you know we of course didn't optimize the software to run on fridges that's ridiculous but we realized that some people will be using it without a keyboard and without a mouse and then we kind of restructured the toolbar, we made it so that you can use it on devices that don't have a keyboard and then the whole tablet thing exploded and now you get completely different users that don't have keyboards and things like that. I think that's where I think is looking at percentages is a losing game because then you start saying, but 0 .1 % of people use this. But yeah, I think lizard optimization is about using these signals to improve the products for everybody. Brian (21:30) That's a great example. I love that example because you're absolutely right. You're not trying to necessarily solve that one problem because you don't anticipate there's going to be a lot of people who are going to want to run that software on a fridge. However, the takeaway you had from that of, we can do this for people who don't have a keyboard or a mouse. There's another way that they might operate this that could apply to lots of different devices and lots of different scenarios. Now we're talking about a much bigger audience. Now we're talking about opening this up to larger segments of the population. I love that. I think that's a great example. I know you talk about that there's kind of a process for this. Help us understand. You don't have to give away the whole candy story here from the book, but help us kind of understand in broad, terms what kind of process people follow to try to chase these things down. Gojko (22:26) So there's like a four step process that's crystallized for me. And the book is kind of more as a, like a proposal or a process. It's something that works for me and I'm hoping that other people will try it out like that. So it might not necessarily stay like that in a few years if we talk again. And I've narrowed it down to four steps and kind of the four steps start with letters L, Z, R and D. Lizard. And it's kind of so learn how people are misusing your products, zero in on one area, on one behavior change you want to improve, then remove obstacles to use a success and then double check that what you've done actually created the impact you expected to make. I think kind of when we look at people who follow their own logic or people who follow some lizard logic you don't really understand, by definition they're doing something strange. your idea of helping them might not necessarily be effective or it might not go all the way or it might. So double checking at the end that people are actually now doing what you expect them to do or doing something better is really, really, really important. And then using signals from that to improve the kind of feedback loop is critical. I had this one case where people were getting stuck on a payment format entering tax details and The form was reasonably well explained. There was an example in the forum how to enter your tax ID and people were constantly getting stuck. A small percentage of people was getting stuck on it. However, I don't want to lose a small percentage of people that want to pay me on the payment form. So I thought, well, how about if I remove that field from there? I speed it up for everybody and then I can guide them later into entering the tax details to generate an invoice. I thought that was a brilliant idea. tested it with a few users. Everybody loved it, so I released it. And then a week later, I realized that, yes, I've sold it for the people that were getting confused, but I've ended up confusing a totally different group of people that expects the tax fields there. So the net effect was negative. then I went back to the original form. so there's lots of these things where people don't necessarily behave the way you think they will. Brian (24:38) Hahaha. Gojko (24:48) Ron Kohavi has a wonderful book about that called Trustworthy Online Experiments. And he has data from Slack, from Microsoft, from Booking .com and... The numbers are depressive. on one hand, the numbers range from 10 to 30, 40 % success rate for people's ideas. And if leading companies like that do things that don't pan out two thirds of the time, then we have to be honest building our products and say, well, maybe this idea is going to work out, maybe not. Brian (25:03) Hahaha. Wow. Gojko (25:30) the more experimental the population is, the more risky that is. think monitoring and capturing weird user behaviors, capturing errors helps you understand that people are getting stuck. as you said, you don't want to follow everybody. There's going to be a lot of noise there. We need to extract signals from the noise. That's what the second step is about, focusing on one specific thing we want to improve. Then, try to remove obstacles and then double -checking that we've actually removed them. That's the four steps. And there's like a shorter version of all the four steps. It's easier to remember. It's listen alert, zooming, rescue them, and then double check at the end. that's again, LZRD. Brian (26:13) That's awesome. Yeah, I love the process and I love the kind of steps there. Are there tools that you recommend for this that are easier to try to determine these things or chase them down or are there tools that you find are more helpful? Gojko (26:32) So there's lots of tools today for things like A -B testing and looking at experiments and things that are very helpful to do this scale. And it's kind of especially useful for the last step. In terms of kind of focusing and things like that, the five stages of growth from the linear analytics are a good tool. Impact mapping is a good tool. Kind of any focusing product management technique that says, well, these are the business goals we're working on now, or these are the kind of user goals we're working on now. out of, know, 50 lizards we found last week, these three lizards seem to be kind of in that area. And for the first step, spotting when people are getting stuck, there's a bunch of tools that are interesting, like session recorders for web products. There's one from Microsoft called Clarity that's free. There's another called Full Story that's quite expensive. There's a couple of open source one, one is packaged within Matomo analytics application. There's a bunch of these other things. Any kind of observability or monitoring tool is also very useful for this because we can spot when people are getting stuck. One of the things I found particularly helpful is logging all user errors. When a user does something to cause an error condition in a product, the product of course tells them like, know, an error happened. But then... logging it and analyzing that information in the back is really critical. for something like that, people sometimes use web analytics tools or any kind of product analytics. I think what's going to be interesting in the next couple of years, and I think if people start doing this more, is we'll see. more like these technical exception analytics tracking tools mixed with this because most of the product analytics are showing people what they expect to see, not what they don't expect to see. And I'll just give you an example of this way. was really helpful. So I've mentioned the screen where people can upload the Word documents. Occasionally people would select weird file types. So they'll select images, they'll select, I don't know, what else. Brian (28:31) Yeah. Gojko (28:49) Sometimes I guess that's a result of, know, a fat finger press or somebody not selecting the right thing. I have a not insignificant percentage of users every day that try to upload Android package files into a text -to -speech reader. Android package files and application files, I don't know what the right way is to read out an Android application. My best guess is people are doing that. as a, you know, these things where you drop a USB in front of an office and somebody kind of mistakenly plugs it in. So maybe they're hoping that I'll know the Android application on my phone just because they've uploaded it. I don't know, but a small percentage of users was trying to upload files that had SRT and VTT extensions, which are subtitle files. And they were not supported, but Brian (29:31) Yeah. Gojko (29:45) I kept getting information that people are uploading those types of files. And then I said, well, this is interesting because it's a text to speech system. People are uploading subtitle files, there's text in, so why don't I just ignore the timestamps and read the text? I can do that. And I started supporting that. And then some people started complaining that, well, the voice is reading it slower than the subtitles. I said, well, yes, because... Brian (30:11) Ha Gojko (30:12) You know, you're uploading subtitles that were read by an actor in a movie. This is a voice that's reading it at their speed. And then we started talking and it turns out that these people were doing it for corporate educational videos where they have a video in English, they need it in French, German, Spanish and all the else, but they don't want to kind of re -edit the video. They just want an alternate audio track. Okay, I mean, I have the timestamps, we can speed up or slow down the audio, it's not a big deal. And we've done that and this was one of the most profitable features ever. Like a very small percentage of the users need it, but those that need it produce hundreds of thousands of audio files because they translate the corporate training videos. And now, you know, we're getting into that numbers game. If I said, you know, there's like 0 .1 % of people are uploading subtitle files. Brian (30:58) Yeah. Gojko (31:07) then it doesn't matter. if we start thinking about, this is potentially interesting use case, it creates growth on its own because then people find you. And I think my product was the first that was actually doing synchronous subtitles. Competitors are doing it now as well. But it opened the massive, massive market for us. And people, you know, I got there by monitoring user errors, by, you know, the fact that somebody uploaded a file that had an unsupported extension. That was our insight. Brian (31:38) Wow, that's really cool. That's a great story. This is fascinating stuff. And it makes me want to dive deeper into the book and read through it again. But I really appreciate you coming on and sharing this with us, Goiko. This is good stuff. Again, the book is called, Lizard Optimization, Unlock Product Growth by Engaging Long Tail Users. And if I'm right, we talked about this a little bit before. We're going to offer a discount to to the listeners, Gojko (32:07) Yes, we will give you a listen as a 50 % discount on the ebook. the ebook is available from Lean Pub. If you get it from the discount URL that I'll give you, then you'll get a 50 % discount immediately. Brian (32:24) Awesome. So we'll put that in our show notes. If you're interested in that, you can find the show notes. That's a great deal, 50 % off the book and it's good stuff. well, I just, I can't thank you enough. Thanks for making time and coming on and talking this through your book. Gojko (32:40) Thank you, it was lovely to chat to you.

This week, I'm honored to be joined by not one but two brilliant screenwriters, Larry Karaszewski & Daniel Waters. Larry Karaszewski & his writing/directing/producing partner Scott Alexander are best known for writing unusual true stories such as the films ED WOOD, THE PEOPLE VS. LARRY FLYNT, MAN ON THE MOON, AUTO FOCUS, BIG EYES, DOLEMITE IS MY NAME, & the hit television miniseries THE PEOPLE VS. OJ SIMPSON: AMERICAN CRIME STORY. The team has won Emmys, Golden Globes, Producers, & Writers Guild Awards. Additionally, Larry is also a former Governor & Vice President of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences. Born in Ohio & raised in Indiana, Daniel Waters is the Edgar award-winning screenwriter of the 1988 cult classic HEATHERS starring Winona Ryder & Christian Slater. Additionally, the man who wrote or co-wrote the films BATMAN RETURNS, HUDSON HAWK, THE ADVENTURES OF FORD FAIRLANE, DEMOLITION MAN, & more, he's also the writer-director of HAPPY CAMPERS & SEX & DEATH 101. Best friends & movie buddies since their teenage years in Indiana, in the fourth season of Watch With Jen, the two joined me to dissect the films of director Michael Ritchie, & this year, they're back to take us on another trip through the films of the 1970s, courtesy of actor Jan-Michael Vincent whose luscious blonde hair & laid back approach made him one of the most popular up-and-coming stars of the era. Although initially, we agreed on five films, including BUSTER & BILLIE, THE MECHANIC, WHITE LINE FEVER, THE WORLD'S GREATEST ATHLETE, & VIGILANTE FORCE, Larry & Dan made it their mission to do as much extra credit as possible, watching everything from obscure TV movies like TRIBES & SANDCASTLES to bigger hits like HOOPER & more. Along the way, we discuss Dan's issues with JMV in the '70s & this dream (or nightmare) he had where I ruined the vibe of his party, Larry's decision to watch two JMV movies on the ceiling under laughing gas at the dentist, & much, much more. What can I say? This conversation is a journey - a rollicking, thoughtful, & very engaging journey - & you're sure to love it.Originally Posted on Patreon (8/20/24) here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/110417546Theme Music: Solo Acoustic Guitar by Jason Shaw, Free Music Archive Shop Watch With Jen logo Merchandise in Logo Designer Kate Gabrielle's Threadless ShopDonate to the Pod via Ko-fi

Jessica Kleinschmidt, Chris Townsend, Vince Cotroneo and Johnny Doskow preview the finale of the A's and Astros from the Coliseum. They were joined by Bobby Crosby, Lawrence Butler, Scott Alexander and Tommy White. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Parents, do you have a student heading off to college in the fall? Your tuition and fees are likely due! Listen in to find out more about paying that important bill. You've probably heard of Georgetown, but did you know there are other fine Jesuit colleges in the US? College Coach colleague Nicole Doyle, alumna and former admission officer at the College of Holy Cross in Massachusetts, will be talking about the values that Jesuit schools are known for and the Jesuit college experience. Last, brand new College Coach colleague Scott Alexander, former admission officer at Bates College, will be discussing colleges in and near Portland, Maine. (Be sure to catch our Portland, Oregon colleges episode from last week, July 11th, if you want to hear about both coasts!)

Is Anxiety a demon? It's a question raised, weirdly, by the most popular kids' movie in America right now--and by the entire practice of modern psycotherapy. Typically, when we try to understand mental illness, we refer to natural causes like brain chemistry or personal and family history. But are there some forms of cognitive disorder that don't originate within us--that invade us from the outside? I'm using sources both ancient and modern to tackle that question today after a listener wrote in with some provocative thoughts. Check out our sponsor, the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/youngheretics/ I maked this: Light of the Mind, Light of the World: https://a.co/d/0fUMLN9f Gateway to the Epicureans: https://a.co/d/03RaCAP5 Subscribe to be in the mailbag: https://rejoiceevermore.substack.com Subscribe to my joint substack with Andrew Klavan (no relation): https://thenewjerusalem.substack.com Scott Alexander's review of Robert Falconer: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/book-review-the-others-within-us?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web  

Chris Townsend was joined by Eno Sarris of the Athletic (1:05), A's Left-Handed Reliever, Scott Alexander (24:45), A's Starting Pitcher, Hogan Harris (34:40), Bay Area Radio Hall of Famer, Marty Lurie to reflect on the life of Willie Mays (46:35), the President of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, Bob Kendrick (1:01:17), Ken Korach (1:15:30) and A's Outfielder, Lawrence Butler (1:39:30). To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On the June 18 edition of A's Cast Live, our weekly all baseball talk show Monday through Friday, Chris Townsend was joined by A's Broadcaster Johnny Doskow to preview the A's & Royals and Hot Take Tuesday (8:40), A's Left-Handed Reliever, Scott Alexander (32:27), Royals Radio Broadcaster, Jake Eisenberg (42:49) and Eno Sarris of the Athletic (1:02:30). To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Chris Townsend, Johnny Doskow, Jessica Kleinschmidt, and Vince Cotroneo preview game one of the A's and Royals from the Coliseum. They were joined by Scott Alexander, Lawrence Butler, and Mark Kotsay. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices