Scott Alexander

Scott Alexander (pen name) is a psychiatrist and blogger whose writing at Slate Star Codex (2013–2020) and Astral Codex Ten (2021–) became central to the rationalist community. His essays are long — often 5,000+ words — but feel short.

His first move is ergonomic: divide things into small chunks, avoid walls of text. Headers, numbered lists, paragraph breaks. The reader always knows where they are. This is why his writing is “great” in a specific sense: it’s easy to read even when it’s hard to think.

He steelmans relentlessly — stating opposing views better than their proponents. This signals intellectual honesty: surviving objections have genuinely been considered. And he deploys humor as pressure release, keeping cognition from overheating.

His signature pattern: insight + humor + relentless questioning + (often) exhaustive analysis. Never more than one new concept per paragraph.

Related: [[explanatory-writing]], [[epistemic-posture]], [[cognitive-handholds]]