ClaimsScott Alexander

“I wrote a 30,000 word condemnation of one of them on my blog a few years ago”

Scott Alexander, blog author 14 February 2021 Statement on New York Times Article (Astral Codex Ten) archived copy

Factual Their own work or organisation

Scott Alexander wrote a 30,000-word condemnation of one of the right-wing figures named in the article on his blog a few years ago.

Mixed Partly true and partly false in roughly equal measure.

Factual: Statements about the present or the past, checked against the record: did they hold up?

The second judge would not resolve this claim; the verdict shown is the first judge's.

What would count as true or false

True if, before February 2021 ("a few years ago", roughly 2–9 years earlier), Scott Alexander published on his own blog (Slate Star Codex or his earlier blog) a critique or condemnation, of about 30,000 words, of a right-wing figure, or of that figure's ideas, named in the February 2021 article he was replying to. Treat a length of about 24,000–36,000 words as consistent with "30,000". Mostly true if such a piece exists but its length is somewhat outside that band (e.g. 20,000–45,000 words), or it was published a bit longer ago than "a few years" would usually mean. Mixed if the piece mainly criticises a movement or ideology linked to the figure rather than the figure, so that whether it is a "condemnation of one of them" is genuinely unclear. Mostly false if the piece exists but is much shorter (under about 15,000 words), or targets someone not named in the article. False if no such critique by him exists on his blog.

Set before the research began.

Evidence (3)

  1. E1 Silicon Valley's Safe Space The New York Times (Cade Metz), mirrored at pdf.stafforini.com · 13 February 2021

    “He denounced the neoreactionaries, the anti-democratic, often racist movement popularized by Curtis Yarvin. But he also gave them a platform.”
  2. E2 What Ever Happened To Neoreaction? Astral Codex Ten (Scott Alexander) · 7 December 2023 Own record

    “Ten years ago, I saw some people blogging about an exciting new political philosophy called neoreaction. I looked into it, decided it was bad, and wrote a 30,000 word rebuttal.”
  3. E3 What Ever Happened To Neoreaction? Astral Codex Ten (Scott Alexander) · 7 December 2023 Own record

    “Luckily for everyone, Curtis Yarvin was in tech and seemed to be inventing a new way of being far-right”

Reasoning

The New York Times article the claim responds to [E1] independently confirms that Scott Alexander "denounced the neoreactionaries," which it calls a movement popularised by Curtis Yarvin, the figure named in the article. Alexander's own later post [E2] says that about ten years before 2023 (so around 2013, inside the 2–9 year window) he wrote "a 30,000 word rebuttal" of neoreaction as a political philosophy. [E3] links Yarvin to that movement. The 30,000-word length rests only on his own statement, and the evidence describes the piece as a rebuttal of the movement and ideology, not of Yarvin himself, so whether it counts as a "condemnation of one of them" is genuinely unclear, which the criteria define as mixed.

Cite this claim

Scott Alexander, “Scott Alexander wrote a 30,000-word condemnation of one of the right-wing figures named in the article on his blog a few years ago.” (said 14 February 2021). Verdict: mixed. Reliability API, claim c_7d9566c133b2, method 0.1.0+8bea457b, dataset release v1.1.2. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_7d9566c133b2

This claim is in dataset release v1.1.2, with the same verdict.

Reply to this claim

For Scott Alexander, or someone speaking for them: a correction or counter-evidence. Replies are read before anything is shown; an approved reply shows your name, role, date, statement and link. Your email address is never shown and is deleted 30 days after the decision (privacy).

More factual claims by Scott Alexander

  1. Mostly true Factual 5 October 2026
    “Reader Nikita Sokolsky has completed his work getting some extra Fatima documents from Portugal and translating them into English.”

    Reader Nikita Sokolsky has finished obtaining extra Fatima documents from Portugal and translating them into English.

  2. Resolved true Factual 5 October 2026
    “Rob Ennals, who made this year’s book review contest site, has gathered the reviews from earlier years into epubs here.”

    Rob Ennals, who made this year's ACX book review contest site, has gathered reviews from earlier years into epubs.

  3. Resolved true Factual 10 December 2024
    “There’s a good interview with Skarbek in last month’s issue of Asterisk, I think it will be online shortly.”

    Last month's issue of Asterisk (November 2024) contains an interview with Skarbek, which Scott thinks will be online shortly.

  4. Resolved true Factual 20 February 2023
    “Things felt so fuzzy that I (partly) abandoned my usual clear-resolution probabilistic predictions for total guesses.”

    In 2018 Scott Alexander partly abandoned his usual clear-resolution probabilistic predictions for rough guesses in his five-year predictions.

  5. Resolved true Factual 14 March 2022
    “Also last month, I suggested Manifold Markets have a loan feature to help boost investment in long-term markets.”

    In February 2022 Scott Alexander suggested that Manifold Markets add a loan feature to boost investment in long-term markets.

All of them

Verdicts are made automatically; how verdicts are made.