ClaimsScott Alexander

“Sorry I’ve written so little recently (and forgot Friday’s book review entry).”

Scott Alexander, ACX author 5 October 2026 Open Thread 454 (Astral Codex Ten) archived copy

Factual Their own work or organisation

Scott Alexander has written little recently on ACX and forgot to post Friday's book review entry.

Unresolvable The public record could not settle it.

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

There are two parts: (a) he had written little on Astral Codex Ten in the period just before 5 October 2026, and (b) no book review entry (for example a book review contest entry) was posted on the preceding Friday, 2 October 2026, when one was expected. TRUE: the ACX archive shows clearly lower-than-usual posting by Scott Alexander in the preceding weeks, and no book review entry posted on that Friday. MOSTLY TRUE: both parts hold with a minor discrepancy (for example the entry went up late that Friday, or the slowdown was modest). MIXED: one part holds and the other does not. MOSTLY FALSE: posting was near normal, and the Friday entry issue was only marginal. FALSE: the archive shows normal or high posting frequency, and a book review entry was posted on schedule that Friday.

Set before the research began.

Evidence (7)

  1. E1 Archive - Astral Codex Ten Astral Codex Ten (Substack) · 28 October 2026 Own record

    “Your Book Review: We Present Television Finalist #11 in the Book Review Contest Oct 10 • Scott Alexander”

  2. E2 Astral Codex Ten | Scott Alexander | Substack RSS feed: 4 posts a week Feeder (feeder.co) · 28 October 2026

    “About 4 times a week 4 posts, 11 weeks ago4 posts, 10 weeks ago5 posts, 9 weeks ago5 posts, 8 weeks ago4 posts, 7 weeks ago3 posts, 6 weeks ago5 posts, 5 weeks ago3 posts, 4 weeks ago5 posts, 3 weeks ago3 posts, 2 weeks ago6 posts, 1 weeks ago4 posts in the last 7 days”

  3. E3 Astral Codex Ten Podcast | iHeart iHeart · 4 September 2026 Own record

    “This is one of the finalists in the 2026 book review contest, written by an ACX reader who will remain anonymous until after voting is done. I'll be posting about one of these a week for several months.”

  4. E4 What Scott Alexander believes and where they publish ppll (third-party aggregator)

    “Our AI Midwife 2 Oct 2026 A guest post by Drew Housman”

  5. E5 What Scott Alexander believes and where they publish ppll (third-party aggregator)

    “Open Thread 453 28 Sept 2026”

  6. E6 What Scott Alexander believes and where they publish ppll (third-party aggregator)

    “Your Book Review: We Present Television 10 Oct 2026 Finalist #11 in the Book Review Contest”

  7. E7 Open Thread 452 Astral Codex Ten · 21 September 2026 Own record

    “Thanks to people who chimed in with concerns about the most recent book review finalist, This Is Going To Hurt, being partially AI-written.”

Reasoning

The feed counts (E2) show 3 and 5 posts in the weeks around early October against an average of about 4 per week, which does not clearly show lower-than-usual posting. The listings show a guest post on 2 October (E4) and a book review finalist on 10 October (E1, E6), but none is a complete record of what was posted that Friday, so the evidence does not settle either part of the claim.

Cite this claim

Scott Alexander, “Scott Alexander has written little recently on ACX and forgot to post Friday's book review entry.” (said 5 October 2026). Verdict: unresolvable. Reliability API, claim c_914f7ef41cc4, method 0.1.0+8bea457b, dataset release v1.1.2. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_914f7ef41cc4

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.