In my social media bios, I have often described myself as a digital knowledge fanatic. With that I try to encapsulate my excitement about how digital technologies hold almost infinite potential of helping us better understand just about every aspect of the world.
From the immediate availability of nearly everything, or the automatic cross-referencing of sources, to incorporating more visual and engaging learning techniques, or connecting us with people whose existence we completely ignored. The internet has been –and will continue to be– a total game changer.
Along this line, sometimes you come across content of incredibly high quality, even some that can really blow your mind. But, to an extent that you actually feel a little pain from not having discovered it sooner? That, I would say, occurs far less often. And yet, that was my experience when I first came across Slate Star Codex a couple of years ago.
The project, later –rather dramatically– morphed into Astral Codex Ten, opened my eyes to new frontiers of knowledge. From many perspectives. The more obvious ones, content-in-itself. The topics covered by Scott Alexander –its author’s chosen pseudonym– ranged from modern rationalism or effective altruism, and their foes, to open sexuality or fast-changing internet culture, and the to-be-avoided mantle of ridicule with which others approach such subjects.
But it also provided a less visible, yet equally important perspective. Crucial inspiration on how to document curiosity-fuelled wide-ranging interests in a way that it can persist and be leveraged by others. And in that, Scott Alexander’s project, with his exemplary reliance on research, and features like its community book reviews, his perspective of predictions, the finely argued ‘contra’ articles, or the resource compilations in open threads –both the no-politics and politics-allowed ones–, provides a unique source of inspiration.
I wholeheartedly encourage any reader to tap into the Alexander’s intellectual project as a reliable fountain of knowledge and encouragement.
