Astral Codex Ten

Astralcodexten

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Astralcodexten

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Astralcodexten is a recurring publication in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 7 times across 7 issues between October 03, 2022 and January 12, 2026. The archive places it in contexts such as “Subject: Astralcodexten Com”; “teasers of subscriber-only posts from ACX”; “ACX has an unofficial subreddit”. It most often appears alongside California, SF, Twitter.

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  • Category: Publications
  • Mention count: 7
  • Issue count: 7
  • First seen: October 03, 2022
  • Last seen: January 12, 2026

Appears In

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

CHAI, Assistance Games, And Fully-Updated Deference
October 03, 2022 · Original source
No direct inline source block was recovered for this mention.
2023 Subscription Drive + Free Unlocked Posts
January 13, 2023 · Original source
It's Bad On Purpose To Make You Click
Inline links: It's Bad On Purpose To Make You Click
If The Media Reported on Other Things Like It Does Effective Altruism
Inline links: If The Media Reported on Other Things Like It Does Effective Altruism
Biography Of Jason Shea, 44th US President
Inline links: Biography Of Jason Shea, 44th US President
Open Thread 297
October 09, 2023 · Original source
This is the weekly visible open thread. Post about anything you want, ask random questions, whatever. ACX has an unofficial subreddit, Discord, and bulletin board, and in-person meetups around the world. 95% of content is free, but for the remaining 5% you can subscribe here.
Inline links: subreddit, Discord, bulletin board, in-person meetups around the world, here
Highlights From The Comments On Mentally Ill Homeless People
July 18, 2024 · Original source
[Original post here]
Inline links: Original post here
See my review of Revolt Of The Public. As I tried to say in the first part of the post, this is reasonable and sympathetic. But if people keep not listening to your demands, then learning more about the specifics might help you understand why. There’s a dynamic in gun control debates, where the anti-gun side says “YOU NEED TO BAN THE BAD ASSAULT GUNS, YOU KNOW, THE ONES THAT COMMIT ALL THE SCHOOL SHOOTINGS”. Then Congress wants to look tough, so they ban some poorly-defined set of guns. Then the Supreme Court strikes it down, which Congress could easily have predicted but they were so fixated on looking tough that they didn’t bother double-checking it was constitutional. Then they pass some much weaker bill, and a hobbyist discovers that if you add such-and-such a 3D printed part to a legal gun, it becomes exactly like whatever category of guns they banned. Then someone commits another school shooting, and the anti-gun people come back with “WHY DIDN’T YOU BAN THE BAD ASSAULT GUNS? I THOUGHT WE TOLD YOU TO BE TOUGH! WHY CAN’T ANYONE EVER BE TOUGH ON GUNS?” I don’t know if the anti-gun people are doing anything wrong here exactly, I just know they’re going to be constantly confused and disappointed, and that anyone else who tries the same strategy will get the same results. Realistically, my excuse for writing the post was that I read this and this article by Freddie deBoer which assume that there is some clearly-defined thing called “involuntary treatment” and that the kindest option for the mentally ill and everyone else is to lift some kind of law preventing us from delivering it. Even if it’s permissible for the average person to just say “less homeless crime, please”, I feel like at the point where you’re a public intellectual leading the public discussion, you have some responsibility to start talking specifics. 2. Specific Comments And Responses Shako (blog) writes: I agree with your point in the post. I’ll add though that a policy that is adjacent to this is be “cruel and draconian” to the subset of homeless who commit anti-social crimes. If we removed the subset of criminals from west coast homelessness the problem would be still visible but far far less concerning to those of us who live among it. This is where I land too, but I think it’s very hard. If a homeless person stabs someone, then I think most places (I don’t know if this includes SF), they get prosecuted under general anti-stabbing laws, which the police mostly have enough resources to investigate. If someone just gets in people’s face a lot and screams and litters, then what? Most of the time, police won’t be around to see this. Most of the time, the victim won’t go through the trouble of pressing charges. If they did, it would be he said, she said. Even if the government puts in the effort to actually try the case, screaming at people and littering is probably a couple-month sentence at most. Eledex tells a related story in Part 3 here. A group of homeless people took up residence in an empty lot next to his house, harassed him, set things on fire, etc. This is much worse than the average homeless person just bothering tourists, but when he called the police, they never followed up. I assume if they had tried, the homeless people’s public defender could have said something like “are you sure these homeless people are the same ones who set fire to your stuff?”, Eledex would have said “they’re the homeless people camping on the lot where it happened, but I don’t, like, recognize them or anything”, the public defender would have said “well how do you know those people didn’t leave and some new homeless people came on to the lot?” and everyone would admit they couldn’t prove that. So the normal criminal system might not be set up to deal with these kinds of issues, which I think is why there’s so much demand for some extreme law that criminalizes the entire concept of being this sort of person. But I do worry that if police don’t have the resources to deal with normal crimes, then whoever is charged with enforcing the new extreme law won’t have enough resources to do it well either - and that any society capable of enforcing the new extreme law would also be capable of solving this through normal policing. Humphrey Appleby writes: Can we look at what other places do? What is eg Salt Lake City’s solution? (Possibly, export the homeless to SF). What about Zurich? Singapore? Edinburgh? The US in general and SF in particular seems to have this problem unusually bad, so one could reasonably look elsewhere for ideas. I talk a little more about this at https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/book-review-san-fransicko, but I think most places' solutions are a combination of: 1. Cheaper housing so that more people can afford homes 2. Cheaper housing so that the government has an easier time giving free homes to people who can't afford their own 3. Homeless shelters 4. Frequent bad weather, forcing the homeless to use the homeless shelters at least sometime, which gets their foot in the door 5. Laws requiring the homeless to use the homeless shelters, which I am much less against when the homeless shelters exist. Doktor Zum writes: At one point, there were something like 600,000 Americans in long-term psychiatric institutions, and that was in a less populous America. Start by locking up 600K and then lock up more. Ah, but where do you put them? The 50 states are dotted with the creepy and picturesque ruins of all the old mental asylums--you can't put them there! It's true that the current government (states, local and federal) are totally incapable of building and running a vast network of psychiatric hospitals, but don't we want government to do things like build nuclear power plants and also lots of housing? If I'm making an argument for cheaper housing and you say "government can't/won't ever allow more building," am I supposed to say that you have won the argument? Unless we want to embrace full anarcho-capitalism, we have to believe that it is possible to have a government that can do things that it did in the 1950s like (a) apprehend and detain the severely mentally ill, (b) back and create lots of nuclear power plants, and (c) build abundant housing and infrastructure. People say “we had giant institutions once, so we can do it again”. This is basically true, but with some missed subtlety. The 600,000 people in the old institutions included: Demented old people (eg Alzheimers)
Inline links: my review of Revolt Of The Public, this, this, blog, here, https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/book-review-san-fransicko
$1 billion/year in projected costs, translated into Californian, means $100 trillion quadrillion/year in actual costs. Of these, I think 3 is the biggest deal. If it’s as hard to commit someone to these institutions as it is to convict them of a crime, then these institutions don’t help much above how much the existence of prison also helps (eg not much). If you invent a new legal maneuver where it’s easier to commit someone than to convict them of a crime, then why do you even need the step where you build the institution? Just invent the legal maneuver and send more people to prison! I think that maybe the thought is that the institution seems more “humane” than prison, and so people will be more willing to allow low-friction legal maneuvers for confining people there. I think this is cope; not only won’t the institutions be more humane than prisons, but people won’t believe they are and won’t allow the low-friction legal maneuvers. Drethelin writes: What if we abolish the DEA and just let anyone buy anti-psychotics over the counter? This would be the FDA we’re abolishing, but otherwise yes, this is the sort of clever outside-the-box thinking that I appreciate from my commenters. Antipsychotics are very cheap (some well-regarded drugs like Abilify and Seroquel cost about ~$10 per month of pills). On the other hand, homeless people have very little money. So if you were going to do this, it would make sense for the government to give them away for free. These drugs have many potentially serious side effects. But it’s not clear how much homeless people’s 5-minute monthly visits with a bored Medicaid doctor does to avert these side effects, over having some kind of pharmacist or advocate or social worker in the free distribution center giving helpful advice. Like everything, I think this would only help around the edges - the fraction of homeless mentally ill people who drugs can help, who are willing to take the drugs, and who are prevented only by cost and bureaucracy. What percent is that? Low confidence guess 25%. DZ writes: I think you’re missing the goal of a short arrest (few days). Part of the problem is the homeless are in areas where society doesn’t want them to be. They’re near city downtowns where tourists spend time or near commercial districts or in otherwise nice parks. If you can arrest them for a few days and keep arresting them until they move somewhere else … the goal is to eventually force them to move to the more acceptable areas vs. least acceptable areas. This is obviously not ideal but in the mean time the city gets more tourism, more office rentals, etc. Europeans ruthlessly arrest homeless people who hang out in the touristy areas. SF doesn’t, yet. I commented that I was worried that “out of touristy areas” means “into residential areas”. And I feel worse making residents deal with this than tourists, and am less confident that the city cares enough about them to fight back. DZ responded: Agreed. People don’t want them in the residential areas or suburbs either and for good reason. But my guess is cities can identify certain areas where they would prefer the tents to set up. Something like industrial areas or run down parks. The key is that city officials should be able to use arrests as a strategy to move the tents/homeless concentrations without having to face a million lawsuits. I don’t know if there are really areas like this, but I welcome learning more from people who know cities better. SMK writes: This probably sounds draconian and cruel, too, but in fairness, all these discussions seem to assume that this person is in San Francisco and can never ever leave for some other, more affordable place. I get it -- it's tough leaving home, and maybe they'd be leaving friends. But they wouldn't be the only people leaving SF over rent prices, and they'd pretty clearly be among the most rational. So I dislike articles like this when they say things like "the average wait time for a homeless shelter bed is 826 days" or "cheap apartments in SF are $1000 / month." I have a friend who was homeless for around a year in another major American city, and he said it was always 100% feasible to get a shelter bed if he wanted one. Indeed, there were several options. On a different note, I also think that if one were going to go a "cruel and draconian" route, homeless shelters might be able to change policies to better support that and prevent some of the issues you highlight. If it takes 826 days to get a shelter bed, then zero of the typical people you mention who are briefly homeless are getting shelter beds. If all of the people who were homeless for longer were either leaving or in jail, then more of those people probably would get beds. Am I saying this is the policy I favor? No, I agree it's a hard problem and I'm not sure what the right answer is. But things like this need to be kept in mind, too. Again, I think it’s helpful to go to the specific policy level. What’s the policy here? Give homeless people brochures reminding them that other cities exist? I’m sure they know this. Give homeless cities free mandatory bus trips to those other cities? What prevents the other cities from giving them free mandatory bus trips back? Even if they don’t, what if the homeless prefer being homeless in San Francisco to having a better situation in a cheaper city? A bus from Phoenix to SF is only $60; even a homeless beggar might be able to scrounge up that much money if they’re motivated. Maybe some plan like making a deal with a big cheap city in Texas to take SF homeless in exchange for money, and as soon as the homeless get off the bus, they’re met by a Texan social worker who gives them a shelter bed and social services? Might help along the edges, but remember that only about half of homeless people want/will accept shelter beds (depending on how good the shelter beds are). Sergei writes: After checking a bit, let me point out the obvious. What works elsewhere is PATERNALISM. Once you are in the "clutches of psychiatry", they don't let you go. Upon release you are placed into some sort of housing, your appointments are monitored and a social worker will find you and drive you there. You will be given multiple chances to get a job and/or rehab. Your meds will be delivered to you if you cannot pick them up. They remind you to take them. There will be a social safety net so you are never in a situation where you end up on the street unless you really really try to. In retrospect, it makes sense: people who are not able to take care of themselves for a time because of a fixable mental infirmity are taken care of by the state, until they can. That's what we do with children already. I continue to want people to provide details. “They don't let you go" - okay, so the person is in a locked facility? Placed in "some kind of housing"? Does the housing have locks on the door, or can they leave? What if they do leave? "Multiple chances to get a job", oh, great, with whom? How are you enforcing that they take mentally ill people? What happens when the mentally ill people are less good workers than other people they could hire, or have some kind of crisis on the job, as even the best-treated person might once in a while? Maybe we can charitably fill in the details. Something like: Ban some combination of camping outside and being visibly mentally ill.
Inline links: writes
Your Book Review: Silver Age Marvel Comics
August 16, 2024 · Original source
You are a serious person with serious interests. The last comic book you read was more likely by Bryan Caplan than Jonathan Hickman. You would prefer to be reading high quality book reviews on AstralCodexTen. You believe ACX book reviews are usually more insightful than the books themselves, and a far more efficient use of your time. But even book reviews take time to process, and there are a lot of book reviews to read. Why spend your valuable time reading an 11,000 word review of superhero comic books?
Given Marvel Comics, why Silver Age (1961-1965)? I.a. Why Superhero Comic Books? The winner of last year’s Astral Codex Ten book review contest was Brandon Hendrickson. Brandon wrote about Kieran Egan’s The Educated Mind. One of the foundations of Egan’s educational philosophy is that people learn through stories. He believes early education should focus on teaching lessons through myths and legends. This matches my experience. My kids’ favorite podcast is Greeking Out – a very well produced, very entertaining, National Geographic podcast about Greek Legends. Aside #1: When my oldest daughter was three years old she would ask everyone she met “Do you know any myths? Can you tell me a myth?” She especially liked asking people from different places to get myths from their local cultures. Once, she asked the question to a friend of mine who grew up in South Africa, “Can you tell me any South African myths?” He struggled for a minute and then said, “Okay! I have one! Bread never falls butter side down!”. That was not the type of myth she was looking for; nor the type of myth we will be discussing in this review. Every culture has foundational myths. These stories are entertaining and engaging, but they also teach valuable lessons about both what is important in that culture, and how people in that culture are expected to behave (or at least the Platonic Ideal of how they should behave). In the modern, Western world, we have assimilated many of these foundational stories, particularly the Greek myths. My kids definitely know the Greek myths, but they also know elements of Norse mythology, Egyptian myths, stories about Anasi from West Africa and more. More fundamentally my wife and I, while not religious ourselves, have made a point of exposing the kids to the stories from the Bible. It is not politically correct to call Biblical stories “myths”, but they serve the same purpose – shared cultural understanding of the way the world works. My wife grew up without any religion, and when she was in high school, she struggled with the metaphors and religious allegories that were omnipresent in most of the Western canon. In our culture, familiarity with the Bible is important for an educated person – whether they are religious or not – because it is the foundation of so much of the rest of our culture. I believe the other set of mythological stories that are foundational to our culture are – and by this point I am sure you see where I am going here – comic book superheroes. If true, then having more than a surface-level understanding of the most important superhero stories is important in a similar way to that knowing the Bible stories is important. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” is an important idea to understand. So is, “With great power comes great responsibility”. I.b. Why Marvel? While there are many independent superheroes that are not owned by major conglomerates, the superheroes who have built our modern foundational myths are currently owned by two corporations. Warner Bros. Discover owns the DC library of superheroes including Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. In 2009 Disney purchased Marvel Comics and took ownership of their characters, including Spiderman, X-men and the Avengers. Aside #2: Marvel has sold temporary film rights to many of their characters over the years. The most relevant sales started in 1994 when Marvel sold the film rights of X-men and mutants to 20th century Fox, then in 1996, when Marvel went bankrupt, Fox picked up the rights to the Fantastic Four (and New Line picked up Blade). In 1999 Marvel sold the film rights (and live action TV, and animated TV longer than 44 minutes) of Spider-man and related characters to Columbia Pictures (part of Sony) for $7MM. Marvel actually attempted to sell ALL of their remaining Marvel IP film rights to Sony for $25MM, but the top management at Sony was not interested. Sony’s management allegedly told their chief negotiator “Nobody gives a shi*t about any of the other Marvel characters. Go back and do a deal for only Spider-Man). Disney acquired Marvel in 2009, and then Fox in 2019, bringing the two separated packages of characters all back together under one roof (Blade reverted back to Marvel in 2012). Sony still owns the rights to Spider-man but has made a deal with Disney to include some of his films within the Marvel-Disney universe. Marvel sold the film rights of The Hulk to Universal in 1990 and the current status of that agreement is complicated (the consensus is that Marvel now controls the film rights to the character, but Universal owns distribution rights to any stand-alone Hulk film, which could be why Disney let's Hulk co-star in Thor movies, but not vice versa). In the early aughts Marvel wanted to build their own film franchise, but were limited to only using their remaining “B-list” characters – Spider-man, X-men, and the Fantastic Four were all off limits. Fortunately, Kevin Feige, president of production for Marvel at the time, saw a way forward. He convinced Ike Perlmutter, Marvel CEO, to allow for the production of a series of films with the remaining characters begining with Iron Man (2008). Jon Favreau directed and cast Robert Downey Jr as Tony Stark. The film blew away expectations. Kevin’s plan of a series of movies where the characters would interconnect was suddenly feasible. Iron Man was followed by The Incredible Hulk, Thor, and Captain America: The First Avenger. None managed the box office magic of Iron Man, but all were successful enough that the plan stayed on track. In 2012 the characters were all brought together in the first Avengers film, which opened to over $200MM domestically and went on to gross more than $1.5B (which made it the 3rd highest grossing film of all time). Marvel became the first studio to take the interconnected world of their comic books and make the model work on the big screen (for a much larger audience). Once the model was proven to work, other studios tried to duplicate it. Aside #3: Warner Bros’ stumbles with the DC shared universe of Batman, Superman and the Justice League are well known, but that was actually their SECOND attempt at a shared universe. Their first attempt tried to copy the Marvel method more closely. They chose their own B-list hero and set up his first film to allow for a wider mythology. Alas Green Lantern (2011) failed at the box office and we never got stand-alone films about Sinestro (Yellow Lantern), Carol Ferris (Star Sapphire, the Violet Lantern), John Stewart (African American Green Lantern), Kyle Rayner (1990s Green Lantern), Alan Scott (original Green Lantern), or the Blue, Red, and Orange Lantern Corps. At least so far, no studio has successfully created anything with close to the traction obtained by the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). Warner’s DC Extended universe (DCEU) had trifling success, but is being shelved and rebooted for a fresh attempt next year. Universal’s attempt at a “Dark Universe” kicked off with Tom Cruise in The Mummy (2017), but was dead on arrival. Paramount’s attempt to link the Transformers Universe to GI Joe at the end of Transformers: Rise of the Beasts has been appropriately mocked. Sony’s Spider-man films linked to the MCU have been very successful, but their attempt at a stand-alone non-MCU Spider-man universe using Spider-man’s villains as anti-heroes has floundered (mostly succeeding only as a source of memes). Next Mattel will be attempting to build a universe off the success of last year’s Barbie and may include Polly Pocket, American Girl, Hot Wheels, and He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (no word yet on Thomas the Tank Engine, View Master and the Magic-8 Ball, but all are apparently in development). To date, only Marvel has successfully built a “Cinematic Universe”. One potential reason for the MCU’s success is that Kevin Feige built his cinematic universe on the back of the existing interconnected universe of the comics. But those comics were not the first interconnected universe of stories. For that we would need to go back to our foundational myths. The Bible stories mostly interconnect. Adam and Eve flows into Cain and Abel. David and Goliath leads to the Wisdom of Solomon. Greek Myths DEFINITELY interconnect. Supporting characters in one Greek myth have starring roles in their own stories. The Greek pantheon of tales even have their own version of the Avengers. In the Quest for the Golden Fleece, Jason brings together the Argonauts, who included in their number Theseus (who defeated the Minotaur), Orpheus (who braved the underworld) and Hercules himself – all A-list stars in their own “franchises”. Stand alone stories that exist within an interconnected universe are rare in modern media but were common in the ancient myths that have stood the test of time. Only Marvel has successfully created a shared universe that follows the pattern of ancient myths. Only Marvel films have stand-alone stories and protagonists who exist together in an interconnected world. Something about that method of storytelling is deeply pleasing for humans across many cultures. Marvel films are the first and most successful modern version of the mythological universe, and that it is worth spending more time exploring Marvel’s underlying mythology and where it came from. I.c. Why 1961? The origins of Christianity and Judaism (and Buddhism and Hinduism) are very murky. Even Islam is far enough in the past that we only have a very rough understanding of how it came to exist. When scholars want to understand in detail how a new religion is born they are far better to look at Mormonism or, if you accept it as a religion, Dianetics. Similarly, we have versions of Greek myths that have been passed down to us, but we can never know how those myths changed from their first telling to their “final” versions. Were the stories once unrelated, and only later became crafted into a single “universe”? Or were the stories built off each other one by one (“Dad that Golden Fleece story was amazing! Do you know any other stories about the Hercules guy?”)? Or was it something in between? Perhaps the stories all existed independently, but were later crafted together (“Remember that 12-labors story I told you? Actually that was the same guy who was on the Argo!”) Unlike Greek legends, we can know the origin of the Marvel Universe. We can see how it was constructed step-by-step. The people who did it (most importantly Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and Steve Ditko) are dead now, but they have not been dead for long. We can read the original work, see how it changed over the last 60 years, and we can ask the creators “what were you thinking at the time” (or at least read their answers from old interviews). We can’t always trust what Stan Lee says, but at least we can hear his point of view. No one has a transcript of an interview with Homer, or knows exactly what he was thinking when he called it the “wine-dark sea”. Tl;dr: Why read about Marvel Comic superheroes 1961-1965? Because interconnected mythological stories are very important to cultures, Marvel is the leading contender of the most recent modern mythology, and it originated in the first half-decade of the 1960s. II. How did Marvel Superhero Comics happen? Timely Comics published their first comic book in 1939 and called it “Marvel Comics”. Their most popular World War II comics included Captain America, the Human Torch (an android unrelated to the modern Human Torch except in powers, appearance and name), and Namor, the Submariner. In the early 1950s superheroes became less popular, so Timely changed its name to Atlas Comics and focused on humor, western, horror, war and science fiction stories. But in 1956 DC Comics began re-introducing their Golden Age superheroes and, in the second half of the 1950s, the genre took off again – particularly Superman, whose title, Action Comics, became the number one selling comic in America. Stan Lee, editor and chief at Atlas at the time, wanted to get in on the superhero action. Unfortunately in 1957 Atlas lost its distributor and the company had to rely on “Independent News” to get its comics on newsstands. The complication was that Independent News was owned by “National Periodical Publications”, who also owned DC-comics and did not want Atlas to introduce superheroes to compete with Superman, Green Lantern and the Flash. Independent News agreed to distribute Atlas comics but limited the publisher to eight titles per month, and only in non-super hero genres (like horror, romance and science fiction). Blocked from creating and launching new superhero titles, Stan Lee got creative, and in August 1961 Atlas Comics published Fantastic Four #1. Aside #4: Fantastic Four #1 was on newsstands in August 8th, 1961, but the date on the cover was November 1961. The convention at the time was that the cover date was not the “publication date” but rather the “pull date”. The pull date was the time when the retailer could send back unsold copies back to the publisher for a refund. In fact the retailer did not need to send the entire issue back, just the cover, as it was assumed that comic books could not be sold without the cover, and it saved on postage. This was only relevant because it was great for my dad who was a child at the time. My dad was friends with the kid whose father owed the local pharmacy which meant he had access to every comic book published in the late 1950s as long as he was willing to wait a few months and read it without a cover. Going forward in this essay I will always use the pull dates rather than the publication dates for individual comic book issues as they are far easier to source. If you want to convert pull dates back into publication dates you can subtract roughly two months, but it is inconsistent and sometimes longer, as was the case with Fantastic Four #1. Check out the cover of Fantastic Four #1: To the modern eye this certainly looks like a superhero comic. Four heroes with super powers fighting a giant monster. But in the eyes of publishers in 1961 this looked more like a science fiction adventure comic than something that would go head to head with Superman. Here are the covers of Action Comics (the best selling superhero comic at the time) from the three months leading up to Fantastic Four #1: Notice what they have in common? “Super Rivals”, “Super revenge”, “Super Substitutes”. And all include Superman in his blue and red tights. Fantastic Four’s cover featured super powers, but never used the word “super” and no one was wearing superhero costumes. Fantastic Four, as a superhero story, slipped under the radar because it wasn’t really a superhero story at all. It was a story about four close friends who attempted to fly into space, but then something goes wrong and they crash back to Earth. The experience changes them and they decide they now need to use their new abilities to help the rest of humanity – specifically against monsters who are invading from under the Earth. It is a fantastical science fiction story – not a superhero story. Later in his career Jack Kirby, the illustrator of the issue and co-creator of the Fantastic Four, was asked about his inspiration for the Fantastic Four heroes. He did NOT say Superman – or any superhero. He said Challengers of the Unknown. Challengers of the Unknown was an adventure story co-created by Kirby in Showcase #6 in February 1957. Here is how Wikipedia describes the Challengers origin: When acquaintances miraculously survive a plane crash unscathed, they conclude that since they are "living on borrowed time" they should band together for hazardous adventures. The four—pilot Kyle "Ace" Morgan, daredevil Matthew "Red" Ryan, strong and slow-witted Leslie "Rocky" Davis, and scientist Walter Mark "Prof" Haley—became the Challengers of the Unknown. Showcase #6, and the first appearance of the Challengers of the Unknown, by Jack Kirby Visually the Challengers and the Fantastic Four were similar. Both wore skin tight uniforms with belts and minimal decoration. The Fantastic Four’s relatively simple characterizations were practically pulled from Challengers. Reed takes on the traits of both Kyle, the leader, and Walter, the scientist. Johnny, the Human Torch is the daredevil. The Thing is “strong and slow-witted”. Sue, the only woman on the team, seems like a new addition, but is likely based on June Robbins who joined the Challengers team in Showcase #7, as an “honorary” or “girl-Challenger”. After surviving their respective “miraculous” crashes, both the Challengers and the Fantastic Four band together to help the world. They both travel through space and other dimensions, fighting mad scientists and monsters. The Fantastic Four’s early antagonists were not traditional super villains. In the first few issues they fight monsters from under the Earth (Issue #1), shape changing aliens (#2), and a charlatan who uses hypnotism to steal from his audience (#3). In issue #4 Kirby and Lee re-introduce Namor, the Submariner, one of Marvel’s top IP from the 1940s, and have him kidnap Sue. Only in Issue #5 and #6 (June and August 1962) and do we get a more standard-supervillain when Dr Doom attempts to steal the Fantastic Four headquarters and throw it into space. The next superhero Lee created was even less heroic than the Fantastic Four. In April 1962 (pull date), Marvel published The Incredible Hulk. If it was even a superhero story in disguise it was a very good disguise. The story was a scientific-filtered version of Dr Jekyl and Mr Hyde. It was a pure monster-story with nothing very super about it. Nothing on the cover suggests this has anything to do with superheroes: It is not clear if even Lee at the time thought the Hulk would be a superhero. In Fantastic Four #5 Johnny is reading a “great new comic mag” and mocks the Thing by comparing him to the Hulk. It seems pretty clear at this point that in the Fantastic Four’s world, the Hulk is just a fictional comic book, like in ours (more on that later): The other two superheroes the Marvel introduces in this period have even more subtle introductions. At the time Marvel had a number of generic-sounding titles and told science fiction and fantasy stand-alone stories: Tales to Astonish
Inline links: The Educated Mind, Greeking Out, Nobody gives a shi*t about any of the other Marvel characters. Go back and do a deal for only Spider-Man, Dark Universe, appropriately mocked, memes, attempting to build a universe, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!MbHP!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F63b4711e-2248-4120-897e-bba8a595a28b_405x616.png, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!OCj5!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9afeb585-b58b-4932-8702-153b4fdf135d_619x305.png, Wikipedia, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!OzTl!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F49fd3582-b5bd-4567-b5e9-cca46c1f1c49_425x615.png, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!lfiM!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc23c3ad1-5fed-4063-8ac2-d9d89e69bee6_252x398.png, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!oV4t!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F346f85d9-580b-4eb2-b91c-3422003613d5_591x572.png
Open Thread 355
November 11, 2024 · Original source
This is the weekly visible open thread. Post about anything you want, ask random questions, whatever. ACX has an unofficial subreddit, Discord, and bulletin board, and in-person meetups around the world. 95% of content is free, but for the remaining 5% you can subscribe here. Also:
Inline links: subreddit, Discord, bulletin board, in-person meetups around the world, here
1: New subscribers-only post, Game Theory Of Michigan Muslims, about when you should vote for a worse candidate to punish a better candidate.
Inline links: Game Theory Of Michigan Muslims
2: Comments on things related to last week’s Polymarket post: Michael Wiebe argues that Theo the French whale’s contrarian polling take was based on a simple misunderstanding of how to read polls (I stand by my claim that a single success demonstrates almost nothing about the trustworthiness of the underlying process). And Alex Tabarrok says more about why this was a big victory for prediction markets.
Inline links: Polymarket post, argues that Theo the French whale’s contrarian polling take was based on a simple misunderstanding of how to read polls, says more about why this was a big victory for prediction markets
Open Thread 416
January 12, 2026 · Original source
This is the weekly visible open thread. Post about anything you want, ask random questions, whatever. ACX has an unofficial subreddit, Discord, and bulletin board, and in-person meetups around the world. Most content is free, some is subscriber only; you can subscribe here. Also:
Inline links: subreddit, Discord, bulletin board, in-person meetups around the world, here
1: New subscriber-only post, Sell Me This Pen, a set of ultrashort stories based on the classic sales interview question.
Inline links: Sell Me This Pen