Astral Codex Ten

Atlantic

6 min read

Atlantic

Article

Atlantic is a recurring publication in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 5 times across 5 issues between August 05, 2021 and March 11, 2026. The archive places it in contexts such as “I think the Atlantic article and its global warming metaphor are totally off base”; “David Brooks reconsiders Bobos 20 years later (Atlantic)”; “the Atlantic published an article saying that people who like quiet are racist”. It most often appears alongside New York Times, California, China.

Metadata

  • Category: Publications
  • Mention count: 5
  • Issue count: 5
  • First seen: August 05, 2021
  • Last seen: March 11, 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.

Adumbrations Of Aducanumab
August 05, 2021 · Original source
…anyway, The Atlantic says the FDA needs to be stricter and wait longer to approve things, and I am against this.
In conclusion, and contra The Atlantic, the FDA approving aducanumab is not very much like global warming at all. It is more like global warming in an alternate universe, where the government sometimes approves pollutants, and then everyone is forced to emit millions of tons of them whether they want to or not. Sometimes the government orders people to build a coal plant in the middle of the desert where nobody lives, a coal plant that isn't even connected to anything and just burns lots of coal without producing any electricity. But also, elderly people frequently freeze to death because the government refuses to give them permission to heat their house in the middle of winter. There is lively debate over whether the government should build more useless coal plants or let more elderly people freeze to death, and anyone who thinks there should be a better way of doing things is condemned as some kind of fringe libertarian. I really cannot stress enough how accurate this metaphor is or how much everything in the medical system is like this.
Lots of people have been writing about aducanumab, but this Atlantic article in particular bothers me.
Inline links: this
Book Review: First Sixth Of Bobos In Paradise
December 01, 2022 · Original source
David Brooks reconsiders Bobos 20 years later (Atlantic)
Inline links: David Brooks reconsiders Bobos 20 years later
Lukianoff And Defining Cancel Culture
August 21, 2024 · Original source
C2: A little while ago, the Atlantic published an article saying that people who like quiet are racist and need to shut up, because noise is objectively vibrant and good. I have strong noise sensitivities that already make it hard for me to go out in public places, this felt like denying my right to exist in public, and I got angrier than I’ve ever gotten at anything in the media. I’m still so mad I’m not sure I’ll ever link an Atlantic article on ACX again, and I have trouble staying civil when I encounter people who work for the Atlantic. This isn’t out of some well-thought-out political strategy, just that it would personally warm my heart if the Atlantic failed as a business and everyone associated with it died of starvation. Probably this is dysfunctional and I should get over it eventually. But am I morally obligated to get over it for reasons of cancel culture in particular? Should I force myself to buy an Atlantic subscription, if I think that I would have bought one if not for my anger here? Would the answer be any different if it were an article criticizing transgender people?
In fact, let’s expand on these last two. Suppose (getting back to hypotheticals), that the Atlantic publishes something unbelievably offensive. Maybe “Stay-at-home fathers are pathetic failures, and CPS should take away their children and put them in more traditional families”. Thousands of stay-at-home fathers get angry and write in saying they’re cancelling their subscriptions. Millions sign an open letter demanding they apologize, and the Atlantic is hemorrhaging credibility among other journalists and potential sources. The CEO meets with the writer and editor, tells them they’re idiots, and fires them.
P1: The stay-at-home fathers were wrong to be angry that the Atlantic called them pathetic failures and urged the state to abduct their children. They are morally required to react like perfectly equanimous Buddhist monks. Certainly they are forbidden to cancel their subscriptions.
Links For October 2025
October 30, 2025 · Original source
38: Eliezer and Nate’s book If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies is now out and is an NYT bestseller. Authors’ Atlantic article here (paywalled). Online resources/FAQ/answers to objections here. My review here. Peter Wildeford’s review here. Mostly negative Asterisk review here, criticisms/arguments about the Asterisk review here, Eliezer’s response to this line of criticism here (X). I thought all the reviews, positive and negative, had something useful to say - except the NYT review, which was remarkably bad (Steven Adler points out that it accuses the book of failing to define the term “superintelligence”, but it very explicitly does that on page 4). I read Literary Substack sometimes, and I am so confused - it seems like there’s this entire ecosystem of Ivy graduates who spend years backstabbing each other in order to win the one bigshot publication book reviewer slot, and then the 1/1000 who reach this exalted position phone it in and don’t even read the books they’re reviewing.
Inline links: If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies, an NYT bestseller, here, here, here, here, here, here, here (X), was remarkably bad
Last Rights
March 11, 2026 · Original source
There are op-eds too. Here’s how the Atlantic wants to fix Congress. The New York Times of course has a solution. Here on Substack, Matt Yglesias thinks proportional representation is the solution, and Nicholas Decker has an especially interesting solution.
Inline links: wants, solution, the solution, solution