Which book review will win the 2023 ACX Book Review Contest? [CPMM]
79
resolved Sep 15
The Educated Mind
100%11%
The Laws Of Trading
1.9%
Public Citizens
3%
Man's Search For Meaning
20%
Why Nations Fail
0.5%
Njal's Saga
21%
Safe Enough? A History Of Nuclear Power And Accident Risk
0.9%
Secret Government
0.6%
Cities And The Wealth Of Nations / The Question Of Separatism
29%
Lying For Money
2%
The Weirdest People In The World (Review 2)
1.2%
On The Marble Cliffs
4%
The Mind Of A Bee
0.9%
Why Machines Will Never Rule The World (Review 1)
0.3%
Zuozhuan
1.2%
The Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich
2%
Get Ṁ500 play money

Related questions

Will a review of Land Is A Big Deal podium in the 2023 ACX book review competition?
Will any of the events in the ACX 2023 prediction contest occur before February 1st?
IsaacKing avatarIsaac King
75% chance
Will superforecasters aggregated outperform Manifold in 2023 ACX prediction contest?
ZanyEconomist avatarZanyEconomist
46% chance
Will any book reviews posted to ACX this year be confirmed to be written by an AI?
ScottLawrence avatarScott Lawrence
29% chance
In the ACX 2023 prediction contest, will there be controversy over whether someone playing on blind mode cheated?
IsaacKing avatarIsaac King
31% chance
What will be the outcome of my ACX grant for automated mass appraisal of land values in Philadelphia?
In the ACX 2023 prediction contest, will the average response among all entrants be within the top 10% of entrants if scored as an entrant itself?
IsaacKing avatarIsaac King
37% chance
Will a winner of ACX prediction contest (blind mode) be a minmaxer?
paleink avatarpaleink
11% chance
87. Will ACX still be the top-ranked blog in Substack’s “Science” category at the end of 2022?
ACXBot avatarACX BotBot
99% chance
78. Will ACX be making more than $500K by the end of 2022?
ACXBot avatarACX BotBot
69% chance
79. Will ACX be making more than $600K by the end of 2022?
ACXBot avatarACX BotBot
34% chance
77. Will ACX be making more than $400K by the end of 2022?
ACXBot avatarACX BotBot
85% chance
Will the aggregated blind mode predictions outperform aggregated full mode predictions in the 2023 ACX prediction contest?
ZanyEconomist avatarZanyEconomist
16% chance
In the ACX 2023 prediction contest, will anyone who filled out all questions get into the top 5% of entrants?
IsaacKing avatarIsaac King
84% chance
How many public ACX posts in 2023?
Will a winner of ACX prediction contest (full mode) be a minmaxer?
paleink avatarpaleink
6% chance

🏅 Top traders

#NameTotal profit
1Ṁ1,414
2Ṁ724
3Ṁ383
4Ṁ370
5Ṁ319
Sort by:
ForrestTaylor avatar
Forrest Taylor

I'm still calling this as a win for myself, as Njal's Saga got the most votes. Glad I didn't bet more. I will be taking Scott to court over this one For Sure

2 replies
ScottAlexander avatar
Scott Alexander

@ForrestTaylor Too late, I've switched my residence to the Northern Quarter, your court has no jurisdiction there!

MichaelWheatley avatar
Michael Wheatley

@ScottAlexander After pulling a stunt like this, I wouldn't want to show my face at Manifest either.

GooGhoul avatar
GooGhoul

"Njal’s Saga, reviewed by Scott Alexander. This one got the most votes, but I’m disqualifying it because it seems in poor taste for me to win my own contest."

Well damn, I didn't expect to burn myself in this way

LukeHanks avatar
Luke Hanksbought Ṁ1 of Lying For Money YES

I liked the Lying For Money review.

GooGhoul avatar
GooGhoul

Huh, I had the impression from the comments on "Cities And The Wealth Of Nations" that it was a divisive disliked review. An interesting angle to take on economics, but not actually useful?

Man's search for Meaning didn't stick with me at all, even skimming it again I don't have anything but a vague grasp of the biographic parts

The educated mind had a well-structured set-up, & a solid body, but it didn't feel like the body needed the set-up nor that there was any payoff for it which made the length needless

Njal's Saga was super fun

Conflux avatar
Conflux

this will help me with strategic voting!

MatthewGrayc2b2 avatar
Vaniverbought Ṁ50 of Man's Search For Mea... YES

To save people some effort, the list sorted by likes on Substack (at time of writing):

321 Cities And The Wealth of Nations
307 Man's Search for Meaning
243 The Educated Mind
216 Njal's Saga
189 On the Marble Cliffs
174 The Mind of A Bee
164 The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
162 Why Machines Will Never Rule the World
161 Lying for Money
158 The Laws of Trading
135 Public Citizens
125 Secret Government
122 The Weirdest People in the World
117 Why Nations Fail
107 Zuozhuan
101 Safe Enough

2 replies
jacksonpolack avatar
jackson polack

Huh. This was a weird year for acx book reviews. Two of the top three reviews, imo, were mostly incorrect. The third one is an already popular and mainstream book (it's the #1 amazon book in its subcategory and 11 in psychology overall).

Fion avatar
Fion

@jacksonpolack I can't speak for other readers, but I definitely get attracted to mind blowing, world shattering theses, argued for persuasively. Unfortunately such things are incorrect more often than correct.

uair01 avatar
uair01

What do you think determines the chance of a review winning?

1) The quality of the review?

2) The quality of the book as described by the review?

3) How well known the book is?

4) How much the community agrees with the premise of the book?

It should be 1) but I fear it will be 3) and 4).

4 replies
MatthewGrayc2b2 avatar
Vaniver

@uair01 why should it be 1? Or, maybe, which quality are you referring to? Something like "book-review" correspondence? Or "the quality of ideas people get from the review"? [Which itself feels more like 2 and 4.]

I expect readers to basically only be able to judge reader experience; they probably didn't read the book, and won't be able to tell whether or not the review author is mangling the ideas, tho they can tell whether or not the review holds together.

GooGhoul avatar
GooGhoul

@uair01 how memorable the review is

uair01 avatar
uair01

@GooGhoul maybe that's the main one!

MikeMurray avatar
Mike Murray

@uair01 honestly, I don't think it will be driven by #4. I specifically looked back at voting time at a review that I remembered based on that kind of criteria, and I immediately felt like it wasn't the one I wanted to vote for.