References

External website sources used in this research (public URLs only).

Primary texts

• Meditations On Moloch — Scott Alexander, Slate Star Codex (30 Jul 2014)
• Meditations On Moloch — LessWrong mirror
• Misperceptions On Moloch — Slate Star Codex (1 Aug 2014)
• Howl — Allen Ginsberg (Poetry Foundation)

Schmachtenberger and related

• Misalignment, AI & Moloch — Daniel Schmachtenberger & Liv Boeree (YouTube)
• Misalignment, AI & Moloch — Civilization Emerging
• Artificial Intelligence and the Superorganism — Nate Hagens with Daniel Schmachtenberger (17 May 2023)
• Artificial Intelligence and the Superorganism — organism.earth library
• Liv Boeree on Healthy vs Unhealthy Competition — Hear This Idea
• Multipolar Traps or Moloch Traps — Conversational Leadership

Empirical AI application

• Moloch’s Bargain: Emergent Misalignment When LLMs Compete for Audiences — El & Zou, arXiv:2510.06105 (7 Oct 2025)
• Moloch’s Bargain — arXiv HTML

Background

• Tragedy of the Commons — Hardin, Science 1968
• Nick Bostrom, Superintelligence (Oxford University Press, 2014) — cited inside Alexander’s essay