Top all-time · #290
Alexey Guzey
Personal blog · guzey.com · on HN as guzeyproductivityphilosophywriting
Alexey Guzey's personal blog at guzey.com covers productivity, philosophy and writing. Since 2018, 169 different Hacker News readers have linked it 248 times, most often ““Why We Sleep” Is Riddled with Scientific and Factual Errors”. The last post was in 0001, but the archive is still widely read.
Sometimes recommended · 13 of 40 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Alexey Guzey's critique of Why We Sleep as the most exhaustive criticism of that book, and his favourite-blog and link pages as recommended reading.
- Recommended for · 13 comments
- the Why We Sleep critique called most exhaustive and worth a read; posts called very good and interesting; the Best of Twitter page called the best curation lis
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 40 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
I’m on a quest to become wiser. I’m most inspired by Chardin, Tolstoy, Montaigne, and Cowen. Special thanks to Tyler, Graham, Sam, and Jacob. My Twitter is @alexeyguzey. Feel free to email me at alexey@guzey.com. Feel free to call me during reasonable ET times at (617) 386 0497. If you’d like to as
Most-linked posts?
- “Why We Sleep” Is Riddled with Scientific and Factual Errors71 people · 80 mentions · first linked 2019-11-15
- Start a Blog10 people · 10 mentions · first linked 2020-01-01
- How to Make Friends over the Internet7 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2019-08-23
- Cold emails and Twitter (2018)6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2019-01-05
- How Life Sciences Actually Work6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2019-08-15
- Co-working with friends over video in virtual gather.town office5 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2021-07-19
- Lifehacks by Alexey Guzey5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2023-03-11
- Every productivity thought I've ever had, as concisely as possible5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2019-08-19
- /books/why-we-sleep/4 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2019-12-29
- /books/why-we-sleep4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2020-07-26
What Hacker News says?
I’m not saying that specific section of the book is wrong, but you should be aware that both the book and author have come in for some pretty serious criticism, including misrepresenting research https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep
Comment linking /books/why-we-sleep
on “American Academy of Sleep Medicine calls for elimination of daylight saving time”Submitted Every productivity thought I've ever had, as concisely as possible as a story · 634 points
HN discussionUnfortunately full of errors: https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep/
Comment linking /books/why-we-sleep/
on “Ask HN: Mind bending books to read and never be the same as before?”Submitted The effects on cognition of sleeping 4 hours per night for 12-14 days as a story · 407 points
HN discussionCareful with this one, the content is controversial and considered unscientific: https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep/
Comment linking /books/why-we-sleep/
on “Ask HN: Mind bending books to read and never be the same as before?”Submitted Planes are still decades away from displacing most bird jobs as a story · 341 points
HN discussionYou are in for a treat: https://www.slatestarcodexabridged.com/ https://guzey.com/favorite/slate-star-codex/ https://danwahl.net/blog/slate-star-codex
Comment linking /favorite/slate-star-codex/
on “Still alive”Submitted “Why We Sleep” Is Riddled with Scientific and Factual Errors as a story · 312 points
HN discussionGot it. I apologize if my tone was too harsh. I do stand by all of the bold-font headings, but yes, primarily the post is directed at Walker. My current stance on sleep is that we don't know much about it and we don't know much about how much exactly we need to sleep. I'm collecting some notes on sleep (very preliminary so far) here: https://guzey.com/sleep/
Comment linking /sleep/
on “Ask HN: Best books you read in the past decade?”Submitted It is your responsibility to follow up (2019) as a story · 194 points
HN discussionIf you're interested in the clearest example of deliberate data manipulation, feel free scroll down directly to section 18: https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep/#appendix-what-do-you-d... Once you have such an obvious example of Walker deliberately fudging the data, all of the other points I make will read differently.
Comment linking /books/why-we-sleep/
on “Ask HN: Best books you read in the past decade?”Submitted “Why We Sleep” Is Riddled with Scientific and Factual Errors as a story · 159 points
HN discussionHi, I'm the author of that critique. >Point 1: the chart bottoms out at 7, which falls within the range the book recommends. I'm fairly sure he recommends 7-9, and that the required amt varies from person to person. Another thought I had: metabolism and longevity go hand and hand. I mean, I just read a brand new paper from George Church's Harvard lab, showing that they reversed several chronic ailments in mice by in…
Comment linking /books/why-we-sleep/
on “Ask HN: Best books you read in the past decade?”Submitted Every thought about giving and taking advice I’ve ever had as a story · 133 points
HN discussionRe: Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker, this critique of the book is worth a read: https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep/
Comment linking /books/why-we-sleep/
on “Ask HN: Best books you read in the past decade?”Submitted Co-working with friends over video in virtual gather.town office as a story · 100 points
HN discussionI agree! The best websites are those maintained by individuals without a profit motive. Here's a short list that I've started collecting: - Kevin Kelly: kk.org - Patrick Collison: patrickcollison.com - Patrick McKenzie: kalzumeus.com - David Perell: perell.com - Berthub.eu - Alexey Guzey: https://guzey.com/ - https://www.gwern.net/index - https://astralcodexten.substack.com/ - https://dcgross.com/ - Paul Graham: pau…
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: Favorite Blogs by Individuals?”Submitted I'm terrified of old people as a story · 97 points
HN discussionMy favourite ones (mainly tech or bio related): - https://www.gwern.net/index - https://guzey.com/ - https://nintil.com/ - https://astralcodexten.substack.com/ - https://waitbutwhy.com/
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: Favorite Blogs by Individuals?”Submitted Theses on Sleep as a story · 97 points
HN discussionI really enjoy sites that have extremely long linkrolls on them, but they tend to always be static linkrolls of the homepages of sites or blogs rather than pointing at specific high quality posts or areas of those sites. Sites that have a 'cool links I was looking at last month'-esque Link section are very interesting though. Alexey Guzey's site[0] is a good example of this kind of thing. [0] https://guzey.com/links…
Comment linking /links/2019/4/
on “textfiles.com”Submitted I switched my newsletters from Substack and Mailchimp to Buttondown as a story · 91 points
HN discussion> Matthew Walker's Why We Sleep is another example of a book offering good advice There were actually several people challenging the claims made by Matthew walker, probably the most exhaustive of them is Alexey Guzey's critique of 'Why we sleep'[0]. The general point is that he takes scientific evidence and then incorrectly infers from it conclusions that fit his narrative. [0] https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep/
Comment linking /books/why-we-sleep/
on “Attention Is My Most Valuable Asset for Productivity as a Software Developer”Submitted “Why We Sleep” Is Riddled with Scientific and Factual Errors as a story · 89 points
HN discussionhttps://guzey.com/personal/how-to-use-your-wife/ :-)
Comment linking /personal/how-to-use-your-wife/
on “Every productivity thought I've ever had, as concisely as possible”Submitted How Life Sciences Actually Work as a story · 88 points
HN discussionThanks - I think that's fair, but it doesn't necessarily get out of the way without casualties. I'm bothered when something that is still uncertain is put forward as true, I think people are generally over confident where they should be less certain. Even this can be harmful in ways people don't expect [0]. It becomes really harmful though when stuff known to be false is pushed as true (conspiracy theories like not…
Comment linking /books/why-we-sleep/
on “One hour of slow breathing changed my life”Submitted Cold emails and Twitter (2018) as a story · 60 points
HN discussionYou should probably check out "Matthew Walker's "Why We Sleep" Is Riddled with Scientific and Factual Errors": https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep/
Comment linking /books/why-we-sleep/
on “Discovering the brain’s nightly “rinse cycle””Submitted How life sciences work: Findings of a year-long investigation (2019) as a story · 56 points
HN discussion
