Top all-time · #1721
Applied Divinity Studies
Personal blog · applieddivinitystudies.comstartupseconomicsphilosophy
Applied Divinity Studies is a personal blog at applieddivinitystudies.com about startups, economics and philosophy. Since 2020, 42 different Hacker News readers have linked it 105 times, most often “San Francisco Shoplifting: Much More Than You Wanted to Know”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2025-10-27, and you can follow it by feed.
Most-linked posts?
- San Francisco Shoplifting: Much More Than You Wanted to Know5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2022-02-20
- Lambda School's CEO Is Consistently Deceptive4 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2020-11-18
- Bus Factor 14 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2020-10-24
- The Myth of the Myth of the Latte Millionaire3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-08-14
- The Transhuman Olympics3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-07-26
- The Golden Handcuffs Were Inside of You the Whole Time3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2020-11-26
- Is Time Working for or Against You?2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-01-12
- Generating Intuitions for Exponential Growth2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-05-27
- Golden Handcuffs2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-12-01
- Generating Intuitions for Exponential Growth2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-07-14
What Hacker News says?
You inspired me to customize it myself: https://applieddivinitystudies.com/slatestarsubstack/ If you download a chrome extension and paste in the provided styles, you can get a pretty good approximation of the original page!
Comment linking /slatestarsubstack/
on “Still alive”Submitted Beware the Casual Polymath as a story · 224 points
HN discussionA lot of the tech ones I follow have already been listed so I will try to list some that others may not be aware of. 1. Applied Divinity Studies. Rationalist adjacent. Obviously influenced by Scott Alexander, but less optimistic, a bit more cynical. - https://applieddivinitystudies.com/ 2. Scott Locklin's blog. He used to post on HN. Mostly covers tech related things (but physical tech, not web stuff). Many HN reade…
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on “Ask HN: Favorite Blogs by Individuals?”Submitted Where Are All the Successful Rationalists? as a story · 92 points
HN discussiona quick search shows this post dated 2020 (a long time ago) https://www.applieddivinitystudies.com/lambda-lies/
Comment linking /lambda-lies/
on “CFPB Takes Action Against Coding Boot Camp BloomTech and CEO Austen Allred”Submitted Asymmetric Opportunities and the Cult of Optionality as a story · 56 points
HN discussion> Colleges are predatory, putting kids deep into debt that they may never be able to repay and can't even remove with bankruptcy. We're not talking about colleges. The fact other scams exist in the world has zero bearing on whether one specific company is scamming people. > Whereas Lambda aligns their interests with the student. They align themselves with their investors. That's their fiduciary duty. If you want to…
Comment linking /lambda-lies/
on “Lambda School is a predatory bootcamp that lies about students outcomes”Submitted Life Advice: Become a Billionaire as a story · 48 points
HN discussionThis blog post has some really interesting thoughts on that point: https://applieddivinitystudies.com/2020/10/15/bus-factor/
Comment linking /2020/10/15/bus-factor/
on “Busting the 10x software engineer myth”Submitted Marginal Revolution Vrs Hacker News as a story · 35 points
HN discussionSome relevant links: https://www.ppic.org/publication/crime-trends-in-california/ https://citycrimestats.com/statistics/ https://applieddivinitystudies.com/sf-crime-2/
Comment linking /sf-crime-2/
on “Why Punish?”Submitted The Murder of Wilbur Wright as a story · 17 points
HN discussionHere is a more nuanced, data-oriented analysis which concludes that Walgreens probably left SF for normal corporate planning reasons: https://applieddivinitystudies.com/sf-crime-2/ > Overall, it doesn’t look like Walgreens’ 2021 closure rate requires explanation beyond pandemic effects, their own 2019 cost management program, and broader economic trends. Additionally, it appears their 2020 closure rate was below, or…
Comment linking /sf-crime-2/
on “California's Vanished Dream, by the Numbers”Submitted The Hypostatic Union of Kanye West as a story · 13 points
HN discussionOne response I haven't seen yet in this thread: invest in individual people. Consider: 1. Investing in (pre-seed) startups, whose founders possess the potential to catalyze an exit from contemporary scientific-technological stagnation (c.f. https://rootsofprogress.org/technological-stagnation , https://applieddivinitystudies.com/1970/ ) * 2. Effective altruism with a long-termist/X-risk view; one possible mechanism…
Comment linking /1970/
on “Ask HN: Burned out and almost financially independent. What to do next?”Submitted On Being a Loser, or Should You Start a Blog? as a story · 11 points
HN discussionI believe 75% was their revised number after the first set of leaks. Originally, they claimed 86%. https://web.archive.org/web/20190930144525/https://lambdasch... Some good background on their numbers games: https://applieddivinitystudies.com/lambda-lies/
Comment linking /lambda-lies/
on “BloomTech (YC S17) Faces Class Action Lawsuit for Job Claims, Unlicensed Lending”Submitted The Murder of Wilbur Wright (2020) as a story · 9 points
HN discussionI said, "After looking through Lambda School’s curriculum, I’d say students are going to struggle with very basic questions you’ll get on first phone screens," and "Out of ten student projects available, five should have failed." Yes, you had a page in the curriculum on memory management. You also rubber-stamped through people who didn't understand it, and even contracted one of those people to not-help other studen…
Comment linking /lambda-lies/
on “BloomTech, previously Lambda School, cuts half of staff”Submitted Lambda School's CEO Is Consistently Deceptive as a story · 9 points
HN discussionhttps://applieddivinitystudies.com/lambda-lies/ He also lied about having an auditor verify their placement rates. Caught asking Bookface for an auditor reference while proclaiming it was audited.
Comment linking /lambda-lies/
on “BloomTech, previously Lambda School, cuts half of staff”Submitted Life Advice: Become a Billionaire as a story · 8 points
HN discussionShades of that Atlantic article about how SF was a failed city and celebrating the recall of the DA. Everything in it was debunked talking points even before the article was published: https://applieddivinitystudies.com/sf-crime-2/ Inevitably, the dire stats are devoid of comparisons to other states, or not scaled for population etc.
Comment linking /sf-crime-2/
on “America’s Shadow Self: California from a symbol of progress to a cautionary tale”Submitted Crypto Is Stupid; Everything Is Stupid; It's All Okay as a story · 8 points
HN discussionI strongly encourage y’all to look into the rate of shoplifting in San Francisco over the last ten years. Some references: https://www.businessinsider.com/san-francisco-shoplifting-nu... https://applieddivinitystudies.com/sf-crime-2/ http://www.cjcj.org/mobile/news/13219 I know it’s possible to write all that off as liberal bias, but consider: the linked article has no data at all. Shouldn’t we, as engineers, be war…
Comment linking /sf-crime-2/
on “S.F. police announce dozens of arrests in crackdown on retail theft”Submitted San Francisco Shoplifting: Much More Than You Wanted to Know as a story · 5 points
HN discussionSubmitted On the Financialization of Society as a story · 5 points
HN discussionSubmitted I'm Donating 90% of My Recent Income to Obesity Research as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted No One Is Even Trying as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted Revising My Views on the Impact of Teachers as a story · 4 points
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