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Benjamin Studebaker
Personal blog · benjaminstudebaker.compoliticseconomicsphilosophy
Benjamin Studebaker's personal blog at benjaminstudebaker.com covers politics, economics and philosophy. Since 2015, 7 different Hacker News readers have linked it 10 times. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-08-22, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (7) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link this blog on politics, economics and history, including a broad overview of neoliberalism, a 2016 election analysis, and a minimum wage fact-check. Commenters mostly cite it as a source.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 7 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Yet Another Attempt to Make the World a Better Place by Writing Things
What Hacker News says?
> I wonder what the motivation was for such over-the-top decoration? Lots of money sloshing around and a desire to make things beautiful for beauty's sake? Individual or governmental prestige? The Victorians saw engineering prowess as a statement of intent to the world, combine that with this https://benjaminstudebaker.com/2015/12/17/how-austerity-dest... (British empire from 1830 to 1880 accounted for half of globa…
Comment linking /2015/12/17/how-austerity-destroyed-the-british-empire/
on “Battersea Power Station in London unveils the newly restored Control Room A”Submitted Why Bernie vs. Hillary Matters More Than People Think as a story · 3 points
HN discussionFyi, $15/hr in 2011 dollars would have been significantly higher than the minimum wage has ever been. The highest ever US minimum wage adjusted for inflation was $1.60 in 1968 which is $10.34 in 2011, $12.18 in 2021. https://benjaminstudebaker.com/2015/07/23/misconceptions-rai...
Comment linking /2015/07/23/misconceptions-raising-the-minimum-wage-does-not-automatically-lead-to-inflation/
on “I need to explain to you just how dire America's Pokémon card crisis is”Submitted Who Is Right About Free Trade? (TPP) as a story · 1 points
HN discussion1. Tyson dismissed the intellectual value of philosophy in a podcast, which led to criticism from those within the discipline[1]. 2. He has been quoted saying, "What they teach in the humanities is not 'skepticism' or 'critical thinking.' It's mental masturbation disguised as critical thinking"[5]. 3. Tyson warned that philosophy "can really mess you up" and has implied that philosophy does not progress in the way s…
Comment linking /2014/05/13/neil-degrasse-tyson-is-wrong-about-philosophy/
on “"Are We Automata?" by William James (1879)”Submitted The economic reasoning for voting Labour today as a story · 1 points
HN discussionThis is why I hoped Trump would win over Clinton. Look - even a lot of Republicans are repulsed by this administration. I knew (because of how large the Bernie or Bust movement was) that Clinton would lose if she won the nomination. I myself wrote Bernie in, simply because I wanted to see how things played out, and I dislike the Clinton's w/ a venomous hatred, and feel back-stabbed by DNC. But I also felt that perha…
Comment linking /2016/02/10/why-bernie-sanders-is-more-electable-than-people-think/
on “Who Wins and Who Loses in the Latest G.O.P. Health Care Bill”Ben studebaker called the rise of Trump in his article which had a really broad overview of what neoliberalism is, and he basically postulated that it's on the way out and we can EITHER have Nationalism (Trump) or Egalitarianism (Bernie Sanders)... sadly for America, he was ABSOLUTELY right, but nationalism won out... But that might not hold true, as we can easily flip flop back and forth till one side shows true pr…
Comment linking /2016/02/10/why-bernie-sanders-is-more-electable-than-people-think/
on “Populism is the result of global economic failure”As an egalitarianist who despises neoliberalism the race for the white house had a nationalist, egalitarianist and a neoliberal vying for power. There's a good blog post about it here: https://benjaminstudebaker.com/2016/02/05/why-bernie-vs-hill... My thinking was I'd rather have Trump in the whitehouse than clinton, because he'd be a lame duck president even with an all GOP congress -- he's totally crazy and narcis…
Comment linking /2016/02/05/why-bernie-vs-hillary-matters-more-than-people-think/
on “In Leaked Chats, Wikileaks Discusses Preference for GOP”Wow that's about as many as signed up for Revolt Against Plutocracy by May.. (a group promoting #BernieOrBust).. Interesting coincidence? -- there've been a number of polls and articles online stating that 40% of Bernie supporters would not vote for her. If he had 10 million voters, that's 4 million people. That's a lot of votes that you're leaving on the table. It really wouldn't have taken Bernie much more votes t…
Comment linking /2016/02/10/why-bernie-sanders-is-more-electable-than-people-think/
on “Hillary only needed to switch 53,650 voters to win”