Top all-time · #10175
David Elikwu
Personal blog · theknowledge.ioproductivityphilosophy
David Elikwu writes The Knowledge, a personal blog at theknowledge.io about productivity and philosophy. Since 2022, 8 different Hacker News readers have linked it 8 times. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-08-28, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (6) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
Linked for its explanation of Chesterton's Fence, the principle that a rule should not be removed until its purpose is understood. Commenters cite it on reforms, legacy code and DOGE.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 6 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Insights and frameworks to think deeper and work smarter. The Knowledge by David Elikwu is a cognitive compass trusted by thousands 🧭.
Most-linked posts?
- /chestertons-fence-explained/6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2024-12-14
What Hacker News says?
> I am not denying you anything. You are. No ifs, not buts. > If you choose to believe in mind-body dualism you're free to do so, but this belief that you have agency which is completely independent of your physiology goes against everything we know about our brains and addiction. This is classic over-intellectualising that often done by people, often to "win" an argument. I never denied that the body itself can bec…
Comment linking /chestertons-fence-explained/
on “Meet the real screen addicts: the elderly”Submitted Not All That Glitters as a story · 2 points
HN discussionWell, maybe. See Chesterson's Fence^1 [1] https://theknowledge.io/chestertons-fence-explained/
Comment linking /chestertons-fence-explained/
on “We stopped roadmap work for a week and fixed bugs”Submitted Theknowledge Podcast #22: How Curiosity Shapes the World as a story · 1 points
HN discussionI'm extremely skeptical of the entire premise of DOGE. There are vast changes being made to very large organizations, in very short timespans, with the claim that those making them know what they're doing. But the timespans in question - days to weeks at most - mean that there's no time to review anything. So those making changes do not, cannot, be making decisions based on reviews of available evidence, because the…
Comment linking /chestertons-fence-explained/
on “NOAA's public weather data powers the local forecasts on your phone and TV”> First week at a new job? It’s easy to identify all the ways things are done wrong. Six months later you begin to understand why they were done “wrong”. https://theknowledge.io/chestertons-fence-explained/
Comment linking /chestertons-fence-explained/
on “How did DOGE disrupt so much while saving so little?”> It happens everywhere, we forget why we do things a particular way, fail, and then re-learn the lessons (the hard way). https://theknowledge.io/chestertons-fence-explained/
Comment linking /chestertons-fence-explained/
on “The 1955 Le Mans disaster changed motorsport”Much as I hate to admit it I can relate to this. When you come onto a new project, the first thing you notice are all of the things that could be improved. But most seasoned developers know that knocking down walls right away violates the whole Chesterton's Fence[1] thing and so you make restrained changes and small commits while learning the system. A few years on when you finally have the mental model and understa…
Comment linking /chestertons-fence-explained/
on “If I Could Wave a Magic Wand”