Top all-time · #10246
David Hugh-Jones
Personal blog · wyclif.substack.com · on HN as dash2economicspoliticsculture
David Hugh-Jones writes Wyclif's Dust, a personal blog at wyclif.substack.com about economics, politics and culture. Since 2020, 7 different Hacker News readers have linked it 95 times, most often “Some simple game theory of discursive conflict”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-08, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (4) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link David Hugh-Jones's Substack for its game-theory analysis of how word meanings and discourse get contested, and for a multi-part series on Victorian values and culture.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 4 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Serious and frivolous ideas about politics, culture, social science and the world.
Most-linked posts?
- Some simple game theory of discursive conflict2 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2022-01-29
- Parochialism in time and space (2021)2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-04-22
- The end of Victorian culture: people and history2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-12-18
- Trading Social Status For Genetics In Marriage Markets2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-06-18
- The end of Victorian culture, part I: structural forces2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-12-11
- Victorian Values: Conclusions (2021)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-04-06
What Hacker News says?
The problem here is that hunger and war are woolly concepts.[1] But I wouldn't say causation is a myth at this level. You can reasonably ask whether hunger causes war and run IV regressions, instrumenting hunger with e.g. rainfall, which have a reasonable chance at testing that hypothesis.[2] [1] More thoughts about this at: https://wyclif.substack.com/p/on-social-science-about-comple... [2] Like the literature comi…
Comment linking /p/on-social-science-about-complex-stuff
on “Being kind to others is good for your health”Submitted Is the big tech era ending? as a story · 247 points
HN discussion"Something here seems awfully similar to the system that crypto-currency was meant to fix. It was meant to eliminate rulers. It was meant to make everyone accountable for their actions. It was meant to reward the intelligent, the hard working and the capable, and not reward the incompetent, or the makers-yet-breakers of promises. However, this repeat of the broken old system seems to be playing out again." One respo…
Comment linking /p/thought-bubble-defending-bitcoin
on “The Problem with Ethereum”Submitted Self-control secrets of the Puritan masters as a story · 130 points
HN discussionHere’s my bitter Luddite take on the whole debacle: https://wyclif.substack.com/p/li-bai-and-the-abominable-prag...
Comment linking /p/li-bai-and-the-abominable-prague
on “Starlink Satellites Tracker”Submitted It matters how you raise your kids as a story · 118 points
HN discussionYeah, this is basically correct. The key issue is that people don't want to pay $2/month to twenty different writers. They want to pay $20/month to a single organization which has a hundred writers, also known as a "newspaper". The logic is simple: an individual writer is always relatively niche. Niche means small audience. Small audience means you have to charge more per person to cover your costs. Maybe Substack w…
Comment linking /
on “Why the Substack hype is much ado about very little”Submitted Incentives in economics are wrong, but how? as a story · 99 points
HN discussionThe article gives some very good counter-examples to the overinterpretation of twin studies to claim "family environments don't matter". (Self-promotion: I and a friend wrote something similar here - https://wyclif.substack.com/p/no-wait-stop-it-matters-how-yo... .) Still, it is fair to say that some of the underlying differences captured by being in foster care may be genetic.
Comment linking /p/no-wait-stop-it-matters-how-you-raise
on “The question of poverty vs. instability”Submitted The Emperor's New Clothes: a story of motivated stupidity as a story · 77 points
HN discussionYes, because whoever controls the meaning of words wins: https://wyclif.substack.com/p/a-little-game-theory-on-discur...
Comment linking /p/a-little-game-theory-on-discursive
on “The meta-positioning habit of mind”Submitted Parochialism in time and space (2021) as a story · 36 points
HN discussionI wrote a slightly different take on this here: https://wyclif.substack.com/p/parochialism-in-time-and-space
Comment linking /p/parochialism-in-time-and-space
on “The Vital Necessity of Very Old Books (2023)”Submitted Victorian Values: Conclusions (2021) as a story · 26 points
HN discussionHey, I just found myself on the front of HN! Comments welcome, ask me anything, etc. I'll take the opportunity to self-advertise: * Join my substack at https://wyclif.substack.com , obviously. In particular, you might like the posts on the end of Victorian culture: part 1 ( https://wyclif.substack.com/p/the-end-of-victorian-culture-p... ), part 2 ( https://wyclif.substack.com/p/the-end-of-victorian-culture-p... ). *…
Comment linking /p/the-end-of-victorian-culture-part-149?s=w
on “Victorian Values: Conclusions (2021)”Submitted We are entering a new world of collective action as a story · 18 points
HN discussionI linked to part III in a series. There is also part I https://wyclif.substack.com/p/victorian-values-a-practical-g... and part II https://wyclif.substack.com/p/a-practical-guide-to-victorian... . For ontext, I was quite disappointed by this other recently posted article about Vicotrian values: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30894353 . It was short, not very analytical, and more than a bit moralizing in tone,…
Comment linking /p/a-practical-guide-to-victorian-values?s=r
on “Victorian Values: Conclusions (2021)”Submitted Public goods problems are everywhere in software as a story · 17 points
HN discussionYou can try yourself here: https://wyclif.substack.com/p/thought-bubble-mcgonagall-or-c...
Comment linking /p/thought-bubble-mcgonagall-or-chatgpt
on “Poem/1: AI rhyming clock”Submitted Is Genetics “Dark”? as a story · 14 points
HN discussionThis seems a good place to point out that the evidence for the harmful effects of corporal punishment is very low quality: https://wyclif.substack.com/p/the-academic-literature-on-sma...
Comment linking /p/the-academic-literature-on-smacking
on “Singapore introduces caning for boys who bully others at school”Submitted 2x2 Games Will Change Your Life as a story · 7 points
HN discussion>We have overwhelming evidence that corporal punishment is harmful in general, and very harmful for kids. This is false. The evidence is not overwhelming; it's actually extremely poor quality. And the research question is one of the most difficult to resolve in social science. I wrote on this here: https://wyclif.substack.com/p/the-academic-literature-on-sma... . See also this guy: https://scholar.google.co.uk/citat…
Comment linking /p/the-academic-literature-on-smacking
on “Singapore introduces caning for boys who bully others at school”Submitted Is the gender equity theory of fertility a cope? as a story · 5 points
HN discussionhttps://wyclif.substack.com - it's occasionally been on the front page, mostly at weekends: "social science, genetics, history, culture and politics. The drunken ramblings of two Tang-dynasty poets may also feature."
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: Could you share your personal blog here?”Submitted On Nazis who read genetics as a story · 4 points
HN discussionMany times, redefining the meaning of words is about winning games: https://wyclif.substack.com/p/a-little-game-theory-on-discur...
Comment linking /p/a-little-game-theory-on-discursive
on “How long should we cling to a word's original meaning? (2011)”Submitted No, human life was not a misery until the 1950s as a story · 4 points
HN discussionPart 2: https://wyclif.substack.com/p/the-end-of-victorian-culture-p...
Comment linking /p/the-end-of-victorian-culture-part-149
on “The end of Victorian culture, part I: structural forces”Submitted BioRxiv wouldn't host our paper on natural selection, why not? as a story · 4 points
HN discussion
