Top all-time · #9216
Defender’s Corner
Personal blog · defenderofthebasic.substack.comwritingculturescience
Defender’s Corner is a personal blog at defenderofthebasic.substack.com about writing, culture and science. Since 2024, 8 different Hacker News readers have linked it 29 times, most often “Developing your own framework for understanding reality”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-07-01, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (1) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link this Substack for posts on internet arguments and on building mental models. One commenter said an internet-argument post arrived at a useful moment for them.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 1 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Musings on what I find beautiful & important.
Most-linked posts?
- Developing your own framework for understanding reality3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2024-06-15
- Anatomy of an internet argument3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2024-09-02
- A Beginner's Guide to Memetics2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2025-01-09
What Hacker News says?
this is the pattern: - humans find useful concept X - they describe it with label Y - it's genuinely useful, it spreads - It gets too big, Y is misunderstood and corrupted - New group of humans rediscovers concept X, gives it label Z This is the story of humanity. The good news is we're kind of (mostly) stumbling through a upwards spiral. Current religion would be unrecognizable to the people in ancient times. It wa…
Comment linking /p/a-beginners-guide-to-culture-science
on “The Zizians and the rationalist death cult”Submitted Feynman’s Razor as a story · 357 points
HN discussionthis post came at a good time for me (just lost an internet argument). same author has an interesting post about building mental models https://defenderofthebasic.substack.com/p/geoffrey-hinton-on...
Comment linking /p/geoffrey-hinton-on-developing-your
on “Anatomy of an internet argument”Submitted Anatomy of an internet argument as a story · 181 points
HN discussionmemes are not "on the side of reality". memes are on the side of whatever resonates. What resonates is what aligns to your model of reality (which is shaped by the ideology you're inside). There's no clear distinction between propaganda, advertising, and what you call "meme-ing". Companies can and do create campaigns that look organic, that do takeoff as people feel they are organic (and then they become actually re…
Comment linking /p/new-york-times-is-trying-to-explain
on “Memetics – A Growth Industry in US Military Operations (2006) [pdf]”Submitted A Beginner's Guide to Memetics as a story · 6 points
HN discussionSubmitted Destigmatize Being Dumb as a story · 5 points
HN discussionSubmitted Blue tribe is starting to win by adopting the best of conservative values as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted Streisand Deflect (a counter to streisand effect) as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted New York Times Explains Psyops (Hollywood smear campaign) as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Can't we just rewrite all clickbait titles with LLMs on the fly? as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted I was 30 years old when I learned how to think for myself as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Developing your own framework for understanding reality as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Do you trust the people above you? as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Which world do you live in? (Israel / Palestine) as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Criticizing your own people is how you have maximum impact as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted How to build social technology and cultural infrastructure as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Anatomy of an internet argument as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Geoffrey Hinton on developing your framework for understanding reality (2024) as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted What does the ideal information environment look like? as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Rate Me: A/B/U as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted A Beginner's Guide to Culture Science as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Anatomy of an Internet Argument #5: "Your writing is dumb" as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Anatomy of an Internet Argument #4 – A Success Story as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Why are we putting up with clickbait? as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Anatomy of an Internet argument 3: start by establishing trust as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Going Viral for a Bird Science Tweet: A Post-Mortem as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Anatomy of an Internet Argument as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Best ad I've ever seen (half fiction / half true) as a story · 1 points
HN discussion