Top all-time · #5622
Desystemize
Personal blog · desystemize.substack.comgamesaiphilosophy
Desystemize is a personal blog at desystemize.substack.com about games, ai and philosophy. Since 2021, 13 different Hacker News readers have linked it 20 times, most often “If You're So Smart, Why Can't You Die?”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-05-01, 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 Desystemize essays on representation, uncertainty and whether numbers actually describe the world, and on field work and problem solving. Commenters cite them as related reading.
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.
Recovering the detail that systems destroy. Click to read Desystemize, by collin, a Substack publication with thousands of subscribers.
Most-linked posts?
- If You're So Smart, Why Can't You Die?4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2025-02-19
- How hard is it to get counting right?3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2021-07-31
- What do new Sudoku techniques teach us about real-world problem solving?2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2022-03-31
- Representation and Uncertainty2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-03-27
- What happens when reporting continuity is broken?2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-08-17
What Hacker News says?
The article I link at the beginning of this one, Representation and Uncertainty, is about exactly this - how to think about the extrapolated concept of representation for life in general. Self-promo I know but I think anyone who resonates with your comment would really enjoy it: https://desystemize.substack.com/p/representation-and-uncert...
Comment linking /p/representation-and-uncertainty?s=w
on “What do new Sudoku techniques teach us about real-world problem solving?”Submitted What do new Sudoku techniques teach us about real-world problem solving? as a story · 244 points
HN discussion> But the person doing the rounds each day would also see the whole system each day, notice vandalism, know local conditions on growth of pest water plants by heart, et cetera. Not exactly the same, but this is strikingly similar to some of the observations made in this essay: https://desystemize.substack.com/p/desystemize-1 When you reduce field work to a set of data, there's always something that got left out. You…
Comment linking /p/desystemize-1
on “Software Dev Can't Be Automated – It’s a Creative Process with an Unknown Goal”Submitted How did so many Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup players miss such an obvious bug? as a story · 176 points
HN discussionThere's a nice substack I found that is precisely about this problem and wider variations of it, that is, the problem of figuring out numbers that actually tell you something about the universe: https://desystemize.substack.com
Comment linking /
on “Machine learning’s crumbling foundations”Submitted How hard is it to get counting right? as a story · 79 points
HN discussionOh, you're right - it's from the essay previous to this one, https://desystemize.substack.com/p/desystemize-6 .
Comment linking /p/desystemize-6
on “How did so many Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup players miss such an obvious bug?”Submitted Representation and Uncertainty as a story · 44 points
HN discussion> experimental bias isn't really an issue, here... This was an observational study, with crystal clear objective criteria for coding the dependent & independent variables. I have no position on this particular study, but in general you can make your coding as simple and objective as you like and it won't do much about experimental bias. Objective processing of bad data isn't better than subjective processing of bad…
Comment linking /p/desystemize-1
on “Cheap antidepressant shows promise treating early Covid-19”Submitted If You're So Smart, Why Can't You Die? as a story · 3 points
HN discussionNice. This reminds me of Ontological remodeling ( https://desystemize.substack.com/p/desystemize-9 ).
Comment linking /p/desystemize-9
on “The Magic of Metalinguistic Programming”Submitted If You're So Smart, Why Can't You Die? as a story · 3 points
HN discussionAbsolutely. > it takes a lot of work for a number to mean anything and we largely aren’t doing it https://desystemize.substack.com/p/desystemize-1
Comment linking /p/desystemize-1
on “McDonald's Built a 515-Page Dossier on Me. It Says I'll Never Stop Eating There”Submitted If You're So Smart, Why Can't You Die? (On AI and Intelligence) as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Ontological Remodeling as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted If You're So Smart, Why Can't You Die? as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Chasing the Treasure Fox: What can studying Skyrim tell us about the world? as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted What can the limits of artificial intelligence tell us about human thought? as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Representation and Uncertainty as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted What happens when reporting continuity is broken? as a story · 1 points
HN discussion
