Top all-time · #3588
James Howard Kunstler
Personal blog · kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nationpoliticseconomics
James Howard Kunstler writes Clusterfuck Nation, a personal blog at kunstler.com about politics and economics. Since 2008, 22 different Hacker News readers have linked it 24 times, most often “Eyesore of the Month”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-11-02, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (19) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Kunstler's site for its critiques of suburban planning, car dependence and peak oil, and for his podcast and books such as The Geography of Nowhere. The 'Eyesore of the Month' architecture column is singled out.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 19 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
James Howard Kunstler’s Clusterfuck Nation blog is updated Mondays and Fridays. The KunstlerCast podcast and Eyesore of the Month are monthly features. Read & comment here.
Most-linked posts?
- /writings/podcast/2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2013-11-20
- /books/the-geography-of-nowhere/2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2014-03-28
- Eyesore of the Month2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-10-29
What Hacker News says?
Obligatory follow-up: http://kunstler.com/writings/eyesore-of-the-month/ If you are a bit familiar with architecture, laughs guaranteed.
Comment linking /writings/eyesore-of-the-month/
on “Ask HN: What is your favorite internet rabbit hole?”Submitted Solar electric installed nine years ago is down as a story · 9 points
HN discussionHere is a podcast she did in 2016 with James Howard Kunstler. http://kunstler.com/podcast/chatting-kate-wagner-mcmansion-h...
Comment linking /podcast/chatting-kate-wagner-mcmansion-hell-dot-com/
on “Zillow forces McMansion Hell to delete posts”Submitted Eyesore of the Month as a story · 2 points
HN discussionCan't wait for this to be featured on "eyesore of the month"[1]. [1] https://kunstler.com/featured-eyesore-of-the-month/
Comment linking /featured-eyesore-of-the-month/
on “Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm”Submitted Your New American Dream as a story · 2 points
HN discussionMaybe because it's fun to cheer on a TV war from a barstool (USA! USA!). The early parts of a war, especially when fighting an incompetent enemy, make for great entertainment. Western countries aren't ruthless enough to really win wars in the Third World. They should think less like Rome and more like Byzantium. But those opening scenes look amazing. I can't answer your question though, so I'll leave it at that. May…
Comment linking /clusterfuck-nation/strange-days-ahead/
on “Guantánamo survivor on the war on terror’s failure”Submitted Weimar meets Waterloo as a story · 2 points
HN discussionYou would really like Geography of Nowhere by James Kunstler, if you haven't read it already. http://kunstler.com/books/the-geography-of-nowhere/ Many small cities (including Jersey City, my home) will not allow commercial businesses to be built without residential above it, at least in downtown commercial districts.
Comment linking /books/the-geography-of-nowhere/
on “Photographing A Town That Never Was – The Meta Picture”Submitted Kunstler - Virtual is No Refuge From the Real as a story · 1 points
HN discussion"The Long Emergency", James Kunstler Peal Oil blog: http://kunstler.com/writings/clusterfuck-nation/
Comment linking /writings/clusterfuck-nation/
on “Ask HN: What newsletters do you read every day or week?”"Reminds me a lot of Pyongyang" Or Brasilia. Three cities built on the communist central planning principles of the post-war American suburb reflect, each in its own way, the oppression and alienation that motorcar-oriented planning imposes on humans. [0] There is an alternative to suburban hell. The traditional city humans have loved for thousands of years is still possible. [1] There are even great accessible, aff…
Comment linking /books/the-geography-of-nowhere/
on “Burma's capital: a super-sized slice of post-apocalypse suburbia”Wow, it feels like I stumbled on James Kunstler's site today: http://www.kunstler.com/index.php The way I see it, we really only have two choices: nuclear (fusion) power; or "A World Made by Hand". Solar doesn't provide much energy density. (unless you can build a Dyson sphere or a "Ringworld" and convert huge amounts of solar radiation for transport) Methane has more energy per KG than oil, but much less per cubic…
Comment linking /index.php
on “Jeff Rubin: Oil and the End of Globalization”Wow. Sounds like a slightly less dire discussion of the sort of things that James Kunstler is always discussing on his site. http://www.kunstler.com/index.php I think Kunstler's site is a bit over the top, but it's an interesting "ha ha, only serious" view of peak oil. Things like this peak plastic article remind me that we better get to work on crazy stuff like fusion or orbiting solar powered microwave transmitter…
Comment linking /index.php
on “Peak plastic”Jim Kunstler's podcast is good when he doesn't veer off into peak oil civilizational collapse speculation http://kunstler.com/writings/podcast/ Granola Shotgun https://granolashotgun.com/ http://www.andrewalexanderprice.com/ I really enjoyed the books 'The Great Good Place' by Oldenberg , 'Streets are for People' by Rudufsky and the Geography of Nowhere by Kunstler
Comment linking /writings/podcast/
on “Ask HN: Who's starting new towns in the US?”Reasonably astute summary of the situation. This is the gospel Jim Kunstler and others have been preaching for years now ( http://www.kunstler.com/ ). If you accept the idea of peak oil, you can readily see where the intersection of PO and the re-urbanization trend will spell disaster for the suburbs.
Comment linking /
on “The Fall of Suburbia”I would refer the high-speed-rail types to James Kunstler's brilliant post 'financial crisis called off' where he reminds us... We blather about high speed rail, but you can't even get from Cleveland to Cincinnati on a regular train - and what's more amazing, nobody is really interested in making this happen. All we really care about is finding some miracle method to keep all the cars running. http://kunstler.com/bl…
Comment linking /blog/2009/08/financial-crisis-called-off.html
on “The White House's Vision for High Speed Rail”Oh man, I've missed him... his latest rant https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/the-raptures-of-hype... reminds me exactly why I loved him... he expresses the worries I have, and suddenly I feel less alone in my worries.
Comment linking /clusterfuck-nation/the-raptures-of-hyper-complexity/
on “If You Want to Make It as a Writer, for God's Sakes, Be Weird”I've been listening to EconTalk with Russ Roberts[1], The KunstlerCast [2] and Poetry Magazine podcast [3] for years. Good stuff. It'll put hair on yer chest. [1] http://www.econtalk.org/ [2] http://kunstler.com/writings/podcast/ [3] http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/
Comment linking /writings/podcast/
on “Ask HN: What Podcasts Do You Listen To?”Not tech related, but about new urbanism, economics and the environment: http://kunstler.com Check out Howard Kunstler's podcast as well: http://kunstlercast.com
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on “Ask HN: What other sites do you regular?”Scary predictions indeed! "I believe the aggregate economic effect of these failures will be a worldwide deflationary depression. I will not be surprised if it is as bad in terms of unemployment and hardship as the 1930s. I expect that it will be attended by international political and military mischief." "Such an oil shortfall would put at hazard such "normal" American activities as national chain retail and indust…
Comment linking /mags_y2k.html
on “Good-Bye, Cheap Oil. So Long, Suburbia?”From the article: The population of the United States is almost entirely car-dependent, and relies on markets that control oil import, refining, and distribution. They also rely on continuous public investment in road construction and repair. The cars themselves require a steady stream of imported parts, and are not designed to last very long. When these intricately interconnected systems stop functioning, much of t…
Comment linking /Grunt_SouthAfrica.html
on “The USSR was better prepared for collapse than the US is today”Jim Kunstler is a national treasure. Can't recommend his blog enough: https://kunstler.com/writings/clusterfuck-nation/ .
Comment linking /writings/clusterfuck-nation/
on “California Forever”For a more critical and very thoughtful (if somewhat vengeful) look at peak oil and what it implies, see The Long Emergency and A World Made by Hand, both by James Kunstler. His book on suburban blight, The Geography of Nowhere, is also fascinating. http://kunstler.com/
Comment linking /
on “Twenty Dollars Per Gallon: How the rising price of oil will change our lives”
