Top all-time · #633
Joan Westenberg
Personal blog · joanwestenberg.comculturewritingai
Joan Westenberg writes WESTENBERG, a personal blog at joanwestenberg.com about culture, writing and ai. Since 2023, 98 different Hacker News readers have linked it 181 times, most often “AI Twitter's favourite lie: everyone wants to be a developer”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-11-01, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (12) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Joan Westenberg's essays on work, tech, failure and knowledge. Commenters call the blog a gold mine and praise posts as well-put, an interesting read and a great summation.
- Recommended for · 3 comments
- Called the blog a gold mine, a post very well-put, another an interesting read and a great summation.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 12 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Field Notes on the Machine Age. Click to read WESTENBERG, by JA Westenberg, a Substack publication with tens of thousands of subscribers.
Most-linked posts?
- AI Twitter's favourite lie: everyone wants to be a developer5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2026-02-14
- The Case for Blogging in the Ruins4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2026-01-02
- The Costco Theory of the Internet3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2026-05-28
- The Discourse Is a Distributed Denial-of-Service Attack3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2026-01-18
- Invisibility is the maintainer's reward for competence3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2025-12-26
- Life is the Sum Total of 2k Mondays3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2026-02-03
- I deleted my second brain3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2025-06-20
- Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2026-03-18
- The optimized self and the life that got away2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2026-03-24
- Everyone in AI is building the wrong thing for the same reason2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2026-02-23
What Hacker News says?
I don't know who this Joan is, but this blog is a gold mine. This other post on the infantilization of failure is very well-put: https://www.joanwestenberg.com/uh-oh-the-infantilization-of-...
Comment linking /uh-oh-the-infantilization-of-failure/
on “Thin desires are eating life”Submitted Thin desires are eating life as a story · 845 points
HN discussionThat was an interesting read. Even more if you take a look into another of the author's text on the decline of personal thought [1]. I believe the author is engaging with very interesting questions: what is knowledge? How can I achieve it? How does it feel during the pursuit? Of course the answer is deeply personal. My take is that I agree with the author on that knowledge should be inhabited, as I quoted Arendt on…
Comment linking /p/cognitive-offshoring-and-the-decline-of-personal-thought-26c6d43ac5089a9a
on “I deleted my second brain”Submitted I deleted my second brain as a story · 598 points
HN discussion>The creator economy can't rely on Patreon. https://joanwestenberg.com/blog/the-creator-economy-cant-rel...
Comment linking /blog/the-creator-economy-cant-rely-on-patreon
on “The day I canceled my Spotify subscription”Submitted Successful people set constraints rather than chasing goals as a story · 406 points
HN discussionLink no longer works. Article was moved to: https://www.joanwestenberg.com/p/smart-people-don-t-chase-go...
Comment linking /p/smart-people-don-t-chase-goals-they-create-limits
on “Successful people set constraints rather than chasing goals”Submitted How to stay sane in a world that rewards insanity as a story · 360 points
HN discussionGreat summation of how it looks (and smells) from the outside. The only thing that jarred me out of furious agreement was this line: > At least I have my integrity. And I may be throwing stones from a glass house but, in my opinion, they have 6 months of integrity on a backdrop of <unknown number> of years of quite specific non-integrity. Exiting the speeding-train-with-no-brakes saves you. Helping to stop the train…
Comment linking /techs-accountability-tantrum-is-pathetic
on “6 months ago, I left the bullshit industrial complex”Submitted 6 months ago, I left the bullshit industrial complex as a story · 237 points
HN discussionhttps://www.joanwestenberg.com/you-cant-win-in-tech-unless-y...
Comment linking /you-cant-win-in-tech-unless-you-cheat/?ref=the-westenberg-letter-newsletter
on “The LLMentalist Effect”Submitted The Cannae Problem as a story · 164 points
HN discussionThis is a reply to someone else's blog post (on a different site - odd concept, I kinda like it though). It may add a lot of context to read the original blog post https://www.joanwestenberg.com/p/im-begging-you-to-leave-you... first, which is linked in the header but easy to miss, and then read this reply.
Comment linking /p/im-begging-you-to-leave-your-ai-note
on “Re: I'm Begging You to Leave Your AI Note-Taker at Home”Submitted Remember: Kurt Vonnegut Was 47 as a story · 154 points
HN discussionSome suggestions Privacy Guides home: https://www.privacyguides.org/en/ The Protesters' Guide to Smartphone Security https://www.privacyguides.org/articles/2025/01/23/activists-... Infosec 101 for Activists https://infosecforactivists.org/ Using Tails When Your World Doesn't Feel Safe Anymore https://www.privacyguides.org/articles/2025/01/29/installing... How I’m Building a Trump-Proof Tech Stack Without Big Tech ht…
Comment linking /american-tech-is-compromised-heres-my-replacement-stack-2/
on “Ask HN: Best Security Practices for Activists?”Submitted The creator economy can't rely on Patreon as a story · 135 points
HN discussionSee also: https://www.joanwestenberg.com/the-ai-writing-witchhunt-is-p...
Comment linking /the-ai-writing-witchhunt-is-pointless/
on “We found an undocumented bug in the Apollo 11 guidance computer code”Submitted Learning happens in environments optimized for understanding, not winning as a story · 73 points
HN discussionThat seems unfair without a cursory search to check whether the op-ed writer already felt there was something hollow or unsustainable going on. A couple minutes finds this tepid if not dismissive take from September: > As large language models (LLMs) like GPT-4 continue to improve, they’ll get even better at mimicking human communication patterns and producing content that’s virtually indistinguishable from what a m…
Comment linking /shitposting-our-way-through-the-singularity/
on “The Trillion-Dollar Lie: How AI Fearmongering Backfired on Silicon Valley”Submitted Stop Conflating Genius with Asshole as a story · 71 points
HN discussion"I work with companies that are $1,000,000+ in revenue." https://joanwestenberg.com/about Why not not $1,000,000+ in profit.
Comment linking /about
on “Sam Bankman-Fried is a feature, not a bug”Submitted No More Layoffs with a Payoff: It's Time to Freeze CEO Salaries as a story · 56 points
HN discussionSame article as https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44326602 https://www.joanwestenberg.com/p/i-deleted-my-second-brain
Comment linking /p/i-deleted-my-second-brain
on “I Deleted My Second Brain”Submitted Startup Culture Runs on Bullshit as a story · 56 points
HN discussionSubmitted You Can't "Win" in Tech Unless You Cheat as a story · 35 points
HN discussionSubmitted Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection as a story · 32 points
HN discussionSubmitted I Miss the Internet (2024) as a story · 32 points
HN discussionSubmitted How to Destroy a Generation as a story · 32 points
HN discussionSubmitted Crypto Had Its Chance as a story · 31 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Art of Not Sharing as a story · 20 points
HN discussion
