Top all-time · #3455
Jon Stokes
Personal blog · jonstokes.comaiculture
Jon Stokes's personal blog at jonstokes.com covers ai and culture. Since 2011, 21 different Hacker News readers have linked it 31 times, most often “Why a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would be a catastrophe for China and the world”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2025-09-15, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (6) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Jon Stokes's posts as explainers on ChatGPT, Taiwan and China risk, Apple's China exposure, and web3 and tech-politics essays. Several comments point to them as background reading.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 6 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
AI/ML, crypto, speech, power. Click to read jonstokes.com,
Most-linked posts?
- Why a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would be a catastrophe for China and the world3 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2021-08-02
- ChatGPT Explained: A Normie's Guide to How It Works2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2023-03-02
- How the blockchain will break up Big Tech2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-07-18
- Getting Started with Stable Diffusion: A Guide for Creators2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-09-29
- An Ethnography of Reactions to AI2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-03-30
- Catechizing the Bots, Part 1: Foundation Models and Fine-Tuning2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-06-05
- Web3: The Rise of the Aligned Web2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-11-12
What Hacker News says?
You might find this useful: https://www.jonstokes.com/p/chatgpt-explained-a-guide-for-no...
Comment linking /p/chatgpt-explained-a-guide-for-normies
on “GPT-4”Submitted AI Content Generation, Part 1: Machine Learning Basics as a story · 133 points
HN discussionI don't know LeCun personally, but there's a lot of backstory here that this polemical clickbait is leaving out. - LeCun has a history of getting mobbed by "AI ethics" types on Twitter, and in the past he was very deferential to these folks, and even left Twitter for a while. I wrote about some of that here: https://www.jonstokes.com/p/googles-colosseum - The MIT Tech Review, which is the author's main source here a…
Comment linking /p/googles-colosseum
on “Chief scientist of major corporation can’t handle criticism of the work he hypes”Submitted “I got an email from Chase saying that all our assets are frozen” as a story · 129 points
HN discussionThis is an under appreciated point about web3. We can get away from the ad-based business model. Web2 has an adversarial relationship with the user, web3 is much more aligned with the user. https://www.jonstokes.com/p/web3-the-rise-of-the-aligned-web
Comment linking /p/web3-the-rise-of-the-aligned-web
on “Ask HN: What things has tech made worse in your life?”Submitted Our Society Is Not Prepared for This Much AI Awesome as a story · 18 points
HN discussionJust dropping some interesting posts I found when researching this general area earlier today: https://unherd.com/2021/07/will-china-invade-taiwan/ Will China invade Taiwan? A panel of superforecasters considers the likelihood of an imminent global conflict https://www.jonstokes.com/p/why-a-chinese-invasion-of-taiwan (Jon Stokes, the Ars Technica founder) Why a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would be a catastrophe for C…
Comment linking /p/why-a-chinese-invasion-of-taiwan
on “Apple is now an antifragile company”Submitted The Blockchain in a Historical Perspective as a story · 17 points
HN discussionAll of that being said, I wrongly predicted that Russia wouldn't invade, because I rightly predicted the invasion would be a disaster for Russia. A CCP invasion of Taiwan would be even more disastrous for the PRC. They would need to conduct an amphibious assault, gain air superiority against "the quad" (no easy task), and would be unlikely to gain control of TSMC.[0] I think my reason for miscalculating the Russian…
Comment linking /p/why-a-chinese-invasion-of-taiwan
on “The end of Apple’s affair with China”Submitted Why a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would be a catastrophe for China and the world as a story · 5 points
HN discussionThere is an informative blog post from 2021 “Why a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would be a catastrophe for China and the world”: https://www.jonstokes.com/p/why-a-chinese-invasion-of-taiwan
Comment linking /p/why-a-chinese-invasion-of-taiwan
on “Taiwan should destroy TSMC if invaded, suggests US military paper”Submitted Creative AI Is Here, Whether You Believe in It or Not as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted Getting Started with Stable Diffusion: A Guide for Creators as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted How the blockchain will break up Big Tech as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted How machine learning trains us to appear insane to one another as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Web3: The Rise of the Aligned Web as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Tech punditry, and being right vs. sounding smart as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Catechizing the Bots, Part 1: Foundation Models and Fine-Tuning as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Elsewhere: Twitter Bot Wars and GPT-4's True Power as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted What It Would Take to Slow or Stop AI as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Getting Started with Stable Diffusion: A Guide for Creators as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted AI is now in its midwit programmer phase as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Why a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would be a catastrophe for China and the world as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted How the blockchain will break up Big Tech as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Catechizing the Bots, Part 1: Foundation Models and Fine-Tuning as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted An Ethnography of Reactions to AI as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted AI Safety: A Technical and Ethnographic Overview as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted ChatGPT Explained: A Normie's Guide to How It Works as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted ChatGPT Explained: A Normie's Guide to How It Works as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Politics broke the internet, and it can still break the blockchain as a story · 1 points
HN discussion
