Top all-time · #920
Max Read
Personal blog · maxread.substack.comwritingculture
Max Read writes Read Max - Now on Patreon!, a personal blog at maxread.substack.com about writing and culture. Since 2021, 74 different Hacker News readers have linked it 89 times, most often “Mapping the Celebrity NFT Complex”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-05-13, and you can follow it by feed.
Read Max is now on Patreon! Don't subscribe below! Instead, visit and subscribe at https://maxread.email. Click to read "Read Max - Now on Patreon!", a Substack publication with tens of thousands of subscribers.
Most-linked posts?
- Mapping the Celebrity NFT Complex10 people · 10 mentions · first linked 2022-02-02
- The Zizians and the rationalist death cult7 people · 8 mentions · first linked 2025-02-01
- The man who bought Pine Bluff, Arkansas (2022)7 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2022-08-16
- A literary history of fake texts in Apple's marketing materials6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2023-09-15
- What's the deal with all those weird wrong-number texts?4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2022-07-01
- Predictions Markets and the Suckerfication Crisis2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2025-11-07
- Is Web3 Bullshit?2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-12-04
- The world's stupidest, smallest smartphone2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-12-07
- People prefer A.I. art because people prefer bad art (2024)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2025-03-27
- '90s Dad Thrillers: A List2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-11-17
What Hacker News says?
Maybe I’m just jaded/untrusting, but the message reminded me of the initial opening text from various wrongnumber/pig-butchering scams. https://maxread.substack.com/p/whats-the-deal-with-all-those... Discussion of above - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31949731
Comment linking /p/whats-the-deal-with-all-those-weird
on “Did you lose your AirPods?”Submitted What's the deal with all those weird wrong-number texts? as a story · 601 points
HN discussionhttps://www.lesswrong.com/posts/pQGFeKvjydztpgnsY/occupation... https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/MnFqyPLqbiKL8nSR7/my-experie... https://medium.com/@zoecurzi/my-experience-with-leverage-res... https://maxread.substack.com/p/the-zizians-and-the-rationali... The last link and especially the second half expands from examining the latest example into the broader landscape of Rationalist cultism.
Comment linking /p/the-zizians-and-the-rationalist-death
on “How to win an argument with a toddler”Submitted The man who bought Pine Bluff, Arkansas (2022) as a story · 289 points
HN discussionFrom another piece about the Zizians [1]: > The ability to dismiss an argument with a “that sounds nuts,” without needing recourse to a point-by-point rebuttal, is anathema to the rationalist project. But it’s a pretty important skill to have if you want to avoid joining cults. [1] https://maxread.substack.com/p/the-zizians-and-the-rationali...
Comment linking /p/the-zizians-and-the-rationalist-death
on “Why are there so many rationalist cults?”Submitted “Dune” (The Movie), Annotated as a story · 247 points
HN discussionAnd move where? Most of the cities that are growing have a housing crisis. Most of the cities that are shrinking can have major safety issues - see @pontifier's misadventure in Pine Bluff, AR[1] for a particularly extreme anecdote. 1. https://maxread.substack.com/p/the-man-who-bought-pine-bluff...
Comment linking /p/the-man-who-bought-pine-bluff-arkansas
on “Investors bought a quarter of US homes sold last year”Submitted Is Web3 Bullshit? as a story · 208 points
HN discussionI’m enjoying Read Max, a newsletter about Pop Culture. https://maxread.substack.com/ There was a Dune article that got some traction here a few months ago.
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: What hyper-focused industry newsletters do you enjoy?”Submitted The Zizians and the rationalist death cult as a story · 185 points
HN discussionThis isn't true. https://maxread.substack.com/p/the-zizians-and-the-rationali...
Comment linking /p/the-zizians-and-the-rationalist-death
on “Police arrest apparent leader of 'Zizian' group”Submitted A journey into Kindle AI slop hell as a story · 178 points
HN discussion- nl · 2025-02-18
I suggest you read the section starting "The Zizians, believe it or not, are not the only cult-like groupuscule to have emerged from the heady stew of the Rationalist community" from [1] Some quotes: > (Alignment Group) would attempt to articulate a ‘demon’ which had infiltrated our psyches from one of the rival groups, its nature and effects, and get it out of our systems using debugging tools > there were also psy…
Comment linking /p/the-zizians-and-the-rationalist-death
on “Police arrest apparent leader of 'Zizian' group” Submitted The man who bought Pine Bluff, Arkansas as a story · 143 points
HN discussion- nl · 2025-02-18
This works of course. I asked chat GPT to "ELI5 this:" and pasted the text from https://maxread.substack.com/p/the-zizians-and-the-rationali... This is what it created: A journalist wrote a long article about a weird, extreme group called the “Zizians.” They’re a mix of radical thinkers from the Rationalist movement—a community of people obsessed with using logic to solve big problems, like AI safety or moral philos…
Comment linking /p/the-zizians-and-the-rationalist-death
on “Police arrest apparent leader of 'Zizian' group” Submitted The most influential man on the internet as a story · 47 points
HN discussionhttps://maxread.substack.com/p/the-zizians-and-the-rationali... This is (1) a thorough write-up (2) with quotes/info multiple sources (3) whose author is NOT affiliated with any of these communities.
Comment linking /p/the-zizians-and-the-rationalist-death
on “Police arrest apparent leader of 'Zizian' group”Submitted The "cracked coder" fetish: Epistemic arrogance in Silicon Valley as a story · 38 points
HN discussionAccording to a recent post on HN, some of the scammers might actually be held captive and forced to scam people: >Captives are subjected to violence and torture, which is sometimes filmed and sent to relatives to spur them to send ransoms. Some have been killed and their deaths reported as suicide, according to workers who have escaped. https://maxread.substack.com/p/whats-the-deal-with-all-those... https://news.yco…
Comment linking /p/whats-the-deal-with-all-those-weird
on “Blackmail attempt left a Houston restaurant bombarded with 1-star reviews”Submitted Telegram as an Independent Intelligence Agency as a story · 34 points
HN discussionCan't speak about VCs, but for celebrities and promoters there seem to be questionable cross-promotions: https://maxread.substack.com/p/mapping-the-celebrity-nft-com...
Comment linking /p/mapping-the-celebrity-nft-complex
on “BBC cryptocurrency documentary pulled from air at last minute”Submitted The A.I. business influencer guys must be stopped as a story · 27 points
HN discussionThat how it works https://maxread.substack.com/p/whats-the-deal-with-all-those...
Comment linking /p/whats-the-deal-with-all-those-weird
on “FCC orders carriers to stop delivering auto warranty robocalls”Submitted Mapping the Celebrity NFT Complex as a story · 20 points
HN discussionIt's also a market which can sell security-like things while believing it's exempt from SEC enforcement, so you can just have celebrities flog it on TV: https://maxread.substack.com/p/mapping-the-celebrity-nft-com...
Comment linking /p/mapping-the-celebrity-nft-complex
on “The Crypto Backlash Is Booming”Submitted Maybe we need a moral panic about Facebook as a story · 19 points
HN discussionA classic: https://maxread.substack.com/p/a-literary-history-of-fake-te...
Comment linking /p/a-literary-history-of-fake-texts?r=71ygg
on “Siri AI”Submitted Threads is the gas-leak social network as a story · 16 points
HN discussionI don't think anyone who hangs out on Hacker News has any chance of succeeding as a post-apocalyptic warlord. Best case scenario they end up like the guy who tried to take over Pine Bluff Arkansas[0,1]. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39802157 [1] https://maxread.substack.com/p/the-man-who-bought-pine-bluff...
Comment linking /p/the-man-who-bought-pine-bluff-arkansas
on “US Air Force says AI-controlled F-16 has been dogfighting with humans”Submitted Predictions Markets and the Suckerfication Crisis as a story · 10 points
HN discussion
