Top all-time · #884
Nintil
Personal blog · nintil.comsciencephilosophyeconomics
Nintil is a personal blog at nintil.com about science, philosophy and economics. Since 2017, 77 different Hacker News readers have linked it 99 times, most often “On Bloom's two sigma problem: A systematic review”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-27, and you can follow it by feed.
Essays on science, technology, philosophy, and progress by José Luis Ricón.
Most-linked posts?
- On Bloom's two sigma problem: A systematic review9 people · 9 mentions · first linked 2020-08-24
- The Longevity FAQ7 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2020-01-19
- The Newton hypothesis: Is science done by a small elite?4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2021-01-15
- /3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-05-27
- Cozy Futurism3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-04-05
- Fund People, Not Projects3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2020-12-29
- Peer Rejection in Science (2020)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-12-03
- Talent: A Review2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-02-07
- Scaling Tacit Knowledge2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-12-11
- Claude Constitution; or love as the solution to the AI alignment problem2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2026-01-30
What Hacker News says?
I'm glad that Scott is back (and that Substack will make it easy for him to get paid for his work). That said, some of the best things about Slate Star Codex were stumbling on the archives, going down a rabbit hole of old LessWrong posts, the links in the blogroll. Substack is much worse than a standard WordPress blog when it comes to that sort of casual reading and creating a permanent home for posts that are timel…
Comment linking /substack-milquetoast
on “Still alive”Submitted The Newton hypothesis: Is science done by a small elite? as a story · 121 points
HN discussionI agree! The best websites are those maintained by individuals without a profit motive. Here's a short list that I've started collecting: - Kevin Kelly: kk.org - Patrick Collison: patrickcollison.com - Patrick McKenzie: kalzumeus.com - David Perell: perell.com - Berthub.eu - Alexey Guzey: https://guzey.com/ - https://www.gwern.net/index - https://astralcodexten.substack.com/ - https://dcgross.com/ - Paul Graham: pau…
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: Favorite Blogs by Individuals?”Submitted Cozy Futurism as a story · 97 points
HN discussionMy favourite ones (mainly tech or bio related): - https://www.gwern.net/index - https://guzey.com/ - https://nintil.com/ - https://astralcodexten.substack.com/ - https://waitbutwhy.com/
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: Favorite Blogs by Individuals?”Submitted Scaling Tacit Knowledge as a story · 78 points
HN discussionFavorite blogs about aging, biotech: - https://www.ldeming.com/longevityfaq - https://nintil.com/ - https://srconstantin.github.io/tag/aging.html - https://www.celinehh.com/
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: Favorite Blogs by Individuals?”Submitted Thinking about software engineering as a story · 73 points
HN discussionValter Longo? Nutrition science is fuzzy. It isn't like physics or mathematics. Water fasting, calorie restriction[2], keeping your protein low and having a joyful life[1] seem convincing to me (Blue Zones), but I am yet another layman here. [1] https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/04/over-nearly-8... [2] https://nintil.com/longevity/
Comment linking /longevity/
on “50 Years Ago, Sugar Industry Quietly Paid Scientists to Blame Fat (2016)”Submitted On Bloom's two sigma problem (2020) as a story · 61 points
HN discussionThis is a recent HN thread and Post you might find interesting. https://nintil.com/newton-hypothesis https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25787745 Due to career and other reasons, there is a publish or perish crisis today. Maybe we can do better by accepting not everyone can publish ground breaking results, and it's okay. There are lots of incompetent people in academia, who later go to upper positions and decide yo…
Comment linking /newton-hypothesis
on “A new replication crisis: Research that is less likely to be true is cited more”Submitted Peer rejection in science as a story · 58 points
HN discussion> AI tools and tutors never can and never should replace teachers. This part confused me on several levels. Let's break it down. --- 1. Tutors (human) can not replace teachers on a mass scale True, and the article touches on this: human tutors simply don't scale! 2. Tutors (human) should not replace teachers False. Bloom's 2-sigma problem [0] states that on average, 1-1 tutored students outperform 98% of classroom-e…
Comment linking /bloom-sigma/
on “Sal Khan is pioneering innovation in education again”Submitted On Bloom's two sigma problem: A systematic review as a story · 50 points
HN discussionI am immediately reminded of the Soviet union's full employment policy, and the absurd jobs they had to invent in order to fulfill it. As a matter of fact they regarded a lack of unemployment as a clear indicator of the superiority of socialism over capitalism. More on this : https://nintil.com/the-soviet-union-achieving-full-employmen... With that said, I expected an article on post-work society. I'm a little bit d…
Comment linking /the-soviet-union-achieving-full-employment/
on “Building a vision of life without work (2015)”Submitted No Great Technological Stagnation (2016) as a story · 43 points
HN discussionJust read this relevant and interesting article on "Scaling Tacit Knowledge": https://nintil.com/scaling-tacit-knowledge
Comment linking /scaling-tacit-knowledge
on “Tacit knowledge is more important than deliberate practice”Submitted What Should You Remember? as a story · 34 points
HN discussionTo be fair: this is not true. > in 1976, only two thirds of Soviet families had refrigerators https://nintil.com/the-soviet-union-durable-goods/ Surely not as widespread as in the US, but your view of the USSR might not correspond to reality.
Comment linking /the-soviet-union-durable-goods/
on “GE Fridge DRM Workaround”Submitted How Substack Became Milquetoast as a story · 24 points
HN discussionYou can find another FAQ here for more related reading https://nintil.com/longevity
Comment linking /longevity
on “Longevity FAQ: A beginner's guide to longevity research”Submitted Better Science (2020) as a story · 22 points
HN discussion> There were valid reasons to not be friendly to USSR. Does this justify USSR entering friendship pact with Germany, thus enabling it to start the war? This is not about "friendship pact", this is about non-aggression pact. Was Poland not justified in entering a non-aggression pact with Germany? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German%E2%80%93Polish_declarat... Was France not justified in entering a non-aggression pact…
Comment linking /the-soviet-union-military-spending/
on “What did British officers think of the American civil war as it was happening?”Submitted Bloom's two sigma problem (2020) as a story · 8 points
HN discussionSome other hypothesis: - Newton - predicts that most advances are made by standing on the shoulders of giants. This seems true if you look at citations alone. See https://nintil.com/newton-hypothesis - Matthew effect - extends successful people are successful observation to scientific publishing. Big names get more funding and easier journal publishing, which gets them more exposure, so they end up with their labs a…
Comment linking /newton-hypothesis
on “Ortega hypothesis”Submitted How to Solve Aging as a story · 7 points
HN discussionProbably all of the above. Fun fact: No one knows how percentage of GDP the Soviets were spending on their military, but 10% is the low estimate. (See second figure.) The fifth figure should put to rest the idea that the Soviets tried to meet an increase in US military spending in the 80s. They didn’t. In fact, the president exact opposite is true. The US increased spending due to an increase by the Soviets in the m…
Comment linking /the-soviet-union-military-spending/
on “Taiwan bans recruitment for jobs in China”Submitted Scaling Tacit Knowledge (2022) as a story · 4 points
HN discussion> Firstly Universities, notwithstanding their shortcomings, have a long history going back to millennia. Their importance in human history is unparalleled. Capitalist academia is an essential part of empire. Although claimed as the opposite (“Die Luft der Freiheit weht”), capitalist academia often blocks the diffusion of innovation by commoditizing and monopolizing new advancements in science and technology, and wor…
Comment linking /mazzucato-and-the-iphone-i/
on “Lambda School is a predatory bootcamp that lies about students outcomes”Submitted O1 visas and where to find them: a guide to US immigration as a story · 4 points
HN discussion
