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PUTANUMONIT
Personal blog · putanumonit.comphilosophyculturewriting
PUTANUMONIT is a personal blog at putanumonit.com about philosophy, culture and writing. Since 2017, 41 different Hacker News readers have linked it 52 times, most often “Seeing the Smoke”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-06-02, and you can follow it by feed.
rationality in love
Most-linked posts?
- Seeing the Smoke4 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2020-02-27
- The Skewed and the Screwed: When Mating Meets Politics4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2020-01-29
- The Scent of Bad Psychology3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2018-09-07
- /2019/10/16/polyamory-is-rational/2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-02-14
- How to Live Better2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-01-02
- Jobs Inside the API2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2018-08-10
- /2021/09/10/rules-for-noobs/2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-12-13
What Hacker News says?
This reminds me of this post: https://putanumonit.com/2021/09/10/rules-for-noobs/ I don't think the guy is any sort of "certified expert" but it rings true to me. And occasionally I've tried to give people related advice but found I couldn't. For example: How do you know when you you're close enough with someone that you tease them in a way that they'll take well vs badly? I'm pretty good at knowing it, but I'll be…
Comment linking /2021/09/10/rules-for-noobs/
on “Tacit knowledge is more important than deliberate practice”Submitted Seeing the Smoke as a story · 122 points
HN discussionThat's a fascinating take. Dark patterns as regressive tax, or equivalently, tech savviness as regressive credit. Reminds me a bit of this old post: https://putanumonit.com/2018/08/09/jobs-inside-the-api/
Comment linking /2018/08/09/jobs-inside-the-api/
on “Ryanair – when every page is a dark pattern”Submitted Jobs Inside the API as a story · 120 points
HN discussionThis reminds me of Jacob Falkovich's approach to picking a girlfriend: https://putanumonit.com/2017/03/12/goddess-spreadsheet/
Comment linking /2017/03/12/goddess-spreadsheet/
on “Marissa Mayer on career growth and how a revenue guarantee almost killed Google”Submitted Dating: A Research Journal, Part 1 (2016) as a story · 108 points
HN discussionPut a Number on It! did a piece a while ago going through some psychology pieces that were part of a replication effort. They found that half failed to replicate but that people in a betting market could often tell which ones were going to replicate or not. The author also did a blind test himself and was also able to guess which ones would replicate. He laid out several rules of thumb, most significantly to the art…
Comment linking /2018/09/07/the-scent-of-bad-psychology/
on “It’s not just p=0.048 vs. p=0.052”Submitted The Scent of Bad Psychology as a story · 79 points
HN discussionIndeed, Putanumonit used precisely that analogy in https://putanumonit.com/2020/02/27/seeing-the-smoke/ .
Comment linking /2020/02/27/seeing-the-smoke/
on “A Failure, but Not of Prediction”Submitted In Defense of Finance as a story · 67 points
HN discussionI wouldn't characterize the rationalists as just a loose knit online community with a common interest in rational thinking that happen to overlap with some other unusual interests- but as a real life community and culture - centered around a particular group of people mostly in the Northern California "East Bay Area" with a very unusual lifestyle and social norms they've collectively invented within the movement, th…
Comment linking /2019/10/16/polyamory-is-rational/
on ““The Traitors”, a reality TV show, offers a useful economics lesson”Submitted Cephaloponderings as a story · 61 points
HN discussionSpeaking of writing on controversial topics: here’s an entry to connection between rationality and polyamory mentioned but not discussed in this post https://putanumonit.com/2019/10/16/polyamory-is-rational/
Comment linking /2019/10/16/polyamory-is-rational/
on “In defense of interesting writing on controversial topics”Submitted Go F*** Someone as a story · 15 points
HN discussionThat reminds me of giving the advice, "Just do what comes naturally," to beginners. That's the last advice someone who has spent years building up an intuitive model needs, but it's terrible for beginners. https://putanumonit.com/2021/09/10/rules-for-noobs/
Comment linking /2021/09/10/rules-for-noobs/
on “Monads are like burritos (2009)”Submitted The Skewed and the Screwed: When Mating Meets Politics as a story · 7 points
HN discussionI've read through the comments related to relationships here and a lot of the same arguments were made. One that stood out was "Women are selectors and men take what they can get" (paraphrased) and a few similar statements. This isn't a bad thing. [1][2][3][4] If you as a straight man are putting some effort into being a decent human being and better dating prospect, in the long term you're far more likely to have a…
Comment linking /2016/02/10/017-dating_2/
on “Public-Health Puzzle: Young People Having Less Sex, Contracting More STDs”Submitted Seeing the New Covid Variant Smoke as a story · 5 points
HN discussionhttps://putanumonit.com/2017/02/10/get-rich-slowly/ is a reasonable single-document starting point.
Comment linking /2017/02/10/get-rich-slowly/
on “Ask HN: How do I learn how/what to invest?”Submitted The Scent of Bad Psychology as a story · 4 points
HN discussionhttps://putanumonit.com/2017/05/09/time-well-spent/
Comment linking /2017/05/09/time-well-spent/
on “Ask HN: What's your strategy for reading more books in 2021?”Submitted Mandatory Obsessions as a story · 3 points
HN discussion> Sooner than most and the media. This is a very low bar to jump over! Anyway I read through that article. There's a lot of guff about Newcomb's paradox and Eliezer, and a single paragraph referencing COVID, with two links supporting your statement. I've clicked through those links and have come out unimpressed. The first link is used to supported the claim that "The rationalist community was well ahead of the publi…
Comment linking /2020/02/27/seeing-the-smoke/
on “Silicon Valley’s Obsession with Killer Rogue AI Helps Bury Bad Behavior”Submitted Seeing the Smoke as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Skewed and the Screwed: When Mating Meets Politics as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Building and Entertaining Couples as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted How to Live Better as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Path to Reason as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Tales from the Borderlands as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Fight the Power as a story · 2 points
HN discussion
