Top all-time · #4144
Thing of Things
Personal blog · thingofthings.wordpress.comphilosophypoliticsculture
Thing of Things is a personal blog at thingofthings.wordpress.com about philosophy, politics and culture. Since 2017, 19 different Hacker News readers have linked it 28 times, most often “The Iron Mathematics of Day Care”. The last post was in 2021, but the archive is still widely read.
Too few sampled comments (17) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Thing of Things mainly for its Models: A Summary of Mark Manson's book, which one commenter calls life-changing, plus posts on the Sokal Squared papers and on the curb cut principle.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 17 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
The gradual supplanting of the natural by the just
Most-linked posts?
- /2018/05/25/models-a-summary/2 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2018-09-04
- /2014/11/15/the-curb-cut-effect-or-why-it-is-basically-impossible-to-appropriate-from-disabled-people/2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2019-10-08
- The Iron Mathematics of Day Care2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2018-10-21
- Hermeneutical Injustice, Not Gaslighting2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-02-02
- Against Steelmanning2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-07-26
What Hacker News says?
My social skills are just fine thanks. I’m still not under the illusion allistic people like autistic people, or accept them except under the condition that they hide who and what they are. I don’t think autistic people are creepy perverts. I think that normal people pretty much automatically think they’re creepy because there’s something off about the way they interact socially. The degree of offness varies but if…
Comment linking /2019/04/24/on-stimming-and-autistic-authenticity/
on “In Defense of Richard Stallman”Submitted On Stimming and Autistic Authenticity as a story · 48 points
HN discussionThis happens more often than you might think: by doing basic steps to make your product usable, it suddenly becomes much more useful and in-demand than you anticipated. More examples are: - Force businesses/streets to add a curb lip for wheelchairs -> Stars above, suddenly it's easier to accept deliveries and bring in luggage! - Optimize site for slow connections, suddenly you have a torrent of previously-unserved c…
Comment linking /2014/11/15/the-curb-cut-effect-or-why-it-is-basically-impossible-to-appropriate-from-disabled-people/
on “Supreme Court allows blind people to sue retailers if websites aren't accessible”Submitted The Iron Mathematics of Day Care as a story · 3 points
HN discussionDude, if you'd just asked me a more specific question, you could surely have baited me into commenting on this or that culture war issue. Since you asked a general question, though, I'll simply answer with the generality that I wish we could all make more of an effort to show empathy for each other's problems, and (as I said on the podcast) carefully articulate where we agree and disagree with each other rather than…
Comment linking /2018/06/27/on-culture-war-bubbles/
on “I'm Scott Aaronson, quantum computing/computational complexity researcher. AMA”Submitted The DSM-IV Believed Women Didn’t Have Paraphilias as a story · 2 points
HN discussionI'm not diminishing anything. I'm just pointing out that people tend to imagine all minds behave like their own, hence why you believed that cis people would experience gender dysphoria in VR avatars of the opposite sex. I've accumulated enough experience to indicate that isn't true. Another piece of the puzzle: Pretty much every trans person I've talked to who has used VR has enjoyed choosing an avatar of the oppos…
Comment linking /2015/01/28/cis-by-default/
on “Half-Life: Alyx”Submitted Climate Change Is, in General, Not an Existential Risk as a story · 2 points
HN discussionOne class of markets that I suspect is a target-rich environment: disability-adaptation tech. 1. There is a decent chance that existing entrants are tied down by a focus on meeting the regulations rather than on delighting users. 2. You might be able to significantly scale-up and thus improve the unit economics. While the market of people who can pass the means-testing to qualify for whatever government-subsidized b…
Comment linking /2014/11/15/the-curb-cut-effect-or-why-it-is-basically-impossible-to-appropriate-from-disabled-people/
on “Ask HN: What are the least competitive consumer and enterprise markets?”Submitted Civility Is Never Neutral as a story · 2 points
HN discussionIt’s genuinely not legislation. Labor is expensive, which combined with the reality that anything beyond a 4:1 child-caretaker ratio is pretty bad for children pretty much guarantees that child care can never be cheap in a rich country with rich country labor costs. EDIT: I should've said "infants" and not "children" here, where the necessity of a 4:1 ratio really applies. As children get older this ratio can get hi…
Comment linking /2018/10/17/the-iron-mathematics-of-day-care/
on “Remote work may have fueled a baby boom among U.S. women”Submitted Against Steelmanning as a story · 1 points
HN discussionThis blog post on dating. https://thingofthings.wordpress.com/2018/05/25/models-a-summ... Alright, it's not really a blog post about dating , per se. It's more of a blog post about becoming the kind of person who maxes out their dateability, no matter what their starting physical/mental/spiritual condition. It's hard to explain what reading this post did to me. There are a few times in my life where I consciously de…
Comment linking /2018/05/25/models-a-summary/
on “Ask HN: What's the most life-changing blog post you've ever read?”Submitted Hermeneutical Injustice, Not Gaslighting as a story · 1 points
HN discussionThere's a good critical overview of the various papers here[0]. [0] https://thingofthings.wordpress.com/2018/10/10/on-sokal-squa...
Comment linking /2018/10/10/on-sokal-squared/
on “Proceedings Start Against ‘Sokal Squared’ Hoax Professor”Submitted Petrov Day Ritual: Coronavirus Edition as a story · 1 points
HN discussionI read Models after a good review of it[1]. It was only sort of useful for my 36 year old self but it would have been immensely useful to me at 16. [1] https://thingofthings.wordpress.com/2018/05/25/models-a-summ...
Comment linking /2018/05/25/models-a-summary/
on “Ask HN: What are your favorite non-fiction books of all time?”Submitted Conservatives as Moral Mutants as a story · 1 points
HN discussion"Models" by Mark Manson was my bible in college, and I swear by it. I especially swear by the summary at https://thingofthings.wordpress.com/2018/05/25/models-a-summ... , which I printed out and read basically every morning for a couple of months until it felt like a part of me. Changed my life, vastly for the better.
Comment linking /2018/05/25/models-a-summary/
on “Ask HN: What breakthrough helped you build and maintain better relationships?”Submitted Five Kinds of Relationship Problems as a story · 1 points
HN discussionMy claim was never that social science is immune to the replication crisis or that it could be more accepting of outside criticism; my claim was that singling out "grievance studies" (what the authors take to be sub-branches of critical theory) using poor research methods to make a name for oneself, childish tactics, not getting IRB approval isn't the right way to go about solving such a problem, and that using this…
Comment linking /2018/10/10/on-sokal-squared/
on “To Fix the Social Sciences, Look to the “Dark Ages” of Medicine”Submitted The Enemy Control Ray as a story · 1 points
HN discussionI know the origin of the word and its history. Its usage has increased tremendously in the past few years. I think we've reached the point where people should push back on invalid usage; I see somebody just posted the following to Hacker News: https://thingofthings.wordpress.com/2020/11/16/hermeneutical... It is not gaslighting when someone contradicts you, or intentionally causes you to doubt your beliefs, or leave…
Comment linking /2020/11/16/hermeneutical-injustice-not-gaslighting/
on “Facebook Is Gaslighting Users into Allowing Ad Tracking on iOS 14”The Rapid Software Testing course by James Bach is really good for teaching some metacognitive skills of this. On a higher abstraction layer, iff you can filter for low-bullshit, some social justice stuff can indeed help someone master the main skills needed to spot diverse failure modes in different user stories. For example, this principle is useful: https://thingofthings.wordpress.com/2014/11/15/the-curb-cut-...
Comment linking /2014/11/15/the-curb-cut-effect-or-why-it-is-basically-impossible-to-appropriate-from-disabled-people/
on “Ask HN: How do you help junior developers learn finding edge cases?”Lol. No, it doesn't. And there are great reasons not to 'steelman.' https://thingofthings.wordpress.com/2016/08/09/against-steel...
Comment linking /2016/08/09/against-steelmanning/
on “California governor vetoes bill that would have set a $35 cap for insulin”>First, there is no such thing as a [socially] successful person who has never ever creeped anyone out. Give yourself permission to be creepy. I am not saying that you should go around trying to creep people out; of course, if you know something is going to scare someone, you shouldn’t do it; it is best that one avoid becoming Harvey Weinstein. But miscommunications, awkwardness, and misunderstandings happen. Someti…
Comment linking /2018/05/25/models-a-summary/
on “How to talk to anyone – and why you should (The Guardian)”Mixed feelings on this. Tell culture allows people to express their feelings directly without prompting, but can also be used manipulatively when insisted on as a behavioral standard by someone who's overbearing relative to the people they're around. For further reading, here's the blog post that named the concept: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/rEBXN3x6kXgD4pLxs/tell-cultu... And further discussion within the same…
Comment linking /2015/05/08/against-tell-culture/
on “Ask vs. Guess Culture”Professionally: Bryan Caplan's "Job Search and the Laws of Wing Walking". There are a lot of posts which echo this basic point, but he essentially hammers home the idea that the first job is usually the worst job, and if you're smart you can use it to quickly get into something better. https://www.econlib.org/job-search-and-the-laws-of-wing-walk... Non-professionally: Thing of Things's "Models: A Summary". I basical…
Comment linking /2018/05/25/models-a-summary/
on “Ask HN: What is a blog post that changed your life for the better?”
