Top all-time · #2982
Tove K
Personal blog · woodfromeden.substack.comculturephilosophy
Tove K writes Wood From Eden, a personal blog at woodfromeden.substack.com about culture and philosophy. Since 2023, 26 different Hacker News readers have linked it 54 times, most often “Becky Is Depressed”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-30, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (10) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Tove K's Substack for essays on evolutionary psychology and human prehistory, including why human societies developed slowly, sex ratios in warring societies, and happiness as an evolved signal.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 10 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Making glulam of the tree of knowledge.
Most-linked posts?
- Becky Is Depressed3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2023-04-02
- “My long goodbye to Windows XP” (2022)2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2023-04-04
- The Anti-Autism Manifesto2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2024-11-23
- Both sexes have to be oppressed: book review of Warriors and Worriers2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2024-01-09
- Why human societies developed so little during 300k years2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-04-08
- Killjoys Will Inherit the Future2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2024-10-21
- A rational reason to dislike pornography2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-04-08
- /p/why-do-humans-ever-develop?sd=pf2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-04-08
- The survival skills of Helena Valero2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2024-10-06
What Hacker News says?
If you wonder in what kind of environment human "reason" possibly evolved read this commentary on the experience of a young woman kidnapped by a primitive society and her survival among them. https://woodfromeden.substack.com/p/the-survival-skills-of-h... Having allegiance to truth rather than to people would be definitely a maladaptive trait.
Comment linking /p/the-survival-skills-of-helena-valero
on “Why Facts Don't Change Our Minds”Submitted The survival skills of Helena Valero as a story · 91 points
HN discussionReminds me of https://woodfromeden.substack.com/p/my-long-goodbye-to-windo...
Comment linking /p/my-long-goodbye-to-windows-xp
on “My daily driver is older than I thought; it's positively vintage”Submitted Confessions from an Unpleasant Woman as a story · 49 points
HN discussionIt's in their next post: https://woodfromeden.substack.com/p/why-do-humans-ever-devel... I think this next post contains many more interesting observations than this one. In 1970 anthropologist William Divale compiled sex ratio data from 112 primitive societies. He found that among societies practicing war, sex ratios were on average very male-skewed among children and much less male-skewed among adults. The probabl…
Comment linking /p/why-do-humans-ever-develop?sd=pf
on “Why human societies developed so little during 300k years”Submitted Slut-onomics: How the scarcity of sluts tears the social fabric apart as a story · 32 points
HN discussionSubstack provides feeds for their stuff. e.g. https://woodfromeden.substack.com/feed
Comment linking /feed
on “Why human societies developed so little during 300k years”Submitted Making Sense of Honor Culture as a story · 16 points
HN discussionThey published another article today: https://woodfromeden.substack.com/p/exploit-the-weakness-of-... (ctrl+F "alpha")
Comment linking /p/exploit-the-weakness-of-thy-neighbor
on “Why human societies developed so little during 300k years”Submitted The Anti-Autism Manifesto as a story · 13 points
HN discussionI think the next article by the author addresses this point directly and, as far as I can tell, comes to largely the same conclusion as you [0]. [0] https://woodfromeden.substack.com/p/why-do-humans-ever-devel...
Comment linking /p/why-do-humans-ever-develop?sd=pf
on “Why human societies developed so little during 300k years”Submitted Why human societies developed so little during 300k years as a story · 13 points
HN discussionI assume you're referring https://woodfromeden.substack.com/p/becky-is-depressed And your take on it is so utterly bizarre I can't believe you actually read it. He literally talks about how strange it is that the "Becky" concept exists as it never did when he was a teen (it seems equally weird to me).
Comment linking /p/becky-is-depressed
on “Why human societies developed so little during 300k years”Submitted Most couples just can't be happy as a story · 10 points
HN discussionIt feels like there is a lot of missing information in this article. However there is a bit more information in this previous one: https://woodfromeden.substack.com/p/the-anti-autism-manifest... According to that article, the author's daughter was diagnosed with autism but the author has decided it is actually schizoid personality disorder. Her daughter is and has been receiving psychiatric treatment but for some re…
Comment linking /p/the-anti-autism-manifesto
on “The Madness Taboo”Submitted Parent shaming causes the demographic collapse as a story · 9 points
HN discussionYour post all sounds very good. Have an upvote! But here's the thing. How does this critical thinking methodology fit in with the strong leftward tilt? I don't know of any successful Marxist societies (forcible or voluntary), so why do critical thinkers think they can get Marxism to work? Here's a topical example: https://woodfromeden.substack.com/p/violent-enough-to-stand-... When the facts don't fit Marxist theory…
Comment linking /p/violent-enough-to-stand-still
on “American IQ Scores Have Rapidly Dropped, Proving the 'Reverse Flynn Effect'”Submitted The Madness Taboo as a story · 6 points
HN discussionhttps://woodfromeden.substack.com/p/my-long-goodbye-to-windo...
Comment linking /p/my-long-goodbye-to-windows-xp
on “I Still Use Windows 95 (archived, 2008)”Submitted Every time someone says "Please think of the children", fertility sinks as a story · 5 points
HN discussionThe author links to a post of what personally worked for her- dropping out of college (abstract work doesn't satisfy her primal brain), having kids (procreating does), and moving to the country (not really explained, but I guess nature). https://woodfromeden.substack.com/p/how-i-cured-myself-with-... What seems like the author's fundamental explanation is also written there: > It is exactly the same with psychologic…
Comment linking /p/the-10-000-year-explosion-the-book
on “Happiness is a reward from our ancestors”Submitted On the experience of being dirt-poorish, for people who want to be as a story · 5 points
HN discussionShe's essentially arguing that long-term happiness is an evolved signal that someone is on the right evolutionary path. It's the emotional self-help equivalent of a prosperity gospel. Her argument can best be illustrated by a paragraph from another article titled How I cured myself with evolutionary psychology [1] > In order to cure my depression, I did the evolutionary psychology thing hard-core: I got married and…
Comment linking /p/how-i-cured-myself-with-evolutionary
on “Happiness is a reward from our ancestors”Submitted Killjoys Will Inherit the Future as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted Hell is other people – Why individualism shrinks the next generation as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Opportunity Theory of Depression as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Feminism is just an ape alliance as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Both sexes have to be oppressed: book review of Warriors and Worriers as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Becky Is Depressed as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Parent Shaming Is Natural as a story · 2 points
HN discussion
