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Unqualified Reservations
Personal blog · unqualified-reservations.blogspot.compoliticsphilosophyeconomics
Unqualified Reservations is a personal blog at unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com about politics, philosophy and economics. Since 2007, 103 different Hacker News readers have linked it 221 times, most often “Wolfram Alpha and hubristic user interfaces”. The last post was in 2016, but the archive is still widely read.
Sometimes recommended · 12 of 40 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Mencius Moldbug's long essays on politics, class, money and Urbit, which commenters find thought-provoking whether or not they agree.
- Recommended for · 12 comments
- Called fascinating, thought-provoking and worth reading, and recommended as a starting point and the whole archive.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 40 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- Wolfram Alpha and hubristic user interfaces11 people · 11 mentions · first linked 2009-07-09
- /2009/08/from-cromer-to-romer-and-back-again.html11 people · 11 mentions · first linked 2009-09-07
- What's Wrong with CS Research8 people · 12 mentions · first linked 2007-08-16
- /7 people · 12 mentions · first linked 2008-04-17
- Bitcoin is money, Bitcoin is a bubble5 people · 11 mentions · first linked 2013-10-22
- Uberfact: the ultimate social verifier4 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2007-08-23
- Sam Altman is not a blithering idiot4 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2013-03-13
- /2013/09/technology-communism-and-brown-scare.html4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2013-12-31
- Gold and the Central Banks: Game Theory4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2009-12-03
- /2009/07/why-carlyle-matters.html4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2009-07-25
What Hacker News says?
Curiously Curtis Yarvin wrote about this kind of witch hunt a few years ago: https://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2013/09/techno...
Comment linking /2013/09/technology-communism-and-brown-scare.html
on “Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo”Submitted Wolfram Alpha and hubristic user interfaces as a story · 130 points
HN discussionThe concept of a struggle session might help understand what's going on: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struggle_session Also, Moldbug: http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2013/09/technol...
Comment linking /2013/09/technology-communism-and-brown-scare.html
on “What I Didn't Say”Submitted How Bitcoin dies as a story · 55 points
HN discussionIf Curtis Yarvin gets accepted to a postdoc program at Berkeley and leftist programmers picket, I'll be right there with you. But events like Nodevember, Strange Loop, and Lambdaconf are not academic conferences, they're not a serious part of the citation record for their field, they're put on by private citizens with their own objectives, they're fundamentally about entertainment, and they can make whatever calls t…
Comment linking /2007/07/my-navrozov-moments.html
on “In defence of Douglas Crockford”Submitted What's Wrong with CS Research as a story · 32 points
HN discussionUnfortunately he picked the wrong unjust laws to break, the wrong targets to go after. The problem with being a true believer... http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2013/01/noam-ch...
Comment linking /2013/01/noam-chomsky-killed-aaron-swartz.html
on “Aaron Swartz died three years ago today”Submitted Sam Altman is not a blithering idiot as a story · 15 points
HN discussionThe subject is different, but the point is the same: It is hard to imagine technology restriction working, because we have to get past imagining this terribly powerful tool being wielded by our utterly incompetent and corrupt rulers. The same problem exists in contemplating effective protectionism. The most obvious outcomes of both these tools simply amount to featherbedding if not outright theft. As a result, prote…
Comment linking /2013/03/sam-altman-is-not-blithering-idiot.html
on “The Case of Richard Glossip”Submitted Five problems with Google Android as a story · 15 points
HN discussionhttp://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2008/07/olxii-w...
Comment linking /2008/07/olxii-what-is-to-be-done.html
on “NSA monitored calls of 35 world leaders”Submitted What's wrong with CS research as a story · 9 points
HN discussion> My feeling is that this statement translates fairly directly into "all user data is available to any corporate entity or state security agency for any purpose" Speaking as a semi-informed bystander who's been following Urbit for a while now, it certainly seems like one of the problems it's trying to solve is the typical notion of "user data" as something controlled by third parties. Eg [1]: > Where is Joe's financ…
Comment linking /2011/10/personal-cloud-computing-in-2020-or-not.html
on “Urbit: a personal cloud computer”Submitted Uberfact: the ultimate social verifier as a story · 9 points
HN discussionBefore accusing someone of being a "Hitler-reboot type of person", perhaps you should, you know, actually read what they have to say about Hitler. For example: Since most people are neither historians nor philosophers, the fact that Hitler was on the extreme Right, and this Reaction is also on the extreme Right, raises some natural concerns. Again: the only way to face these concerns is to (a) provide a complete eng…
Comment linking /2009/09/gentle-introduction-to-unqualified.html
on “Urbit: a personal cloud computer”- __ · 2008-08-21
Submitted Economics needs a divorce as a story · 8 points
HN discussion "Comedy writer" isn't quite how I'd describe it, but I'm surprised no one has mentioned that Urbit is run by the guy who writes/wrote under Mencius Moldbug, who is perhaps one of the more controversial people to achieve internet fandom. If you read through all the archives on his site and have no opinion (probably somewhere in the "I hate him" or "I find this reasonably convincing" statistical clusters), then your s…
Comment linking /
on “Urbit: a personal cloud computer”Submitted Bitcoin is money, Bitcoin is a bubble as a story · 7 points
HN discussionIt seems like iskander's account is hellbanned, I think it's one of those rare false positives. Anyway, he replied to your comment: "On the other hand, seeing violence up close gives you a better understanding of experiences many people outside the affluent west have to deal with. I ran back toward my bus after it blew up in Jerusalem and I mostly don't regret it. I hav been haunted by the experience since (the smel…
Comment linking /2011/07/dispatches-from-real-america.html
on “The Bomb That Changed My Life”Submitted Sam Altman is not a blithering idiot as a story · 6 points
HN discussionUnqualified Reservations, by our very own Moldbug: http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/
Comment linking /
on “What are the most intellectually stimulating websites you know of?”Submitted A cracking good read: personal cloud computing. as a story · 6 points
HN discussionThe posts are excruciatingly long, but fascinating and thought-provoking whether you agree or not: http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2009/12/gold-an...
Comment linking /2009/12/gold-and-central-banks-game-theory.html
on “What are the most intellectually stimulating websites you know of?”Submitted Would California be better run if Steve Jobs was CEO of the entire state? as a story · 6 points
HN discussionI'm still skeptical. I suspect meditation can give something similar, but not the same, as something like heroin, just like running can get you a "runner's high". But the brain just can't produce arbitrary chemical formulas. A fun passage from http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2011/07/dispatc... "The serious heroin aficionado, if still functional, lives his junkie life surrounded by poor dumb muggles who…
Comment linking /2011/07/dispatches-from-real-america.html
on “LSD: My Life-Saving Drug”Submitted Noam Chomsky killed Aaron Swartz as a story · 5 points
HN discussionIt would be interesting to see an estimate of how many lives the disappearance of men like him from africa cost. And have you, by the way, been reading mencius moldbug? ( http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2009/08/from-cr... )
Comment linking /2009/08/from-cromer-to-romer-and-back-again.html
on “U.S. Discovers Est. $1 Trillion of Minerals in Afghanistan”Submitted What's Wrong With CS Research (2007) as a story · 5 points
HN discussion>>But I've not found any primary or objective secondary sources on how this went It's definitely true. Progressivism is the memetic leftover of north-eastern US Mainline Protestantism. The poster above you makes the mistake of comparing it to actual religions, when progressivism has evolved to drop the religious components, which still makes its followers the cultural descendants of creepy religious maniacs even tho…
Comment linking /2008/04/open-letter-to-open-minded-progressives.html
on “How do I know China wrecked the Copenhagen deal? I was in the room.”Submitted The Future of Search as a story · 5 points
HN discussion
