Top all-time · #669
Vaughan Bell
Personal blog · mindhacks.comsciencehealthphilosophy
Vaughan Bell writes Mind Hacks, a personal blog at mindhacks.com about science, health and philosophy. Since 2008, 95 different Hacker News readers have linked it 136 times, most often “The internet, depression and drinking a glass of water:”. The last post was in 2022, but the archive is still widely read.
Too few sampled comments (26) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Mind Hacks for neuroscience and psychology posts, including internet addiction, judges' rulings and placebo trials. Commenters call it a fantastic source.
- Recommended for · 4 comments
- Called fantastic and excellent; internet addiction posts worth reading; a judges post more compelling.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 26 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Neuroscience and psychology news and views.
Most-linked posts?
- /2016/12/08/rational-judges-not-extraneous-factors-in-decisions/3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2017-07-05
- The internet, depression and drinking a glass of water:3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2010-02-03
- The dreams and hallucinations of cloistered monks2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2011-12-13
- Liars create the illusion of truth – Mind Hacks2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2016-11-14
- Did the Victorians have faster reactions?2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2018-07-04
- Web of illusion: how the internet affects our confidence in what we know2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2015-10-23
- On the information alarmageddon2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2009-05-25
What Hacker News says?
Did not want to duplicate others but here is one I did not see on anyones list. https://mindhacks.com/ -- Neuroscience and psychology news and views.
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: What is your favorite internet rabbit hole?”Submitted Drug addiction: The complex truth as a story · 231 points
HN discussion"Research shows that even when news reports have been retracted, and we are aware of the retraction, our beliefs are largely based on the initial erroneous version of the story. This is particularly true when we are motivated to approve of the initial account." - http://mindhacks.com/2011/05/04/why-the-truth-will-out-but-d... Original Paper: http://pss.sagepub.com/content/16/3/190
Comment linking /2011/05/04/why-the-truth-will-out-but-doesnt-sink-in/
on “How You Know”Submitted The illusion of progress lights a fire as a story · 124 points
HN discussionSpeaking of internet addictions, posts worth reading: http://mindhacks.com/2007/08/20/why-there-is-no-such-thing-a... http://mindhacks.com/2008/03/19/internet-addiction-nonsense-...
Comment linking /2008/03/19/internet-addiction-nonsense-hits-the-ajp/
on “Did porn warp me forever?”Submitted Mind Hacks: Breaking the news of Eliza's creator's death to her as a story · 64 points
HN discussionIt's not a new idea; everyone from Homer, with the lotus-eaters of the Odyssey , to Larry Niven, with his wireheads, has explored it in detail. I don't really count Le Guin's work among those explorations; The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas is more in the vein of a parable or morality tale than that of the sort of consideration you describe -- as with The Cold Equations , the usual result tends to be two camps, diam…
Comment linking /2008/09/16/erotic-self-stimulation-and-brain-implants/
on “H5N1”Submitted Did the Victorians have faster reactions? as a story · 42 points
HN discussionSadly, this isn’t the first case of the U.K. government going for something this super creepy. I’ve personally seen London’s “Secure Beneath the Watchful Eyes” posters, which are felt like a parody by its own opponents to discredit it: https://mindhacks.com/2007/01/09/secure-beneath-the-watchful...
Comment linking /2007/01/09/secure-beneath-the-watchful-eyes/
on “UK government plans publicity blitz against encrypted communications”Submitted The stem cell scammers as a story · 39 points
HN discussionIt kind if ignores the dynamic nature of science. Most of what is published probably has close to zero impact regardless of whether its right or wrong, but paradigm changing research generally asserts itself. The problem is that psychology, unlike physics, doesn't really have a paradigm. There's the old saying, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." But for that heuristic to be effective, you need a…
Comment linking /2017/02/16/how-replicable-are-the-social-priming-studies-in-thinking-fast-and-slow/
on “Why isn't there a replication crisis in math?”Submitted Why cyclists enrage car drivers as a story · 35 points
HN discussionThis reminds me of a book I read a few years ago - Mind Hacks [1]. It discussed all kinds of interesting mechanisms that our brains use to fool us into thinking that we are always aware of our environment. In the eye chapter, there was an interesting side-effect of the saccade movement - the "broken watch". This is when your brain fools you into thinking that the picture you see after a saccade has been the same dur…
Comment linking /
on “What everyone should know about the human eye”Submitted 77% of the population have symptoms of personality disorder? as a story · 25 points
HN discussionThis is what the Tom Stafford [1] article suggests: The main analysis works like this: we know that favourable rulings take longer than unfavourable ones (~7 mins vs ~5 mins), and we assume that judges are able to guess how long a case will take to rule on before they begin it (from clues like the thickness of the file, the types of request made, the representation the prisoner has and so on). Finally, we assume jud…
Comment linking /2016/12/08/rational-judges-not-extraneous-factors-in-decisions/
on “Impossibly Hungry Judges”Submitted Human Beautification Algorithm as a story · 23 points
HN discussionAnd for what it's worth there are articles out there with more compelling alternative explanations, some of which were linked to from this article. Try this one: https://mindhacks.com/2016/12/08/rational-judges-not-extrane...
Comment linking /2016/12/08/rational-judges-not-extraneous-factors-in-decisions/
on “Impossibly Hungry Judges”Submitted Why songs get stuck in our heads as a story · 21 points
HN discussionNegotiation skills. https://abe-winter.github.io/2018/12/20/stalin.html http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2014/05/the-ultimate-cheat-shee... http://time.com/38796/6-hostage-negotiation-techniques-that-... https://hbr.org/2016/07/how-to-negotiate-with-a-liar https://hbr.org/2014/06/how-to-negotiate-with-someone-more-p... https://www.fastcompany.com/3001209/negotiate-car-salesman-5... https://www.theatlantic.com/business/a…
Comment linking /2014/05/26/the-best-way-to-win-an-argument/
on “Ask HN: What skills to acquire in 2019?”Submitted Mind Hacks: Treating cluster headaches with LSD and Psilocybin as a story · 14 points
HN discussionThe NIMH (National Institute of Mental Health) announced a few months ago that it would be "re-orienting its research away from DSM categories". Even the guys on the inside don't trust it. http://mindhacks.com/2013/05/03/national-institute-of-mental...
Comment linking /2013/05/03/national-institute-of-mental-health-abandoning-the-dsm/
on “Review of the DSM-V as a piece of dystopian fiction”Submitted Do Bayesian statistics rule the brain? as a story · 13 points
HN discussionThat's an interesting question. I don't know an answer, but I did find this post about an old experiment: https://mindhacks.com/2009/11/18/do-blind-people-hallucinate... It's very unlikely that anything similar would be done today.
Comment linking /2009/11/18/do-blind-people-hallucinate-on-lsd/
on “When Blind People Do Algebra, the Brain's Visual Areas Light Up”Submitted The strange-face-in-the-mirror illusion as a story · 9 points
HN discussionnot just weaker, maybe a bit slower than our ancestors as well https://mindhacks.com/2018/04/03/did-the-victorians-have-fas...
Comment linking /2018/04/03/did-the-victorians-have-faster-reactions/
on “Raising the American Weakling (2017)”Submitted Curing insomnia using anti-placebo. (Placebo makes it worse!) as a story · 7 points
HN discussionThe sentencing study that found those differences was looking at parole decisions. It is not at all clear that the difference before and after lunch (and a similar difference after an afternoon break) shows any bias. A later paper showed that you would get the same effect from a simple, rational time management approach. Cases that are granted parole tend to take longer to decide than those that are denied parole. I…
Comment linking /2016/12/08/rational-judges-not-extraneous-factors-in-decisions/
on “Study finds professors’ attitudes affect students’ grades”Submitted Why we need to get better at critiquing psychiatric diagnosis as a story · 6 points
HN discussionBiphasic and/or polyphasic sleep doesn't seem to work...even on monks who have been doing it for several years: http://mindhacks.com/2011/11/17/the-dreams-and-hallucination...
Comment linking /2011/11/17/the-dreams-and-hallucinations-of-cloistered-monks/
on “Alternate Sleep Cycles”Submitted If It's Difficult to Pronounce, It Must Be Risky as a story · 6 points
HN discussion
