Top all-time · #1318
Cold Takes
Personal blog · cold-takes.comaiphilosophy
Cold Takes is a personal blog at cold-takes.com about ai and philosophy. Since 2021, 53 different Hacker News readers have linked it 70 times, most often “Does X cause Y? An in-depth evidence review (2021)”. The last post was in 2024, but the archive is still widely read.
Too few sampled comments (22) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
Commenters link it for a 'This Can't Go On' post on limits to economic growth, evidence-review explainers, and 'useful vices' for wicked problems; one calls its AGI-risk writing systematic.
- Recommended for · 7 comments
- Mental tools for wicked problems; a reality check on growth; systematic AGI-risk thinking; interesting ideas.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 22 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
For audio version, search for "Cold Takes Audio" in your podcast app
Most-linked posts?
- Does X cause Y? An in-depth evidence review (2021)7 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2021-07-29
- This Can’t Go On5 people · 11 mentions · first linked 2021-08-03
- Learning by Writing5 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2022-05-02
- Minimal-Trust Investigations3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2021-11-24
- All Possible Views About Humanity's Future Are Wild3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-07-13
- The Most Important Century3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2022-08-08
- Useful Vices for Wicked Problems3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2022-04-19
- The Track Record of Futurists Seems ... Fine2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-07-01
What Hacker News says?
I tend to be more of a type1. I recently read a blogpost with some mental tools for not getting bogged down (the whole series is good). https://www.cold-takes.com/useful-vices-for-wicked-problems/
Comment linking /useful-vices-for-wicked-problems/
on “The best engineering interview question I've ever gotten”Submitted This Can’t Go On as a story · 254 points
HN discussionThis article has a chart from and links to https://www.cold-takes.com/wheres-todays-beethoven/#books-th... which is even less convincing than the original.
Comment linking /wheres-todays-beethoven/
on “Geniuses of the past were aristocratically tutored”Submitted Does X cause Y? An in-depth evidence review (2021) as a story · 232 points
HN discussionhttps://www.cold-takes.com/this-cant-go-on/ has some interesting ideas that agree with you.
Comment linking /this-cant-go-on/
on “200k-year-old hand art found near a Tibetan hot spring”Submitted Nonprofit boards are weird as a story · 198 points
HN discussionhttps://images.app.goo.gl/ZomfSetCVGTWj1bS9 https://www.cold-takes.com/unraveling-the-evidence-about-vio...
Comment linking /unraveling-the-evidence-about-violence-among-very-early-humans/
on “The 'Judicial Black Hole' of El Salvador's Prisons Is a Warning for Americans”Submitted Investigating musical genius by listening to the Beach Boys a lot as a story · 61 points
HN discussionI think you are significantly misrepresenting what the author said. He didn't say he has no idea what control variables are. What he said is: > The "controlling for" thing relies on a lot of subtle assumptions and can break in all kinds of weird ways. Here's[1] a technical explanation of some of the pitfalls; here's[2] a set of deconstructions of regressions that break in weird ways. [1] https://journals.plos.org/pl…
Comment linking /phil-birnbaums-regression-analysis/
on “Does X cause Y? An in-depth evidence review (2021)”Submitted All Possible Views About Humanity's Future Are Wild as a story · 61 points
HN discussionIt’s possible this is as advanced as we can get. Innovation seems to be slowing down don’t you think? At some point you have exhausted the laws of physics and this is what you’ve got to work with. https://www.cold-takes.com/this-cant-go-on/
Comment linking /this-cant-go-on/
on “A Dyson sphere around a black hole”Submitted AI Could Defeat All of Us Combined as a story · 59 points
HN discussionI like this article: Does X cause Y? An in-depth evidence review ( https://www.cold-takes.com/does-x-cause-y-an-in-depth-eviden... )
Comment linking /does-x-cause-y-an-in-depth-evidence-review/
on “Things that apparently cause cancer”Submitted The gloves are off, the pants are on as a story · 46 points
HN discussionThis guy makes sense; e.g. also see his piece on useful vices (of the Larry Wall type) for writing about wicked problems, https://www.cold-takes.com/useful-vices-for-wicked-problems/
Comment linking /useful-vices-for-wicked-problems/
on “Nonprofit boards are weird”Submitted Does X cause Y? An in-depth evidence review as a story · 26 points
HN discussionI can read all these technical extrapolations of physics but I don’t think humans can run much faster than Usain or they would currently do so. Without more performance enhancing drugs and I’m assuming we don’t want that. We are going to live in a weird world in the future when we realize things can’t just continue forever up and to the right on all charts. We may just live at the plateau for eons. I believe we are…
Comment linking /this-cant-go-on/
on “How fast can a human possibly run 100 meters?”Submitted Rowing, Steering, Anchoring, Equity, Mutiny as a story · 16 points
HN discussion>legitimate, practical field It's a mistake to conflate practicality with legitimacy, e.g. philosophy and pure mathematics are legitimate but impractical fields. >None of the arguments you've made so far actually touch in any relevant facts, they're just vague arguments from authority. I've been countering your arguments which sound vaguely authoritative (but don't actually cite any authorities) with some actual aut…
Comment linking /most-important-century/
on “Bing: “I will not harm you unless you harm me first””Submitted Learning by Writing as a story · 9 points
HN discussionHolden Karnofsky, the CEO of Open Philanthropy, has a blog called 'Cold Takes' where he explores a lot of these ideas. Specifically there's one post called 'Digital People Would Be An Even Bigger Deal' that talks about how this could be either very good or very bad: https://www.cold-takes.com/how-digital-people-could-change-t... The short story obviously takes the very bad angle. But there's a lot of reason to belie…
Comment linking /how-digital-people-could-change-the-world/
on “Bing: “I will not harm you unless you harm me first””Submitted Reading Books vs. Engaging with Them as a story · 3 points
HN discussionIt will be interesting if it repeats. He may just be a guy that existed in one of the most privileged eras in human history for making money like that, like a colonist writing a book about how easy it is to get free land in America. https://www.cold-takes.com/this-cant-go-on/
Comment linking /this-cant-go-on/
on “Poor Charlie's Almanack: The Essential Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger”Submitted Useful Vices for Wicked Problems as a story · 3 points
HN discussionBecause everything is tied to the stock price now, most especially the execs’ salaries and bonuses. It’s not good enough to just make money, you have to make money at an ever-increasing rate which is impossible. https://www.cold-takes.com/this-cant-go-on/
Comment linking /this-cant-go-on/
on “Consumers are paying more than ever for streaming TV each month”Submitted The Most Important Century as a story · 3 points
HN discussionThe post links to a followup post where he discusses this point further: https://www.cold-takes.com/more-on-multiple-world-size-econo...
Comment linking /more-on-multiple-world-size-economies-per-atom/
on “This Can't Go On”Submitted Does X Cause Y as a story · 3 points
HN discussionThe post links to a followup post where he discusses this point further: https://www.cold-takes.com/more-on-multiple-world-size-econo...
Comment linking /more-on-multiple-world-size-economies-per-atom/
on “This Can't Go On”Submitted Minimal-Trust Investigations as a story · 3 points
HN discussion
Linked by the same people?
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Rohit Krishnanstrangeloopcanon.com - AAustin Vernonaustinvernon.site
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SLIME MOLD TIME MOLDslimemoldtimemold.com - T
Tomas Pueyounchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com - M
Matthew Yglesiasslowboring.com - D
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