Top all-time · #333
Kevin Simler
Personal blog · meltingasphalt.comphilosophywriting
Kevin Simler writes Melting Asphalt, a personal blog at meltingasphalt.com about philosophy and writing. Since 2012, 158 different Hacker News readers have linked it 209 times, most often “Ads Don't Work That Way (2014)”. The last post was in 2020, but the archive is still widely read.
Rarely recommended · 4 of 40 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Kevin Simler's essays for ideas like crony beliefs, going critical and status, and for interactive explorables.
- Recommended for · 4 comments
- One commenter says it turned their rationalist outlook inside-out; others recommend the interactive Going Critical piece and call it a must-read.
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?
- Ads Don't Work That Way (2014)15 people · 16 mentions · first linked 2019-07-03
- Going Critical (2019)15 people · 15 mentions · first linked 2019-05-14
- Crony Beliefs13 people · 14 mentions · first linked 2019-12-14
- A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning (2016)7 people · 11 mentions · first linked 2018-12-08
- Wealth: The Toxic Byproduct (2013)7 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2019-01-04
- Ads work by cultural imprinting, not emotional inception7 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2014-09-20
- Neurons Gone Wild Kevin Simler (2013)6 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2019-02-08
- Music in human evolution6 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2013-04-15
- Personhood: A Game for Two or More Players6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2014-07-09
- Social Status: Down the Rabbit Hole6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2015-10-13
What Hacker News says?
> This may be partly because so many thoughtless people feel qualified to enter a political discussion (e.g., about basic income, or immigration), whereas they couldn't even pretend to understand real-time operating systems or functional programming enough to have an opinion. This is true, but I suspect the biggest reason is that politics is more prone to Crony Beliefs ( http://www.meltingasphalt.com/crony-beliefs/…
Comment linking /crony-beliefs/
on “Tell HN: Political Detox Week – No politics on HN for one week”Submitted Going Critical as a story · 989 points
HN discussionIt is more like: If I show somebody Inbox I would be perceived as those happy, cool.. because this person has seen that ad[1]. (does email is cool, and happy?) [1] http://www.meltingasphalt.com/ads-dont-work-that-way/
Comment linking /ads-dont-work-that-way/
on “Google Inbox”Submitted Tears as a story · 417 points
HN discussionI would define "corrupt" as hindering the profitability or stated objectives of the organization[1]. If a team hired to get the job done happens not to be diverse, that doesn't mean the hiring is corrupt. For instance, winning NBA teams don't tend to be very diverse, but I don't see anyone seriously suggesting the NBA draft is corrupt. By that token, if your company tends to hire a certain sort of person, that is by…
Comment linking /crony-beliefs/
on “The new hire who showed up is not the same person we interviewed”Submitted Outbreak – playable simulations of a disease outbreak as a story · 355 points
HN discussion> What's the point of our existence if we have no way to meaningfully contribute to our own world? You may find this to be insightful: https://meltingasphalt.com/a-nihilists-guide-to-meaning/ In short, "meaning" is a contextual perception, not a discrete quality, though the author suggests it can be quantified based on the number of contextual connections to other things with meaning. The more densely connected some…
Comment linking /a-nihilists-guide-to-meaning/
on “AI 2027”Submitted A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning as a story · 325 points
HN discussionHah, was planning on linking to Nicky Case[0], but of course that's exactly who's behind this! :D Very exciting project. We're absolutely leaving "leaving money on the table" by not leveraging the full power of the brain for education and reasoning about complex systems. See also: Bret Victor's "Ladder of Abstraction" [1], and Kevin Simler's "Going Critical" [2]. [0] https://ncase.me/ [1] http://worrydream.com/Ladde…
Comment linking /going-critical/
on “Explorabl.es”Submitted Wealth: The Toxic Byproduct (2013) as a story · 158 points
HN discussionA couple of my favorites: - https://meltingasphalt.com/ - https://simonsarris.substack.com/ - https://ava.substack.com/
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: Favorite Blogs by Individuals?”Submitted Personhood: A Game for Two or More Players as a story · 147 points
HN discussion- https://greyenlightenment.com - https://www.joelonsoftware.com - https://meltingasphalt.com - https://lukesmith.xyz/blog
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: Favorite Blogs by Individuals?”Submitted Ads work by cultural imprinting, not emotional inception as a story · 142 points
HN discussionThe author's statement that "My view is that applications are a social construction" I think hints at a deeper truth, that while _code_ is run by machines, managing a _codebase_ is more like raising a plant in a garden and not like changing the oil in a machine. Reminds me of "A Codebase is An Organism"[1]. [1] https://meltingasphalt.com/a-codebase-is-an-organism/
Comment linking /a-codebase-is-an-organism/
on “Software Architecture Guide”Submitted Crony Beliefs as a story · 124 points
HN discussion> In a less urban area, this is far less like. The core of intellectual pursuit isn’t just smart people, but the confluence of people who have the same interests and who are also well positioned. The idea that spontaneous interactions lead to innovation is wonderfully captured in Kevin Simler’s essay Going Critical https://meltingasphalt.com/interactive/going-critical/
Comment linking /interactive/going-critical/
on “Should more of us be moving to live near friends?”Submitted Neurons Gone Wild as a story · 119 points
HN discussionI recommend everyone interested in percolation theory to also check https://meltingasphalt.com/interactive/going-critical/ and play with critical thresholds interactively!
Comment linking /interactive/going-critical/
on “Elegant six-page proof reveals the emergence of random structure”Submitted A Codebase Is an Organism (2014) as a story · 115 points
HN discussionI think there's truth on both sides. I feel this is a good time to link to this article again that I believe was discussed on here some months ago: http://www.meltingasphalt.com/ads-dont-work-that-way/ I find its theory compelling that a lot of advertising works by cultural imprinting : corporations use their power to create a presence in the public sphere which changes the underlying culture of society, and we as i…
Comment linking /ads-dont-work-that-way/
on “How Children Lost the Right to Roam in Just 4 Generations”Submitted A Codebase is an Organism as a story · 80 points
HN discussionI especially appreciated the following articles when I was in the throes of full-blown nihilism: - https://meltingasphalt.com/a-nihilists-guide-to-meaning/ - https://meaningness.com/preview-eternalism-and-nihilism - https://meaningness.com/wrong-about-nihilism - http://cook-greuter.com/9%20levels%20of%20increasing%20embra...
Comment linking /a-nihilists-guide-to-meaning/
on “Superior IQs associated with mental and physical disorders, research suggests”Submitted Neurons Gone Wild as a story · 70 points
HN discussionI think the vast majority of humans are simply disinterested in objective truth, except to the extent it's actionable in our day-to-day lives; otherwise, our sense-making is driven largely by the utility of social signaling: https://meltingasphalt.com/crony-beliefs/ See also: Donald Hoffman's experiments in truth-maximizing vs. fitness-maximizing: https://www.edge.org/response-detail/25450
Comment linking /crony-beliefs/
on “Ask HN: How do we stop the polarization/toxicicity filling the web?”Submitted Going Critical (2019) as a story · 63 points
HN discussionThere's a crazy theory that human burial, as well as singing and dancing, are an evolutionary defense against large predators. http://www.meltingasphalt.com/music-in-human-evolution/ That link is a blog length summary of a book, but the ultra-short version is: if local predators get a taste for human flesh from a corpse, they'll come after the living and humans singing and dancing in unision can give the appearance…
Comment linking /music-in-human-evolution/
on “The cave divers who went back for their friends”Submitted Ads Don't Work That Way (2014) as a story · 42 points
HN discussionWhat better technology do you have in mind? HTML? Because as much as I like it, I find myself converting HTML to PDF every now and then so I can annotate, paginate, and yes, print it. PDF isn't perfect, but the art of typesetting is informed by much more than the physical properties of paper. Reducing communication to a static artifact divided into page-sized chunks is a useful feature for scholarly writing. Being a…
Comment linking /interactive/going-critical/
on “Word processors are ditching equation editors in favour of LaTeX”Submitted UX and the Civilizing Process as a story · 38 points
HN discussion
