Top all-time · #1148
Matt Lakeman
Personal blog · mattlakeman.orgculturehistory
Matt Lakeman's personal blog at mattlakeman.org covers culture and history. Since 2021, 59 different Hacker News readers have linked it 85 times, most often “Everything You Might Want to Know about Whaling”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-03-26, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (26) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Matt Lakeman's long 'Notes on [country]' travel essays, which mix tourism with history and politics, plus longer history pieces on the Incas, whaling, Enron and El Salvador's Bitcoin experiment.
- Recommended for · 17 comments
- Praised as long, interesting, well written essays; one commenter called the Dominican Republic notes detailed and surprisingly accurate.
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.
Writing on books, experiments, and random things I can't stop thinking about
Most-linked posts?
- Everything You Might Want to Know about Whaling6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2021-06-01
- Notes on Afghanistan5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2026-01-05
- Notes on El Salvador5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2024-03-30
- Shadow of the Sun (2021)5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2021-07-28
- How Much Money Would You Need to Live on a Island for 1.5 Years and Kill Seals?4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2021-11-11
- Against Dog Ownership (2020)4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2021-10-31
- Notes on Ghana3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2023-10-09
- Infinite Jest Extraction3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2026-03-26
- Notes on Nigeria3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2023-05-10
- Explaining, Blaming, and Being Slightly Sympathetic Toward Enron (2020)3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2024-01-08
What Hacker News says?
This will probably greatly interest you: https://mattlakeman.org/2024/03/30/notes-on-el-salvador/
Comment linking /2024/03/30/notes-on-el-salvador/
on “This is a teenager”Submitted Notes on Tajikistan as a story · 373 points
HN discussionI highly recommend this (long) book review discussing the conquistadors: https://mattlakeman.org/2025/03/24/conquest-of-the-incas/ TL;DR - native alliances were important, but Spanish armor made them nearly invincible against native weapons, their military tactics were superior, and cavalry were extremely overpowered against armies made up only of footsoldiers. Weaponry and tech were certainly not irrelevant.
Comment linking /2025/03/24/conquest-of-the-incas/
on “Why the Bronze Age Collapsed”Submitted My experience of losing a friend to heroin (2020) as a story · 319 points
HN discussionBe sure to check out his Notes on the Gambia, which for some reason is the world's premier destination for female sex tourism: https://mattlakeman.org/2023/07/10/notes-on-the-gambia/
Comment linking /2023/07/10/notes-on-the-gambia/
on “Notes on Tajikistan”Submitted Notes on El Salvador as a story · 281 points
HN discussionBe sure to check out his Notes on the Gambia, which for some reason is the world's premier destination for female sex tourism: https://mattlakeman.org/2023/07/10/notes-on-the-gambia/
Comment linking /2023/07/10/notes-on-the-gambia/
on “Notes on El Salvador”Submitted Peep Show is the most realistic portrayal of evil I have seen (2020) as a story · 214 points
HN discussionI've found Matt Lakemans essay really interesting, goes quite deeply into the processing (just how disgusting it is). https://mattlakeman.org/2021/06/01/everything-you-might-want...
Comment linking /2021/06/01/everything-you-might-want-to-know-about-whaling/
on “Kerosene did not save the sperm whale (2024)”Submitted Notes on Guyana as a story · 210 points
HN discussionI've read most of Matt's "Notes on [X]" In general they are well written and interesting. In some cases though it's too simplified and at times insensitive. In particular, I've talked to people who are from Nigeria/Ghana or have visited there and they pointed out issues with his narrative. But most people who read Matt's blog have never been to these places, so they take everything as 100% accurate. That being said,…
Comment linking /2023/08/16/notes-on-mauritania/
on “Notes on the Ivory Coast”Submitted Notes on the Ivory Coast as a story · 165 points
HN discussionAlso interesting is his Notes On The Gambia, which for some reason is the premier destination for female sex tourism: https://mattlakeman.org/2023/07/10/notes-on-the-gambia/
Comment linking /2023/07/10/notes-on-the-gambia/
on “Notes on the Ivory Coast”Submitted Notes on Ukraine: I spent most of April and some of May traveling around Ukraine as a story · 108 points
HN discussionFor an excellent analysis of Bukele and life on the ground in El Salvador, I highly recommend Matt Lakeman's notes: https://mattlakeman.org/2024/03/30/notes-on-el-salvador/ Specifically on Bitcoin: > This guide also told me that he immediately spent his $30 Bitcoin gift from the government on beer and hasn’t possessed a single Satoshi since. > I saw maybe four or five Bitcoin ATMs in El Salvador, including two Athen…
Comment linking /2024/03/30/notes-on-el-salvador/
on “El Salvador's crypto experiment ends in failure”Submitted Notes on Tunisia as a story · 107 points
HN discussionWhat kinds of things would go wrong? Robbery? What kind of chances are you thinking? 5%? 20%? A commonly posted traveler, Matt Lakeman, just visited Dushanbe and didn't get that vibe. https://mattlakeman.org/2024/06/20/notes-on-tajikistan/
Comment linking /2024/06/20/notes-on-tajikistan/
on “The only tourist in Moldova”Submitted Conquest of the Incas as a story · 101 points
HN discussionThis reminds me of Matt Lakeman's "An Attempt at Explaining, Blaming, and Being Very Slightly Sympathetic Toward Enron" https://mattlakeman.org/2020/04/27/explaining-blaming-and-be... He makes the point that although Enron was clearly doing shady things, it's possible for a legitimate business to do many of the same stuff ("mark-to-market" accounting, tricky SPEs, and so on). Try to categorically eliminate Enron-sty…
Comment linking /2020/04/27/explaining-blaming-and-being-very-slightly-sympathetic-toward-enron/
on “The optimal amount of fraud is non-zero (2022)”Submitted Blind, Alone, and Confused for 24 Hours Challenge (2020) as a story · 98 points
HN discussionFolks will probably enjoy Matt Lakeman's series on whaling https://mattlakeman.org/2021/06/01/everything-you-might-want...
Comment linking /2021/06/01/everything-you-might-want-to-know-about-whaling/
on “Medieval Icelanders were likely hunting blue whales before industrial technology”Submitted Against Dog Ownership (2020) as a story · 70 points
HN discussionYou might be interested in the similar story of Jerry Rawlings of Ghana, as told here by Matt Lakeman: https://mattlakeman.org/2023/10/09/notes-on-ghana/ His recent "Notes on [...]" series describing different countries in West Africa is full of interesting stuff. The latest entry, on Ivory Coast (officially Cotê d'Ivoire), was posted here a few days ago and I've been enjoying working back from there.
Comment linking /2023/10/09/notes-on-ghana/
on “Choosing what to read”Submitted Everything You Might Want to Know about Whaling as a story · 27 points
HN discussionIs this because doing nothing is "popular", or because non-industrial societies don't produce enough calories to do more? There's an interesting blogpost[0] about extreme poverty in 20th-century Africa: > He describes the narrow alleys of his neighborhood being packed with bayayes who just sit and stand around all day. Like, for the entire day. They have no jobs, no money, no goals, and they eat so little that they…
Comment linking /2021/07/27/shadow-of-the-sun/
on “One of the most popular activities in non-industrial societies: doing nothing”Submitted I spent most of April and some of May traveling around Ukraine as a story · 11 points
HN discussionThere's similar material on how much time is spent 'doing nothing' in https://mattlakeman.org/2021/07/27/shadow-of-the-sun/ and _The Discovery of France_.
Comment linking /2021/07/27/shadow-of-the-sun/
on “One of the most popular activities in non-industrial societies: doing nothing”Submitted Notes on Saudi Arabia as a story · 10 points
HN discussionAlso interesting is his Notes On The Gambia, which for some reason is the premier destination for female sex tourism: https://mattlakeman.org/2023/07/10/notes-on-the-gambia/
Comment linking /2023/07/10/notes-on-the-gambia/
on “Notes on Tunisia”Submitted Notes on Trinidad and Tobago as a story · 7 points
HN discussion
