Top all-time · #2603
Nadia Asparouhova
Personal blog · nadia.xyzcultureeconomicsscience
Nadia Asparouhova's personal blog at nadia.xyz covers culture, economics and science. Since 2022, 32 different Hacker News readers have linked it 34 times, most often “How to do the jhanas”. The last post was in 2024, but the archive is still widely read.
Personal writing, links, and other things by Nadia Asparouhova.
Most-linked posts?
- How to do the jhanas6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2024-06-16
- The New American University (2021)4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2023-06-20
- Understanding science funding in tech, 2011-20214 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2022-03-02
- Mapping Out the Tribes of Climate2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-11-30
- Shamelessness as a strategy (2019)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-07-26
- The independent researcher (2018)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-07-18
- Early stage funding markets for science – an analysis2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-01-24
- The Tyranny of Ideas (2019)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-05-15
- /2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2026-01-13
What Hacker News says?
This blog post, and the one it references, on the jhanas[1], belong to this weird genre which is basically in the vein of Buddhist writing, but without more than a passing reference to Buddhism, its scholarly tradition, its terminology, or its taxonomy. Here's Nadia: > The word jhana comes from Buddhist scriptures, where they were first described. However, as many meditators like to point out, jhanas predate Buddhis…
Comment linking /jhanas
on “Almost anything you give sustained attention to will begin to loop on itself”Submitted Shamelessness as a strategy (2019) as a story · 300 points
HN discussionReminds me of https://nadia.xyz/jhanas I can get psychdelic vision at will being sober (OEVs), mainly looking at grass (with other images it's more difficult). It's produced by sustained attention. It doesn't come with any other psychdelic effect, so it doesn't seem too valuable.
Comment linking /jhanas
on “Almost anything you give sustained attention to will begin to loop on itself”Submitted Shamelessness as a strategy (2019) as a story · 233 points
HN discussionI remember reading interesting things recently about Arizona State University and the "New American University" model - https://nadia.xyz/asu is a nice summary
Comment linking /asu
on “Penn to reduce graduate admissions, rescind acceptances amid research cuts”Submitted How to do the jhanas as a story · 78 points
HN discussionRecommendation: https://nadia.xyz
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: What projects do you donate to?”Submitted The independent researcher (2018) as a story · 65 points
HN discussionI've always liked Nadia's notes page: https://nadia.xyz/notes/ Seems like a low friction way to collect scraps of thoughts and ideas, put them out there without pretension, and then not worry about how many people are engaging or sharing. It's like your own Twitter-style page where you can riff without all the nonsense that comes from doing so on Twitter.
Comment linking /notes/
on “Duty to Document (2023)”Submitted Idea Machines: Ideology and networks that turn ideas into outcomes as a story · 56 points
HN discussionIt's worth noting that Nadia Asparouhova is married to Delian Asparouhov ( https://foundersfund.com/team/delian-asparouhov/ ), a partner at Peter Thiel's Founder's Fund. She previously wrote https://nadia.xyz/climate-tribes last year and there were critiques of her essay such as https://twitter.com/cognazor/status/1607509056499101696
Comment linking /climate-tribes
on “"Accelerationism" is an overdue corrective to years of gloom”Submitted Understanding science funding in tech, 2011-2021 as a story · 32 points
HN discussionThat clears things up, thanks! Here the website of the author: https://nadia.xyz/
Comment linking /
on “Anthropic has made a large contribution to the Python Software Foundation”Submitted Explaining tech's notion of talent scarcity as a story · 9 points
HN discussionComplementary, the author also has an article about ideas: https://nadia.xyz/ideas *edit: > If we see more idea machines appear over the next few years, it can be good for everyone – which is why we need more options besides just effective altruism. Apart from crytpo DAOs, are there any communities that create idea machines?
Comment linking /ideas
on “Idea Machines: Ideology and networks that turn ideas into outcomes”Submitted Hidden cities (2019) as a story · 3 points
HN discussionFor context, do a quick check of the attitudes of the past concerning society in North America versus Europe. It doesn't require you to go read Democracy in America . Here's a passage from Benjamin Franklin's "Information to Those Who Would Remove to America" (which is itself very short on its own—only five or six pages—but here's a few slices): > The Truth is, that tho' there are in that Country few People so miser…
Comment linking /asu
on “US universities need to stop elitist discrimination that Europe abandoned”Submitted Mapping Out the Tribes of Climate as a story · 3 points
HN discussionhttps://worrydream.com https://macwright.com/ https://www.petemillspaugh.com/ https://www.geoffreylitt.com/ https://maggieappleton.com/ https://www.robinsloan.com/ https://thesephist.com/ https://wattenberger.com/ http://conal.net/ https://www.todepond.com/ https://devonzuegel.com/ https://nadia.xyz/ https://adamwiggins.com/ http://glench.com/ https://ncase.me/ Classic from my old Haskell professor: https://byorgey.…
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: What are your favorite blogs not about AI?”Submitted How to Do the Jhanas as a story · 2 points
HN discussionMade me think of "How to do the jhanas" by Nadia Asparouhova: https://nadia.xyz/jhanas Cessation is impressive and the rest too.
Comment linking /jhanas
on “Presence in Death”Submitted Early stage funding markets for science – an analysis as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Independent Researcher (2018) as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Understanding science funding in tech, 2011-2021 as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Understanding science funding in tech, 2011-2021 as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted The New American University (2021) as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted What If Facebook Were a Nonprofit? (2014) as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted How to Do the Jhanas as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Tyranny of Ideas (2019) as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted ASU: The New American University as a story · 1 points
HN discussion
