Top all-time · #2636
Neal Stephenson
Personal blog · nealstephenson.substack.comwritingculture
Neal Stephenson writes Graphomane, a personal blog at nealstephenson.substack.com about writing and culture. Since 2024, 28 different Hacker News readers have linked it 41 times, most often “My Prodigal Brainchild”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-27, and you can follow it by feed.
Neal Stephenson's Substack. Mostly about the intersection of tech and art, with some excursions, digressions, and tangents. I will talk about projects I'm actively working on. I have a personal financial interest in some of those. Click to read Graphomane, by Neal Stephenson, a Substack publication
Most-linked posts?
- My Prodigal Brainchild10 people · 10 mentions · first linked 2026-03-23
- Remarks on AI from NZ7 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2025-05-15
- Emerson, AI, and the Force – Neal Stephenson3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2025-07-09
- Writing by Hand is Good for your Brain3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2026-07-22
- KdK part 2: a medical mystery from postwar Germany2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2025-12-29
- Chain Flinger2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2025-12-28
What Hacker News says?
Neal Stephenson has a recent post that covers some of this. Also links to teachers talking about many students just putting all their work into chatgpt and turning it in. https://nealstephenson.substack.com/p/emerson-ai-and-the-for...
Comment linking /p/emerson-ai-and-the-force
on “LLM Inevitabilism”Submitted A Remarkable Assertion from A16Z as a story · 358 points
HN discussionWow, I’m convinced! In all seriousness: why do you insist on an intellectual totem pole with art being more “hoity toity” as you say, and more worthy? And if so, why is engineering below painting? In mathematics and some hard sciences, and in absolutely elementary aspects of other fields like programming, things can be proven to be right or wrong. In every other endeavour, we need to repeatedly apply fuzzy judgement…
Comment linking /p/idea-having-is-not-art
on “Rust’s dependencies are starting to worry me”Submitted Remarks on AI from NZ as a story · 181 points
HN discussionSaying "no" to off-topic / dumb ideas in a consistent way is an amazing product development skill. It's like carving away all of the marble that doesn't look like David. Neal Stephenson wrote a really great Substack about art and how it's the end product of many small decisions. That's exactly what Jobs did on the hardware he worked on. https://nealstephenson.substack.com/p/idea-having-is-not-art
Comment linking /p/idea-having-is-not-art
on “Steve Jobs and Cray-1 to be featured on 2026 American Innovations $1 coin”Submitted The Wrongs of Thomas More as a story · 128 points
HN discussionReminds me of Neal Stephenson's thoughts on the topic here: https://nealstephenson.substack.com/p/remarks-on-ai-from-nz > By training AIs to fight and defeat other AIs we can perhaps preserve a healthy balance in the new ecosystem. If I had time to do it and if I knew more about how AIs work, I’d be putting my energies into building AIs whose sole purpose was to predate upon existing AI models by using every conceiv…
Comment linking /p/remarks-on-ai-from-nz
on “The first big AI disaster is yet to happen”Submitted Historical Scientific Instruments as a story · 54 points
HN discussion"Writing by Hand is Good for your Brain - Here's how to do it" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49022152 https://nealstephenson.substack.com/p/writing-by-hand-is-goo...
Comment linking /p/writing-by-hand-is-good-for-your
on “We still use paper”Submitted Geoengineering (Wrong 2) as a story · 37 points
HN discussionOriginal source I quoted from is https://nealstephenson.substack.com/p/remarks-on-ai-from-nz
Comment linking /p/remarks-on-ai-from-nz
on “Quoting Neal Stephenson”Submitted Writing by Hand is Good for your Brain as a story · 24 points
HN discussionSubmitted Say it, don't show it as a story · 8 points
HN discussionSubmitted Remarks on AI from NZ as a story · 6 points
HN discussionSubmitted My Prodigal Brainchild as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted KdK Part 5: The Aitkenator as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Emerson, AI, and the Force (Neal Stephenson on education in the LLM era) as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Emerson, AI, and the Force – Neal Stephenson as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Remarks on AI from NZ – By Neal Stephenson as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Remarks on AI from NZ as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted My Prodigal Brainchild as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted The metaverse: Neal Stephenson's prodigal brainchild as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted My Prodigal Brainchild as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Chain Flinger as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Emerson, AI, and the Force – Neal Stephenson as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Remarks on AI from NZ as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Updates to Two Previous Posts as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Writing by Hand is Good for your Brain as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted My Prodigal Brainchild – By Neal Stephenson as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted My Prodigal Brainchild as a story · 1 points
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