Top all-time · #88
Robin Hanson
Personal blog · overcomingbias.comeconomicsphilosophy
Robin Hanson writes Overcoming Bias, a personal blog at overcomingbias.com about economics and philosophy. Since 2007, 402 different Hacker News readers have linked it 1,333 times, most often “ My Favorite Liar (Econ prof's lectures include a lie that students must find)”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-11-01, and you can follow it by feed.
Sometimes recommended · 6 of 40 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
HN readers cite Robin Hanson's posts on signaling and status, COVID variolation, cryonics odds, mergers and emulation economics, and call the blog full of interesting ideas.
- Recommended for · 6 comments
- Called great, full of interesting ideas, worth checking out; one commenter prefers its original post to a repost.
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.
This is a blog on why we believe and do what we do, why we pretend otherwise, how we might do better, and what our descendants might do, if they don't all die. Click to read Overcoming Bias, by Robin Hanson, a Substack publication with tens of thousands of subscribers.
Most-linked posts?
- /10 people · 11 mentions · first linked 2008-01-29
- My Favorite Liar (Econ prof's lectures include a lie that students must find)9 people · 10 mentions · first linked 2008-02-27
- Variolation May Cut Covid19 Deaths 3-30X9 people · 10 mentions · first linked 2020-03-30
- /7 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2007-09-14
- Two Types of Envy5 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2018-05-02
- Politics Isn't About Policy5 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2008-09-23
- Stupider Than You Realize5 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2009-07-05
- Dumb people don't know they are dumb. Is there a simple explanation for this?5 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2008-11-17
- /5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2007-08-04
- Robin Hanson: This is the Dream Time5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2009-09-29
What Hacker News says?
It's also in line with arguments made by Ted Kaczynski (the Unabomber) > Why must everything collapse? Because, [Kaczynski] says, natural-selection-like competition only works when competing entities have scales of transport and talk that are much less than the scale of the entire system within which they compete. That is, things can work fine when bacteria who each move and talk across only meters compete across an…
Comment linking /p/kaczynskis-collapse-theoryhtml
on “CrowdStrike Update: Windows Bluescreen and Boot Loops”Submitted This AI Boom Will Also Bust as a story · 662 points
HN discussionContract law has had a good run so far, I expect it to continue to have one unless we kill all the lawyers. Even then the concept of a written will is very old. Maybe I should rephrase my overarching point since it seems to be lost in the details. Concerns over scamming by exploiting family or in general not doing with your remains what you wanted to have done ought to be the least of one's concerns when making a de…
Comment linking /2009/03/break-cryonics-down.html
on “I'm choosing euthanasia etd 1pm. I have no last words.”Submitted What is ‘elite overproduction’? as a story · 288 points
HN discussionOne interesting thing about the trolley problem is that while most people won't pull the lever when the people involved are all random strangers, most people will if the people are are all relatives. That makes me think that, subconsciously, part of the issue is that if you pull the lever you're afraid the victim's friends and family might blame you for the death and seek revenge but if you don't the friends and fam…
Comment linking /2012/02/immoral-altruism.html
on “Absurd Trolley Problems”Submitted No Recent Automation Revolution as a story · 271 points
HN discussionThis article is basically, "VR gets a vote of confidence from YC". That's good to know, but: a) It should be pointed out that this is what the article is doing (giving a vote of confidence, not summarizing, not making any sort of thorough or novel argument). b) I think that thorough and novel arguments are more useful. The following post comes to mind: http://www.overcomingbias.com/2016/09/write-to-say-stuff-wor... .
Comment linking /2016/09/write-to-say-stuff-worth-knowing.html
on “VR”Submitted Explaining Sex Rate Changes as a story · 259 points
HN discussionYep, my understanding is that cronyism between the executive and the board is a huge issue driving CEO pay. (Boards can also just be out to lunch.) One way to fix this is to make corporate takeovers easier. This sort of cronyism ends up being a con on the shareholders (and the con is especially easy to pull off if the "shareholders" are passive index funds that don't pay much attention to their holdings). By removin…
Comment linking /2010/01/enable-raiders.html
on “Why Twitter didn’t go down: From a real Twitter SRE”Submitted Firm Inefficiency as a story · 230 points
HN discussionLots of great blogs here. One I haven't seen mentioned yet is Robin Hanson's - https://www.overcomingbias.com
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: Favorite Blogs by Individuals?”Submitted How Bees Argue as a story · 198 points
HN discussionI remember Robin Hanson [1] used the second fact to recommend "variolation", injecting everyone with a tiny amount of the virus so that they'll get the immunity without the sickness (making it a "natural vaccine"). [1] http://www.overcomingbias.com/2020/03/variolation-may-cut-co...
Comment linking /2020/03/variolation-may-cut-covid19-deaths-3-30x.html
on “In 4 US state prisons, 3,300 inmates test positive, 96% without symptoms”Submitted My Favorite Liar (2008) as a story · 189 points
HN discussionRobin Hanson has been covering variolation: http://www.overcomingbias.com/2020/04/variolation-test-desig... and part of the issue is that the FDA is poorly equipped and set up to respond to a pandemic. One obvious solution is to cut through the bureaucracy and make emergency exceptions, but no one with political power in the US seems to know this, or understand it.
Comment linking /2020/04/variolation-test-design.html
on “A (possible) solution to Covid-19”Submitted Experts vs elites as a story · 169 points
HN discussionPart of what drove me crazy about Zendegi is that the guy funding the mind-uploading project is constantly portrayed as crazy and selfish for his goals of living longer through uploading, though as soon as one of the protagonists gets sick, suddenly the goal is an exciting possibility for that protagonist in particular (he's had a hard life, so it's noble for him I guess) ... and when the plan falls short because th…
Comment linking /2012/03/egans-zendegi.html
on “Timeline of the far future”Submitted Elite Biases Make Policy Biases as a story · 153 points
HN discussion> Pascal's Wager isn't comparable here for a number of reasons. Please provide them. > Hence my own estimate of at least 5%. (I believe I originally got that figure in my head back from http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/03/break-cryonics-down.ht... . -- I don't think it's an unreasonable one.) I guess if you invent a few data figures and then do math on them, you can get an aggregate of your own opinion. It's like…
Comment linking /2009/03/break-cryonics-down.ht..
on “How Doctors Die”Submitted Lost Advanced Civilizations as a story · 136 points
HN discussion1. Pascal's Wager isn't comparable here for a number of reasons. You're probably thinking of the reasoning some people give that a finite but humongous expected payoff justifies a finite but minuscule probability. I would agree that's a pretty stupid reason to do things; if it's worth doing there are probably better reasons. 2. It's not a guarantee, has anyone ever said it is? Hence my own estimate of at least 5%. (…
Comment linking /2010/07/cryonics-as-charity.html
on “How Doctors Die”Submitted Beware Centralization as a story · 134 points
HN discussionAbove being more than a legal concept, it's also not really about expression, ie. the biggest value to society is not from Alexa O'Brien being able to express her thoughts and feelings, which is a minor benefit to her, but in us being able to read them and then choose the best ideas to adapt/copy/implement. The fact that you can make your (realistically, very tiny) contribution to the culture is much less important…
Comment linking /2010/01/free-hearing-not-speech.html
on “It appears my Google account is slated for deletion”Submitted Prestige in US Today as a story · 118 points
HN discussionYes, mergers routinely destroy value http://www.overcomingbias.com/2010/03/hard-facts-mergers.htm...
Comment linking /2010/03/hard-facts-mergers.html
on “Profits are too high. America needs a giant dose of competition”Submitted UFOs shows government competence as either surprisingly high or low as a story · 108 points
HN discussionI didn't say they're not a positive filter; just that they're a black and white positive filter. Usually, hiring isn't about "passing or failing" candidates; it's about ranking candidates relative to one-another, and hiring the "best" ones (under whatever utility-function you think will help your business succeed.) And putting people into "really impressed me in solving a puzzle" and "did not really impress me in so…
Comment linking /2010/06/school-attitudes.html
on “Why we don't hire programmers based on puzzles and tricks”Submitted We moderns are status-drunk as a story · 102 points
HN discussionAnother idea is to deliberately practice the skill of discarding opinions you've previously expressed, and cultivate a social circle where this doesn't cause you to lose status: http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/06/overcoming-disa.html
Comment linking /2008/06/overcoming-disa.html
on “Give it five minutes”Submitted Brainwashing is sorcery as a story · 101 points
HN discussion
