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Ask HN: What are some blog posts that you have enjoyed going through?

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Re: Ask HN: What are some blog posts that you have enjoyed going through?

#71

Post by LoganDark »

q-base wrote: post #21
fool1987 wrote: post #13

https://samkriss.substack.com/p/the-internet-is-already-over CW: gore in header image, about one page long. PgDn gets it out of view on a 1080p screen Posted on HN a while back. It's slightly bleak in outlook but it was what finally pushed me to take serious steps to reduce my presence online. Got rid of all my apps that weren't strictly for comms and deleted most of my socials accounts. I already feel better for the…

I really enjoyed reading this. Thanks a lot for sharing! It is bleak and in-your-face. But I like it. I wholeheartedly agree with his underlying message, that all of it is just distractions, that may keep you from living.

> I wholeheartedly agree with his underlying message, that all of it is just distractions, that may keep you from living.

For me, it's the opposite. The internet is my life. It's the only way in which I may live in the first place.

I have autism, ADHD, and DID, which prevent me from expressing myself properly in Real Life. However, I can express myself extremely well over the internet, with close friends, and do things that you can't do in real life (multimedia and such).

While I believe some parts of the internet can be just distractions, in particular social media like TikTok and Twitter, some parts are so, so important to me, like Discord, which I use to talk to friends. And it's not important because I'm distracting myself or subjecting myself to torture. It's important to me because it keeps me in contact with other real people that I get to talk to instantly every single day and express myself in exactly the way that I want.

It's not just a distraction.

Re: Ask HN: What are some blog posts that you have enjoyed going through?

#72

Post by yackback »

fool1987 wrote: post #13

https://samkriss.substack.com/p/the-internet-is-already-over CW: gore in header image, about one page long. PgDn gets it out of view on a 1080p screen Posted on HN a while back. It's slightly bleak in outlook but it was what finally pushed me to take serious steps to reduce my presence online. Got rid of all my apps that weren't strictly for comms and deleted most of my socials accounts. I already feel better for the…

I know that by god my entire user history is turning into this type of comment, but you should read Baudrillard's Simulation and Simulacra.

Re: Ask HN: What are some blog posts that you have enjoyed going through?

#73

Post by themadturk »

Jimmy Maher's in-depth, amateur history of adventure gaming (and the various systems that they ran on), The Digital Antiquarian, can be found at https://www.filfre.net. (Several previous posts re: The Digital Antiquarian have appeared on HN).

Re: Ask HN: What are some blog posts that you have enjoyed going through?

#74

Post by ramraj07 »

scrollaway wrote: post #40
ramraj07 wrote: post #32

Dan Luu’s Nothing Works article is a must read for every tech person https://danluu.com/nothing-works/

Wow. What a post. Thank you.

Indeeed, I share it with as many colleagues as possible. I consider myself one of those insane engineers lol. So it helps show that perspective!

Re: Ask HN: What are some blog posts that you have enjoyed going through?

#76

Post by wizwit999 »

ramraj07 wrote: post #32

Dan Luu’s Nothing Works article is a must read for every tech person https://danluu.com/nothing-works/

I can't disagree with this article more and it's exactly why Twitter is ridiculously over engineered. I remember chatting with a Twitter DevOps guy and there's multiple internal Grafana clones instead of just using Grafana.

Re: Ask HN: What are some blog posts that you have enjoyed going through?

#77

Post by lannisterstark »

nickspicer1993 wrote: post #26

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/your-book-review-progr... A book review winner outlining "land value tax". Once you read it it's scary how many things you start to notice that it would solve, and how many inefficient policies are put in place but not required if you solve this ultimate underlying issue.

>Once you read it it's scary how many things you start to notice that it would solve

0. It would solve 0 things. It'll just give the US govt for example, more money to bomb our villages and our people.

I can't believe grown-up adults can be this naive.

Re: Ask HN: What are some blog posts that you have enjoyed going through?

#78

Post by syliconadder »

ramraj07 wrote: post #46
syliconadder wrote: post #22

https://parmanu.com/2012/10/28/family-matters/#more-4671 A meditation on immigration and the opposite, "why someone would leave a good job for no other reason than to be close to family". This is a rich piece that I've always gone back to over the past decade. The rest of the blog is equally as brilliant.

I’m Indian, moved a decade to the states and back in india for family reasons. I also love Tokyo Story. I’m not sure I learned anything profound from the article, it’s more like a superficial recollection of observations about family and different cultures maybe? I’m sure Germany is different from the States, so I’m not gonna say I’m an expert at German culture, but suffice to say that beneath the surface of whatever…

I think the superficiality is fair for a personal blog post.

I don't think the author is criticizing the Indian family system as a whole (his other posts are an indication of the opposite) but is lamenting on the ease with which educated Indians find removing themselves from their family to be easy, which is not as prevalent (anecdotal) in Germany. It would make sense, because in the West people are where the opportunities are, unlike say an Indian or Chinese immigrant.

> The more I travel and experience new places and cultures, the more I realize absolutely nothing is that different in a fundamental level. By my estimation 80% of all people are fundamentally capable of great evil in the right circumstances, and no religion or family dynamic changes that, it can just successfully suppress it at best.

I agree with this on every level. The more I travel, the more I see that people are motivated by the same things beneath the veneer of culture and religion. This is a feature I believe, makes me empathize with people who are different from me rather than seeing them as "alien".

> A mother in law sending a tomato plant every year is no more or less loving than a mother who meets their son once a year for thanksgiving, or a grandma eagerly FaceTiming her grandkids across the world every weekend barely able to understand their fast American English.

This is a point I would differ with however. Being in close proximity with people does effect the nature of relationships we have with them. In the latter case, neither the kids nor the Grandma will have the emotional cohesion required to form a solid bonding. I can speak this through experience, video calls with relatives did not enhance my relationship with them but only deteriorated. Again, anecdotal but I think physical relationships fare better than emotional ones any day.

> In the end, all we could wish for is a world where everyone minds their own business, forms whatever friends with whomever they want, and live and love they wish to without prejudice. That’s probably the best deal we can get from this world.

Fair, but I don't think the author is passing any judgements. But most immigrants do not have a choice in the nature of their relationships, money is usually the motivator, not inter-personal relationships.

Re: Ask HN: What are some blog posts that you have enjoyed going through?

#80

Post by hallomisky »

PostOnce wrote: post #42
LoganDark wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CW: gore in header image, about one page long. PgDn gets it out of view on a 1080p screen (Just warning those who might not want to see it)

The "gore" in question being a 400 year old painting by Rubens which is world-renowned. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_(Rubens) Does this really need a warning, or should you just avoid the internet entirely if a Rubens is too much to cope with?

It sounds like you think the painting's age means that it no longer has power, or at least, not power enough to warrant a content-warning. I would beg to differ, and argue that the fact that it still has the power to shock is what makes it "world-renowned".
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