Best of 2017

The blog posts Hacker News loved most in 2017. 2,293 posts.

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2192

Brian Eno: Composers as Gardeners

So for me, this was really a new paradigm of composing. Changing the idea of the composer from somebody who stood at the top of a process and dictated precisely how it was carried out, to somebody who stood at the bottom of a process who carefully planted some rather well-selected seeds, hopefully, and watched them…

2214

What's Wrong with Students?

Former philosophy professor and successful humorist Dennis Fried sent me some poignant comments on my piece in The Atlantic. Reprinted with Fried’s permission. Dear Dr. Caplan, I just read your article in Atlantic magazine and was blown away by the brutal honesty displayed there, especially coming from someone whose…