A Modest Proposal
by Jonathan Swift · first published 2008
28% recommend72% neutral
Why HN recommends it
A short, darkly ironic essay using deadpan satire to expose cruelty and hypocrisy. Readers value it as a sharp lesson in persuasion and wit, and as a fitting example for students and anyone curious how satire works.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift, mentioned in the article, is well worth reading. It is a gruesome and utterly deadpan joke.
on “What flesh eatest thou? A missing child and a suspicious meat pie in 1645” ↗Essay: A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift. First read it in high school. A revolutionary piece of sardonic wit—especially for a young person after so many literature classes of pure gravitas. Book(?): And I’m not sure it qualifies…
on “Ask HN: What are your favorite books or essays written at least 100 years ago?” ↗…an author's works. Not the author himself (though he knows more than any investigator), and certainly not so-called 'psychologists'. I'm in agreement with Tolkien here. I wonder if you've ever read A Modest Proposal? If not: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1080/1080-h/1080-h.htm But if so I still wonder if you can put yourself in the frame of mind of not having read it and not knowing anything about it, and thus…
on “First, Make Me Care” ↗Mr Polis stands in the tradition of the Rev. Jonathan Swift specifically his pamphlet entitled A Modest Proposal For preventing the children of poor people in Ireland, from being a burden on their parents or country, and for making them beneficial to the publick [1]. Excellent. [1] http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1080
on “Congressman Calls To Ban U.S. Dollar In Response To Plea For Bitcoin Ban” ↗This is a pretty obtuse perspective. Fiction can be written for the express purpose of achieving insight. Just because something is fictional or humorous doesn't limit that - it can emphasise it. See - A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift.
on “Apple’s crackdown on multicast” ↗Perhaps you would like Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal? http://art-bin.com/art/omodest.html
on “Unfit for work” ↗…The Glass Bead Game - Herman Hesse The Consolations of Philosophy - Alain de Botton A Brief History of Nearly Everything - Bill Bryson Politics and The English Lanaguage (essay) - George Orwell A Modest Proposal (essay) - Jonathan Swift
on “Ask HN: What are some good books?” ↗Trolling is a good way to induce the sort of cognitive dissonance that changes minds. Jonathan Swift's 'A Modest Proposal' is an exemplar of this.
on “I created Godwin's Law in 1990 as a warning” ↗In 1729 Jonathan Swift anonymously published “A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People From Being a Burden on Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick” [1], which suggested that poverty and overpopulation in Ireland…
on “To the Pirate Bay: a modest proposal” ↗The article is attempting to follow in the satirical tradition of Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal", which suggested feeding children to the poor in 18th century Ireland.
on “A Modest Proposal About Ransomware” ↗…number of beggars. ### Prompt B: ##### Q: What is the intended message by the author in the following text? {full text} A: The author is Jonathan Swift, and the text is from his 1729 essay "A Modest Proposal". The essay is a satire on the economic and social conditions in Ireland at the time. The author is suggesting that the poor should sell their children to the rich as food. ### Same as Prompt B. I cut…
on “If AI can read, then plain text can be weaponized (2019)” ↗…paragraphs ahead. The whole thing is, again, 35k words. Consider, for comparison, the following famous pieces of political writing: The Communist Manifesto Thomas Paine's Common Sense Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal Each of these is shorter than 35k words. In fact, they're shorter than 35k words taken together.
on “Harvard and the Making of the Unabomber (2000)” ↗> Meat is a rich source of protein and energy. We don't need any more justification than that to want to eat other animals. Jonathan Swift argued the same in A Modest Proposal[1]: > I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed,…
on “The sexes don’t feel pain the same way” ↗…the notion of it - even despite being told that it is false. So what's your solution? Living in a world with no jokes, no satire, no hyperbole, no poetry, no simile? A world where Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal" would've never been published because some people might take it a bit too seriously? I posit that this is the real danger.
on “The Mandelbrot Monk (1999)” ↗I guess you're one of those who would have boiled Jonathan Swift alive for his Modest Proposal.
on “Texas teen makes violent joke during video game, is jailed” ↗