481
Most cited
Posts that commenters keep linking to, ranked by how many different people have cited them in Hacker News comments. 2,107 posts.
Society, Policy & Culture
Any year
482
Reasons for Speaking Out on Sex and Gender Issues (2020)
Warning: The below content is not appropriate for children. Please check with an adult before you read this page. To go back to the children’s page, please click here. This isn’t an easy piece to write, for reasons that will shortly become clear, but I know it’s time to explain myself on an issue surrounded […]
483
Archiving URLs (2019)
Archiving the Web, because nothing lasts forever: statistics, online archive services, extracting URLs automatically from browsers, and creating a daemon to regularly back up URLs to multiple sources.
484
Literacy
Being able to read and write opens up the world of education and knowledge. When and why did more people become literate? How can progress continue?
485
New study suggests today’s SUVs are more lethal to pedestrians than cars
SUVs, which make up an increasingly large share of the vehicle fleet, are more likely to kill pedestrians than cars. Fresh designs haven't changed that.
486
"The Use of Knowledge in Society"
Snippet: What is the problem we wish to solve when we try to construct a rational economic order? On certain familiar assumptions the answer is simple enough. If we possess all the relevant information, if we can start out from a given system of preferences, and if we command complete knowledge of available means, the…
487
ACLU History
In the years following World War I, America was gripped by the fear that the Communist Revolution that had taken place in Russia would spread to the United States. As is often the case when fear outweighs rational debate, civil liberties paid the price. In November 1919 and January 1920, in what notoriously became…
488
How popular is Donald Trump?
Silver Bulletin approval ratings for President Trump — and all presidents since Truman.
489
Deforestation and Forest Loss
Explore long-term changes in deforestation and deforestation rates across the world today.
490
Pro-Neutrality, Anti-Title II
Any regulation, including those around net neutrality, should be put to a cost-benefit analysis. In this case regulation advocates come up short.
491
What was the death toll from Chernobyl and Fukushima?
When we think of nuclear safety, two accidents often come to mind: Chernobyl and Fukushima. What was the death toll and impact of these disasters?
492
Meta’s Broken Promises
The 51-page report, “Meta’s Broken Promises: Systemic Censorship of Palestine Content on Instagram and Facebook,” documents a pattern of undue removal and suppression of protected speech including peaceful expression in support of Palestine and public debate about Palestinian human rights. Human Rights Watch found…
493
1. Trends in income and wealth inequality
Barely 10 years past the end of the Great Recession in 2009, the U.S. economy is doing well on several fronts. The labor market is on a job-creating streak that…
494
Behind Trump’s victory: Divisions by race, gender, education
Donald Trump's win followed a campaign that revealed deep divisions that were as wide and in some cases wider than in previous elections.
495
Only 2% of federal criminal defendants went to trial in 2018, and most who did were found guilty
Trials are rare in the federal criminal justice system: Just 2% of criminal defendants went to trial in fiscal 2018. Acquittals are even rarer.
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Rent Control
New York State legislators defend the War Emergency Tenant Protection Act—also known as rent control—as a way of protecting tenants from war-related housing shortages. The war referred to in the law is not the 2003 war in Iraq, however, or the Vietnam War; it is World War II. That is when rent control started in […]
498
What Universal Human Experiences Are You Missing Without Realizing It?
Remember Galton’s experiments on visual imagination? Some people just don’t have it. And they never figured it out. They assumed no one had it, and when people talked about being able t…
499
Poverty Facts and Stats
This part of the globalissues.org web site presents some of the hard hitting facts and statistics on poverty.
500
Selected Essays on Political Economy
Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850) was a French economist, statesman, and author. He led the free-trade movement in France from its inception in 1840 until his untimely death in 1850. The first 45 years of his life were spent in preparation for five tremendously productive years writing in favor of freedom. Bastiat was the…
501
Saint IGNUcius
Stallman is a saint in the Church of Emacs—Saint IGNUcius. I bless your computer, my child! (jpeg 31k, photo by Wouter van Oortmerssen)
502
The Stanford Professor Who Fought the Tax Lobby
Paying taxes in America doesn’t need to be difficult. But it's kept that way by the lobbying efforts of tax prep companies that profit from confusing tax forms.
503
Long-term survey reveals Chinese government satisfaction
Ash Center research team unveils findings from long-term public opinion survey.
504
The short history of global living conditions and why it matters that we know it
Very few think the world is making progress. In this article, we look at the history of global living conditions and show that the world has made immense progress in important aspects.
505
Chat log exhibits from Twitter v. Musk case
This is a scan/OCR of Exhibits H and J from the Twitter v. Musk case, with some of the conversations de-interleaved and of course converted from a fuzzy scan to text to make for easier reading.
506
Radicalizing the Romanceless
[PLEASE NOTE: This post is from 2014.] [Content note: Gender, relationships, feminism, manosphere. Quotes, without endorsing and with quite a bit of mocking, mean arguments by terrible people. Some…
507
Futarchy: Vote Values, But Bet Beliefs
These policies are not just dumb in retrospect; typically there were people who understood a lot about such policies and who had good reasons to disapprove of them beforehand. It seems hard to imagine such policies being adopted nearly as often if everyone knew what such "experts" knew about their consequences. Thus…
508
Debunking False Accusations Against Richard Stallman
Explains and debunks the most broadcast accusations against Richard Stallman, providing evidence of outright fabrication, exaggeration, or deceit.
509
Cars, planes, trains: where do CO₂ emissions from transport come from?
Transport accounts for around one-fifth of global CO₂ emissions. Three-quarters of this is from road transport.
510
[REPOST] The Non-Libertarian FAQ
[This is a repost of the Non-Libertarian FAQ (aka “Why I Hate Your Freedom”), which I wrote about five years ago and which used to be hosted on my website. It no longer completely refle…