721
Terrorism is not about terror
Terrorists act irrationally from a rational activism perspective, and groups act in ways most consistent with terrorism being about social status and belonging
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
722
In Defense of Inclusionism
Iron Law of Bureaucracy: the downwards deletionism spiral discourages contribution and is how Wikipedia will die.
723
Policy on the AI Exponential
In one of the side plots to The Lord of the Rings , two of the Hobbits attempt to rouse Treebeard—a wise but ponderous sentient tree—to defend his forest from an army that is cutting it down. The problem is that Treebeard operates at a very different speed than the Hobbits. It takes him a full day simply to say hello…
724
Smoking around the world
Tobacco smoking is one of the world’s largest health problems today.
725
Uber Announces Results for Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2019
Revenue of $4.1 billion, growing 37% year-over-year or 39% on a constant currency basis Rides Adjusted EBITDA of $742 million, with continued margin expansion Uber Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: UBER) today announced financial results for the fourth quarter and full year ended December 31, 2019. Financial Highlights for…
726
U.S. Church Membership Falls Below Majority for First Time
For the first time in Gallup's polling history, less than half of U.S. adults report belonging to a church, synagogue or mosque.
727
In Defense of Inclusionism (2009-18)
Iron Law of Bureaucracy: the downwards deletionism spiral discourages contribution and is how Wikipedia will die.
728
Surgeons Should Not Look Like Surgeons
CHAPTER from SKIN IN THE GAME
729
Engelbart's Violin (2012)
Computing pioneer Alan Kay tells us that a computer is "an instrument whose music is ideas." This seems like a beautiful metaphor, until you realize that we have somehow ended up in a world where the profession of musician is nearly unknown. To continue with this analogy, let's imagine that you were a child who loves…
730
Why some businesses aren't allowed on Stripe
We’re building business infrastructure. As with other kinds of infrastructure (like hosting or electricity), we'd like to make it available to as broad a set of users as possible.
731
How much do rockets pollute?
Some might find it ironic that an organization like NASA, who studies our atmosphere, is ok with rockets polluting it so much. Or isn’t it weird that Elon Musk, the same person who is pushing sustainable energy with Tesla also has a rocket company that runs on fossil fuels? So today we are going to do a deep dive into…
732
733
How much is time wrong around the world? (2014)
Why Spaniards have dinner so late? A map of the difference between solar time and clock time around the world.
734
Emissions of richest 1 percent more than double the emissions of poorest 50%
The richest one percent of the world’s population are responsible for more than twice as much carbon pollution as the 3.1 billion people who made up the poorest half of humanity during a critical 25-year period of unprecedented emissions growth.
735
Matrix' answer to Moxie: On privacy versus freedom
Matrix, the open protocol for secure decentralised communications
736
The world’s most-surveilled cities
We've gathered data on CCTV cameras in use in 120 major cities across the globe to determine which cities have the most surveillance cameras per person.
737
“Pay or Okay” on tech news site heise.de illegal, decides German DPA
The Data Protection Authority of Lower Saxony (LfD) decided that the “Pay or Okay” solution used by heise.de was unlawful
738
739
How big brother and big media can put the Internet genie back in the bottle.
The Digital Imprimatur
740
Nature's Decline Unprecedented; Species Extinction Rates Accelerating (2019)
United Nations Sustainable Development Goals - Time for Global Action for People and Planet
741
Why Cryonics Makes Sense (2016)
The more I read about cryonics—i.e. freezing yourself after death—the more I realized it's something we should all be talking about.
742
743
Basic Income, Not Basic Jobs: Against Hijacking Utopia
Some Democrats angling for the 2020 presidential nomination have a big idea: a basic jobs guarantee, where the government promises a job to anybody who wants one. Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand, E…
744
SSC Gives A Graduation Speech
[Trigger warning for deliberately provoking horror about graduates’ real-world post-college prospects] [Epistemic status: intended as persuasive speech, may somewhat overstate case] Ladies an…
745
Pulitzer Finalist: Staff of BuzzFeed News
For a stunning probe across two continents that proved that operatives with apparent ties to Vladimir Putin have engaged in a targeted killing campaign against his perceived enemies on British and American soil.
746
Orchestrating Impartiality: The Impact of “Blind” Auditions on Female Musicians
The difficulties associated with proving and addressing gender discrimination in hiring processes have presented policymakers with a major challenge over the past few decades. In an attempt to overcome gender-biased hiring, a vast majority of symphony orchestras revised their hiring practices from the 1950s. Many…
747
Key findings about how Americans view artificial intelligence
Drawing on five years of Pew Research Center surveys, here are 13 findings about how Americans use and view AI, and where they see promise and risk.
748
The Last Psychiatrist: The Dove Sketches Beauty Scam
"Dude, are you doing the Dove ad now ? That was so April 15th...?" Yes, I realize I missed the meme train, but it's better to be right than part of the debate, especially when there is no debate, this is all a short con inside a 50+ year long con. Remember House Of Games ? "It's called a confidence game. Why, because…
749
Fast Facts on Homeschooling
There were about 3.408 million homeschool students in 2024-2025 in grades K-12 in the United States. This is up from 2.5 million in spring 2019 [note 1]. The 3.408 million is an estimated 6.262% of the school-age population. The homeschool population had been growing at an estimated 2% to 8% per annum over the past…
750
Metacrap
Version 1.1, May 18 2001. Changed section orders for better organization. (Thanks, Raffi). Clarified "metrics" in 2.6 (Thanks, Andy).