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Most cited
Posts that commenters keep linking to, ranked by how many different people have cited them in Hacker News comments. 2,108 posts.
Society, Policy & Culture
Any year
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Peter Thiel, YC, and hard decisions
Diversity and inclusion are hard, especially in tech. Doing them right means agreeing on values, setting standards, calling out bad…
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Journalist casualties in the Israel-Gaza war
Committee to Protect Journalists2024449 points807 commentscited by 3Society, Policy & Culture details
Editor’s note: In keeping with CPJ’s methodology, data will be updated as new information becomes available. See CPJ’s database for the most current data on killed journalists. As of September 24, 2026, CPJ’s preliminary investigations show that at least 247 journalists and media workers are among the more than tens…
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Arrest of suspected developer of Tornado Cash
On Wednesday 10 August, the FIOD arrested a 29-year-old man in Amsterdam. He is suspected of involvement in concealing criminal financial flows and facilitating money laundering through the mixing of cryptocurrencies through the decentralised Ethereum mixing service Tornado Cash. Multiple arrests are not ruled out…
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No one should have to travel in fear
I’ve worked for Silicon Valley companies for more than a decade and international travel is a necessary part of my job. I’ve had my fair…
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German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice
The north-German state of Schleswig-Holstein plans to switch to open source software, including LibreOffice, in its administration and schools. In doing so, the state wants to reduce its dependence on proprietary software, and eventually end it altogether. By the end of 2026, Microsoft Office is to be replaced by…
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How Syria Turned Off the Internet
Today, 29 November 2012, between 1026 and 1028 (UTC), all traffic from Syria to the rest of the Internet stopped. At CloudFlare, we witnessed the drop off. We've spent the morning studying the situation to understand what happened.
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FDA grants Breakthrough Therapy designation to MDMA for treatment of PTSD
The non-profit Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Breakthrough Therapy Designation to MDMA for the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). MAPS and the FDA have also reached agreement under the Special…
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Thomas Piketty: “Germany has never repaid.”
My translation of DIE ZEIT’s interview with Thomas Piketty is now hosted by TheWire.in. Read it here.
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Going Dark: The war on encryption is on the rise
After Snowden’s whistleblowing in 2013, large parts of the internet became encrypted, enabling private and secure communication. Not everyone has welcomed this change. Most notably, the FBI and other U.S. government agencies have fought what is often called the “crypto wars”, the war on encryption. In recent years…
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Bots, so many bots
Is Product Hunt worth it? Dive into the data to find out.
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Why Infrastructure Is So Expensive
If we can align the incentives of the players involved, we can build infrastructure that is actually necessary and while doing it quicker and at lower prices than we do now.
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A Response to Paul Graham’s Article on Income Inequality
While perusing HackerNews today, I encountered this article and this comment thread by Paul Graham (PG for short), founder of Ycombinator. I think that a lengthy response is in order. I originally …
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I wrote a small piece on planned death
Kind people already sent donations that will make my childrens' lives easier, when I'm not there any more. Thank you enormously! :-)
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How Germany is able to run the world’s second largest export economy
How Germany Is Able To Run The World’s Second Largest Export Economy In The Post-Industrial Era “ The Germany Shock ” describes European growth & the efficiency-maximizing centralization of European manufacturing activity after the launch of the Single Market and the Euro . Two questi
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Young women earn more than young men in several U.S. cities
The gender wage gap is narrower among younger workers nationally, and the gap varies across geographical areas.
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Why ActivityPub is the future
We often tout things like “Mastodon is based on open web protocols” as one of its advantages. I want to elaborate why exactly that’s a good thing.
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An illustrated guide to plastic straws (2021)
This is a song about culture wars, futurism, apocalypta, and gun math. Click to read Handwaving Freakoutery, by BJ Campbell, a Substack publication.
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Removing Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior from China
We removed seven Pages, three Groups and five Facebook accounts as part of a small network that originated in China and focused on Hong Kong.
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There are no "rogue" AI agents
Identifying them as such only lets companies like OpenAI off the hook.
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Why Stack Overflow Doesn’t Care About Ad Blockers
Hi! I’m Steve Feldman, Senior Ad Ops Manager at Stack Overflow. My whole life I’ve been fascinated by advertising. Even as a kid, I wondered what a company was trying to tell me by using one word instead of another in an ad. Over time, I developed a strong (read: subjective) opinion of what makes an ad ’good,’ and…
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Automakers Say You Don’t Really Own Your Car
EFF is fighting for vehicle owners’ rights to inspect the code that runs their vehicles and to repair and modify their vehicles, or have a mechanic of their choice do the work. At the moment, the anti-circumvention prohibition in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act arguably restricts vehicle...
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Corporate Media Gatekeepers Protect Western 1% from Panama Leak
Whoever leaked the Mossack Fonseca papers appears motivated by a genuine desire to expose the system that enables the ultra wealthy to hide their massive stashes, often corruptly obtained and all involved in tax avoidance. These Panamanian lawyers hide the wealth of a significant proportion of the 1%, and the massive…