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The most popular blog posts about society, policy & culture on Hacker News. 352 posts.
Oscar Wilde once said, “it’s an odd thing but anyone who disappears is said to be in San Francisco.” Indeed, with the weather, view, and diversity, San Francisco is one of the most beautiful cities in the U.S. But then, every city has a dark side, and San Francisco is no exception. San Francisco, as […]
The majority of the police forces that answered questions by AlgorithmWatch said they use or plan to introduce face recognition. Use cases vary greatly across countries, but almost all have in common their lack of transparency.
Last month, the Kenya Parliament passed a seriously concerning amendment to the country’s national ID law, making Kenya home to the most privacy-invasive national ID system in the world. The ...
In cities all over America, we deter people from revitalizing neighborhoods by punishing them with higher taxes for improving their property. A change in how we tax property could fix these incentives.
Global population grew rapidly over the past century, but this period of fast growth is coming to an end.
I am writing to request 5 corrections to the article on ancient DNA that appeared in this week’s The New York Times Magazine.
The death of a young child has always been the most devastating tragedy mothers and fathers could experience. How common was it?
Katsushika Hokusai died 170 years ago
In 2009, the U.S. unemployment rate exceeded Europe’s for the first time in decades. Apologists for European labor market regulation rejoiced, so I publicly bet that European unemployment would exceed U.S. unemployment over the next decade. The original authors I targeted turned me down, even after I offered a 1…
An economist and a business advisor discuss what might happen if the gap between rich and poor continues to grow.
50 years ago, the total fertility rate was five. This figure has more than halved. Yet the global population is still rising — why?
Why personalized news recommendations and privacy are not mutually exclusive
Record numbers of Americans have wanted to leave the U.S. since Donald Trump became president, including 40% of women younger than 30.
While the indictment of Julian Assange centers on an alleged attempt to break a password—an attempt that was not apparently successful—it is still, at root, an attack on the publication of leaked material and the most recent act in an almost decade-long effort to punish a whistleblower and the...
Self-reported life satisfaction differs widely between people and between countries. What explains these differences?
Americans have a lower life expectancy than people in other rich countries despite paying much more for healthcare. What factors may explain this?
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.
Since 2023, an average of 62% of Americans report owning stock, a rebound after more than a decade of lower readings.
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.
Around 80% of the world’s population lives in cities, towns, and suburbs rather than rural settlements. How has this changed, and what does urbanization look like across the world today?
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?
The US is so economically exceptional that the poorest 20 percent of Americans are richer than many of the world’s most affluent nations.
This Research Brief presents updated data on crash risk using data on crashes from the US DOT in conjunction with data on driving mileage from the AAA Foundation's American Driving Survey.
Read Gallup's short answer to this common question about gun ownership, including what percentages of major demographic subgroups own guns.
