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The most popular blog posts about society, policy & culture on Hacker News. 4,917 posts.
Great apology note from Hulu’s CEO [via DF]: This note, however, is not about the fact that episodes of ’’It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’’ were taken down. Rather, this note is to communicate to our users that we screwed up royally with regards to how we …
Since 2023, an average of 62% of Americans report owning stock, a rebound after more than a decade of lower readings.
See all of our articles on the impacts of data centers , including their energy needs, water usage, noise pollution, and contribution to higher energy bills: The Environmental Impacts of Data Centers (Article Series)
When legally forced to provide information to government or law enforcement agencies, we'll disclose the transcripts of that communication here.
We examined the injustices of prison labor nationwide — and lay the foundation for a more equitable path forward.
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?
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.
To understand California’s water, start here. Water use in California varies dramatically between wet and dry years: learn who’s using California’s water, where, and how much.
In many parts of the world famines have been common in the past. What causes famines? How can famines be averted?
In fiscal year 2024, the federal government spent $6.9 trillion, amounting to 24 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP), according to the June 2024 estimates of the Congressional...
Our measurements of the time horizons for public frontier language models.
Are Recipes and Cookbooks Protected by Copyright? Our experts at Copyright Alliance answer this frequently asked question in this week's blog post.
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…
American students continue to rank around the middle of the pack, and behind many other advanced industrial nations, in international assessments of math, science and reading.
On July 22, 2013, Turkish scholar and social media expert Zeynep Tufekci tweeted “Last year, I pondered the first ‘social-media fueled ethnic cleansing.’ With ethnic tensions & expanding online hate speech, is it Burma?” 1
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.
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?
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…
Modern doomsayers have been predicting climate and environmental disaster since the 1960s. They continue to do so today. None of the apocalyptic predictions with due dates as of today have come true. What follows is a collection of notably wild predictions from notable people in government and science.
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.
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…
Dr. Brosseau is a national expert on respiratory protection and infectious diseases and professor (retired), University of Illinois at Chicago. Dr. Sietsema is also an expert on respiratory protection and an assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
People are living longer across the world, but large differences remain. Explore global data on life expectancy and how it has changed over time.
How does your country measure up in the 2016 Corruption Perceptions Index?
That's compared with 27% of Gen Xers and 24% of Boomers who say the same.
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…
Explore long-term changes in deforestation and deforestation rates across the world today.
