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Topics /
Society, Policy & Culture
The most popular blog posts about society, policy & culture on Hacker News. 450 posts.
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Reverse engineers bust sleazy gig work platform
Supposedly, these lines were included in a 1979 internal presentation at IBM; screenshots of them routinely go viral:
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Age verification is incompatible with the internet
The recent move among U.S. states to add digital “age verification” to websites which serve adult content is a troubling one. Digital age verification systems are rife with privacy concerns, many requiring you to upload your government ID to third-party vendors or even directly to the website in question. Privacy…
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Anxious Generation – How Safetyism and Social Media Are Damaging the Kids
A review of Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation, exploring how social media and overprotective parenting affect children’s mental health.
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Pop culture has become an oligopoly (2022)
A cartel of superstars has conquered culture. How did it happen, and what should we do about it?
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My Visit to Deep Springs College (2009)
You should neither trust outward appearances, nor let them intimidate you. There is always a discord between the appearance that a person or organization projects, and their actual nature. For this reason, always be careful about the people and organizations in whom you place your trust.
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On being brought up by libertarian economists
The central fact about child rearing by my parents was the equal intellectual status of everyone in the family.
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You are what you love
Discussing the importance of working alongside your emotions and not against them
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Baiting the bot
LLM chatbots can be engaged in endless "conversations" by considerably simpler text generation bots. This has some interesting implications.
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The Burial of William the Conqueror: A Comedy of Errors
William the Conqueror is one of those historical figures who need no introduction. Thanks to his famous victory at Hastings in 1066, he dra...
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E-Bikes Overtake Buggies for Some Amish (2021)
In some Amish communities these days, e-bikes are beginning to outnumber buggies on the roads. Horse-drawn buggies, long a symbol of the Amish lifestyle, are finding less use as more people in Amish communities adopt electric-powered bicycles. In small Amish towns across America such as Sugarcreek, Ohio, Napponee…
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With more legal action on the horizon, how long before Archive.org closes?
Connect with Lunduke and other members of Lunduke community
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What factors explain the nature of software?
I sometimes find myself asked to give advice on how organisations should go about creating software, but often my advice doesn’t gel with those who sought it. Sometimes that’s because only one answer was ever considered acceptable; sometimes I am ignorant of important wider context and my answer is unworthy of…
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The Dogma of Otherness (1986)
The Dogma of Otherness insists that all voices deserve a hearing, that all points of view have something of value to offer.
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EU Parliament commitee approves cash cap and ban on anonymous crypto payments
The majority of the EU Parliament's lead committees today approved far-reaching new anti-money laundering laws: Anonymous cash payments over €3,000 will be banned in commercial transactions. Cash payments over €10,000 will even be completely banned in business transactions. And anonymous payments in
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They want your ethics for $105
If you have a blog, you've probably gotten those emails that want to "collaborate" on a guest post—which often means "let us post sketchy links for SEO purposes." Recently, I got one which was a little different flavor than the usual spam, so I bit and replies. The end result was at the same time fascinating…
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Where is all of the Fediverse?
Spurred on by the problems at Twitter, a lot of my social media timeline has “moved out” of Twitter/“X” on to what people mostly describe as mastodon or the “fediverse”. The fediverse being the collection of decentralised “instances” (aka servers) sometimes using different software but speaking a common protocol…
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Billionaire-Fueled Lobbying Group Behind the State Bills to Ban UBI Experiments
The Foundation for Government Accountability - a Florida-based lobbying group backed by the richest 1% - is working to get basic income experiments banned by state legislators across the U.S. (This article is also available as a YouTube video and as a podcast episode) As a well-known quote often
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New Mexico: Psychologists to dress up as wizards when providing expert testimony
New Mexico’s state senate took up a startling amendment in 1995 — it would have required psychologists to dress up as wizards when providing expert testimony on a defendant’s competency: When a psychologist or psychiatrist testifies during a defendant’s competency hearing, the psychologist or psychiatrist shall wear a…
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Corporations are not to be loved
I started using Apple computers — and writing code for them, starting with BASIC — 43 years ago, before the Macintosh, even, and I’ve made this my career. I’ve had all these decades to really, thoroughly delight in these incredible machines and software, and to give a little back with my own apps.
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The secret lives of snowblowers
Yes, they throw snow. But the mechanical design of residential snowblowers is more interesting than it seems.
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The emotional trial of clinical trials: like online dating with death risk
Part 1 is mostly about what happened as Bess and I raced against tumor growth to find a new clinical trial that might keep me alive. Part 2 is here, and it is mostly about how this process feels an…
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Twitter and the spread of academic knowledge
Serendipity without physical proximity? Maybe, maybe not.
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Apple vs. the "Free Market"
Every artist, performer and creator on Patreon is about to get screwed out of 30% of their gross revenue, which will be diverted to Apple, the most valuable company on the planet. Apple contributes nothing to their work, but it will get to steal a third of their wages:
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The internet turned into a crowded mall. Now you need a corner shop
On the need for a simpler, smaller internet to stand out from the crowd, meet interesting people, and build a calmer business.
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