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The American suburbs are a giant Ponzi scheme
Krugman spells out the Paradox of Thrift: when the interest rate goes to zero — like the past five years — cuts in spending reduce
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Society, Policy & Culture
The most popular blog posts about society, policy & culture on Hacker News. 8,148 posts.
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Sales tax creates more unnecessary pain than value added tax
Explains through a model of selling coconuts while value added taxes distort the economy less than sales taxes.
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On Cash
What happened was, I was walking through a train station on the way to work with the buds playing randomly on shuffle and a knifeblade of Real Music came in from outside so I had to pull them out of my ears, there was this young dude getting great electric sound out of a teeny amp doing a slow take on Little Wing with…
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Out Of Nowhere, The iPad Has A Real Competitor
Oh, it’s not an iPad. Not even close to the smoothness and sleekness of one. However, consider these points: 1) It’s less than half the price of the least-expensive iPad. That’s $…
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What's going on here, with this human?
The philosopher Kwame Appiah writes that “in life, the challenge is not so much to figure out how best to play the game; the challenge is to figure out what game you’re playing.” When I try to figure out what game I’m playing, I see that for the last 25 years I have been playing […]
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Can Apple read your iMessages?
About a year ago I wrote a short post urging Apple to publish the technical details of iMessage encryption. I’d love tell you that Apple saw my influential crypto blogging and fell all over t…
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What everyone in the SOPA debate is missing: IP is not a fundamental right
Underlying the debate about the so-called Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is the unstated assumption that intellectual property rights have th...
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Coordination Headwind: How Organizations Are Like Slime Molds
An emoji flipbook presentation by Alex Komoroske about how dysfunctional organizational dyanmics arise even when individuals are well-behaved
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Democratising publishing
Thoughts on open source governance and how to create trust within technology, communities, and media.
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I'm Making Strandfall, a Solarpunk Orienteering Larp
Blending the real and digital worlds, once more.
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The Reason Why Are Trucks Getting Bigger
It's not "ego." It's a claim that you encounter a lot—an insult really—that people are buying bigger and bigger trucks to compensate for… so...
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How to defer US taxes
Your government wants you to create taxable wealth.
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Is Norway the New East India Company?
Gas and oil, and opium
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The Trouble with 5G
Science News, Physics, Science, Philosophy, Philosophy of Science
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AI promised efficiency. Instead, it's making us work harder
AI tools were supposed to free up our time—but they’re increasing our cognitive load and making us less productive. Here’s what’s really happening (and how to use them without burning out).
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Rights, Laws, and Google
Google is not bound by the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments, but its actions in a false positive CSAM case show that it is flouting the spirit behind them.
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Why Is the TSA Scanning Paper?
I’ve been reading a bunch of anecdotal reports that the TSA is starting to scan paper separately: A passenger going through security at Kansas City International Airport (MCI) recently was asked by security officers to remove all paper products from his bag. Everything from books to Post-It Notes, documents and more…
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SIM swapper abducted, beaten, held for ransom
A Florida teenager who served as a lackey for a cybercriminal group that specializes in cryptocurrency thefts was beaten and kidnapped last week by a rival cybercrime gang. The teen’s captives held guns to his head while forcing him to record a video message pleading with his crew to fork over a $200,000 ransom in…