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Agent Psychosis: Are We Going Insane?
What’s going on with the AI builder community right now?
Topics /
Society, Policy & Culture
The most popular blog posts about society, policy & culture on Hacker News. 715 posts.
602
Withnail's Coat and I
He may have had tailoring from Hawkes of Savile Row, but Withnail’s coat has a more complicated history.
603
Everyone's Packing Up
I see a lot of posts about people leaving platforms. This one about leaving Reddit, this one about leaving WordPress, and a bunch of others about leaving Dis...
604
For AI leaders Doom is a form of hype
Why AI doom rhetoric from Anthropic, OpenAI and other tech leaders functions as hype, regulatory strategy, and a distraction from present harms.
605
America, 1926: A forgotten 100-year-old report
America in 1926 was obsessed with technology, immigration, women, work, and money. Sound familiar?
606
The myth of Snow Leopard
It was a hot mess, but the myth is useful today.
607
‘Fuck you, make me’ without saying the words
Make the Trump administration object. Make them defend the indefensible — in public. Make clear why the apps were removed from the app stores and force Musk — and Trump, if he chooses — to argue that those things are A-OK by them. In court.
608
People who grew up with high economic connectedness earn more
Hard work is grinding and only partly reliable. Luck is random by definition. Research on who you know is far more specific than most networking advice.
609
French e, è, é, ê, ë – what's the difference?
A complete explanation of how e, è, é, ê, and ë are used in French, with rules, examples and pronunciation.
610
One item purchased, ten emails
A single online order now generates ten emails. A look at how retail email got this far out of hand.
611
Signs you're a dangerous terrorist: using Signal, moving zines
The unusually long sentences criminalize being an anti-fascist activist, reading the wrong zines, and using the wrong communication apps. They're incredibly dangerous.
612
Overdose Offsets: Why Every Bag of Fentanyl I Sell Is Net Life-Positive
I sell fentanyl six days a week under the El at Kensington and Somerset, and every bag I sell is net life-positive. Each bag carries a small but real chance of killing whoever buys it. Each bag also sends $1.80 to the Against Malaria Foundation, which GiveWell estimates saves a child’s life for about $5,500. My…
613
I Remain a Skeptic
I still do not use LLMs for anything I actually care about. There are a lot of reasons I could give: environmental, social, political. I could talk about ecosystem lock-in, learned dependence, self-soverignty, philosophical concerns, the intentional dismantling of labour bargaining power, and more. But before all of…
614
Online Friends Are Real Friends
A few days ago I booked my flights to not only attend a professional event, but also visit and stay with one of my best friends next month. This will be the ...
615
Apple Is Holding My Pictures Hostage Until I Accept Their New Terms of Service
It started off a few months ago, when my iPad suddenly couldn’t play videos any more that it had recorded. It would show the first frame, but hitting the play button wouldn’t do anythin…
616
RFC 8890 – The Internet is for End Users (2020)
The Internet Architecture Board (IAB) has published RFC8890, The Internet is for End Users, arguing that the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) should ground its decisions in what’s good for people who use the Internet, and that it should take positive steps to achieve that.
617
The last Romans are still around
For some of us, our Roman Empire actually is the Roman Empire. As far as pre-modern states go, the Roman Empire was incredibly powerful, culturally influential, and well documented. Rome’s expansio…
618
I dream of quieter computing
A quick note about future of computing and indieweb. It's about a 2 minute read.
619
The US Government Is Now a Shareholder in 26 Companies
Washington has taken equity stakes in 26 companies across nine sectors since January 2025. It has $181 billion left to deploy. Here is every deal, every sector, and where it's going next.
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Expertise in the age of AI
Junior engineers are expensive, both in salary and seniors engineers’ time. This cost was partially recouped through code contributions, but today, it’s more effective to directly maximize the output of your senior engineers. The hiring market reflects this trend: senior engineers have an easy time finding jobs, while…
622
Against Usefulness
In a Brooklyn warehouse, a man handed me a piece of paper that was a running computer program.
623
After the AI Crash
Everything I read about the AI industry leads me to think there will be an AI crash. Consider the following: Unsustainable Capital Expenses. It’s hard to imagine there can ever be enough revenue to…
624
AI Is Breaking This Thing We Call Trust
AI-generated work can look finished without being understood. That uncertainty erodes trust, slows reviews, and leaves colleagues doing the missing work.
625
Anger, Anxiety and Agency
Who is the AI villain we should be angry at?
626
NYT and vaping: How to lie by saying only true things (2022)
An exercise in spotting agenda journalism: dissecting a 2022 𝑁𝑒𝑤 𝑌𝑜𝑟𝑘 𝑇𝑖𝑚𝑒𝑠 article on teen vaping sentence by sentence to show how it pins an EVALI hospitalization on legal nicotine vapes while never quite saying so—since the actual cause was illegal THC products. Every misleading sentence is technically true.
627
War Crimes Seem to Be Official US Policy Now
We Will Rue The Day
628
The U.S. Census Bureau and "Super Intelligence"
I was reminded today of AI Adoption Rate Trending Down for Large Companies, a chart produced by Apollo Global Management in September 2025, which appeared to show a slowdown in …
629
Most tech revolutions made work worse for employees
Every productivity wave since the PC made work faster and piled on more of it, so companies gained more than workers did. AI does the work itself, which is why this one could land differently.
630
Intelligence Is Not the Main Bottleneck
Confessions of a naive hamster: why the smartest people in the room keep missing that intelligence is often not the main bottleneck in the real world