631
Notes on Tunisia
I spent almost three weeks in Tunisia, visiting the cities of Tunis, Bizerte, El Kef, Tozeur, Tataouine, El Jem, Sfax, Sousse, Monastir, Kairouan, and a few smaller towns in between. At first, I th…
Topics /
Society, Policy & Culture
The most popular blog posts about society, policy & culture on Hacker News. 666 posts.
632
Vanished from Google/Bing/LinkedIn: a rebuttal of an anti-net neutrality paper
What if something can't be found through Google Search? Does it still exist? That question I have to ask myself when I found that a blogpost...
633
Be Worried
Author's note: I wrote this in March 2023, but just published in October 2025. I held back from publishing this originally for fear that I was being sensationalist. But with the launch of Sora 2, I couldn't not share these thoughts. I only regret I didn't publish it 2 years ago.
634
America Has Become a Digital Narco-State
Social media giants have bought our government, and are trying to bully Europe
635
Cancer survival rates are misleading
UPDATE: I submitted a more formal version of this article to the UMAP Journal (Undergraduate Mathematics and Its Applications), which publishes articles that use mathematical modeling for real-world problems, often with a pedagogical or expository angle. A preprint is available on arXiv at…
636
Untrusted chatbot AI between you & the internet is a disaster waiting to happen
JavaScript, math, maps, etc
637
90%
AI is writing 90% of the code I was in charge of
638
Welcome to hell; please drive carefully
A while back we watched a video on the topic of British road crossings (which I strongly recommend, as well as Chris's shorter video specifically about Zebra crossings ) and since then Tess has been calling out the different crossings by their proper animal names. This explains why, with tickets to a Halloween event…
639
Self-hosting is being enshittified
Self-hosting got harder in 2025. Here's what changed.
640
The EU can be shut down with a few keystrokes
On a QWERTY keyboard
641
It's true, “we” don't care about accessibility on Linux
What do concern trolls and privileged people without visible or invisible disabilities who share or make content about accessibility on Linux being trash without contributing anything to projects have in common? They don’t actually really care about the group they’re defending; they just exploit these victims’…
642
We've lost our respect for complexity
I was talking recently to a friend about a video essayist I like, (Dan Olson of Folding Ideas) and when asked why I thought he was any good I pondered it for a moment and said “he has a lot of respect for complexity”. On reflection, I think that is one of the virtues I […]
643
Singing bus horns in West Sumatra
Sound: Kalason oto (often simply “ kalason ”) Location : Alahan Panjang, Kab. Solok, West Sumatra This post is dedicated to Pak Budahar - a real Minang musical legend who literally spread music across Sumatra, providing sweet solace to his passengers for decades. Next time you honk your horn,
644
Mississippi Can't Possibly Have Good Schools
And yet it does. Are we ready to deal?
645
Re: My AI skeptic friends are all nuts
Re: My AI Skeptic Friends Are All Nuts There was a post recently that was dissing AI Skeptics. While the post is funny at times, I feel like it’s absolutely and completely missing the point of the skepticism. Or at least I feel that it is glossing over some massive pain points of said skepticism. Let’s go over some of…
646
Private antitrust cases are going through the courts
Private antitrust cases against Equifax, Pepsi, American Express, the Ultimate Fighting Championship, and Corteva are going through the courts. And it turns out, judges get the monopoly problem.
647
Court Documents Shed New Light on DOGE Activity at Treasury Department
New court documents shed light on what a 25-year-old DOGE worker named Marko Elez did inside Treasury Department payment systems, including what Treasury staff did to limit his access. The documents indicate that the situation is more nuanced than previously reported.
648
The wanton destruction of a creative-tech era
Fastly, you killed glitch.com and ruined your karma for 10,000 years. You have “betrayed yourself for nothing.”
649
The Monks in the Casino
A brief theory of young men, "the loneliness crisis," and life in the 21st century
650
Belgium Is Unsafe for CVD
This post is about the reason I will probably never try to warn any organisation in Belgium about any vulnerability again. Recently I have been dealing with an attempt at coordinated vulnerability disclosure (CVD) with an organisation in Belgium. This post is not about that, because I’m not allowed to write about it…
651
The web runs on tolerance
If you've ever tried to write a computer program, you'll know the dread of a syntax error. An errant space and your code won't compile. Miss a semi-colon and the world collapses. Don't close your brackets and watch how the computer recoils in distress. The modern web isn't like that. You can make your HTML as…
652
Conquest of the Incas
I wrote about the Spanish conquest of the Aztecs five years ago during the early days of this blog. The conquistadors have since remained a fascination of mine, but I haven’t had a chance to go bac…
653
When swiping supplants scissors: The hidden cost of touchscreens
The history of technology is full of innovators who got their start creating with their hands. Steve Jobs cites a calligraphy class at Reed
654
What if we taxed advertising?
What if, rather than banning advertising outright, we taxed it instead?
655
656
Measuring the impact of AI scams on the elderly
We worked with Reuters to measure the impacts of AI scams on the elderly
657
Why you should delete WhatsApp and install Signal
WhatsApp is not private or secure. Please consider using Signal instead.
658
The Ruby community has a DHH problem
The Ruby community can no longer afford to stand silent in the face of DHH and his toxic ideas.
659
The Bob Dylan concert for just one person
An interview with Fredrik Wikingsson, the subject of 'Experiment Ensam'
660
Stop talking to technology executives like they have anything to say
I do not enjoy writing about technology. Aside from the shiny, birdlike emotion I get from opening a new Apple product every three years, I do not enjoy using much of modern technology. I view my phone with mistrust and resentment, even as I allow it to eat my time with distractions to recover from a day of ostensibly…