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Topics /
Society, Policy & Culture
The most popular blog posts about society, policy & culture on Hacker News. 992 posts.
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Our phones are killing our ability to feel sexy (2024)
Eros, desire, instinct, eternity
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The trust collapse: Infinite AI content is awful
Content is infinite and free now. Trust isn't. We're abandoning digital channels entirely because we can't tell what's real anymore.
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Over 80% of sunscreen performed below their labelled efficacy (2020)
The Consumer Council keens to be the trusted voice of consumers in striving to build in the market an environment of safe, fair and sustainable consumption.
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Mozilla's latest quagmire
Defending Mozilla’s inclusion of AI features and tooling in Firefox misses the point, and only threatens to isolate them further.
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Introduction to GrapheneOS
In this blog post, you will learn about the security oriented smartphone operating system GrapheneOS
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Public trust demands open-source voting systems
On its website , Liberty Vote says, "We are turning the page and beginning the vital work of restoring faith in American elections."
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AI is not our future
We are not adding generative AI to our apps. Here's why.
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Trump's attacks on universities get darker, with shadows reaching our shores
The US has become a hostile and authoritarian state to foreign scientists and is choosing ideology over science.
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TikTok unlawfully tracks shopping habits and use of dating apps?
TikTok tracks its users even if they're using other apps. The video platform therefore also knows what dating app you use
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Accessible open textbooks in math-heavy disciplines
The challenge The authoring platform of choice in many math-heavy disciplines is LaTeX. It produces typeset documents of excellent quality and handles formulas and mathematical diagrams extremely w…
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Why do people leave comments on OpenBenches?
I'm still a believer in the promise of Web 2.0. The idea that giving people a curated space to chat produces tiny sparks of magic. My wife Liz and I have been running the OpenBenches project for about 8 years - it's a crowd-sourced repository of memorial benches. People take a geotagged photo of a bench's plaque…
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A statistical analysis of Rotten Tomatoes
Can Hollywood's stamp of artistic excellence still be trusted?
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Mark Zuckerberg personally lost the Facebook antitrust case
It's damned hard to prove an antitrust case: so often, the prosecution has to prove that the company intended to crush competition, and/or that they raised prices or reduced quality because they knew they didn't have to fear competitors.
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The collapse of the econ PhD job market
What is an Economics PhD worth in 2025?
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When the sun will literally set on what's left of the British Empire
A while ago I treated you to a dissertation entitled “Does The Sun Set On The British Empire?”, and concluded that it doesn't. The UK's widely scattered overseas territories, sparse though they are, mean that the sun is still always shining, somewhere in the world, over British territory.
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Where does air pollution come from?
A breakdown of the sources of many air pollutants that damage our health and ecosystems.
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How can I influence others without manipulating them?
Learn practical ways to influence others ethically using five respectful approaches that build trust, commitment and genuine buy-in.
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Celebrating the timeless allure of Tintin's aesthetics
The Adventures of Tintin officially entered the public domain in 2025. We now all own the alluring aesthetics of this timeless classic.
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Nobel Prize in Literature 2025: László Krasznahorkai
The Nobel Prize in Literature 2025 was awarded to László Krasznahorkai "for his compelling and visionary oeuvre that, in the midst of apocalyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art"
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An inside look at NSA tactics, techniques and procedures from China's lens
Since I reside in a Five Eyes country (Australia) and have publicly presented four cases I led on China’s APT41 attacking organisations in ASEAN , particularly concerning China’s cyber and political strategies, I was curious to explore what China publishes about Five Eyes operations. This led me down a rabbit hole of…
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The Brief Origins of May Day
Most people living in the United States know little about the International Workers' Day of May Day. For many others there is an assumption that it is a holiday celebrated in state communist countries like Cuba or the former Soviet Union. Most Americans don't realize that May Day has its origins here in this country…
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AI slop, suspicion, and writing back
On developing an involuntary reflex for spotting AI slop
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Modification of acetaminophen to reduce liver toxicity and enhance drug efficacy
2025 Science Talent Search Project Showcase: Chloe Yehwon Lee, 17, of Murphy, explored a way to lower the toxic effects of acetaminophen (Tylenol) on the liver for her Regeneron Science Talent Search chemistry project.
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Discovering the indieweb with calm tech
Blog Quest and StreetPass help you discover the independent web
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AI is making us work more
How tools that were supposed to free us up to find meaning work have exacerbated the rat race.
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Money lessons without money: The financial literacy fallacy
Financial literacy without real-world money experience is as ineffective as teaching swimming with PowerPoint slides. A critical look at classroom finance education.
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EU ruling: tracking-based advertising [...] across Europe has no legal basis
Landmark court decision against “TCF” consent pop ups on 80% of the internet
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An official atlas of North Korea
A North Korean atlas that shows the world from the perspective of one of the most isolated countries on the planet.
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The Egg (2009)
It was a car accident. Nothing particularly remarkable, but fatal nonetheless. You left behind a wife and two children. It was a painless death. The EMTs tried their best to save you, but to no avail. Your body was so utterly shattered you were better off, trust me.