601
New US homeownership measure puts people first
An alternative way of calculating the homeownership rate tells us how many individuals own their homes—something the most commonly used metric fails to track
Topics /
Society, Policy & Culture
The most popular blog posts about society, policy & culture on Hacker News. 1,045 posts.
602
Punk, or why I don't stream anymore
If you’re the sun, I’m a black hole – The Stephen Hawking, Say Anything
603
Silicon Valley's "Pronatalists" Killed WFH. The Strait of Hormuz Brought It Back
On the Strait of Hormuz, fertility research, and the millions of dollars bet on artificial wombs that missed the point
604
Desire to Move Permanently to U.S. at New Low
In 2025, fewer people worldwide are imagining their futures elsewhere. The U.S., long the world's most desired destination, is attracting less interest than at any point in nearly two decades.
605
The IBM-ification of Google?
I used to think Google owning the full vertical stack was a masterstroke. Like TSMC silicon, TPUs, their own data centers, proprietary models, search engine....
606
Coursera and Udemy are now one company
Today, I’m excited to share that we have completed the Coursera-Udemy combination, bringing together two mission-driven companies to create one of the world’s most comprehensive skills development platforms.
607
You Want to Visit the UK? You Better Have a Google Play or App Store Account
New immigration rules for the UK are being enforced starting February 2026. This means citizens of 85 additional countries (including the USA and European countries) will need an Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) to visit, even for tourism. Luckily, you can apply (and pay) digitally. Unfortunately, the government…
608
America has a tungsten problem
The US will need a lot more tungsten in the future. Where will it come from?
609
Stop eating Lady Gaga's Oreos
OR: The Great Switcheroo
610
How Japanese Dried Bonito Is Made
This workshop founded in 1882 still makes dried bonito like they did back in the Edo period. How katsuobushi — Japanese dried bonito, said to be the world’s har
611
Allow babywearing carriers on planes
The FAA has one of my favorite examples of thoughtful rulemaking. They haven't banned flying with a baby on your lap, because the extra cost would mean many parents would drive instead. Since driving is far less safe than flying, a ban would lead to more deaths. I'd love to see more of this "all things considered"…
612
2% of ICML papers desk rejected because the authors used LLM in their reviews
By ICML 2026 Program Chairs Alekh Agarwal, Miroslav Dudik, Sharon Li, Martin Jaggi, Scientific Integrity Chair Nihar B. Shah, and Communications Chairs Katherine Gorman and Gautam Kamath.
613
Thomann takes legal action against Fender
For brand diversity and innovation: Why we are taking legal action against Fender's cease and desist demand.
614
LibreOffice – Let's put an end to the speculation
Ideally, we would have preferred to avoid this post. However, the articles and comments published in response to Collabora’s and Michael Meeks’ biased posts compel us to provide this background information on the events that led to the current situation. Unfortunately, we have to start from the very beginning, but…
615
The Decoherence Trap
Of all the forms of tech debt, decoherence is the worst. It compounds exponentially with a system's rate of change, and AI is now producing it faster than ever, leading us deeper and deeper into the abyss...
616
Vote on which of Hacker News' challenges for AI have been met
AI plays well at complex strategy games with uncertainty and incomplete information.
617
What 81,000 people want from AI
Last December, tens of thousands of Claude users around the world had a conversation with our AI interviewer to share how they use AI, what they dream it could make possible, and what they fear it might do.
618
619
Why Sal Khan't: On Learning by Making but Teaching by Telling
Two pieces crossed my feed recently, both about Sal Khan and the AI tutoring revolution that wasn’t. The first was Matt Barnum’s reported piece in Chalkbeat, where Khan himself acknowledged that…
620
DOJ says presidents should be able to sell secrets on eBay
Plus: Recent deaths intensify need to make private prisons subject to FOIA
621
AI job grief: A psychological crisis hitting tech workers
Across hundreds of Reddit threads and a small body of clinical literature, AI-driven displacement is producing an emotional category that most closely resembles grief, and the institutions causing it have no language for it.
622
How did Windows 95 get permission to put Weezer video 'Buddy Holly' on the CD?
Asking nicely, and asking a lot of people.
623
Children and Helical Time
If childhood is half of our subjective life, how should that change how we live?
624
Interrail: 6,379Km and 13 Countries over 7 weeks
Last year, my wife and I went on a 5,025 Km Interrail adventure. We got the month-long unlimited pass and saw 10 Countries in 30 Days. That was a bit too intense. So this year we got the 15 travel days in 2 months package. We grabbed the 1st class tickets when they went on sale in December. Here's how our journey…
625
The Private Capture of Public Genius
Essay I of Upstream of Everything
626
The Human Is the Loop
After a few weeks away from AI, I see my usage wasn't always productive or healthy.
627
Explain it to me like I'm ten
In 2012, the creator of the xkcd cartoon Randall Munroe unveiled Up Goer Five — a detailed diagram of the Saturn V rocket, annotated using only the most common 1,000 (sorry, “ten hundred”) words in…
628
NIMBYs aren't just shutting down housing
They want to shut down our right to be heard in the first place.
629
Micropayments as a reality check for news sites
In Digital Media Lost the Newsstand. Micropayments Are the Obvious Way Back , Rick Bruner makes the case for giving micropayments another try.
630
This time is different
3D TV, AMP, Augmented Reality, Beanie Babies, Blockchain, Cartoon Avatars, Curved TVs, Frogans, Hoverboards, iBeacons, Jetpacks, Metaverse, NFTs, Physical Web, Quantum Computing, Quibi, Small and Safe Nuclear Reactors, Smart Glasses, Stadia, WiMAX. The problem is, the same dudes (and it was nearly always dudes) who…