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Society, Policy & Culture
The most popular blog posts about society, policy & culture on Hacker News. 13,065 posts.
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Advertising without signal: The rise of the grifter equilibrium
Economists credit ads with two welfare‑enhancing roles: 1. Informative – trimming search costs (Stigler 1961 (pdf)). 2. Signaling – In classic models, high-quality sellers are more willing to incur large, sunk ad costs because they expect to recoup them through future sales, especially in experience-good markets where…
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Dark Patterns, the Ratchet
A dark pattern in the design world means something that is purposefully created to mislead users and to get them to perform actions against their own interest.
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Microsoft and Linux and Patents and Tweets
Fact-checking some tweets about Linux Foundation’s newest member and their harvesting of other members’ money. Microsoft recently joined the Linux Foundation while still asserting its p…
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How the New York Times keeps tragedies ad-free
I was looking at the HTML source of a recent New York Times story about a tragic plane accident—150 people feared dead—and noticed this meta tag in its head:
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YouTube video embedding harm reduction
Personal blog of Julien (jvoisin) Voisin
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Base-4 fractions in Telugu
From the highly eclectic blog of Mark Dominus
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Chinese Tech Terms Explained in English
Learn about five Chinese tech terms: Huidu, Lunzi, Chendian, Dapan, and Maidian, frequently used in companies like Tencent and ByteDance.
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Mozilla's new terms of use are out of step with Firefox's direct competition
On Wednesday, Mozilla introduced legal updates to users of Firefox, and something feels off. I read, and re-read the new Terms of Use and while much of it reads like standard boilerplate from any tech company, there’s a new section that is unexpected:
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Removing Bad Actors on Facebook
We removed 32 Pages and accounts from Facebook and Instagram because they were involved in coordinated inauthentic behavior.
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Political bias in AI: Where the AI models stand
Political bias in AI measures where every major AI model stands on charged political and ethical questions: run many times, no web search, plotted with error...
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A Random Distribution of Wealth (2017)
W hat happens, if 100 persons in a room are given $100 each and give away a Dollar to one randomly chosen person in this room each tick of the clock? How is wealth distributed over time by pure chance?
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I'm worried it might get bad
Starting to worry things might get very bad, very soon
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In Defense of Inclusionism
Iron Law of Bureaucracy: the downwards deletionism spiral discourages contribution and is how Wikipedia will die.
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Latin as she is spoke: How classicists tricked themselves (2019)
How Classicists tricked themselves into not learning Latin well.
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Current thoughts on social media
My view on the state of social media in late 2023
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The crisis in physics is not only about physics
Science News, Physics, Science, Philosophy, Philosophy of Science
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Mapping the US healthcare system’s financial flows
Mapping Every Dollar of America's $5 Trillion Healthcare System
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The Mozilla Cycle, Part III: Mozilla Dies in Ignominy
Mozilla's new strategy document confirms their position, and the end of their stewardship of the open web.
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Medical records on the blockchain – the history of a bad idea
Patients having some sort of “control” over their own medical data is a perennial favourite blockchain pitch. We may have found the source.
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Cisco’s Attempt to Dodge Responsibility for Facilitating Human Rights Abuses
Cisco custom-built the so-called “Great Firewall of China,” also known as the “Golden Shield.” This system enables the Chinese government to conduct Internet surveillance and censorship against its citizens. As if that weren’t bad enough, company documents also revealed that, as part of its...
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Anonymous Google Employees Voted Arms Control Persons of the Year
For Immediate Release: January 10, 2019 Media Contact: Tony Fleming , director for communications, (202) 463-8270 ext 110
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The Cathedral, the Megachurch, and the Bazaar
If you’re of a certain age, you probably remember the essay The Cathedral and the Bazaar. The TL;DR was that old open source was the cathedral of exclusive developers and groups. Then the Bazaar showed up (which was the Linux Kernel for example) and that freed us from the shackles of the cathedral. Except if we look…