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Is soy a key driver of deforestation?
The world loses 5 million hectares of forest each year. What activities are driving this?
Topics /
Society, Policy & Culture
The most popular blog posts about society, policy & culture on Hacker News. 1,050 posts.
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Previous Covid-19 may cut risk of reinfection 84%
People who had COVID-19 had an 84% lower risk of becoming reinfected and a 93% lower risk of symptomatic infection during 7 months of follow-up, according to findings from a large, multicenter study published late last week in The Lancet .
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The Great Filter – Are We Almost Past It? (1998)
Combining standard stories of biologists, astronomers, physicists, and social scientists would lead us to expect a much smaller filter than we observe. Thus one of these stories must be wrong. To find out who is wrong, and to inform our choices, we should study and reconsider all these areas. For example, we should…
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When did “privacy issues” start to mean “too much privacy”?
Clubhouse draws the ire of journalists
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Big Brothers Has Privatized
A Short Story
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UFOs shows government competence as either surprisingly high or low
Sometimes I pride myself on my taking an intellectual strategy of tackling neglected important questions.
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My values, howled into the wind
I’m about to leave for a family vacation—our first such since before the pandemic, one planned and paid for literally the day before the news of Omicron broke. On the negative side, sta…
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Death by Bureaucracy
I’ve been an anti-death penalty activist for 10 years. In this time, I’ve tried my best to observe and document the application of capital punishment in Singapore, and to support the families of death row inmates as they navigate the system. When people ask me about this
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The Cultural Implications of Silence Around the World (2020)
What does silence mean around the world?
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U.S. Church Membership Falls Below Majority for First Time
For the first time in Gallup's polling history, less than half of U.S. adults report belonging to a church, synagogue or mosque.
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People are realizing that degrowth is bad
The mad schemes degrowthers advocate are a fantasy that distracts us from real efforts to save the planet
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Desirable streets: where do people prefer to walk?
Where do people prefer to walk?
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Pay toilets and NYT: a free market microcosm
Nicholas Kristof in Sunday's New York Times asks a pressing -- often quite pressing -- question. Why are there no public toilets in America? He is right. He calls for a federal infrastructure plan to fix the problem: "Sure, we need investments to rebuild bridges, highways and, yes, electrical grids, but perhaps…
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The Costs of Requiring Accounts
Should online communities require people to create accounts before participating? This question has been a source of disagreement among people who start or manage online communities for decades. Re…
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Murray's jailing is latest move in a battle to snuff out independent journalism
The supreme court’s refusal to hear Craig Murray’s appeal against his unprecedented conviction for ‘jigsaw identification’ means the British state is now effectively credentialising journalists. Only corporate journalists will be safe from state retribution.
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Passport
Announcing Passport, the new infrastructure supporting Stratechery.
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How Homogeneous Is Japan?
It depends on what you mean by homogeneity.
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I, Token: The untold story of the hole in Bitcoin's heart
The untold story of the hole in Bitcoin's heart
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California’s AV testing rules apply to Tesla’s “FSD”
Five years to the day after I criticized Uber for testing its self-proclaimed "self-driving" vehicles on California roads without complying with the testing requirements of California's automated driving law, I find myself criticizing Tesla for testing its self-proclaimed "full self-driving" vehicles on California…
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