12721
Weak Men Are Superweapons
I. There was an argument on Tumblr which, like so many arguments on Tumblr, was terrible. I will rephrase it just a little to make a point. Alice said something along the lines of “I hate peo…
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Society, Policy & Culture
The most popular blog posts about society, policy & culture on Hacker News. 13,069 posts.
12722
Water Use in California
To understand California’s water, start here. Water use in California varies dramatically between wet and dry years: learn who’s using California’s water, where, and how much.
12723
Famines
In many parts of the world famines have been common in the past. What causes famines? How can famines be averted?
12724
Where Do Our Federal Tax Dollars Go?
In fiscal year 2024, the federal government spent $6.9 trillion, amounting to 24 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP), according to the June 2024 estimates of the Congressional...
12725
Task-Completion Time Horizons of Frontier AI Models
Our measurements of the time horizons for public frontier language models.
12726
Reverse Voxsplaining: Drugs vs. Chairs
[Content note: this is pretty much a rehash of things I’ve said before, and that other people have addressed much more eloquently. My only excuse for wasting your time with it again is that S…
12727
Are Recipes and Cookbooks Protected by Copyright
Are Recipes and Cookbooks Protected by Copyright? Our experts at Copyright Alliance answer this frequently asked question in this week's blog post.
12728
Orchestrating Impartiality: The Impact of “Blind” Auditions on Female Musicians
The difficulties associated with proving and addressing gender discrimination in hiring processes have presented policymakers with a major challenge over the past few decades. In an attempt to overcome gender-biased hiring, a vast majority of symphony orchestras revised their hiring practices from the 1950s. Many…
12729
Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting There Is
I’ve been thinking of a way to explain to straight white men how life works for them, without invoking the dreaded word “privilege,” to which they react like vampires being fed a …
12730
U.S. students’ academic achievement still lags that of their peers in many other countries
American students continue to rank around the middle of the pack, and behind many other advanced industrial nations, in international assessments of math, science and reading.
12731
Facebook and Genocide: How Facebook contributed to genocide in Myanmar and why it will not be held accountable - Harvard Law School
On July 22, 2013, Turkish scholar and social media expert Zeynep Tufekci tweeted “Last year, I pondered the first ‘social-media fueled ethnic cleansing.’ With ethnic tensions & expanding online hate speech, is it Burma?” 1
12732
Key findings about how Americans view artificial intelligence
Drawing on five years of Pew Research Center surveys, here are 13 findings about how Americans use and view AI, and where they see promise and risk.
12733
The Ad Hominem Fallacy Fallacy
One of the most widely misused terms on the Net is "ad hominem". It is most often introduced into a discussion by certain delicate types, delicate of personality and mind, whenever their opponents resort to a bit of sarcasm . As soon as the suspicion of an insult appears, they summon the angels of ad hominem to smite…
12734
12735
Urbanization
Around 80% of the world’s population lives in cities, towns, and suburbs rather than rural settlements. How has this changed, and what does urbanization look like across the world today?
12736
The Last Psychiatrist: The Dove Sketches Beauty Scam
"Dude, are you doing the Dove ad now ? That was so April 15th...?" Yes, I realize I missed the meme train, but it's better to be right than part of the debate, especially when there is no debate, this is all a short con inside a 50+ year long con. Remember House Of Games ? "It's called a confidence game. Why, because…
12737
n-gate.com. we can't both be right.
Does anyone have any questions about NAFTA for my PSYCHIC PIG?
12738
Why Procrastinators Procrastinate
The full story about why procrastinators routinely ruin their own lives.
12739
The Anti-Reactionary FAQ
[Edit 3/2014: I no longer endorse all the statements in this document. I think many of the conclusions are still correct, but especially section 1 is weaker than it should be, and many reactionarie…
12740
Fast Facts on Homeschooling
There were about 3.408 million homeschool students in 2024-2025 in grades K-12 in the United States. This is up from 2.5 million in spring 2019 [note 1]. The 3.408 million is an estimated 6.262% of the school-age population. The homeschool population had been growing at an estimated 2% to 8% per annum over the past…
12741
The Perils of JavaSchools
Lazy kids. Whatever happened to hard work? A sure sign of my descent into senility is bitchin’ and moanin’ about “kids these days,” and how they won’t or can’t d…
12742
Wrong Again: 50 Years of Failed Eco-pocalyptic Predictions
Modern doomsayers have been predicting climate and environmental disaster since the 1960s. They continue to do so today. None of the apocalyptic predictions with due dates as of today have come true. What follows is a collection of notably wild predictions from notable people in government and science.
12743
New study suggests today’s SUVs are more lethal to pedestrians than cars
SUVs, which make up an increasingly large share of the vehicle fleet, are more likely to kill pedestrians than cars. Fresh designs haven't changed that.
12744
Metacrap
Version 1.1, May 18 2001. Changed section orders for better organization. (Thanks, Raffi). Clarified "metrics" in 2.6 (Thanks, Andy).
12745
"The Use of Knowledge in Society"
Snippet: What is the problem we wish to solve when we try to construct a rational economic order? On certain familiar assumptions the answer is simple enough. If we possess all the relevant information, if we can start out from a given system of preferences, and if we command complete knowledge of available means, the…
12746
12747
COMMENTARY: Masks-for-all for COVID-19 not based on sound data
Dr. Brosseau is a national expert on respiratory protection and infectious diseases and professor (retired), University of Illinois at Chicago. Dr. Sietsema is also an expert on respiratory protection and an assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
12748
Life Expectancy
People are living longer across the world, but large differences remain. Explore global data on life expectancy and how it has changed over time.
12749
12750
2016 Corruption Perceptions Index
How does your country measure up in the 2016 Corruption Perceptions Index?