Society & policy

Links about society & policy that Hacker News readers keep rediscovering.

Hall of Fame: 40
Candidates: 63
Types: 8
Median span: 6.9 yrs

Browse Society & policy by type

Every link below is about society & policy and belongs to the selected type.

8 types

Strongest Hall records

40 items

Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software (2007)

www.gnu.org Essays & writing 10 submissions · 10 people · 15.1 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2014-05 Resurfaced 2019-09-24

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The Tyranny of Structurelessness (1970)

www.jofreeman.com Essays & writing 17 submissions · 17 people · 16.3 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2025-01 Resurfaced 2025-01-22

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Illegal prime

en.wikipedia.org Reference 16 submissions · 16 people · 11.2 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2018-04 Resurfaced 2021-04-12

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Cities and Ambition

www.paulgraham.com Essays & writing 16 submissions · 16 people · 14.5 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2014-01 Resurfaced 2018-02-26

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Doomsday planning for less crazy folk

lcamtuf.coredump.cx Books & learning 17 submissions · 16 people · 7.6 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2020-11 Resurfaced 2020-11-11

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I Can Tolerate Anything Except the Outgroup

slatestarcodex.com Essays & writing 16 submissions · 16 people · 8.9 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2023-09 Resurfaced 2023-09-06

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Atlantropa

en.wikipedia.org Reference 14 submissions · 12 people · 15.3 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2019-07 Resurfaced 2020-12-28

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Why Finnish babies sleep in cardboard boxes (2013)

www.bbc.com Essays & writing 11 submissions · 6 people · 10.9 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2019-09 Resurfaced 2021-12-20

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Open Source License Helper Tool

choosealicense.com Reference 20 submissions · 20 people · 12.1 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2018-06 Resurfaced 2018-06-05

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Parable of the Polygons – a playable post on the shape of society

ncase.me Tools, games & demos 34 submissions · 23 people · 9.1 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2024-01 Resurfaced 2024-01-07

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The Acceleration of Addictiveness (2010)

www.paulgraham.com Essays & writing 9 submissions · 9 people · 15.7 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2018-02 Resurfaced 2019-11-02

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Meditations on Moloch (2014)

slatestarcodex.com Essays & writing 18 submissions · 17 people · 11.8 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2023-03 Resurfaced 2023-03-19

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Don’t Talk to Police

www.youtube.com Audio, video & images 14 submissions · 14 people · 7.8 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2023-06 Resurfaced 2023-06-17

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It's Charisma, Stupid (2004)

www.paulgraham.com Essays & writing 12 submissions · 12 people · 15.0 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2016-05 Resurfaced 2016-11-09

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John Scalzi: Being Poor (2005)

whatever.scalzi.com Essays & writing 6 submissions · 5 people · 15.6 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2021-05 Resurfaced 2021-05-22

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The Raising of Chicago

en.wikipedia.org Reference 14 submissions · 14 people · 11.7 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2018-10 Resurfaced 2025-01-06

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So You Want to Abolish Time Zones (2015)

qntm.org Essays & writing 13 submissions · 11 people · 7.3 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2024-03 Resurfaced 2024-03-13

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Open Infrastructure Map

openinframap.org Tools, games & demos 12 submissions · 12 people · 7.2 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2026-01 Resurfaced 2026-01-08

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The MIT License, Line by Line

writing.kemitchell.com Essays & writing 9 submissions · 6 people · 7.0 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2019-01 Resurfaced 2021-01-31

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Unfit for work

apps.npr.org Essays & writing 7 submissions · 7 people · 12.2 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2025-06 Resurfaced 2025-06-07

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In poor neighborhoods, McDonald’s have become de-facto community centers

www.theguardian.com Essays & writing 14 submissions · 6 people · 7.2 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2019-12 Resurfaced 2019-12-28

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TurboTax’s 20-Year Fight to Stop Americans from Filing Taxes for Free

www.propublica.org Essays & writing 5 submissions · 5 people · 6.0 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2025-10 Resurfaced 2025-10-16

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Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed (2010)

www.raptitude.com Essays & writing 7 submissions · 6 people · 10.5 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2021-07 Resurfaced 2021-07-31

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Reasons Not to Use Apple (2018)

stallman.org Essays & writing 5 submissions · 5 people · 5.6 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2021-08 Resurfaced 2021-08-06

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Changing San Francisco Is Foreseen as a Haven for Wealthy and Childless (1981)

www.nytimes.com Essays & writing 6 submissions · 6 people · 8.6 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2023-07 Resurfaced 2019-04-22

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Replit used legal threats to kill my open-source project

intuitiveexplanations.com Essays & writing 5 submissions · 5 people · 3.0 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2024-06 Resurfaced 2024-06-08

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City Roads – Draw all roads in a city at once

anvaka.github.io Tools, games & demos 5 submissions · 5 people · 4.9 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2024-12 Resurfaced 2024-12-21

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Doomsday Prep for the Super-Rich (2017)

www.newyorker.com Essays & writing 7 submissions · 6 people · 6.9 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2021-10 Resurfaced 2021-10-16

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The Coming Civil War over General Purpose Computing (2012)

boingboing.net Essays & writing 6 submissions · 6 people · 10.6 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2020-10 Resurfaced 2020-10-23

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Bussed out: how America moves thousands of homeless people around the country

www.theguardian.com Essays & writing 7 submissions · 7 people · 5.9 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2023-11 Resurfaced 2023-11-01

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Sortition

en.wikipedia.org Reference 7 submissions · 6 people · 9.8 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2022-07 Resurfaced 2020-06-01

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Are you an anarchist? The answer may surprise you (2000)

theanarchistlibrary.org Essays & writing 5 submissions · 4 people · 7.2 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2024-05 Resurfaced 2024-05-08

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Qanat – Water Tunnels in Iran

en.wikipedia.org Reference 6 submissions · 6 people · 9.2 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2023-11 Resurfaced 2023-11-11

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Why It’s OK to Block Ads (2015)

blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk Essays & writing 5 submissions · 5 people · 6.9 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2022-09 Resurfaced 2022-09-08

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The Paranoid Style in American Politics (1964)

harpers.org Essays & writing 7 submissions · 7 people · 5.2 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2025-08 Resurfaced 2025-08-08

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Systems built on trust, norms, and institutions function better than blockchain

medium.com Essays & writing 5 submissions · 5 people · 3.8 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2022-01 Resurfaced 2022-01-18

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How a small group of activists got gas-powered leaf blowers banned in D.C.

www.theatlantic.com Essays & writing 6 submissions · 5 people · 3.4 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2022-08 Resurfaced 2022-08-04

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Women's Pockets are Inferior

pudding.cool Tools, games & demos 6 submissions · 4 people · 6.8 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2023-10 Resurfaced 2023-10-24

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Apple’s great GPL purge

meta.ath0.com Essays & writing 5 submissions · 4 people · 7.8 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2019-11 Resurfaced 2019-11-27

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Nuclear War Survival Skills (1987) [pdf]

oism.org Books & learning 5 submissions · 3 people · 4.4 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2022-03 Resurfaced 2022-03-02

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Recently resurfaced in society & policy

latest 20+ point return

Open Infrastructure Map

openinframap.org Tools, games & demos 12 submissions · 12 people · 7.2 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2026-01 Resurfaced 2026-01-08

465max pts

TurboTax’s 20-Year Fight to Stop Americans from Filing Taxes for Free

www.propublica.org Essays & writing 5 submissions · 5 people · 6.0 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2025-10 Resurfaced 2025-10-16

1519max pts

The Paranoid Style in American Politics (1964)

harpers.org Essays & writing 7 submissions · 7 people · 5.2 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2025-08 Resurfaced 2025-08-08

120max pts

Unfit for work

apps.npr.org Essays & writing 7 submissions · 7 people · 12.2 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2025-06 Resurfaced 2025-06-07

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The Tyranny of Structurelessness (1970)

www.jofreeman.com Essays & writing 17 submissions · 17 people · 16.3 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2025-01 Resurfaced 2025-01-22

387max pts

Candidates

Browse 63 candidates

List of Emerging Technologies

en.wikipedia.org Reference 25 submissions · 24 people · 17.4 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2021-04-16

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart

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TldrLegal – Software Licenses Explained in Plain English

tldrlegal.com Reference 12 submissions · 12 people · 10.0 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2014-03-09

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart

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Man of the Hole

en.wikipedia.org Reference 12 submissions · 11 people · 8.0 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2024-07-21

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart

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The '3.5% rule': How a small minority can change the world

www.bbc.com Essays & writing 9 submissions · 9 people · 6.3 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2026-01-25

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart

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Lockdown – The coming war on general-purpose computing (2012)

boingboing.net Essays & writing 10 submissions · 10 people · 13.6 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2019-05-09

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart

298max pts

The Most Intolerant Wins: The Dictatorship of the Small Minority (2016)

medium.com Essays & writing 9 submissions · 9 people · 7.0 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2022-08-29

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart

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The war to sell you a mattress

www.fastcompany.com Essays & writing 7 submissions · 7 people · 7.1 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2019-01-17

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart

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If it were my home

www.ifitweremyhome.com Tools, games & demos 4 submissions · 4 people · 11.0 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2022-01-30

Needs:5 submissions

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Why I don't like smartphones

www.devever.net Essays & writing 4 submissions · 4 people · 6.0 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2022-02-14

Needs:5 submissions

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Github now publishes all DMCA takedown notices they receive here.

github.com Reference 9 submissions · 8 people · 13.7 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2024-10-28

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart

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How to Drop Out (2004)

ranprieur.com Essays & writing 7 submissions · 7 people · 16.2 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2022-02-13

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart

180max pts

Protocols, Not Platforms: A Technological Approach to Free Speech (2019)

knightcolumbia.org Essays & writing 6 submissions · 6 people · 6.0 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2022-06-09

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart

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The world is awful. The world is much better. The world can be much better

ourworldindata.org Essays & writing 4 submissions · 4 people · 6.6 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2024-02-06

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart5 submissions

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Finland provides housing and counseling to the homeless (2020)

scoop.me Essays & writing 3 submissions · 3 people · 3.6 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2023-08-20

Needs:5 submissions

354max pts

The United States Redrawn as Fifty States with Equal Population

fakeisthenewreal.org Tools, games & demos 4 submissions · 4 people · 8.0 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2019-12-01

Needs:5 submissions

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Show HN: Full text search on 630M US court cases

www.judyrecords.com Tools, games & demos 3 submissions · 2 people · 4.4 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2025-04-18

Needs:5 submissions3 submitters

698max pts

The Moral Economy of Tech

idlewords.com Essays & writing 4 submissions · 4 people · 8.7 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2017-12-22

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart5 submissions

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Dole/Kemp '96 Online Campaign

www.dolekemp96.org Sites & organizations 6 submissions · 6 people · 13.2 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2026-01-28

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart

139max pts

Culdesac Tempe: The first car-free neighborhood built from scratch in the US

culdesac.com Sites & organizations 4 submissions · 4 people · 4.0 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2021-08-10

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart5 submissions

597max pts

George W. Bush is smarter than you

keithhennessey.com Essays & writing 9 submissions · 4 people · 7.7 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2021-01-14

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart

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Well-Kept Gardens Die By Pacifism

lesswrong.com Essays & writing 10 submissions · 3 people · 12.4 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2018-03-31

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart

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The /bin/true Command and Copyright

trillian.mit.edu Essays & writing 4 submissions · 4 people · 12.7 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2021-08-21

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart5 submissions

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NYC major crime complaints fell when cops took a break from ‘proactive policing’

www.latimes.com Essays & writing 3 submissions · 3 people · 5.7 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2021-08-30

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart5 submissions

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The Unexotic Underclass

miter.mit.edu Essays & writing 6 submissions · 6 people · 2.6 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2016-01-12

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart

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We're building a dystopia just to make people click on ads [video]

www.ted.com Audio, video & images 4 submissions · 3 people · 7.5 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2025-04-27

Needs:5 submissions

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America will collapse by 2025 (2010)

www.salon.com Essays & writing 4 submissions · 4 people · 4.3 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2025-02-17

Needs:5 submissions

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The Stroad

www.strongtowns.org Essays & writing 3 submissions · 3 people · 4.3 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2023-12-01

Needs:5 submissions

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Don't let Google take over Berlin

fuckoffgoogle.de Sites & organizations 4 submissions · 4 people · 4.0 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2021-12-30

Needs:5 submissions

154max pts

Science’s Pirate Queen

www.theverge.com Essays & writing 3 submissions · 3 people · 4.1 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2019-09-27

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart5 submissions

496max pts

We Stood Up to a Patent Troll and Won

blog.cloudflare.com Essays & writing 4 submissions · 4 people · 2.8 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2022-08-25

Needs:5 submissions3 active years

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Disaster planning for regular folks (2015)

lcamtuf.coredump.cx Books & learning 3 submissions · 3 people · 3.9 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2026-01-21

Needs:5 submissions

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How knitters got knotted in a purity spiral

unherd.com Essays & writing 4 submissions · 2 people · 4.0 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2022-05-09

Needs:5 submissions3 submitters

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EBCDIC is incompatible with GDPR

shkspr.mobi Essays & writing 3 submissions · 3 people · 3.6 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2025-06-11

Needs:5 submissions

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Reasons not to use Uber

stallman.org Essays & writing 3 submissions · 3 people · 3.5 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2016-11-12

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart5 submissions

544max pts

Welcome to the land that no country wants: Bir Tawil (2016)

www.theguardian.com Essays & writing 6 submissions · 5 people · 5.8 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2025-05-16

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart

145max pts

Attractive students no longer receive better results as classes moved online

www.sciencedirect.com Research & data 4 submissions · 4 people · 3.6 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2026-03-23

Needs:5 submissions

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The declining authority of statistics and the experts who analyse them

www.theguardian.com Essays & writing 5 submissions · 5 people · 2.8 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2019-10-27

Needs:3 active years

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Wage Theft is a Bigger Problem Than Other Forms of Theft (2014)

www.epi.org Essays & writing 3 submissions · 3 people · 2.5 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2020-11-23

Needs:5 submissions

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Dude, you broke the future

www.antipope.org Essays & writing 5 submissions · 5 people · 2.5 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2020-07-12

Needs:3 active years

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World War II was totally unrealistic

squid314.livejournal.com Essays & writing 3 submissions · 3 people · 6.4 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2014-11-10

Needs:5 submissions

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