Hacker News with Generative AI: Social Commentary

De-Muskifier: Firefox add-on to replace all instances of Elon Musk with raccoons (mozilla.org)
This browser extension replaces mentions of Elon Musk, SpaceX, Tesla, and related terms with cute raccoons and raccoon factoids.
Firefox Add-ons, Browser Extensions, Humor, Elon Musk, Social Commentary
46 points by thunderbong 18 hours ago | 36 comments
I knew one day I'd have to watch powerful men burn the world down (theguardian.com)
I don’t know if anyone else has noticed this but everything seems to be going down the tubes quite fast. And not fun tubes, like at a waterpark. The “ending in shit” kind. The issues are complicated, the reasons diverse, but there are a few culprits who have been making themselves extremely visible.
Politics, Social Commentary, Current Events
10 points by mnewme 21 hours ago | 6 comments
Observation: HN turns into infomercials around when Californians start working (ycombinator.com)
Observation: HN turns into infomercials around when Californians start working
Hacker News, California, Work Culture, Social Commentary
15 points by lysace 1 day ago | 14 comments
The cod-Marxism of personalized pricing (pluralistic.net)
The social function of the economics profession is to explain, over and over again, that your boss is actually right and that you don't really want the things you want, and you're secretly happy to be abused by the system. If that wasn't true, why would your "choose" commercial surveillance, abusive workplaces and other depredations?
Economics, Social Commentary, Capitalism, Inequality
11 points by lapcat 6 days ago | 2 comments
Bureaucracy Isn't Measured in Bureaucrats (astralcodexten.com)
An old tweet from Vivek Ramaswamy, now co-head of the Department of Government Efficacy:
Bureaucracy, Government, Politics, Social Commentary
6 points by feross 9 days ago | 0 comments
Yeah, America can still build stuff (jabberwocking.com)
Marc Dunkelman has a new book coming out next month called Why Nothing Works. His thesis is that America once did big things but now seems stuck—and much of it is the fault of progressives:
Politics, USA, Social Commentary, Book Reviews
28 points by leotravis10 11 days ago | 25 comments
Stay Gold, America (codinghorror.com)
We are at an unprecedented point in American history, and I'm concerned we may lose sight of the American Dream.
Politics, Culture, Social Commentary
19 points by nikbackm 11 days ago | 1 comments
Stay Gold, America (codinghorror.com)
We are at an unprecedented point in American history, and I'm concerned we may lose sight of the American Dream.
Politics, Social Commentary, United States
194 points by joanwestenberg 11 days ago | 224 comments
End Times: Elites, Counter-Elites, and the Path of Political Disintegration (amazon.com)
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Politics, Sociology, Social Commentary, History
5 points by vogu66 13 days ago | 0 comments
"Oh, Jean Baudrillard, how the rock-kickers sneered at you back in the day." (mastodon.social)
Philosophy, Social Commentary, History
4 points by pavel_lishin 14 days ago | 0 comments
Billionaires want you to know they could have done physics [video] (youtube.com)
Billionaires, Physics, Humor, Social Commentary, Video
6 points by NN88 16 days ago | 0 comments
Cory Doctorow wrote a prescient novella about health insurance and murder (theguardian.com)
Five years ago, the science fiction writer Cory Doctorow published a short story whose plot might seem eerily similar to followers of the past few weeks’ news.
Science Fiction, Healthcare, Social Commentary, Current Events
16 points by ethagnawl 28 days ago | 1 comments
Echoes of Rage: Our new age of violence looks a lot like the Gilded Age (worldhistory.substack.com)
If you looked at it from a certain angle, it appeared to be a golden age.
History, Violence, Social Commentary
6 points by crescit_eundo 31 days ago | 0 comments
Jesse Welles Eviscerates UnitedHealthcare in New Protest Song (rollingstone.com)
Songwriter Jesse Welles has been turning heads with his solo acoustic protest songs about the war in Gaza (“War Isn’t Murder”) and capitalism (“Amazon Santa Claus”), earning a devoted following online and at his sold-out concerts, including the upcoming leg of his Fear Is the Mind Killer Tour. This week, Welles recounted the history of America’s healthcare industry in a new acoustic video and song, “United Health.”
Music, Healthcare, Protest, Social Commentary
5 points by donsupreme 31 days ago | 0 comments
Why Big Tech Does Not Want You Anymore [video] (youtube.com)
Big Tech, Business, Technology, Social Commentary
5 points by jarsin 32 days ago | 0 comments
Insurance companies aren't the main villain of the U.S. health system (noahpinion.blog)
When UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was gunned down in the street in cold blood the other day, a bunch of people on the internet gloated and cheered:
Healthcare, Insurance, Social Commentary
16 points by throw0101b 32 days ago | 14 comments
Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid (theatlantic.com)
It’s not just a phase.
Social Commentary, Politics, American Culture
22 points by gus_leonel 33 days ago | 10 comments
Wishing for a more orderly disruption may misunderstand government reform (eatingpolicy.com)
DOGE has made it both impossible not to talk about government reform, and impossible to talk about it. The topic is everywhere, but the subject is now entirely eclipsed on the left by the horror of who has been assigned the task and the need to decry DOGE as a bad faith effort.
Government Reform, Politics, Social Commentary
159 points by rmason 35 days ago | 301 comments
Pointless jobs: the unbearable ennui of office life – in pictures (theguardian.com)
Office Culture, Work, Photography, Humor, Social Commentary
11 points by pimeys 37 days ago | 4 comments
ChatGPT's Sad Second Birthday (podcastaddict.com)
Tech giants like Google and Facebook have conquered — some would say killed — the internet. Elon Musk used his platform to help elect Trump, and Silicon Valley elites want to gut the public sector. OpenAI and Microsoft aim to wipe away millions of jobs. Uber is driving down wages. Apple is impenetrable. Amazon is inescapable. All this high tech, and our quality of life is getting lower. The system has crashed.
Artificial Intelligence, Technology, Social Commentary
14 points by carschno 39 days ago | 9 comments
Some Other America, One I Do Not Know (popehat.com)
Some people are very upset about the public reaction to the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. The killing has generated horror, but also mocking memes, a wave of hostility towards the healthcare industry, and rhetoric that stops barely short of calling the murder justified.
Social Commentary, Healthcare, Public Reaction, Assassination
38 points by hn_acker 39 days ago | 21 comments
Economics and Homemakers (thehomefront.substack.com)
As some of my readers know, I have been working for the past two years on a book about homemakers. The working title is No One at Home: What America Lost When Her Homemakers Went to Work, but I’m sure a real editor who wants to sell books would hate it.
Economics, Homemakers, Social Commentary, Gender Roles
38 points by mooreds 41 days ago | 71 comments
Stuck in AI Hell: What to do in post LLM world (reddit.com)
Generative AI, Artificial Intelligence, Social Commentary
8 points by hubraumhugo 42 days ago | 3 comments
Eat the Rich: Brian Thompson (itfossil.com)
On December 4th, 2024 somebody brazenly murdered the CEO of United Healthcare, Brain Thompson, in broad daylight. Health Insurance company executives around the country are wiping their websites of their identifying information in fear that any one of them might be next. Nationwide law enforcement is hunting for the shooter, but thus far he appears to have slipped through their fingers. What do I think? Well I hope he escapes because I love the smell of justice in the morning.
Crime, Social Commentary, Politics
10 points by itfossil 42 days ago | 11 comments
Christopher Hitchens and the Necessity of Universalism (salmagundi.skidmore.edu)
The most alarming political trends today – the rise of nationalist authoritarianism, the spread of identity politics, the dysfunction and political violence in the United States, and rapidly declining trust in institutions – can be traced to various (often clashing and intersecting) forms of tribalism.
Politics, Philosophy, Social Commentary, Identity Politics
20 points by everybodyknows 45 days ago | 16 comments
Modern Work Fucking Sucks (joanwestenberg.com)
It’s Monday morning. The first thing you see (yes, before you see your kids, your partner, even your coffee) is a Slack notification.
Modern Work, Technology, Work Culture, Social Commentary
12 points by cratermoon 47 days ago | 3 comments
Sitters and Standers (pudding.cool)
Start →
Human Behavior, Social Commentary, Design, User Experience
426 points by feross 47 days ago | 246 comments
American Kakistocracy (theatlantic.com)
There’s a case to be made that the United States is governed by the least scrupulous of its citizens.
Politics, United States, Social Commentary
14 points by thunderbong 47 days ago | 2 comments
People have too inflated sense to "ask an AI" about something – Karpathy (twitter.com)
Artificial Intelligence, Technology, Opinion, Social Commentary
18 points by amrrs 48 days ago | 5 comments
Why unexpected visitors are in danger of extinction (elpais.com)
The ring of the doorbell when you’re not expecting anyone is, at the least, odd. Above all in big cities, where distances between homes can be long and the act of going to see someone implies a certain amount of preparation to traverse the town.
Social Commentary, Urban Life, Sociology
11 points by PaulHoule 50 days ago | 0 comments