Public Ignorance of Events

The cluster revolves around discussions of how the general public, especially average Americans, lacks awareness of significant news events, political facts, or global governance issues that Hacker News readers consider common knowledge.

➡️ Stable 0.6x Politics & Society
2,107
Comments
20
Years Active
5
Top Authors
#3726
Topic ID

Activity Over Time

2007
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2008
26
2009
24
2010
47
2011
54
2012
52
2013
117
2014
81
2015
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2016
117
2017
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2018
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2019
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2020
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2021
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2022
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2023
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2024
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2025
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2026
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Keywords

US PSLF HN OK DC OSM youtu.be USA webpronews.com xkcd.com americans avg ignorant average hn american knows usa average american people know

Sample Comments

meddlepal Oct 17, 2016 View on HN

I think many (most?) people are OK with the mantra "ignorance is bliss".HN readership doesn't really represent the average citizen. So while you may want the info that likely doesn't hold for a lot of folks who really only care about a very minor set of immediate concerns (food, shelter, children).

deafpolygon Aug 6, 2025 View on HN

no, many of the citizens are just like any other country: some of them aren’t aware this is happening.

recoiledsnake Oct 2, 2012 View on HN

>It's very telling that most people do not know this.Welcome to the HN info bubble.

wutwutwutwut Jul 29, 2021 View on HN

Yes, he was. Many people in US specifically does not seem to have knowledge about how other countries are governed.

whimsicalism Nov 15, 2022 View on HN

I agree with you, but if you actually polled people on this issue you would perhaps be surprised how naive the US populace generally is.

amarcheschi Aug 6, 2025 View on HN

Most of the people I know - and I live in eu - are not knowledgeable about these topics. Furthermore, I've never heard about this in one of the main news channels, so I guess that most people don't even know about it

freetinker Jul 15, 2023 View on HN

I used to think so too. However, I think the view that “everyone” knows is a distortion. The HN audience knows, but quite a few people in my life (friends, family, coworkers) don’t have a clue.

FridayoLeary Aug 16, 2021 View on HN

There are a great deal of things many Americans are not aware of. Also, what about non - Americans?

cebsoto Jun 22, 2023 View on HN

I read it as the post is simply pointing out something that a large percentage of the population was not even aware about. I don't think it goes any deeper than that.

Apocryphon Jul 20, 2025 View on HN

The average American knows not about that, nor cares even if it was true.