Since it's a death at a constant rate with threat of increase. It's also random and not preventable. So I think we would just accept it as another risk we live with but don't think about.

In terms of humanity's progress. Most advances happened through incremental progress and most historical figures could be replaced with similar people from their family of political party that would have yielded similar results. There probably a few people that genuinely couldn't be replaced, but the chance of them being fingered seems like a statical anomaly.

Socially it could be quite a change. A magic hand could easily become a piece of worship and establish a cult. The idea of it being a human hand would give the impression that humans are the default life form which would add more resistance to animal rights. The biggest one is the race of the hand... Which, given human history, would definitely have been used to justify some horrific actions.

I can tell you one thing, Deep Thoughts with Jack Handy would never have gotten off the ground.

Insurance companies would love this.

not much change, but every city would have a circular section that rotates at slightly faster than human speed where all the rich people live.

I would prefer a Monty Python style foot. Complete with the raspberry sound effect. More entertainment value.

People would soon block it out, as they do with other things out of their control. They’d mourn their dead, there’d be poems and ballads and darkly ironic stories about those squashed by the Hand, and figures of speech alluding to this, but people wouldn’t fret about it. And if it kills 365 people a year around the world, that is a fairly low death toll, so it would be classified with improbable but spectacular threats like sharks or volcanoes, rather than car accidents or heart disease.

Black and White was such a fun game.

anyone remember that flash game pillage the village?

1 a day? I feel like a lot of people might not ever get to see it. You’d go a large portion of your life always hearing about it, seeing stories in the news, one of your friend’s relatives was squished by it. But then one day you’re minding your business on your way to work when it shows up and crushes the car in front of you.

Looks like you get to call off from work. You just witnessed The Hand. Go ahead and take a day to collect your senses.

Just find the person whos casting bigbys hand, and give em a few love taps until they lose concentration. Problem solved.

There would be a lot of ideas about why different people get squished. We wouldn't know it was random definitively. And because it looks like a human adjacent hand, probably a lot of speculation about God punishing people for being bad.

TBH, would probably be a lot less violent as people put faith in THE HAND to bestow god's judgement rather than all the crazy shit the Abrahamic religions did. Religions tended to be mutually exclusive in history.

Rich people would commission special suits to withstand the crushing.

There would be attempts to shoot it down.

Does it only target adults? Imagine the hand crushing your kid

I already kicked that guy's ass in super smash bros

If you live in China or India, hand sightings only make the news if it lands on someone nearby. In Europe and the US, the hand heading your way means a few minutes on the news presenting the mathematical models predicting where it will land based on trajectory, and something like "John Johnson, a 34-year old Liverpool resident, was a victim of the inexorable hand yesterday. He will be missed." For the likes of Iceland or New Zealand, the hand heading your way means a full day of tension and lots of wills being updated.

POV you're an ant in our actual reality

A lot more people living underground and a lot more snake oil. Probably a cult or two.

A significant concern 80k years ago (though with lack of communication, few would know that the disembodied hand represented), not even a consideration now. 1 person dies from The Hand in the world each day? More people die of aneurysms each day, I would imagine, and it's effectively the same thing.

Also, does it stop following a given person if they escape it by the end of the day? If you could hop in a car and just drive until the day is over to escape it, it would be more of a "hey, watch out for the hand" kind of thing. But it would be so rare I don't even think it would be on anybody's mind.

Tech bros trying to harness it's energy and sell hand crushing predictions

Whenever someone dies by crushing, detectives have to verify if the hand was spotted elsewhere at the time.

So just the game Black & White from 2001?

Well this is just the last boss in super smash bros., and yes its a huge asshole.

Even one death per second wouldn't be enough to overpower humanity's population growth rate. One per day would just be an urban legend.