Subtype and topic

Essays & articles about Society & policy

Every link here is both an essay or article and about society & policy.

Hall of Fame: 20
Candidates: 31
Median span: 6.6 yrs
First seen: 2008

Strongest Hall records

20 items

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

www.gnu.org 10 submissions · 10 people · 15.1 years

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

298max pts

The Tyranny of Structurelessness (1970)

www.jofreeman.com 17 submissions · 17 people · 16.3 years

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

387max pts

Cities and Ambition

www.paulgraham.com 16 submissions · 16 people · 14.5 years

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

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I Can Tolerate Anything Except the Outgroup

slatestarcodex.com 16 submissions · 16 people · 8.9 years

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

293max pts

The Acceleration of Addictiveness (2010)

www.paulgraham.com 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 18 submissions · 17 people · 11.8 years

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

226max pts

It's Charisma, Stupid (2004)

www.paulgraham.com 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 6 submissions · 5 people · 15.6 years

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

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So You Want to Abolish Time Zones (2015)

qntm.org 13 submissions · 11 people · 7.3 years

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

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The MIT License, Line by Line

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

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

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Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed (2010)

www.raptitude.com 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 5 submissions · 5 people · 5.6 years

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

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Replit used legal threats to kill my open-source project

intuitiveexplanations.com 5 submissions · 5 people · 3.0 years

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

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The Coming Civil War over General Purpose Computing (2012)

boingboing.net 6 submissions · 6 people · 10.6 years

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

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

theanarchistlibrary.org 5 submissions · 4 people · 7.2 years

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

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Why It’s OK to Block Ads (2015)

blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk 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 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 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 6 submissions · 5 people · 3.4 years

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

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Apple’s great GPL purge

meta.ath0.com 5 submissions · 4 people · 7.8 years

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

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Recently resurfaced

latest 20+ point return

The Paranoid Style in American Politics (1964)

harpers.org 7 submissions · 7 people · 5.2 years

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

120max pts

The Tyranny of Structurelessness (1970)

www.jofreeman.com 17 submissions · 17 people · 16.3 years

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

387max pts

Replit used legal threats to kill my open-source project

intuitiveexplanations.com 5 submissions · 5 people · 3.0 years

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

4022max pts

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

theanarchistlibrary.org 5 submissions · 4 people · 7.2 years

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

286max pts

So You Want to Abolish Time Zones (2015)

qntm.org 13 submissions · 11 people · 7.3 years

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

67max pts

Candidates

Browse 31 candidates

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

www.bbc.com 9 submissions · 9 people · 6.3 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2026-01-25

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart

316max pts

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

boingboing.net 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 9 submissions · 9 people · 7.0 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2022-08-29

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart

262max pts

The war to sell you a mattress

www.fastcompany.com 7 submissions · 7 people · 7.1 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2019-01-17

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart

432max pts

Why I don't like smartphones

www.devever.net 4 submissions · 4 people · 6.0 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2022-02-14

Needs:5 submissions

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How to Drop Out (2004)

ranprieur.com 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 6 submissions · 6 people · 6.0 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2022-06-09

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart

646max pts

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

ourworldindata.org 4 submissions · 4 people · 6.6 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2024-02-06

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart5 submissions

418max pts

The Moral Economy of Tech

idlewords.com 4 submissions · 4 people · 8.7 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2017-12-22

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart5 submissions

241max pts

George W. Bush is smarter than you

keithhennessey.com 9 submissions · 4 people · 7.7 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2021-01-14

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart

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The /bin/true Command and Copyright

trillian.mit.edu 4 submissions · 4 people · 12.7 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2021-08-21

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart5 submissions

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The Unexotic Underclass

miter.mit.edu 6 submissions · 6 people · 2.6 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2016-01-12

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart

461max pts

America will collapse by 2025 (2010)

www.salon.com 4 submissions · 4 people · 4.3 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2025-02-17

Needs:5 submissions

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The Stroad

www.strongtowns.org 3 submissions · 3 people · 4.3 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2023-12-01

Needs:5 submissions

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We Stood Up to a Patent Troll and Won

blog.cloudflare.com 4 submissions · 4 people · 2.8 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2022-08-25

Needs:5 submissions3 active years

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How knitters got knotted in a purity spiral

unherd.com 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 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 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 6 submissions · 5 people · 5.8 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2025-05-16

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart

145max pts

Dude, you broke the future

www.antipope.org 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 3 submissions · 3 people · 6.4 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2014-11-10

Needs:5 submissions

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Letter to the Patent Office From Professor Donald Knuth (1994)

www.pluto.it 4 submissions · 4 people · 11.4 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2014-06-28

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart5 submissions

135max pts

I hate living in my tiny house

www.fastcompany.com 3 submissions · 3 people · 3.1 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2022-11-20

Needs:5 submissions3 active years

231max pts

Why American Construction Costs Are So High

pedestrianobservations.com 3 submissions · 3 people · 2.1 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2021-04-27

Needs:5 submissions3 active years

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Terrorism is not about terror

www.gwern.net 4 submissions · 3 people · 3.2 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2015-10-05

Needs:5 submissions

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Steve Jobs Never Wanted Us to Use Our iPhones Like This (2019)

www.nytimes.com 3 submissions · 3 people · 2.3 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2021-05-09

Needs:5 submissions

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Silence Is a Commons by Ivan Illich (1983)

www.davidtinapple.com 4 submissions · 2 people · 12.3 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2025-07-18

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart5 submissions3 submitters

201max pts

A Wikipedia editor's long-running campaign

wikipedia.fivefilters.org 3 submissions · 3 people · 2.9 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2021-04-13

Needs:5 submissions3 active years

748max pts

The Myth of the Rule of Law

faculty.msb.edu 3 submissions · 3 people · 7.2 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2015-11-24

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart5 submissions

100max pts

We Should Let a Lottery Decide Our Government (2019)

thewalrus.ca 3 submissions · 2 people · 5.5 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2025-05-21

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart5 submissions3 submitters3 active years

64max pts

Did HAL Commit Murder?

thereader.mitpress.mit.edu 3 submissions · 3 people · 2.1 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2022-02-09

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart5 submissions3 active years

59max pts