The Best Articles in Society
The most useful articles and videos in Society from around the web—beginners to advanced—curated by thought leaders and our community. We focus on timeless pieces and update the list whenever we discover new, must-read articles or videos—make sure to bookmark and revisit this page.
Top 5 Society Articles
At a glance: these are the articles that have been most read, shared, and saved in Society by Refind users in 2023.
Videos
Watch a video to get a quick overview.
CLARITY Is POWER: Yuval Noah Harari
Ultra-athlete Rich Roll talks with bestselling author Yuval Noah Harari about the most pressing issues currently facing mankind. For more, go here👉🏾http://...
Eric Weinstein - Why Can No One Agree On The Truth Anymore? (4K)
Eric Weinstein is a mathematician, economist, managing director of Thiel Capital and a podcaster.The last 3 years has been a time of massive confusion. No on...
Why Do So Many People Not Want To Have Children?
Malcolm Collins is a pronatalist, Stanford MBA graduate, venture capitalist and an author.What would the world actually look like if only the global populati...
Can society turn down damaging levels of light pollution?
Artificial light is proving to be an ever-growing threat to biodiversity. It's harmful to pollinating insects, bats and a host of other creatures, including ...
Hannah Ritchie: Are we the last generation
The word "sustainability" gets thrown around a lot these days. But what does it actually mean for humanity to be sustainable? Environmental data scientist Hannah Ritchie digs into the numbers behind…
How to ...?
How to Build Public Spaces for Teen Girls
Teen girls have unique needs and experiences that are often left out of our built environment. Explore three projects across the world as they share how they are transforming public spaces for teen…
How to Approach Strangers at A Party
A party at the house of a friend, eleven o’clock, on a still-warm evening. A metre away from you, a group of people are chatting animatedly. Someone is telling an anecdote, it might be something about…
How to Protect Species and Save the Planet—at Once
A major new report calls on humanity to tackle the biodiversity and climate crises simultaneously. Here's what that might look like.
«HUMANITY IS STRUGGLING to contain two compounding crises: skyrocketing global temperatures and plummeting biodiversity. But people tend to tackle each problem on its own»
How to fight racism using science
Misguided assumptions about race are going mainstream, but hard facts can help you combat entrenched attitudes
Trending
These links are currently making the rounds in Society on Refind.
You can’t even pay people to have more kids
These countries tried everything from cash to patriotic calls to duty to reverse drastically declining birth rates. It didn’t work.
What If Money Expired?
A long-forgotten German economist argued that society and the economy would be better off if money was a perishable good. Was he an anarchist crank or the prophet of a better world?
«Money is abstract, absurd. It’s a belief system, a language, a social contract. Money is trust. But the rules aren’t fixed in stone.”»
52 things I learned in 2023
This year I worked on fascinating projects in food, media, storytelling, AI and health at Magnetic, and learned many learnings.
Three Skills for Staying Calm, Sane, and Open in a Chaotic World
The host of On Being shares lessons learned from 20 years of interviews, including: how to live with open questions, counterprogramming against your negativity bias, and getting over the God question.
Short Articles
Short on time? Check out these useful short articles in Society—all under 10 minutes.
The Problem of What Others Think
Shared by 1823, including Essaadi
«When you’re worried about what someone thinks of you, it’s rarely about that person’s opinions of you. It’s about your own opinions of yourself»
Rich and Anonymous
I think there’s an “ideal” net worth for everyone, when money not only stops bringing pleasure but becomes a social liability. And that number is probably lower than most people think. Business…
«They figured out what so many other people – the rich, the middle class, the aspiring rich, and everyone in between – failed to recognize.»
The case for resurrecting the lost world of collective bathing
In 2008, the Japanese comic book artist Mari Yamazaki began working on a manga called Thermae Romae. Published the following year, it’s set in ancient Rome and follows a Roman architect named Lucius.…
What normal Americans — not AI companies — want for AI
Public opinion about AI can be summed up in two words: Slow. Down.
People are speaking with ChatGPT for hours, bringing 2013’s Her closer to reality
Long mobile conversations with the AI assistant using AirPods echo the sci-fi film.
Long Articles
These are some of the most-read long-form articles in Society.
An invitation to a secret society
Or: why you should be a lizard
Why AI Will Save the World
There's a full-blown moral panic about AI right now. But the real risk is losing the race to global AI technological superiority.
«Historically, every new technology that matters, from electric lighting to automobiles to radio to the Internet, has sparked a moral panic»
How to Make a Monster
Ideas about monstrosity were fundamental to ancient and medieval debates about the nature of humanity, and the rhetoric of monstrosity was widely used to dehumanize certain groups in medieval Europe.
The Great Alcohol Health Flip-Flop Isn’t That Hard to Understand—if You Know Who Was Behind It
More than 30 years ago, the "French paradox" got America bleary-eyed.
In Defense of the Rat
Rats are less pestilent and more lovable than we think. Can we learn to live with them?
Thought Leaders
We monitor hundreds of thought leaders, influencers, and newsletters in Society, including:
zeynep tufekci
Complex systems, wicked problems. Society, technology, science and more. @Columbia professor. @NYTimes columnist. My newsletter @insight http://www.theinsight.org

Ida Bae Wells
Reporter @nytmag//Creator #1619Project//EP #1619Hulu//Co-founder @IBWellsSociety //Founder @c4jdhowardu //Knight Chair @howardu//

danah boyd
sociotechnical researcher | Microsoft Research, Georgetown, Data & Society | zephoria@zephoria.org | (@zephoria@mastodon.social) | https://zephoria.substack.com
WIRED
Where tomorrow is realized || Sign up for our newsletters: http://WIRED.com/newsletter
World Economic Forum
The international organization for public private cooperation.
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