Jackson Joyce

• Community Organizing

  The Editors

  It’s a running joke between the two of us that Asterisk is — among other things — a journal of 5,000 word pieces on social science methodology.

• interview

  The Depths of Wikipedians

  Annie Rauwerda

  A conversation about yogurt wars, German hymns, tropical cyclones, and the people who make Wikipedia function.

• interview

  Why We Have Prison Gangs

  David Skarbek

  America’s prison gangs first emerged in the late 1950s. Why did they form? What keeps them going? And how do they govern themselves?

• interview

  The Making of Community Notes

  Jay Baxter Keith Coleman Lucas Neumann Emily Thai

  The team that built X’s Community Notes talks about their design process and the philosophy behind their approach to combatting false information on the platform.

• A Chinese Internet Phrasebook

  Molly Huang

  The latest slang on Weibo reveals a world of cynicism, ennui — and concrete pasta.

• Chimes at Midnight

  Alec Nevala-Lee

  It’s been an idea for over three decades. How did the clock that will run for 10,000 years become a reality?

• Looking Back at the Future of Humanity Institute

  Tom Ough

  The rise and fall of the influential, embattled Oxford research center that brought us the concept of existential risk.

• A User’s Guide to Building a Subculture

  Jeremiah Johnson

  First, you’re going to need something to care about.

• Rat Traps

  Sheon Han

  Does the rationalist blogosphere need to update?

• The Biggest Community Development Program You’ve Never Heard Of

  Clara Collier

  The pilot of the Indian Community Development Program — among the first holistic development interventions to elicit widespread community participation — was a resounding success. Why did it fail to scale? And what can that tell us about development programs today?

• The Death and Life of Prediction Markets at Google

  Dan Schwarz

  Over the past two decades, Google has hosted two different internal platforms for predictions. Why did the first one fail — and will the other endure?

• The Myth of the Loneliness Epidemic

  Claude S. Fischer

  Are we really living through a uniquely lonely moment in American history? When it comes to friendship, this isn’t the first time that authorities have cried wolf.