The Archive

• The sofa is technically furniture for humans, but the family pet clearly disagrees. Should pets be allowed on the furniture?
• A once-firm fashion rule that most people have heard of but few could actually explain the origin of. Is the "no white after Labor Day" rule still worth following?
• Courts and copyright offices worldwide are actively wrestling with AI-generated art, with no settled answer anywhere yet. Should it be eligible for the same copyright protection as human-made work?
• Few food debates are as durable as this one: sweet fruit on a savoury pizza. Should pineapple be on pizza?
• A hot dog is meat in a sliced bun, held together with condiments — which sure sounds like a sandwich by most definitions. But almost nobody actually calls it one. Is a hot dog a sandwich?
• The one purely personal-relationships question in this batch — less "should society decide X," more "what would you actually do." Is it ever OK to read your partner's phone without asking?
• The oldest trade-off in education policy: broader access to university, or a broader tax burden regardless of who benefits. Should university be free, even if everyone pays more tax for it?
• Momentum behind banning social media for under-16s has been building globally through 2026. Does it protect kids, or just push them onto less-regulated platforms and harder-to-monitor spaces?
• Four-day work week trials keep reporting strong results on productivity and wellbeing. Is it a genuine structural improvement, or a novelty effect that fades once the pilot ends?
• Inheritance tax is one of the oldest fights in tax policy: a fair check on unearned wealth, or double taxation on money that's already been taxed once. Should it exist at all?
• Tipping has crept into more and more everyday transactions, well beyond restaurants, and many people say they're now tipping on autopilot rather than out of genuine appreciation. Should tipping be scrapped entirely and folded into listed prices instead?
• Return-to-office mandates have triggered a wave of backlash through 2026, with most affected workers telling surveys they suspect the real goal is a disguised attrition strategy, not genuine culture-building. Should companies be allowed to fire remote workers who refuse to comply?
• AI could plausibly do half your job within a few years. If a company offered you half your current salary, for life, in exchange for AI taking over the bulk of your role — would you take the deal?
• The 2026 VMA nominations are led by Madonna, Taylor Swift, and Sabrina Carpenter, with critics noting Black artists were mostly confined to genre-specific categories like Hip-Hop rather than the top awards. Real bias, or just how the year's biggest hits shook out?
• One year after Operation Midway Blitz swept through Chicago, ICE said it targeted 'the worst of the worst' — but records show the criminal-conviction rate among the 3,841 people detained fell to just 15%. Necessary crackdown, or a dragnet that missed its target?
• Turning Point USA held a massive memorial for Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University one year after his assassination there, while student protesters demanded the school cut ties with the group. Fitting tribute, or the university endorsing a political movement?
• Umpire Doug Eddings told Cardinals rookie pitcher Hancel Rincon to fix his crooked hat mid-game, triggering an ejection, an MLB-mandated apology, and players on two teams tilting their own caps in protest. Umpire enforcing standards, or a power trip over nothing?
• OpenAI quietly altered its new Astra model's benchmark scores multiple times after launch — boosting its own numbers while showing worse results for rival Anthropic's models. Routine tuning, or manipulating the scoreboard?
• Sean 'Diddy' Combs' prison release date was quietly moved up again to January 2028, even as he appeals his sentence for prostitution-related convictions. Standard good-behavior credit, or should a case this high-profile get extra scrutiny?
• ProPublica revealed that Donald Trump Jr.'s lavish Bahamas wedding was secretly bankrolled by a Russian oligarch close to Putin — while Trump Jr.'s camp calls him just a hunting buddy. Innocent friendship, or a national security red flag hiding in plain sight?
• OpenAI says a 10,000-agent AI swarm made progress on the unsolved Navier-Stokes math problem, then admitted it "cannot rule out" that a mathematician's private Codex notes helped get there — though the mathematician says he isn't accusing anyone of anything. Real red flag for how AI labs use private data, or an honest coincidence?
• Manchester City's winning goal against United stood despite Enzo Fernandez standing offside near goal — and England's referees' body Pro Ref later admitted it was 'an error of judgement.' Should the result stand, or does the Premier League have a real VAR crisis?
• A UN fact-finding mission says foreign recruiters and up to 2,000 Colombian mercenaries are fueling Sudan's civil war for the paramilitary RSF, with support networks running through the UAE. Should outside backers face real consequences, or is this just how proxy wars work now?
• Adidas is facing boycott calls after featuring a former Israeli soldier who lost his leg in Gaza in an ad for its shoe-fitting service, with activists calling it 'an affront to Palestinians.' Fair criticism of tone-deaf marketing, or unfairly politicizing an amputee's story?