Ideas

The Most-Read WIRED Ideas Stories of 2018

Readers dived into a feminist reading of Elizabeth Holmes' downfall, a story about Silicon Valley's hidden caste system, and the perplexing case of a deadly yeast.

In February, WIRED.com launched a new section to the site called Ideas. The, ahem, idea was simple: WIRED was founded on a big idea (the digital revolution would change the world) and along the way, we chronicled other "mind grenades," as we call them: The long tail. Crowdsourcing. The network economy. This year, we continued that tradition, bringing new writers into the fold, like Maryn McKenna, Joi Ito, and Antonio García Martínez. As evidenced by this impressive list of stories—on topics ranging to the way men see powerful women to the inevitability of UBI—this initiative was one of our best ideas yet.

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    WIRED/Getty Images
    01

    Brett Kavanaugh and the Information Terrorists Trying to Reshape America

    The network architecture built in Gamergate helped propel Trump to the presidency and fuel conspiracies like Pizzagate and QAnon. Now, it’s backing Brett Kavanaugh.

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  • Brendan McDermid/Reuters
    02

    Elizabeth Holmes’ Downfall Has Been Explained Deeply—By Men

    No one seems to have listened to the Theranos founder in her own words. Until now.

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  • Michael Nagle/Bloomberg/Getty Images
    03

    The Empress of Facebook: My Befuddling Dinner With Sheryl Sandberg

    A breathless meal of scallops and feminist bona fides exposed her vulnerability: No one, not even Sandberg, has what it takes to tame Facebook.

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  • WIRED/Getty Images
    04

    The Strange and Curious Case of the Deadly Superbug Yeast

    By the normal standards of outbreak, Candida auris signals a mind-bending shift—and it’s forcing researchers draw on some of medicine’s oldest practices.

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  • WIRED/Getty Images
    05

    Sam Harris and the Myth of Perfectly Rational Thought

    The famous proponent of New Atheism is on a crusade against tribalism but seems oblivious to his own version of it.

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  • WIRED/Getty Images
    06

    How Silicon Valley Fuels an Informal Caste System

    The on-demand economy gives fewer opportunities for people to interact with those outside their class—creating impermeable inequality.

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  • Robert Warren/Getty Images
    07

    The Educational Tyranny of the Neurotypicals

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  • Giacomo Bagnara
    08

    What Are Screens Doing to Our Eyes—and Our Ability to See?

    Our eyes are hardening; we can barely see our phones any more. We must learn to look at the wider world.

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  • WIRED; Michael Blann/Getty Images
    09

    The Paradox of Universal Basic Income

    Liberals and conservatives alike love—and fear—the idea of giving free money to everyone. But we have to try it anyway.

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  • WIRED; David Paul Morris/Bloomberg/Getty Images
    10

    Why Zuckerberg’s 14-Year Apology Tour Hasn’t Fixed Facebook

    The Facebook CEO's constant apologies aren't a promise to do better. They're a symptom of a profound crisis of accountability.

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Andrea Valdez is the editor of WIRED.com. Before arriving at WIRED in 2017, she worked at Texas Monthly for 10 years, first as a fact checker, then as a columnist, and, ultimately, as the editor of texasmonthly.com. She is the author of How to Be a Texan: The Manual. Valdez ... Read more
Editor of Wired.com
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