More Ideas of the Year
Newly Conventional Ideas That Were Once Unthinkable
•You might have slept with Tiger Woods
•There’s a Ford in your future
•Your mom is too cool for Facebook
•Republicans to Democrats: Hands off our Medicare!
•Russians suck at winter sports
•Gay marriage
•Inspector Clouseau: Mossad agent
•The white minority
•Eliot Spitzer, public figure
Most Worrying Fads
•Piracy
•Memoirs
•Sarah Palin
•Sexting
•Gastric bypass
•Avatars
•ChatRoulette
•The Snuggie
Ideas We’re Having Second Thoughts About
•Elizabeth Edwards
•Special envoys
•Quants
•California
•Capitalism
•E-mail
•The Senate
•The euro
Once-Discredited Ideas Staging Comebacks
•Savings accounts
•New Orleans
•Populism
•Mustaches
•3-D
•Nuclear power
•Moonshine
•The sitcom
•Michael Vick
Seemingly Horrifying Ideas That Have Potential
•AOL
•Taxes
•TARP
•Pay walls
•Walmart
Exceptions That Prove the Rule
•The gender composition of the contributors to The Atlantic’s 2010 Ideas List (See Idea No. 1.)
Ideas That Have Outlived Their Usefulness
•The mortgage-interest deduction
•Jared from Subway
•Publicly financed stadiums
•Internal combustion
•Corn syrup
•Ticketmaster
•Wall Street
•Brett Favre, QB
Ideas Gone But Not Forgotten
•Privacy
•Conan O’Brien
•Moderation
•Employment
•Attention spans
•Bipartisanship
Ideas Forgotten But Not Gone
•Poor people
•Communism
•New Kids on the Block
•Central America
•Hockey
•MySpace
•Guantánamo Bay
Modest Proposals for the Year Ahead
•The Ice-T Party, supporting gun rights and a return to other hip-hop values
•Subsidies for movies not based on comic books
•“Saudi justice” for texting while driving
•A two-state solution in the Middle East
•Filibustering senators must read aloud entire Twilight series
•Flying cars
14 3/4. Reefer Sanity by Joshua Green | 7. Information Wants to Be Paid For by Walter Isaacson |
14. It’s Too Easy Being Green by Kai Ryssdal | 6. The Kids Aren’t All Right by David Leonhardt |
13. Teachers Are Fair Game by David Brooks | 5. Bonfire of the Knuckleheads by Jeffrey Goldberg |
12. The Rise of the Drones by Martha Raddatz | 4. The Power of No by Michael Kinsley |
11. Obama Is No Liberal by James Bennet | 3. Boredom is Extinct by Walter Kirn |
10. The Triumph of Free Speech by Jeffrey Rosen | America Is No. 2 by James Fallows |
9. The Catholic Church Is Finished by Ross Douthat | 1. The End of Men by Hanna Rosin |
8. Deficits Matter by Megan McArdle | PLUS: More Ideas of the Year From TARP to sleeping with Tiger Woods |