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Society

Essays and videos on social issues, history, political life and the future
The art of rules | Aeon
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essay

Art

The art of rules

Conceptual art often confounds. The key is to understand the rules of the artwork and the aesthetic experiences they yield

Sherri Irvin

Five graphs that changed the world | Aeon
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video

Information and communication

Mapping data visualisation’s meteoric rise from Victorian London to today

6 minutes

A history of the world according to Getty Images | Aeon
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video

History of technology

Who owns history? How remarkable historical footage is hidden and monetised

18 minutes

TV on Shetland | Aeon
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video

History of technology

The long-awaited arrival of TV to Shetland sparks debate in this vintage clip

9 minutes

The Hereford map | Aeon
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video

Global history

The famed medieval map that stretched beyond Earth to heaven, history and myth

5 minutes

We’ve always been distracted | Aeon
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essay

History of technology

We’ve always been distracted

Worried that technology is ‘breaking your brain’? Fears about attention spans and focus are as old as writing itself

Joe Stadolnik

The great Moon hoax | Aeon
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video

History of science

Bat-people on the Moon – what a famed 1835 hoax reveals about misinformation today

8 minutes

The Rosetta Stone and what it actually says | Aeon
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video

The ancient world

What did the Rosetta Stone’s inscription actually communicate?

17 minutes

Emory Douglas: the art of the Black Panthers | Aeon
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video

Art

The revolutionary artist who propelled the Black Panther movement with imagery

8 minutes

What was the first transit map? | Aeon
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video

The ancient world

Why did the Romans create a massive, entirely impractical map of their empire?

7 minutes

Noam Chomsky: the five filters of the mass media machine | Aeon
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video

Politics and government

Is mass media still ‘manufacturing consent’ in the internet age?

5 minutes

Origin of the world map | Aeon
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video

History of technology

Master cartography and mythical creatures – the world according to the Catalan Atlas

8 minutes

Nine letters | Aeon
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video

Mood and emotion

A century of letters captures the emotions of life in a new city, far from home

21 minutes

Technology for talking | Aeon
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video

Technology and the self

Adaptive technologies have helped Stephen Hawking, and many more, find their voice

5 minutes

Composite | Aeon
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video

Information and communication

From mental image to sketch – how memories and emotions conjure up a face

23 minutes

The Bombay highway code | Aeon
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video

Travel

A postcard from Mumbai, where there’s poetry in getting from A to B

5 minutes

Inka khipu | Aeon
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video

History of technology

Reading the strings and knots that keep the secrets of the Inka Empire

9 minutes

Sounding the Sumburgh foghorn | Aeon
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video

History of technology

Behold as a mechanical foghorn in Shetland awakes from its year-long slumber

2 minutes

Trolls be gone | Aeon
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essay

Information and communication

Trolls be gone

Anonymous users generate most toxic abuse and conspiracy theories online. The right to be anonymous should be curtailed

Stephen Kinsella

The power of diverse thinking | Aeon
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video

Neurodiversity

Workplace diversity isn’t just about equality – it’s a competitive advantage

4 minutes

The impossible map | Aeon
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video

Information and communication

There are many ways to make a flat map of the world – each of them a unique distortion

10 minutes

When can you trust statistics? | Aeon
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video

Information and communication

The modern world is littered with statistical noise. Here’s how to find the signal

5 minutes

The shift | Aeon
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video

Work

Emergency first responders meet chaos with dissonant calm in this gripping short

9 minutes

A good scrap | Aeon
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essay

Social psychology

A good scrap

Disagreements can be unpleasant, even offensive, but they are vital to human reason. Without them we remain in the dark

Ian Leslie