ESSAYS ARCHIVE · MARCH 2019 — PRESENT
Every argument we’ve published, in one place.
Three hundred and twelve long-form essays, fourteen editorial verticals, six unbroken years of arguing the unpopular side. The permanent record of The Contrapuntist — dated, footnoted, indexed by topic — so you can find the piece you read once and can’t quite quote.
THE INDEX
Six verticals. Six years of argument. Pick the side you want to read against today.
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01
CULTURE · 58 ESSAYS
Against the Soft Tyranny of the Group Chat
Why the internet’s favorite new public square has made us dumber, lonelier, and easier to herd than the comments section ever did.
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02
TECHNOLOGY · 64 ESSAYS
The Case for Boring Software
A working argument for the unfashionable virtues of stability, documentation, and tools that do exactly what they say on the tin.
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03
ECONOMICS · 47 ESSAYS
Rent Control Worked. Now Read That Again.
Reopening a debate the economics profession closed prematurely, against the available evidence, in the mid-1990s.
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04
POLITICS · 51 ESSAYS
In Defense of the Villain
On the public’s sudden, exhausting refusal to read a political opponent as anything but a monster — and what that refusal costs.
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05
IDEAS · 42 ESSAYS
The Last Useful Conservative
Reclaiming a tradition from its loudest defenders, and asking what it still has to say to a reader who stopped being one in 2016.
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06
CROSS-CUTTING · 50 ESSAYS
Everything You Were Told About Productivity Is a Marketing Deck
Six years of writing on the calendar industrial complex, gathered, ranked, and gently insulted.
I came for the contrarian posture and stayed because, three years in, I still can’t find a published claim that hasn’t been footnoted to its primary source. That is, depressingly, the rarest thing on the open internet in 2024.
BY THE NUMBERS
The archive in four numbers.
- 312 Long-form essays published since Issue #001
- 9m 40s Average read time — 4.3× the Substack benchmark
- 47 Citations in The Atlantic, Wired, Bloomberg Opinion & NYT Opinion
- 86,400 Subscribers — earned, none bought, since 2019
TUESDAYS ARE FREE. FRIDAYS ARE FOR MEMBERS.
Get the next argument before the rest of the internet does.
Two essays a week, written to be read at length and argued with over lunch. The free issue lands every Tuesday; the members-only essay, every Friday. Cancel anytime — we don’t do dark patterns.
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