Two pieces that grabbed my attention recently:

1. Why Not Hang Them All: The Virtues of Inefficient Punishment, by David Friedman, son of Milton. (JSTOR, or Google Scholar.) Have you ever wondered why criminal justice systems around the world rely so heavily on imprisonment, despite the existence of more efficient alternatives such as fines and executions? Of all the rationalizations of this state of affairs I’ve ever heard or read, this is perhaps the most interesting and plausible one.
2. Lies We Tell Kids, by Paul Graham. Interesting and thought-provoking throughout. Graham’s consistency in writing original, well-structured essays is remarkable. Usually, there’s a tradeoff between originality and clarity—unfamiliar thoughts don’t have clichés associated with them, so they are more difficult to explain. (Imagine how much more difficult would economic and evolutionary explanations be to give without the mental shorthand of phrases such as “supply and demand” or “natural selection.”) Graham remains surprisingly clear even when his ideas are new to me. By the way, How To Do Philosophy and Mind The Gap are among the best short pieces I’ve ever read.