--- title: Five Best: We Could Build a Better Facebook description: Could we build a better Facebook, Puerto Rico’s devastation could open the door to a revolutionary power grid and more. canonical: https://time.com/4987184/we-could-build-a-better-facebook/ author: TIME article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-10-18T16:00:06.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:58:24.006Z article:section: Ideas og:title: We Could Build a Better Facebook og:description: And four more of today's best ideas og:url: https://time.com/4987184/we-could-build-a-better-facebook/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: We Could Build a Better Facebook twitter:description: And four more of today's best ideas twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # We Could Build a Better Facebook by [The Aspen Institute](https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Oct 18, 2017 4:00 PM UTC by [The Aspen Institute](https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Oct 18, 2017 4:00 PM UTC **1\.** [**Could we build a better Facebook?**](https://daily.jstor.org/can-we-build-a-better-facebook/) By Alexandra Samuel in _JSTOR Daily_ **2\.** [**Puerto Rico’s devastation could open the door to a revolutionary power grid.**](https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2017/10/16/devastation-in-puerto-rico-could-produce-a-revolutionary-power-grid/) By Lewis M. Milford and Mark Muro at the _Brookings Institution_ **3\.** [**Forget Mars. Humans should set their space colony sights on this moon of Saturn.**](http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2017/10/16/555045041/confession-of-a-planetary-scientist-i-do-not-want-to-live-on-mars) By Amanda Hendrix in _NPR’s 13.7: Cosmos and Culture_ **4\.** [**Missile defense probably won’t save us from a North Korean attack.**](https://warontherocks.com/2017/10/deadly-overconfidence-trump-thinks-missile-defenses-work-against-north-korea-and-that-should-scare-you/) By Ankit Panda and Vipin Narang at _War on the Rocks_ **5\.** [**Does science need more mavericks — or do they just cause problems?**](https://aeon.co/essays/does-science-need-mavericks-or-are-they-part-of-the-problem) By Adrian Currie in _Aeon_  [_The Aspen Institute_](http://www.aspeninstitute.org/) _is an educational and policy studies organization based in Washington, D.C._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4987184/we-could-build-a-better-facebook/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4987184/we-could-build-a-better-facebook/"},"headline":"We Could Build a Better Facebook","datePublished":"2017-10-18T16:00:06.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:58:24.006Z","description":"These are today's best ideas","url":"https://time.com/4987184/we-could-build-a-better-facebook/","keywords":["Five Best Ideas","North Korea","Innovation","Space","facebook","Puerto Rico","Science"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"The Aspen Institute","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/five-best-ideas/","name":"Five Best Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4987184/we-could-build-a-better-facebook/","name":"We Could Build a Better Facebook"}}]}] ```