Dear friends,

I finally got the time to properly finish the best of 2020 contest. We voted and voted and nominated and finally, it is time to celebrate the winners, the champions, the very best, and thereby acknowledgeing the hard work so many of us put into this subreddit and the community, and the group project of being the best philosophy q&a forum around.

In this thread, I am excited to announce the winners of this contest. The winners already got the very special Owl of Minerva award, wherever possible on the nominated content. The awards include one month free reddit premium which, I guess, gives you a month without ads and another goodie or two. Congratulations! Without further ado, I give you the winners - in the order of votes received for the first two categories, and alphabetically for the last. Full disclosure: The laudatios are mostly copy-pasted from the nominations.

Best Question of 2020

• What is the real relationship between "me" and my "thinking"? Are my thoughts a part of me, or are they something I create, or are they something external that simply comes to me?This reflective question by u/Inkshooter about the relationship between you and thinking
• If Edward Snowden saw his government doing things that they don't have the constitutional right to do, does he have the ethical responsibility to alert the populace even if he signed a contract to not divulge anything being done behind closed doors?by u/diogenesthehopeful for this nice question about obligations to whistleblow.
• Is Socratic method the best way to change someone's mind? by u/turquoise8
• Philosophical takes on cancel culture by u/princessofwherever - a very timely question in a year where cancel culture seemingly was discussed everywhere
• What's the current feminist take on OnlyFans?u/maddog367 for this interesting question on feminist views on what may be the fastest growing not-so-savory internet company.
• Why isn’t the field of philosophy concerned with communicating its ideas to the general public? by /u/margotiii, the most upvoted question on our sub of all time and one that is also very interesting!
• Has there been any answer to the "Cultural Marxism" conspiracy theory? by u/drone4epic is a quite important question about 'disproving' the cultural marxism thing.

Best Answer of 2020

• u/drinka40tonight for this awesome answer on philosophy's capacity to provide answers
• u/iunoionnis for this concise, clear and super helpful answer around Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit (among others of this kind of quality answers from them)
• u/JSDrey for this comprehensive answer on the different syncretic forms of Fascism, it's history, it's general definition, and the philosophers who championed it
• u/glencorapalliser for this answer on what role historic philosophers play today
• u/TychoCelchuuu for going in-depth why there isn't more public philosophy
• u/Emergent_Complexity for this great answer on Pascal's Wager

Outstanding Users of 2020 (in alphabetic order)

• u/eitherorsayyes for the always helpful advice on finding tech jobs as a philosopher in the inside baseball thread
• u/mediaisdelicious for being patient, curious, helpful, knowledgeable, and genuinely an inspiration to a kind of person that I strive to be.
• u/iunoionnis for their elaborated, accesible, clear and extremely helpful answers. Especially the ones pertaining Hegel and Heidegger
• u/justanediblefriend for her consistently thorough, incredibly detailed, and thoughtful answers to a wide range of questions
• u/TychoCelchuuu for their continuing excellence in answering even the... least deserving questions promptly, while also showing in-depth knowledge of philosophy when answering all sorts of questions.
• u/willbell for, among many other things, the self-started project of asking people what they're reading in the ODT as well as the ongoing aggregation of translation recommendations.
• u/wokeupabug was nominated twice, actually. Why? For their consistently in-depth, encyclopedic, clear, and patient answers across an extremely broad swathe of philosophy and related fields such as psychoanalysis. For their collegiality. For helping us all grow as people.

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And that's a wrap!

Thank you all for your continued excellence, your collegiality, your questions and answers and everything each and every one of you - the awardees as well as all users - brings to this sub. r/askphilosophy means a lot to me and it does so because of you all. <3 and *mic drop*.