Built Paul Graham's Intellectual CAPTCHA Idea

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PG has posted about improving social networks using something like an "intellectual CAPTCHA" many times [1][2][3][4] - "Make users pass a test on basic concepts like the distinction between necessary and sufficient conditions before they can tweet." I felt the same way. So I built one using a mix of simple math, logic, and Twitter/X Community Noted posts. Try sample questions here - https://mentwire.com/sample - without signing up. - Invite-only (temporarily open to HN users). - Onboarding test + one daily question before accessing feed, post or reply. - Posts authors are anonymous until upvoted or downvoted, forcing evaluation of content on merit. - Face ID (on-device only) to post/reply, pangram checks for AI text. Sourcing good questions turned out to be much harder than I thought. If you have suggestions to scale this, I would love to hear. Eventually, could be gated across disciplines/topics to get a competence × interest graph instead of the pure interest graph of today's social networks. [1] https://x.com/paulg/status/1235949761359904768 [2] https://x.com/paulg/status/1576517990182359040 [3] https://x.com/paulg/status/1514979883948126209 [4] https://x.com/paulg/status/1505842647319126016

Visit product View on Hacker NewsMar 30, 2026

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