Links for June

Links for June. Includes Cleopatra, Africa in maps, how to create good jobs and the dangers of conceptual overreach.

The irregular links page.

These are links I found interesting; I don't necessarily agree with everything in them, nor can I vouch for the absolute reliability of their content (though I will try not to post links that seem actively unreliable!).

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1. Conceptual overreach threatens public discourse and reason. The essay I wish I could have written myself, if I were a brilliant Oxford professor. A brilliant piece by John Tasioulas on how over-extending concepts such as 'human rights', 'health' or 'justice' can end up weakening them.

2. AI is about to make social media even worse. A long read by Jonathan Haidt and Eric Schmidt (the founder of Google) on the potential of AI to make social media algorithms even more toxic.

3. The party that never made a choice. Matt Goodwin on the Conservative's disastrous local election results.

4. Africa in maps, Part 1 and Part 2. Two great Twitter threads using maps to explore the geography, languages, religions and many more aspects of Africa.

5. How to create good jobs. Very interesting piece on how we create good jobs. I'm not sure I agree with everything in the piece, or indeed whether his solution would work - but I do agree we need to ensure that the large number of near-minimum wage jobs in retail, hospitality, care and so on are jobs on which a person can live with dignity, in terms of both pay and conditions.

6. Should we let parents vote for their children? I'm pretty sure the answer to this is 'no', but I found it intriguing to wonder how much this would impact government priorities (I suspect a reasonable amount) and whether it would really serve as a pro-natalist policy (I suspect not).

7. Much more than you ever wanted to know about Cleopatra. A post by the great Bret Devereaux, I found this extremely interesting. Cleopatra is one of those ancient figures one hears about all the time, but actually knows surprisingly little about (beyond what is in Shakespeare's plays). This fills in all the gaps.

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