Top-notch stuff

1. Farming challenge. The "planet must produce “more food in the next four decades than all farmers in history have harvested over the past 8,000 years.”" From here.

2. Lunching. "“There are two things you need to know,” she said. “The first is that Gavin came home yesterday happier than I have seen him in a long time. The second – and you are not to feel bad about this – is that he died this morning.”" From here.

3. Optical illusion:

4. Journalism. List is here. I can't vouch for it all, but I'm prepared to trust Conor Friedersdorf on this.

5. OTT-ness: "In Britain, Atlas is about to shrug". Yes, honestly. That is from the Economist, here, suggesting that "The combination of Brexit and Jeremy Corbyn could lead to the dystopia that Ayn Rand predicted". In a tone-deaf parody of what people who don't read the Economist think the Economist is all about, the article suggests that Britain should be grateful for the presence of investment bankers, and worried when demand for £2m+ houses dips slightly. I'm not saying the Economist is wrong, but I'm not sure that is quite the right line to take when trying to change the minds of the pro-Brexit or pro-Corbyn camps. (Compare that maniacal approach with the sanity on display here.)

6. Summing up the point in a nutshell: "is there a sort of law of conservation of coercion in well-functioning societies?" Further explained here as follows: "A community with a minimal state can only function if it is thick enough and homogeneous enough to enforce sanctions for antisocial behavior that are almost state-like in their severity, and, furthermore, can make them stick. Freeing individuals from their smothering parochialisms will lead to a compensating increase in the scope and reach of the state as people search for a new solution to social dilemmas formerly handled via informal means. Conversely, attempts to suddenly curtail state power may lead to chaos in the intervening period when social institutions have not yet reasserted themselves. Principled libertarians might still have good reasons to prefer the non-state forms of compulsion ... But “increased freedom” may not be one of them." (A further reason for left-wing political parties to favour immigration: a less homogeneous society requires a more active state?)