A little list of links

1. Fergus Butler-Gallie on blue plaques. Lovely.

2. Inside media coverage of Israel. Not the usual piece - much more interesting.

3. There is a feeling I have noticed online that middle-aged people think that young people are too 'square' nowadays: not enough drinking, not enough teenage pregnancy, no new annoying kinds of music and so on. I imagine that if you are young this is the very worst kind of patronising generational warfare. Anyway, that is my (horribly unfair) framing for this piece, which you should definitely read. It is all about online spaces in which students can study together. Literally that. E.g. Youtube videos of people studying for 12 hours. Dystopian, maybe (I'm old), but that's the world meritocracy has created. And it's not all bad: "While the issue of moderation in online communities and across social platforms is a heated and ongoing conversation in tech, teenagers are seemingly running friendly, inclusive, and welcoming communities that top 100,000 members with what appears to be little to no drama. Instead, members are respectful of one another and do their part in cultivating a study community where everyone succeeds." And: "“The best part about #studytwt, in my opinion, is the amount of love and encouragement that is always circulating. I don’t think I’ve seen a single negative post on my feed. It’s as if ‘study group’ met ‘sleepover’”."

4. Here's a nice little story. The University of Toledo (Ohio) offers Inclusive Excellence Awards from the Office of Diversity and Inclusion "to recognize the faculty, staff and departments on our campus who have put in the work implementing the University’s Strategic Plan for Diversity and Inclusion to make our campus a more diverse and inclusive place to study, work and grow". This year, "Professor Lee Strang received an overwhelming number of faculty nominations ... The individuals who nominated Strang for the award recognized his conservative point of view as a minority in academia and a benefit to legal debate." Strang got the 2021 Award. But it's not meant to be an award for conservatives! So they are going to change the rules in future. All at the link.

5. The New York Times has caught up with my worries about population decline. As society after society enters the death spiral from which no society has ever successfully recovered ("decline (just like growth) spirals exponentially. ... the drop starts to look like a rock thrown off a cliff"), it doesn't seem unreasonable to worry a little bit. My hope is that the problem will follows the same pattern as climate change but c.50 years later: the best time to have addressed the problem was a generation ago; the second best time is now; and the third best time is in a generation's time, which is when we will do something about it. 

6. Also from the NYT, a splendid piece by Ross Douthat about Foucault and the right.

7. Dominic Cummings can't read the room. This article is quite good in its own terms, but also quite possibly the best introduction to what rationalists (and rationalist-adjacent) people are all about.

8. More on Emmanuel Todd, if my previous post whetted your appetite for such things.