Le Monde: ‘The egalitarianism of hunter-gatherer societies has often been exaggerated’
An opinion piece on new anthropology research suggesting the egalitarianism of hunter-gatherer societies has often been exaggerated: resource sharing in them is driven not by innate altruism but by social pressure and the preservation of status, and human nature aspires more to autonomy and respect than to equality itself.
TechCrunch: Anthropic’s Dario Amodei has just one direct report
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has just one direct report — his chief of staff; the rest of the executive team reports to his sister, president Daniela. This unusual structure frees him from day-to-day management and lets him focus on strategy, culture and research direction.
Financial Times: We will need a new tax code for the wealth AI creates
Venture capitalist Vinod Khosla argues that the wealth created by AI will require a new tax code: capital gains taxed as ordinary income, later joined by levies on AI compute and robotic labour, with the proceeds going to those whose jobs are displaced and to near-free basic services — healthcare, education, legal aid.
LSM: How wind farm critics organize international and local resistance to projects
A Latvian Radio investigative programme on how wind farm opponents in Latvia and neighbouring countries organize local and international resistance: meetings and conferences held in municipal venues feature speakers without expertise in the field, citing a handful of contested studies on infrasound and health, while the state is still adapting its wind energy regulations.
NPR: How ‘algorithm’ got its name from a 9th-century Persian mathematician
The word “algorithm” derives from the Latinized name of the 9th-century Persian mathematician al-Khwarizmi. The story of the word’s journey through the centuries — from the origins of algebra and maritime navigation to Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical, which mentions it 19 times.
NPR: Socioeconomic factors are becoming ‘biologically embedded’ in children’s brains
A study in Science (brain scans of more than 2,300 children) finds that socioeconomic conditions — family income, access to education, neighbourhood quality — are the factor most strongly associated with differences in brain development, ahead of IQ and mental health; the mechanism appears to run through sleep, stress and screen time.
This is a daily link digest — links to the articles I read the previous day.
Tip: a paywalled article can often be read by searching for its URL on archive.ph; an article in another language can be translated with hugo.lv.