Lots of interesting calls today, but I was also able to get out for a bit and observe this weird cluster of geese/ducks/swans on the Charles and listen to talks for my #AcademicRunPlaylist!

First was an excellent talk by Leilani Gilpin on using neurosymbolic approaches to structure LLM use at PLAMADISO – Platforms, Markets, and the Digital Society. I'm a big fan of this methodology, and Gilpin lays out how this improves system performance and explainability. Highly recommend https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iG_bE7gwkY

Next was an informative panel on the US union landscape at the Center for Economic and Policy Research with Hayley Brown, Suresh Naidu, and Aurelia Glass https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5GWxrEM7Hc

Next was a great talk by Ann Lipton on corporate governance authoritarianism at the Boston University School of Law - unfortunately the audio is quite scuffed, so it can be fairly hard to follow at times https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2VRvpPTf9o

Next was a compelling talk by Kenneth Rogoff on the prominence of the dollar in global finance, its economic and political implications, and what metrics to watch as an indicator of its fading importance at the LSE. Highly recommend https://www.youtube.com/live/9OYI-N3FZrA?si=kX_EqQPgZ8Lc-QHw&t=805

Next was an intriguing talk by Jasper van den Boom on regulating digital network competition at PLAMADISO https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSU2abJVBAo

Last was "Coolies of Capitalism" by Nitin Varma. This book is a great deep dive into the workplace and lives of the workers in Assam's tea plantation across the decades. This is very much a case-focused history, partially because the ability to assemble large scale quantitative data during this time period is impossible, and does give a rich picture of how this work environment changed over time. Varma shows how this was driven by a variety of factors - legal, social, and through the efforts of workers themselves. While I was already familiar with the macro context of this industry from the book "Empire of Tea," people who don't have that background will probably struggle to understand the scale of the external forces behind the market demand here. Still highly recommend https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/59500