As you might be able to tell from the ominous clouds in this picture, I got caught out in the rain today. But at least I was able to dry off later while listening to talks for my #AcademicRunPlaylist!
First was a great talk (in Japanese) by Matsuzawa Yusaku on the social history of Japan during the Meiji era, with commentary (in English) from Marnie Anderson at the Modern Japan History Association https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLAKLeFPepY
Next was “Mind in Motion” by Barbara Tversky. This is an essential exploration of the nature of abstract cognition, with Tversky combining psychological experiments, cognitive science, neuroscience, and philosophy to convincingly argue that this class of cognition is fundamentally tied to spatiality. This is demonstrated through a variety of studies, starting with showing how these neural systems are reused for both classes of cognition, following that up with experimental studies that tightly control and measure how people move and conceive of movement and abstract reasoning outcomes. This is a much clearer explanation than the more vague "embodied cognition" concept, with implications for how we think, how we develop algorithms, and how we create and use visualizations and art. Highly recommend https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/barbara-tversky/mind-in-motion/9780465093076/
Next was “The Racial Contract” by Charles W. Mills. Mills definitively lays down the case that white supremacy is the fundamental precondition of all law in the West, demonstrating how accepting that base makes seeming contradictions across recent centuries completely clear. This has been argued in other work, but the laser focus on it here makes for one of the most well structured and convincing treatises on this thesis. As a work combining philosophy and history, it is of course impossible to prove this theory, however its parsimony makes it nearly impossible to refute. This is obviously a challenging topic to engage with, but if you're up for it it's an extremely worthwhile read. Highly recommend https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501764288/the-racial-contract/
Last was “Fewer Rules, Better People” by Barry Lam. This book puts forward a deceptively complex proposition, one that doesn't fit as neatly as one would expect into normal ideological boxes: that governmental rules should build in room for discretion, and that there should be fewer bureaucratic rules. At first this seems extremely conservative or libertarian, but as the full breath of Lam's proposal is put forward it becomes clear that it's much more nuanced, attempting to keep the benefits of "rule of law" while reducing the needs for overly baroque specification of edge cases that will still inevitably leave some things out. There needs to be a lot more experimental and quantitative sociological research to back up these points, with Lam mostly relying on case studies and a small number of studies to make these sweeping claims. He also includes nearly nothing on organizations outside of government despite claiming general applicability, which strains credulity given the fundamentally different nature of governments and other organizations. The chapter that absolutely dismantles algorithmic systems in government is alone worth the price of admission. Highly recommend https://wwnorton.com/books/fewer-rules-better-people
