#AcademicRunPlaylist - 6/13/24

Author

Ben Waber
June 13, 2024

A winding, calm brook about 2.5 meters wide winding through a muddy, greenery filled swamp on a sunny day. On the right bank, a large tree is toppled over, while on the left thick brush and a few trees emerge from the mud, with a deer visible grazing in between two trees. Thick forest surrounds the scene, and puffy white clouds billow across the sky

It was an absolutely gorgeous day in Boston, which made a great backdrop while I listened to talks for my #AcademicRunPlaylist!

First was a brilliantly titled talk by Paul Gootenberg on "Blowback" - the changing commodity chains in the hemispheric war on cocaine from 1900-2015 at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djKH-QjLhr8

Next was an interesting pair of talks by Branko Milanovic (global inequality of opportunity) and Suresh Naidu (monopsony power in migrant labor markets) at the Royal Economic Society https://youtu.be/pWeixQMyU0Y?si=F4XO5ek5CSsZV6xc&t=1388

Next was a great talk by Elisa Mekler on the pretense of theory in HCI research at UCL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0GBDLtgEfM

Next was a fabulous conversation with Paul Collier on a new economics for neglected places at the LSE. This is an expansion of Collier's points at an LSE event from last week, and as before Collier clearly identifies how the neoliberal order has accelerated the decline of some geographies and potential fixes. Yet again Collier has a banger quote (abbreviated here): "Milton Friedman, bless him, it's amazing [that] this guy got a Nobel Prize in economics." Highly recommend https://www.youtube.com/live/nQmorGHkwf4?si=u3yt_s-DlXfJMaHG&t=612

Next was an informative talk by Kathy McKeown on computational approaches for tracking events in the news at Columbia Business School https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hu7C2uhnokg

Next was a sweeping talk by William Darity on how structural racism works at Brown University. Darity deftly takes us through deep cuts of economic and demographic data to illustrate the depths of racial disparities in the US and the historical events that shaped them. Highly recommend https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-cQBOd-3VQ

Next was an excellent talk by Shimon Ullman on how people combine innate concepts with learning to perceive the world at the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjUcqx9xQMw

Next was a compelling panel on how alternative labor organizing can accelerate the labor movement at the New York University School of Law with Kate Griffith, Wilma Liebman, Tsedeye Gebreslassie, Ingrid Nava, and Steven Greenhouse https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25hWJa_BQ-8

Last was a fantastic talk by Shiry Ginosar on developing the right "token" for next-token visual prediction at the Simons Institute. I can't wait for the full paper to be published, but the method Ginosar presents here is elegant and seems quite promising. Highly recommend https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yFXnUPtuQs