#AcademicRunPlaylist - 9/25/24

Author

Ben Waber
September 25, 2024

A view down a major Madrid street at twilight. There's a grass median in the middle with a few short trees, and cars with their head and taillights on are visible on both sides. The off white railing of pedestrian ramps over the road are on both sides, and the road is flanked by 8 story brick buildings. At the end of the road is a golden spire stretching into the slightly cloudy sky, which is fading from blue to light orange. On either side of it are two large office buildings that resemble back and forward slashes

It's been a long travel day to Madrid, but at least I got to listen to a lot of talks for my #AcademicRunPlaylist!

First was the first day of the National Bureau of Economic Research conference on the economics of technology. I particularly liked the talk by Scott Nelson on regulating algorithmic decisions https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCHt5IKwzgc

Next was an excellent talk by David Gray Widder and Tamara Kneese on low-resource NLP and what computer science can learn from anthropology at the Design Justice Network AI Institute https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-9Oyrf-fbk

Next was an interesting talk by Andrey Fradkin on the role of dark patterns in website competition and data sharing at the MIT Institute for Data, Systems, and Society (IDSS) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAMqDbtJ4TM&t=3s

Next was a great talk by Chris Knight about what chimpanzees can teach us about humanity at UCL Anthropology https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLWKrl_2ZTg

Next was a timely talk by Mert Demirer on the effects of GDPR on firms at the Toulouse School of Economics. Expanding on other research in the area, Demirer convincingly demonstrates that the GDPR reduced the EU's data usage and significantly increased data storage and computation costs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nV5qmMz0VNc

Next was an intriguing talk by Camilla Power and Ian Watts about the development of human culture, particularly the role of gender, with views from the archaeological record and anthropology at UCL's Radical Anthropology https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1uhes_zcCw

Next was a nice talk by Charles Perreault on cultural evolution at Arizona State University https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ba6rtGIH8Pg

Next was a thought-provoking conversation with Susan Morse on the truth about safe harbors in law on the Business Scholarship Podcast https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9Qm1M4tOzg

Next was an amazing discussion with friends of the playlist Michael Levin and Ann Lipton on moving corporate domiciles to engage in self dealing and unique paths that shareholders are taking to submit proposals for annual meeting votes on the Shareholder Primacy Podcast. Highly recommend https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRcHyvgZ16c

Next was a fascinating talk by Chris Campisano on the role of climate change in human evolution at the ASU Institute of Human Origins https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhDnVZMtRzw

Last was "The Story of the Human Body" by Daniel Lieberman. This is very much two books - the first is a good one about human evolution, while the second is mostly a philosophical polemic on modern health with many stylized facts but very little rigorous analysis. The first book is worth reading, as it gives not only a good overview of the evolutionary path humans took and our interesting adaptations around things like running and throwing, but I would skip the second book.