#AcademicRunPlaylist - 8/13/25

Author

Ben Waber
August 14, 2025

A selfie of me in a wooded-park on a sunny day. I'm on a paved path that runs straight down the left, intersecting with another paved path after about 3 meters. There's a playground on the far side. I'm a bald, middle-aged, white man with a red beard flecked with white. I'm wearing black sunglasses and a maroon t-shirt, with the black straps of a backpack over both shoulders.

I had a hectic couple of days, but while zipping around Japan I caught some talks for my #AcademicRunPlaylist!

First was an interesting talk by Fariba Karimi on inequalities in algorithmically-driven social networks at the Institute for Analytical Sociology (IAS) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPep-qtsVFg

Next was an engaging discussion on the global effect of the EU's DMA at The GW Competition & Innovation Lab w/Dr Aaron Lane and Anna Moskal https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEDp8kwIeHk

Next was a slate of talks from IC2S2 2025:

Brandon Stewart - LLM annotations https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6T68xaURYNo

Duncan Watts - integrating explanation and prediction - highly recommend https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7BB5Svd8aw

Laura N. - qualitative methods for computational social science https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXYgU74v9d0

Dean Eckles - effect sizes and decisions - highly recommend https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0mFoYvcAX4

Next was a great conversation with Christopher Rozell on brain stimulation techniques for treating mental health disorders on the Brain Inspired podcast https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdKdfUCpH64

Next was a thought-provoking talk by Omar Lizardo on expert taste in musicians at IAS https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9uGxr-1n_k

Next was an excellent discussion with Jorge Padilla on the economics of competition policy and implications for broader objectives at the Digital Markets Research Hub https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FndR96jdYP8

Next was an interesting talk by Yian Yin (👋) on success and failure dynamics in science at IAS https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26UZJd4uR58

Next was a fantastic talk by Stephen Raudenbush on causal inference in social experiments at IAS. Highly recommend https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NVsZ3iaWp0

Next was an intriguing talk by Erin Leahey on audiences for interdisciplinary research at IAS https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckBZ-1PybRk

Next was a fascinating talk by Emily Erikson on how companies and politics changed 17th century economic thought at IAS https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qB2MBDmvORg

Next was a timely talk by Sabina Cehajic-Clancy on intergroup reconciliation at IAS https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9yVYjpNL9k

Next was a nice talk by Petter Holme on temporal structures of social processes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgQVFNdVTZA

Next was a compelling talk by Kinga Makovi on uncertain performance and fairness at work at IAS https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMTJ9iFMV5Q

Next was an informative talk by Carolina Mattsson on functional structure in production networks at IAS https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ro1o5SOnvFI

Last was "The Merit Myth" by Anthony Carnevale, Peter Schmidt, and Jeff Strohl. Given the subversion of the term "merit" in most spheres today, especially higher education, this book provides a necessary corrective to the concept that today's college admissions approaches are even remotely based on merit, showing that wealth is the biggest predictor of entry. The book does revisit the same points often, though, so it could probably be about half the length and still retain the same core content. Still, with the rollback of necessary correctives to admissions biases, this book is more important than ever. Highly recommend https://thenewpress.org/books/9781620974865/?v=eb65bcceaa5f