#AcademicRunPlaylist - 2/23/25

Today was spent struggling to stay awake (pic is from my fantastic visit to Nikken Sekkei Ltd earlier this week thanks to James Scott Brew), and while fighting through the jet lag induced haze I listened to some talks for my #AcademicRunPlaylist!

First was an important talk by Steve Cushion on the economic impact of slavery on the UK and how to structure reparations at the School of Advanced Study, University of London https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9dWnyphwO0

Next was "The Abolitionists" by Kellie Carter Jackson. Focusing on the US abolition movement from the American Revolution until the end of the Civil War, Jackson reviews many of the important events and figures of the movement in their broader context. Structured as a compilation of short, individual lectures, this is a great entry point for those looking to learn more about this essential part of American History. Highly recommend https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Abolitionists-Audiobook/B0DS41TRZH

Last was "Growth" by Daniel Susskind. Susskind delivers a rigorous accounting of the historical nature of economic growth, why the astonishing progress of the last few centuries is due nearly entirely to new ideas and not resource use, and why the degrowth movement is so incredibly wrong and destructive. Importantly, this book also reviews why myopically targeting metrics such as GDP are also extremely negative for society, in addition to the very subjective nature of what is included in that metric. While there is some AI doomerism that creeps in here, if you skip those small sections what remains is an essential work of scholarship. Highly recommend https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674294493