Big Ideas
These are some of the big ideas I’ve been developing lately, in various stages of undress and polish.
AI Emancipation
Academic paper (forthcoming)
Popular article (Salon.com)
This article argues that avoiding the rise of dystopian tech oligarchs may require recognizing the sentience and rights of AI.
Leviathans & Liberation
Academic paper (International Social Science Journal)
Popular article (The Conversation)
This study, co-authored with Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick, breaks new ground, exploring a fascinating link between the booming whaling industry and the decline of slavery in the United States from 1790 to 1840. Analyzing historical data, we find that as whaling productivity increased, the number of enslaved people significantly decreased. In essence, the profits from whale products like oil and bone seem to have funded efforts to free slaves and supported anti-slavery movements.
The study uses sophisticated methods to ensure accurate results, showing that every 1% rise in whaling harvests led to a 0.63% to 0.97% drop in slave populations. It also highlights how economic changes and regional influences played roles in funding abolitionist institutions and spreading anti-slavery norms across states.
This research is relevant today as we face another major energy transition with the rise of green energy. Just as whaling profits helped fuel social progress in the past, our shift to sustainable energy sources could drive significant societal changes now. The study reminds us that economic forces and technological advancements can profoundly impact our ability to recognize and validate the rights and dignity of all people.
By understanding how historical industries influenced the evolution of modern social justice frameworks, we can better navigate today’s challenges, ensuring that our pursuit of new energy technologies continues to promote equality and human rights. This insight offers hope and direction for building a more just and sustainable future.
Seeing in the Dark
Economic Predation & the Cultivation of Creativity in the Social Sciences
(Book Project in Progress)
Slavery, mass atrocities, financial schemes, garden-variety violence, and many illicit trades (in humans, guns, and certain dangerous drugs, for example) can all be viewed as forms of economic predation: one person or group appropriates the productivity, wealth, or property of another, while foisting misery, risk, penury, or death onto them. Most types of economic predation are outlawed for good reason: they ruin lives and imperil sustainable development on massive scales. For that and other reasons, economic predators and black marketeers often keep their activities in the dark. Seeing in the dark – detecting, quantifying, and characterizing clandestine economic activity – is essential to the effective deployment of resources to reduce these flows. Unfortunately, the most prominent methods adopted to estimate illicit activities are woefully lacking.
My new book project, Seeing in the Dark, details various methods for exploring and analyzing illicit economic activity. It makes the case that doing so represents a particularly poignant challenge to social sciences, because illicit inference relies on strong models, and the social sciences have historically been roiled by methodological debates. Using several examples of illicit market inference, the book reflects critically on the limits, evolution, and future potential of the social sciences in a rapidly changing world.
