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5 Sep, 15 tweets, 7 min read
📚Back to School.

Here's a thread of some of my favorite books of 2021.

Start with some fiction. Beinecke Library
Fake Accounts by @laurenoyler made me laugh out loud, and brought back memories of Berlin.

books.catapult.co/products/fake-…
The Life of the Mind by Christine Smallwood was a dark look at academia. Way better and truer to life than The Chair.

penguinrandomhouse.com/books/648096/t…
This debut collection of stories by @csestanovich was really great.

penguinrandomhouse.com/books/653533/o…
Strictly speaking it's not fiction, but have to list this tour de force about Russian short story writers from George Saunders.

penguinrandomhouse.com/books/609280/a…
It has been a banner year for nonfiction.

Start with this stunning collection of essays by Jo Ann Beard. It contains "Werner," an absolute electric shock to the system -- what a piece of writing.

littlebrown.com/titles/jo-ann-…
Tons of people have raved already about @praddenkeefe's exposé of the Sackler family, Empire of Pain. It really is that good.

penguinrandomhouse.com/books/612861/e…
Just as engaging and with a wider lens on the United States in an age of wealth and geographic inequality is @AlecMacGillis Fulfillment: Winning and Losing in One-Click America.

us.macmillan.com/books/97803741…
The account of Auroville, a utopian community in India, by @akashkapur is beautifully told and filled with tenderness.

simonandschuster.com/books/Better-t…
The collection of essays by @NathanielRich, Second Nature, is one of the best things I've read about climate and the environment.

us.macmillan.com/books/97803741…
Jonathan Levy's Ages of American Capitalism is a tour de force, a history of the United States told through different stages of capitalism.

penguinrandomhouse.com/books/227741/a…
My Stanford colleague, Alexander Nemerov, wrote a gorgeous book about the artist Helen Frankenthaler that also reveals why he is a legendary teacher on campus.

penguinrandomhouse.com/books/585764/f…
And I'm looking forward to the publication of two books later this fall.

My colleague @p2173 has a landmark book about the past, present, and future of the American charitable sector. You won't find a better or more insightful analyst of charity.

mitpress.mit.edu/books/how-we-g…
And the book I'm most excited about is The Right to Sex: Feminism in the 21st Century, a collection of essays by Oxford philosopher @amiasrinivasan.

It made the UK best seller list, and I hope it does the same when it comes out here in the US.

us.macmillan.com/books/97803747…
Just today @amiasrinivasan has an excerpt in the @nytopinion

nytimes.com/2021/09/03/opi…

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More from @robreich

Rob Reich Profile picture
7 Sep
It's publication day for System Error!

Writing is a solitary undertaking, but this book is the result of an amazing community of students and colleagues, esp Jeremy Weinstein & @mehran_sahami

Feeling very lucky and grateful.

systemerrorbook.com
Learn more about the book at our website, and join for some virtual events in the coming weeks at @PoliticsProse @FordFoundation @ComputerHistory @THSEA & more.

systemerrorbook.com
Democracy is Losing the Race with Tech Disruption in @TheAtlantic.

theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
Read 5 tweets
Rob Reich Profile picture
25 Aug
The 2 day @StanfordHAI workshop on #foundationmodels is now available to watch for all.

I learned a ton from the final session on potential harms. @mmitchell_ai @sekreps @AngeleChristin @sameer_ + @KathleenACreel @james_y_zou @shelbygrossman.

These powerful language models force developers and ordinary users to confront a wide array of concerns: the use of unconsented data, the perpetuation of bias, stereotype, and discrimination, deliberate misuse via disinformation campaigns, and entrenchment of corp power.
The opening keynote by @mmitchell_ai set the stage for the conversation and raised issues about the very label "foundation models."

Read 7 tweets
Rob Reich Profile picture
21 Dec 20
The stunning announcement of >$6B in philanthropic donations in one year by @mackenziescott deserves wider discussion.

mackenzie-scott.medium.com/384-ways-to-he…
Fine piece by @nkulish in the @nytimes that addresses some of the key issues.

nytimes.com/2020/12/20/bus…
But this should be just the start.

Important first to put the $6B total in context. Total grantmaking in 2019 by @darrenwalker at the @FordFoundation was ~$350M. Total at @Hewlett_Found was ~$450M.

So @mackenziescott is ~15x some of the largest and most discussed foundations.
Read 16 tweets
Rob Reich Profile picture
10 Sep 19
"Philanthropy, as far as I can see, is rapidly becoming the recognizable mark of a wicked man" -- G.K. Chesterton, 1909.

In these days of criticizing Sackler and Epstein philanthropy, it's worth remembering that the complaints about tainted money and tainted donors are old.
Or consider what President Roosevelt and Samuel Gompers said of John D. Rockefeller's idea of creating the Rockefeller Foundation:
.@lessig's post about @Joi & @medialab distinguishes appropriately between well-intentioned people with tainted money (R.J. Reynolds) and bad people with clean money (presumably Jeffrey Epstein) and advises rejecting tainted money while accepting money anonymously from bad people
Read 12 tweets
Rob Reich Profile picture
9 Jul 19
Another chapter in ethics of field experiments in social science:

American economists and political scientists at @UChicago, @Stanford, @MIT and @Harvard randomly incentivize young Hong Kong university students to engage in antiauthoritarian protests.

I wouldn't call this an amazing design. I'd say it raises a lot of uncomfortable questions, both social scientific and geopolitical.

@SheenaGreitens has a good set of initial questions:
twitter.com/SheenaGreitens
The experimenters don't pay people to protest in the streets, but they pay people conditional on behavior that occurs during protesting in the streets.

And the experiment appears to have passed IRB processes at @stanford, @UCBerkeley, and elsewhere!
Read 7 tweets
Rob Reich Profile picture
17 Apr 19
Some questions about philanthropy, large and small, and the re-building of Notre Dame.

nytimes.com/2019/04/17/wor…
1. Tax breaks will be given to French donors. Significant tax concessions, according to @nytimes: 66% deduction for individual donations and 60% for corporate donations. So a 100K Euro donation only costs the donor 34K Euro.

Will foreign donations also be tax advantaged?
2. Will large donors be permitted to wrap themselves in the glory of the restored cathedral? Perhaps even claiming some naming rights?

Will some part of Notre Dame now be known as the Pinault Visitor Center and the Arnault spire?
Read 10 tweets

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