It seems these days that we are awash in data. Indeed, in their recent book The Ordinal Society, Marion Foucard and Kieran Healy argue persuasively that the passive data collection facilitated by the internet, digital technologies, wearables, and social media allows us for the first time to map the deep substrate of the social. Is that true though? In all this data, is there signal? Valeria Ramirez from Cambridge University has made a career out of tracking the advent of digital metrics and their revolutionary impact on the way organisations operate, first in journalism's shift to digital media, and now in university knowledge exchanges. She has identified key characteristics that distinguish meaningful from meaningless metrics, and developed a framework for developing the former within any contextualised organisation. If you've ever wondered whether the Netflix algorithm isn't collecting the best data to understand your video preferences, this episode is for you.  

www.valeriaramirez.org 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/valeriaramirezphd

Ramirez, V. (2025). Meaningful Metrics for Knowledge Exchange: Rethinking Social Value Metrics for University–Business and Community Interactions. Policy Evidence Unit for University Commercialisation and Innovation. https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.121347 

Metamodernism is the cultural mode that is emerging after postmodernism, and boy do we need it. Postmodernism was a period of deconstruction. A necessary deconstruction, I hasten to say, one that shook the foundations of many obsolete structures that kept people oppressed like homophobia, patriarchy, colonialism, and opinions masquerading as expertise. But as there was only deconstruction, we find our culture mired in a nihilistic swamp. How can we reconstruct shared values, shared perspectives on the world, shared culture? How can we escape our meaning crisis? Brendan Graham Dempsey is at the forefront of the both science and humanities aspects of metamodernism, blending complex systems theory, theology, neuroscience, existentialism and gardening in his efforts to articulate a new way to do old things. He has written an edited a series of books on metamodern spirituality, and is now publishing a second series specifically on meaning-making.

Brendan's website:

https://www.brendangrahamdempsey.com/

Vermeulen and Van Den Akker's original metamodernism website:

https://www.metamodernism.com/

And one of their early papers:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3402/jac.v2i0.5677

An analysis of Nihilistic themes in Ric & Morty and Bojack Horseman:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsotfzGpby8

An analysis of metamodern tropes in Everything Everywhere All At Once:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xEi8qg266g

Lyotard on The Postmodern Condition:

https://monoskop.org/images/e/e0/Lyotard_Jean-Francois_The_Postmodern_Condition_A_Report_on_Knowledge.pdf

Brendan's book Emergentism:

https://www.brendangrahamdempsey.com/emergentism

Kolchinsky and Wolpert on Meaning making in information theory:

https://www.santafe.edu/news-center/news/new-definition-returns-meaning-information

Brendan's new book on the evolution of meaning - free with his substack!

https://brendangrahamdempsey.substack.com/p/publishing-my-new-book-on-substack

John Vervaeke on metamodernism:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=De6ZIHThONI 

In one of his Letters Provinciales, the French philosopher and Theologian Blaise Pascal apologises that “I have made this letter longer than usual because I have not had the time to make it shorter”. This is an aphoristic statement that could form one part of the definition of an aphorism: a pithy observation that contains a general truth. There are thousands of well-known aphorisms coming in all manner of media, like the old proverb “a rolling stone gathers no moss”, or the quite recent lyrics from the Rolling Stones: “you can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you’ll find you get what you need”. My guest this episode is an expert in aphorisms, James Geary, adjunct lecturer in writing for public policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School. He is the author of the New York Times Bestseller The World in a Phrase: A Brief History of the Aphorism, original published way back in 2005 but recently reprinted in its 2nd edition on account of all the new aphoristic content coming out of social media. What’s the difference between a twitter hot take or a tiktok sketch and an aphorism, well you’ll just have to stay with us to find out.  

James Website

https://jamesgeary.com/

The book!

https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/the-world-in-a-phrase-a-brief-history-of-the-aphorism-second-edition-james-geary/7852688

The so-called “replication crisis” engulfed psychology over the last 10 years, with numerous failures to reproduce canonical studies from the biggest names in the discipline like Dweck’s growth mindset, Baumeister’s willpower as a muscle, and around half of Kahneman’s Thinking Fast and Slow. Interrogation of this failure of replicate led to discoveries of p-hacking, publication bias, a huge disconnect between the theories psychologists were supposedly testing and the cute little studies they were using for that purpose. Eventually there was even evidence of outright fraud, notably in the case of Harvard’s Francesca Gino, Duke’s Dan Arielly, and others. Hearing all this in the news, you might wonder: why is replication so crucial to the progress of science? Is there anything we can do improve the credibility of scientific practice? Does preregistering our intended analysis and expected results have an effect?  Here to answer all these questions and more is Patrick Vu, Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of New South Wales in my hometown of Sydney, Australia. Fresh off a PhD from Brown investigating the statistical side of replication and publication bias, Patrick is at the bleeding edge of these issues. 

Patrick’s website:

https://www.patrickhvu.com/

Study where multiple research teams use the same data to test the same hypothesis: 

https://eprints.lse.ac.uk/117278/1/pnas.2203150119.pdf 

The paper that launched the replication crisis – Why most published research findings are false:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1182327/ 

Karl Popper’s The Logic of Scientific Discovery:

https://philotextes.info/spip/IMG/pdf/popper-logic-scientific-discovery.pdf 

My favourite paper from Andrew Gelman:

https://sites.stat.columbia.edu/gelman/research/published/gelman_hennig_full_discussion.pdf 

Open Science Collaboration - Estimating the reproducibility of psychological science:

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aac4716 

Nancy Cartwright insights:

https://personal.lse.ac.uk/robert49/teaching/ph201/Week09_Hoefer.pdf

Dr Shreeharsh Kelkar from UC Berkeley on to discuss massive online open courses or “MOOCs” and other varieties of education technology. Are they destined to displace the traditional university, or are (were) they just a fad? How do they compare with more general online platforms that host educational content, like YouTube? What sort of people start these ventures? Can they be trusted? Dr Kelkar is extremely well placed to answer these questions, combining a background in electrical engineering and computer science with a PhD in the anthropology of computing, expertise in quantitative and qualitative research methods, and access to some of the leading actors in this space, his research provides a fascinating perspective on one of the oldest sectors in our world – higher education – and the effect technology and commerce is having on it.

Shreeharsh’s website: 

https://shreeharshkelkar.net/writing/ 

Selected publications from Shreeharsh: 

2014. Anthropology in and of MOOCs. American Anthropologist 116 (4): 829–38. [pdf]  [Co-authored with Rachel Flamenbaum, Manduhai Buyandelger, Greg Downey, Orin Starn, Graham Jones, Catalina Laserna, Shreeharsh Kelkar, Carolyn Rouse, and Tom Looser]

2018. On the “neutrality” of platforms: How the platform shapes pedagogy in MOOCs. Anthropology Now 10 (3), 70-83.

Open letter from San Jose State University to Michael Sandel at Harvard:

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/695245-san-jose-state-u-open-letter/ 

Simone Schneider is a PhD candidate in sociology at the University of Cambridge. Her dissertation explores the meanings and experience of infidelity in intimate relationships, combining both long, in-depth interviews with people who have experienced or committed infidelity, and discourse analysis of dating platforms that facilitate this sort of behaviour. It’s a fascinating body of work on one of the oldest, innermost domains of human affairs, one that is changing with the times as dating moves online and young people especially experiment with new forms of partnering and romance. Through the lens of infidelity, Simone’s work engages with wider questions around social norms, morality, and inequality in contemporary society. 

1.      Simone Schneider’s academic profile: 

https://simone-schneider.github.io 

2.      Recent Articles: Schneider, S. (2025). “‘Because like if you feel guilty, then it’s usually a sign’: On the role of emotions in conceptualising infidelity.” Emotions and Society, online first: https://bristoluniversitypressdigital.com/view/journals/emsoc/aop/articl...

3.      Schneider, S. (2025) “‘Some kind of cheating’: Boundary transgressions and open relationships.” Sexualities, online first: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/13634607251330945

This episode’s guest is Dr Maria Bach, postdoctoral fellow at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland and host of Ceteris Never Paribus: the History of Economic Thought Podcast. She completed her PhD at King’s College in London, now available as a book with Cambridge University Press, Relocating Development Economics: The First Generation of Modern Indian Economists. The book excavates the overlooked history of Indian thinking about progress and growth, showcasing how a generation of thinkers there, unburden by the blinkers of colonialist ideology, reached the insights of today’s development policy a century ago. As you may have guessed from that title and the book’s content, Maria is an economic historian and historian of economic thought with a strong interest in decolonising the discipline and its curriculum. If you want to know what that means and why it’s important, please stay with us.   

Find out more about Maria Bach:

https://rehpere.org/en/maria-bach 

Ceteris Never Paribus: The History of Economic Thought Podcast

https://ceterisneverparibus.net/

Relocating Development Economics: The First Generation of Modern Indian Economists:

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/relocating-development-economics/1048AF3FDAF95B3F6B5984CDB92D6D91 

 Mikhail Bakhtin:

(2014). Bakhtinian dialogism. In D. Coghlan, M. Brydon-Miller (Eds.) The SAGE encyclopedia of action research (Vol. 2, pp. 73-75). SAGE Publications Ltd, https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446294406.n37

Arvind Panagariya:

https://www.sipa.columbia.edu/communities-connections/faculty/arvind-panagariya 

Arvind Panagariya, & School, E. (2024). The Nehru-Era Economic History and Thought & Their Lasting Impact. Oxford University Press. https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-nehru-era-economic-history-and-thought-and-their-lasting-impact-9780197774618?

A special issue episode where regular host Dr Mark Fabian is on the other side of the microphone being interviewed by @economeager about his new book -  Beyond Happy: How to rethink happiness and find fulfilment. It is out today in the United Kingdom. Here's a summary of the book: 

A comprehensive guide to cultivating wellbeing, combining cutting edge science and primordial folk wisdom.

Mark Fabian, one of the most exhilarating thinkers working on wellbeing today, presents a revolutionary approach to understanding why there’s more to life than the pursuit of happiness.

Beyond Happy explores how evolution has wired us to keep happiness just out of reach, leaving us perpetually stuck on a happiness treadmill. Instead of striving to escape it, the book argues, we should focus on making the treadmill a place we want to be. Finding this wellbeing begins with listening to our emotions, discovering intrinsic motivation and pursuing our authentic values. Fabian coaches you through this process of self-actualisation. Wellbeing, however, is not solely an individual pursuit – it is something we cultivate together. And so Beyond Happy also provides insights into enhancing your emotional intelligence, building relationships on care, and nurturing a karmic community.

Most profoundly, Beyond Happy shows the way out of nihilism – the pervasive sense that life on the treadmill is purposeless and incoherent. To escape this despair, we must develop a moral compass. To heal the toxicity of our acrimonious politics, we need to rediscover the joy of sharing and celebrating what we love.

Delivered with an entertaining mix of academic precision, a podcaster’s knack for storytelling, and the down-to-earth panache Australians are known for, Beyond Happy is a one-stop shop to everything you need to know about the good life.

Find it on Waterstones, Amazon, or your high street book store in the United Kingdom or Australia from July: 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Beyond-Happy-Mark-Fabian/dp/1835010490

Check out Economeager's website:

https://sites.google.com/view/rachaelmeager/home

And especially their blog!

https://rottenandgood.substack.com/

Ian McGilchrist's book on ways to truth

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Matter-Things-Brains-Delusions-Unmaking/dp/1914568060

Ziz and the Zizzians:

https://www.theguardian.com/global/ng-interactive/2025/mar/05/zizians-artificial-intelligence

Showers and Zeigler Hill on multiple selves:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17995462/

Haidt's righteous mind:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Righteous-Mind-Divided-Politics-Religion/dp/0141039167

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Lotus

Anyone on social media these days has encountered a bot. An algorithm-driven fake account that engages in some nefarious activity, whether it’s turning uncontroversial points into debates, repping the Kremlin’s talking points, or directing you to pussy in bio, the bots are enshittifying social media at an alarming rate, especially now that artificial intelligence allows them to be more convincing, more targeted, and faster to set up en masse. But what if we could turn this pernicious technology into a tool for good? Among other things, academics are training bots to talk people down from conspiracy theories and update their views on climate change to be more factually accurate. One of those academics is Yara Kyrychenko, a PhD candidate, lab manager, and Gates Scholar at Cambridge University’s Social Decision-Making Lab. Her research combines psychological theory with big data and behavioural science methods to study how we can make human-technology interactions more constructive. She joins regular host Dr Mark Fabian, Associate Professor of Public Policy at the University of Warwick, to talk about socially responsible AI. 

Yara's webpage:

https://www.sdmlab.psychol.cam.ac.uk/staff/yara-kyrychenko

Yara wanted me to issue a correction: Ukrainian is only in the top 20, not top 10 languages spoken on the internet: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_used_on_the_Internet

Chatbots and conspiracy theories:

https://misinforeview.hks.harvard.edu/article/using-an-ai-powered-street-epistemologist-chatbot-and-reflection-tasks-to-diminish-conspiracy-theory-beliefs/#:~:text=An%20AI%2Dpowered%20chatbot%20instructed,strength%20of%20conspiracy%20theory%20beliefs. 

Trump is back in the White House and as anticipated, his administration is moving fast and breaking things. One of the first aspects of government to get stepped on was USAID, one of the biggest financiers and administrators of global development, including programs like PEPFAR. To understand the implications of this for the wider global philanthropy sector, ePODstemology reached out to Shonali Banerjee, Assistant Professor of International Development at the University of Warwick. She was previously a postdoc at the University of Cambridge’s centre for strategic philanthropy. Her work has been published in Third World Quarterly and Development in Practice, and she has a book, Horizontal Development: Shifting Power and Privilege in Aid, forthcoming with Bristol University Press. We discuss not just Trump’s impact but her work more broadly, especially the rapidly rising momentum of ‘trust-based philanthropy’. 

Shonali’s website

https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/pais/people/banerjee-shonali/

Shonali’s book

https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/horizontal-development