Society – Page 2 – Scott J. Pearson’s Book Review

The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich & Poor in an Interconnected World

By Scott J. Pearson | March 5, 2024March 5, 2024 by Scott J. Pearson

The economic gap between the rich and poor has increased in recent decades, yet the access to technology in many ways democratizes the world. Increasingly, many of the rich don’t find much meaning in just earning another dollar. Here, Jacqueline Novogratz shares her tale of receiving a business education but not aspiring to Wall Street. Instead, she went to Africa and saw the potential to introduce capitalistic motivations for the greater cause of human happiness.…

Small Things Like These

By Scott J. Pearson | March 2, 2024March 2, 2024 by Scott J. Pearson

This book deserves to be the next A Christmas Carol in the English language. Surely, even Charles Dickens cannot outdo Claire Keegan. In this work, she touches on themes of religious hypocrisy in the Roman Catholic church in Ireland. The message of Christmas and of the Christian Gospel, with their themes of oppressed things becoming great, is juxtaposed against an entrenched church beholden to money, power, and a corrupt socioeconomic system. This month of March,…

Psychology Society

Unmasking Autism: Discovering the New Faces of Neurodiversity

By Scott J. Pearson | January 10, 2024January 10, 2024 by Scott J. Pearson

Though a neurotypical myself, I’ve made recent efforts towards better understanding a colleague at work who is on the autism spectrum. I did so with the hope of learning to deal with future colleagues who might come from similar perspectives. I work in software development, which is targeted as a potential career path with less interaction with neurotypicals. So I expect more interactions with future co-workers on the spectrum. I’ve read several works on autism,…

Psychology Society

Homophobia: How We All Pay the Price

By Scott J. Pearson | December 2, 2023December 2, 2023 by Scott J. Pearson

I grew up as a Southern Baptist with a lot of structural homophobia around me. Homosexuality was viewed as an irrefutable sin, and nothing else in the Biblical narrative could say otherwise. Over the years, I’ve questioned much about the religious tradition I was handed. I am still a Christian, but my faith takes a much different form that values education, a lack of bias, and a role for history in religion. In fact, now,…

Biography-Memoir Society Software-Technology

The Worlds I See: Curiosity, Exploration & Discovery at the Dawn of AI

By Scott J. Pearson | November 16, 2023November 16, 2023 by Scott J. Pearson

Artificial Intelligence (AI) finds its place all over newspapers and magazines these days. It’s seen as a field ripe for economic impact. Few, however, have followed this field over prior decades when progress quite wasn’t so quick. Stanford professor Fei-Fei Li is one of the researchers who helped lay the foundation for modern AI. Here, she tells her personal story alongside the story of this field. She reminds us that human considerations should never voyage…

History Society

Anti-Intellectualism in American Life

By Scott J. Pearson | November 7, 2023September 24, 2024 by Scott J. Pearson

The title of this awarded book from the 1960s immediately stood out to me in light of recent political events, and it did not disappoint. From its earliest days, a distinct class of intellectuals has sought a strong role in American society. Puritan divines, for all their shortcomings, set in motion an intellectual movement that continues to this day, especially throughout New England. America’s national founding generation also consisted of intellectually informed men to orient…

Society

Black Lives, American Love: Essays on Race & Resilience

By Scott J. Pearson | November 7, 2023October 22, 2023 by Scott J. Pearson

After the horrific murder of George Floyd in 2020 and the most racially biased US presidential administration in about a century, America faced an uproar on a scale not seen since the 1960s. “A racial reckoning,” boomed the press while corporations funded new efforts for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Astute observers noted that real change would consist not in ephemeral gestures but in lasting structural change. Three years later, the uproar has died down. Some…

Society Software-Technology

The Age of AI: And Our Human Future

By Scott J. Pearson | August 15, 2023August 15, 2023 by Scott J. Pearson

Public fascination with artificial intelligence (AI) has only increased since this book was published in 2021. AI technologies, such as Chat GPT, have entered mainstream society and are being used in everyday business work. Publicly, however, leaders from philosophy, business, and government do not appear yet ready to grapple with the deep human questions involved. For example, when do we defer to AI bots over human agency? Are we ready for AI tools of war…

Biography-Memoir History Society

Don’t Let Them Bury My Story: The Oldest Living Survivor of the Tulsa Massacre in Her Own Words

By Scott J. Pearson | August 15, 2023August 15, 2023 by Scott J. Pearson

After emancipation, the Greenwood community in Tulsa, Oklahoma, served as an example of what African Americans could build in a free world. So-called “Black Wall Street” epitomized a community built around entrepreneurship, social responsibility, freedom, and neighborly love. They embodied American ideals of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” as much as anyone else. Until the jealous white mob got involved in 1921. One night, in response to false accusations against a black citizen,…

Society Software-Technology

Is the Algorithm Plotting Against Us? A Layperson’s Guide to the Concepts, Math & Pitfalls of AI

By Scott J. Pearson | June 24, 2023June 24, 2023 by Scott J. Pearson

Post-pandemic, perhaps no STEM topic has gripped the news quite like Artificial Intelligence (AI). For almost a century (since Isaac Asimov), science-fiction writers have dreamed of computers gaining consciousness, but now, some propose those possibilities near fruition. Often, people who write about AI in the news focus solely on social aspects; those developing the technology, in contrast, focus solely on technical details. Few individuals can provide a balanced look that relates both levels. Kenneth Wenger’s…