278 | Kieran Healy on the Technology of Ranking People

278 | Kieran Healy on the Technology of Ranking People

We claim to love all of our children, friends, and students equally. But perhaps deep down you assign a ranking to them, from favorite to not-so-favorite. Ranking and quantifying people is an irresistible human tendency, and modern technology has made it ubiquitous. In this episode I talk with sociologist Kieran Healy, who has co-authored (with Marion Fourcade) the new book The Ordinal Society, about how our lives are measured and processed by the technological ecosystem around us. We discuss how this has changed how relate to ourselves and the wider world.

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Blog post with transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2024/06/10/278-kieran-healy-on-the-technology-of-ranking-people/

Kieran Healy received his Ph.D. in sociology from Princeton University. He is currently a professor of sociology at Duke University, and a member of the Kenan Institute for Ethics. As an undergraduate at University College Cork he won the Irish Times National Debating competition. He has a longstanding interest in data visualization.


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351 | Peter Singer on Maximizing Good for All Sentient Creatures

351 | Peter Singer on Maximizing Good for All Sentient Creatures

Peter Singer has been an influential philosopher for a number of decades. He was a significant early voice in animal rights, has been a leading thinker of utilitarianism, and helped inspire the effect...

20 Apr 1h 15min

350 | J. Eric Oliver on the Self and How to Know It

350 | J. Eric Oliver on the Self and How to Know It

We are more familiar with ourselves than with anything else in the universe, but we generally don't come very close to really understanding what our "self" is. That's not too surprising, as selves are...

13 Apr 1h 21min

AMA | April 2026

AMA | April 2026

Welcome to the April 2026 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded by Patreon supporters (who are also the ones asking the questions). We take questions asked by Patre...

5 Apr 3h 46min

349 | Daniel Harlow on What Quantum Gravity Teaches Us About Quantum Mechanics

349 | Daniel Harlow on What Quantum Gravity Teaches Us About Quantum Mechanics

There is something special about gravity. After decades of effort, there is still no convergence on the right way to reconcile Einstein's theory of general relativity with the framework of quantum mec...

30 Mars 1h 25min

348 | Jessica Riskin on Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and Life as Creative Agency

348 | Jessica Riskin on Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and Life as Creative Agency

"Lamarkism" is a term often attached to a seemingly discredited idea in evolutionary biology: that one organism could acquire characteristics (e.g., becoming stronger through exercise) that would then...

23 Mars 1h 15min

347 | Andrew Guthrie Ferguson on How Your Data Will Be Used Against You

347 | Andrew Guthrie Ferguson on How Your Data Will Be Used Against You

In the 18th century, philosopher Jeremy Bentham suggested the Panopticon as a model of a prison where inmates could be constantly observed by just a single prison guard. Although his original idea was...

16 Mars 1h 8min

346 | Erica Cartmill on How Human and Animal Minds Think and Play

346 | Erica Cartmill on How Human and Animal Minds Think and Play

Intelligence is a many splendored thing, especially when it comes to comparisons between species. Chimpanzees are better than humans at some numerical tasks, but less good at understanding what number...

9 Mars 1h 28min

AMA | March 2026

AMA | March 2026

Welcome to the March 2026 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded by Patreon supporters (who are also the ones asking the questions). We take questions asked by Patre...

2 Mars 3h 53min

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