Category: Popular

Pivoting to the future

Razib Khan · June 1, 2021 · 53 comments

2020 and 2021 are clearly going to be lost years. Delhi Reopens a Crack Amid Gloomy Economic Forecast for India:

The Indian capital, which just weeks ago suffered the devastating force of the coronavirus, with tens of thousands of new infections daily and funeral pyres that burned day and night, is taking its first steps back toward normalcy.

Officials on Monday reopened manufacturing and construction activity, allowing workers in those industries to return to their jobs after six weeks of staying at home to avoid infection. The move came after a sharp drop in new infections, at least by the official numbers, and as hospital wards emptied and the strain on medicine and supplies has eased.

Life on the streets of Delhi is not expected to return to normal immediately. Schools and most businesses are still closed. The Delhi Metro system, which reopened after last year’s nationwide lockdown, has suspended service again.

But everyone has to focus on the future. So what’s going on? How’s Modi’s going to supercharge the economy? I’m not Indian, I’m American. A strong India is good for America. An economically vibrant India is good for humanity.

Lakshmi

Razib Khan · May 16, 2021 · 66 comments


I’m spending a lot of time reading about the Corded Ware for my series on the steppe. The Corded Ware is a culture that appeared that abruptly in Northern Europe between 2900 and 2800 BC, covering a vast territory of Central and Eastern Europe in a century. The name derives from the unique marks left on their pottery.

For decades scholars have argued whether they were an indigenous development out of the farmers who occupied this region for thousands of years, or whether there was a mass migration out of the steppe. More realistically, there was a synthetic position between at some point. Perhaps the farmers were influenced by a few elite bands migrating out of the steppe?

Today due to ancient DNA we know more. The Corded Ware culture in its mature phase is about 70% Yamnaya and 30% farmer. The farmer’s ancestry almost certainly comes exclusively through women. The Y chromosomes of the farmers were G2. There is very little of that within a few generations. It is almost all R1a.

But that leaves us with the question: where did the new pots come from? The answer is straightforward: the men from the steppe took wives from the farmers. They killed their fathers and brothers and took them to their homesteads to bear them children. These women knew how to make pots because they did not come from nomadic backgrounds. They adapted their techniques to making pots that exhibited marks that made them resemble the baskets that their husbands brought in their wagons.

The miracle of the immediate emergence of a new pottery technique is due to the fact that the nomads didn’t learn to work in clay. Their wives already had the skill.

Why is this posted on this weblog? That’s a question that does have an answer…

Open Thread – 05/08/2021 – Brown Pundits

Razib Khan · May 8, 2021 · 190 comments


New Browncast up. It’s about the ’71 genocide (if you haven’t, please subscribe on a podcast app).  I haven’t talked up the Patreon in a while, but all the hosting/editing (we need more than the usual storage since sometimes there are 4-5 podcasts in a month!) is supported by that, so if you like what we’re doing, please chip in. I usually post episodes early for patrons.

My first steppe piece on Indo-Europeans is up at my Substack. It, and the subsequent steppe pieces are going to be paid.

Unherd will be posting a review of The Horde: How the Mongols Changed the World on Monday.

Also, I think it is high time I spotlight some work/projects of BP contributors: The Emissary and Meru Media.

Make sure to follow me on Clubhouse and the Brown Pundits Club. We’ve been doing a lot of impromptu discussions on the club, so once it opens up to Android you’ll want to join.

Brown Pundits