Browncast Ep 46: the Professor Devji Podcast

X.T.M Ā· June 7, 2019 Ā· 40 comments

Another BP Podcast is up. You can listen on Libsyn, Apple, Spotify, and Stitcher. Probably the easiest way to keep up the podcast since we donā€™t have a regular schedule is to subscribe at one of the links above.

You can also support the podcast as a patron (the primary benefit now is that you get the podcasts considerably earlier than everyone elseā€¦this podcast was posted a while ago).

Dr. MJ & I speak to Professor Devji.

I loved the podcast and even MJ felt it was the best one we had done so far. Professor Devji touches upon:

(1.) how the BJP mobilises votes (the modernist party)

(2.) the Muslim question and the coded language concerning it (“appeasement politics” / vote banks)

(3.) the fact that a lot of Hindutva’s aims are to remove governmental control of Hinduism (in a way it can’t control minority religions) as opposed to “Hinduism controlling the government.”

(4.) Caste politics and how Hindutva frames the discourse

(5.) whether the “Overton Window” in India has shifted.

I’m hoping to get him to speak at Cambridge Majlis next term since he’s such a knowledgeable speaker.

As always please leave reviews, feedbacks and comments!

Since 1989

Razib Khan Ā· June 6, 2019 Ā· 70 comments


China is an authoritarian, in some ways totalitarian, nation-state. But we need to keep the larger perspective in mind as well.

Judge a society by how the odds are for the least of them.

Browncast Ep 45: Jordan Anaya on “data thuggery”

Razib Khan Ā· June 5, 2019 Ā· 1 comment

Another BP Podcast is up. You can listen onĀ Libsyn, Apple,Ā Spotify, and Stitcher. Probably the easiest way to keep up the podcast since we donā€™t have a regular schedule is toĀ subscribeĀ at one of the links above.

You can also support the podcast as aĀ patronĀ (the primary benefit now is that you get the podcasts considerably earlier than everyone elseā€¦this podcast was posted a week ago).

If there is one person who combines keen attention to scientific methodology and toxic masculinity, it’s Jordan Anaya, a “data thug.”

A brutal realist who helped destroy the career of Brian Wansink, Anaya revels in is status as a one-man Occam’s Razor.

Don’t weep for the Chinese but for the Desis-

X.T.M Ā· June 5, 2019 Ā· 23 comments

I am a bite tired of this anti-PRC propaganda. Since Tiananmen Square; the PRC has averaged an annual growth rate of 8% (the economy is doubling *roughly* every 10years if not less).

Coupled with the negative population growth rate (I don’t know if there is demographic momentum but I haven’t checked); China has managed to transform herself in 30years.

Maybe the protestors didn’t get what they want (Freedom) but they did get prosperity and China has managed to:

This growth has led to a substantial increase in real living standards and a marked decline in poverty. Between 1981 and 2008, the proportion of China’s population living on less than $1.25/day is estimated to have fallen from 85% to 13.1%, meaning that roughly 600 million people were taken out of poverty.
For balance I’m adding:
I only imagine if Pakistan or India had been able to effect this transformation in the same time period. India finally seems to be getting the wind into the her sails under a *authoritarianesque* government.

Indian Americans ā€œtrumpā€ Brit-Asians

X.T.M Ā· June 4, 2019 Ā· 12 comments

This is a business roundtable between the President and the PM. It’s fascinating that even though Britain’s Asian population is 5% of the population versus 1% Indian-Americans; there are 2 Indians (at least) on his side of the table.

British society is invisibly white and though there are some sectors that are *cosmopolitan*; we are certainly behind the US since class is an additional factor here. A privileged Etonian, who dropped out, is equally if not better placed than the state-school Oxbridge kid.

Finally this article is so witheringly racist; Sajid Javid not invites to State Banquet. One of his “friends” joked to the newspaper that perhaps it was that Palace confused him with another son of a bus driver (Sadiq Khan).

Browncast Ep 44: Game of Thrones, part 1

Razib Khan Ā· June 4, 2019 Ā· 2 comments

Another BP Podcast is up. You can listen onĀ Libsyn, Apple,Ā Spotify, and Stitcher. Probably the easiest way to keep up the podcast since we donā€™t have a regular schedule is toĀ subscribeĀ at one of the links above.

You can also support the podcast as aĀ patronĀ (the primary benefit now is that you get the podcasts considerably earlier than everyone elseā€¦this podcast was posted a week ago).

I chat the end of Game of Thrones with Adam Calhoun, a neuroscientist, and erstwhile provider of early leaked episodes to yours’ truly.

This is the first of two episodes on this topic. A follow-up with a geneticist and a historian to come.

Iranian Ghee

X.T.M Ā· June 3, 2019 Ā· 4 comments

https://m.facebook.com/watch/?v=326662301282907&_rdr

Related: Parsi Cafes, A Centuries-Old Tradition In India, Are Vanishing

A fascinating video about food from Kermanshah. I got confused initially that it was Kerman but this is the Kurdish Kerman. The city’s name has a very interesting story and they also have an extremely exotic minority, which I had only first heard about a few weeks ago (when I first read the article I assumed the religious minority in question were Bahais):

In need of life-saving surgery, he was promised refuge in America. Just 15 months later, he died ā€” still waiting

How the travel ban left a family of Iranian refugees stranded in Turkey

Anyway back to the original topic the reason why food is so *delicious* in Kermanshah (the most integrated Kurdish city in Iran because it’s inhabitants are Shi’ite) is because they use copious amounts of ghee.

While Iranian food is flavourful the most signature dishes also tend to be variants on Iraqi-Syrian food (grilled meat). Similarly the most delicious and well-known Turkish food comes from Gaziantep, which is on the Syrian border (and was a mixed city).

I am increasingly coming round to the idea (first floated by a Lahori friend of mine) that Arabic food is best when it comes to balancing taste and health.

I find it very difficult to eat Desi food healthily. There is just not enough protein in the diet and way too many carbs (rice & bread are accompaniments).

I’m sure it sounds like an oversimplified cliche but the Bedouin/nomadic food items of meat, spices & yogurt pared with the Mediterranean diet seems the ideal combination. It’s little wonder that Lebanese food is one of the world’s great cuisines; maybe not on par or as well known as Indian, Chinese, Franco-Italian but sort of like the Thai food of West Asia.

Brown Pundits