For the gentle not so well read reader , this is gold. You get such precious insights stated upfront , and the bases for the same , and then the references and books . This reverses the act of reading widely for hard to find insights. Thanks a ton , and once In a week the traffic in Bangalore ceases to matter
Feeling so proud after listening to ajay's recommendation as I was just reading Henna Arendt's Between past and future, before I put down the book and came here.
I just wanted to take a moment to express my sincere appreciation for your latest video. Your podcast has consistently impressed me with its ability to distill complex issues into digestible, informative discussions. Your range of knowledge is truly commendable, and what stands out for me is the skill in addressing a variety of topics with clarity and depth. The way you people effortlessly navigate through subjects showcases a genuine mastery of the material. Moreover, the weekly format you people have chosen is brilliant. It not only keeps your content fresh and engaging but also allows your audience to look forward to a regular dose of insightful discussions. Your commitment to consistently delivering high-quality content is evident. What I find most valuable is your knack for summarizing intricate issues without compromising on the necessary details. It makes the content accessible to a wide audience, and I believe this is a testament to your excellent communication skills. Lastly, the recommendations are not only excellent but also truly illuminating, adding an extra layer of insight to an already enriching podcast. Thank you for your dedication to knowledge, your eloquent delivery, and your commitment to fostering informed discussions. Looking forward to more enlightening content from your team
Great episode. Love how Ajay cautions against inevitability. Want to do a fact check and share a disagreement. 1) For all the bad things he did, Mao didn't enact the One Child Policy. It was Deng Xiaoping. Mao, on the other hand, wanted rapid population growth, especially during his Great Leap Forward campaign, and he espoused Mother Heroine. Either Mao softened or despite his resistance, China implemented some voluntary family planning schemes, similar to what Indians have today. 2) I disagree that population decline implies pessimism. Japan, South Korea and Singapore are awesome countries, but with the lowest fertility rates.
They got more gradual TFR declines. Rapid TFR declines are a bad thing. And, there is quite some discussion on the problem of the low TFR in Japan, on how the bad conditions of women in Japan have made them go on strike.
Again, exhilerating talk. In the context of India, I tend to agree to your points and I hope that it rediscovers the great strength and promise of its human capital. If I transfer your observations on Europe, though, I realise that we not only have a demographic problem, but that it is a symptom of a crisis in trust and hope. If that is ture, that would make it an issue, that migration cannot solve, because it is deeper than birthrates. That tends to make me pessimistic about the future of the society and country I reside in.
Great episode as always. Listening to both of you is always a treat. Can you do an episode on political parties promising What some people call freebies? I must clarify I hate to use that word myself. All parties promise things like a fixed amount every month, FDs for girls, etc. What do you think about it in general and in India's context? What does it say about India's economic growth in all these years? If possible, please also talk about free foodgrains as well. Don't name any particular scheme or party If you don't want to get into politics. But you can talk about: should the state be giving such handouts in general and in Indian context?
Thanks a lot Amit and Ajay for accepting this topic suggestion - Great conversation, as always 👍👍 The more I watch Everything is Everything, the more I realise that 1 hour is too little to get your thoughts on a topic. The notes are very helpful in this regard, so thanks a lot. I wish people more people understood Amit's view of people being 'brains, not stomachs'. That'd help us tremendously as a society come up with approaches to deal with the issue of migration within the country. Since the common view is the inverted version of this belief, both sides suffer. Reg. fertility rates, I see that Ajay must have faced an epic challenge of condensing learnings from a PhD in a few minutes :D. It was a delight to hear your analysis. I would have enjoyed hearing your thoughts on some more forces that have influenced these trends, such as feminism, Christianity and even reduced reproductive health (supposedly) of people in the recent decades. Let's hope you speak on the topic more on future occasions. Looking forward to the next episode!
Hey Amit , love the camaraderie between the amit and the Shah and I wouldn’t stop watching this or listening to TSTU for anything. Infact just as I had to trim down on my podcast times and TSTU episodes got longer, I am now listening to just one podcast. Feedback: for most TSTU listeners many of the topics here seem a bit repeated , the boss episode was a refreshing change
Until now as both of you said I did believe that population was a big burden but now I am more than convinced of your argument. Just happened that I just finished another Podcast episode by @lexfridman with John Mearsheimer making a similar point about power , wealth and population size in it. Superlative episode. Kudos to both of you
It will be great if you could expand the thesis onto countries like South Korea. They have lot of democratic freedom, prosperity, but very low fertility rates. Is there hopelessness because of lack of affordability? Also if you look at European countries, aren't the fertility rates lower? I believe a strong religious sensibility is often needed to infuse optimism of the long-term. The religious sensibility could be promise of heaven, trans-humanism, or event a belief that any consciousness as a net positive. I think these axiomatic believes drive humans to sacrifice the short-term in service of the long-term. If we don't have such beliefs I feel we run the risk of being a passive observer to life.
I don't know ROK enough. In other comments here we have a bit about the Japanese collapse of the TFR. It is all about how women feel (as it should be).
My mental model is that there is a state of very low income and human development, where having children is not a careful decision. This may well be the case in a lot of the Hindi heartland and in Pakistan. At some threshold (which is way below the notion of `an advanced economy') the behaviour changes, and then the main story of this episode kicks in. The bulk of India is now in that zone. And here, people channel the difficulties of their environment (e.g. mistreating women, e.g. difficulty in getting jobs, e.g. the prospect of violence), and their optimism about what the next 25 years will be like, into the decision to have children.
Brilliant, per usual. On 44:10 - hey here’s a thread to pull on - some people expound immigration as a silver bullet to solving problems declining population. America, for example woke up to that in the 60s to 80s. While it is currently struggling with the idea mostly due to political consideration, it is still far ahead of most countries why destiny of choice for the world. Japan, a developed, non-authoritarian and prosperous country with low fertility and an aging population (that I was surprised didn’t see a mention here), has eagerly taken to higher immigration to improve population mix in the recent past. Granted immigration isn’t fertility, but it is a stable and longer term solution that nations come to realize. Add to that a solid market-driven solution. I wonder if there are any deep studies that consider migration within India and the economic impact within source and destination regions (i think i listened to some adjacent thinking in Seen and Unseen episodes) but a deeper exploration will be awesome. Anyway - thanks again gentlemen.
Yes. In a view where human beings are pests, you don't want immigrants. In a view where human beings are the ultimate resource, you want more immigrants. Is immigration a good thing? We have to be cautious about cause and effect. The good places attract immigration. Many in India love to dislike the advanced economies of the world but don't migrate to Russia or China. So the interesting causal questions we should think about are. Do the countries that are more welcoming to migrants do better? Do the states of India that are more welcoming to migrants do better? Both propositions seem to be faring well.
@@ajayshah5705 regarding your point that people don't prefer migrating to authoritarian states, why do you think are Singapore and UAE exceptions? LKY was totally comfortable invading personal freedoms and yet people from freer states voted with their feet for his state.
@@Saurabh_Mediyum Hold other things equal. Take a country that's an advanced democracy at Singapore / UAE levels of per capita GDP. What would a person choose? I think most people would choose the genuine advanced democracy. The people going to Singapore / UAE are doing a trade for higher income and lower freedom. On UAE, e.g. see www.theguardian.com/world/2010/jan/10/brother-uae-ruler-cleared-torture
I was wondering What toook you guys so long to make the Amit Shah joke😂😂 I even joked with a few of my friends when the show first came out, they could have called it “The Amit Shah Show”😂
The quotations of Paul Ehrlich carry the photo of Paul Ehrlich, the nobel winning physician in the background and not Paul Ehrlich, the environmentalist and left-leaning philosopher. Also, while Simon won that bet, much analysis shows that for different periods of history, Ehrlich could have also won and these issues (or any issues of price movement in a market) are far from settled.
Slightly disagree with the argument, I would say 'Yes, Humans are brains and not stomach, if raised well'. To raise positive EV human, needs an investment in early formative years. In modern times, Parents who think are aware of cost of raising child and providing them with enough opportunities. But those who don't think, keeps on producing children and eventually it becomes responsibility of society to take care of the unfortunate.
46:28 This is the one of the reason why Over population is a problem for any state and the society of that state as well sir. And there comes the question,who decides and understands whether the population is in which situation? It has to be govt that people chose. That also brings the question of Coercion from the end of government. Well, sir you are absolutely correct about, "it's person's choice whether to have a child or not, it's my personal right." But sir the thing is we must understand that if all goes with that thought, we definitely will face problems eventually. Whether it's over population Or underpopulation. Along with that, it brings various problem to the state(like unemployment, migration, brain drain, violence, etc). So to avoid it govt. comes in and tries to put certain restraints. And sir i agree that ots about spectrum of coercion. Where is the line drawn from where individuals liberty cannot be broken(Like one child policy of China) . That should be kept in mind. Overall sir i learned a lot. Thanks.
"Who decides". A good guiding principle to think about the world is: Each individual should decide. Governments intruding into the lives of people have done many terrible things, e.g. China's one-child policy or Sanjay Gandhi's nasbandi. The job of government is narrow: to be competent in addressing market failure. E.g. in India, the disasters of air quality in the north is all about state failure. Or, the law and order crisis all over India : this is all about state failure. For a few decades, the main task of the Indian state should be to do those basics.
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Amit in his podcast once said that given the child never consented to its birth, it's violent to have children (paraphrasing from Nilakantan RS episode). In this one, he says population is a good thing. True, Human beings do have multitudes.
My husband and I were also having a similar discussion. I in fact thought that I have become hopeless (which is true considering the environment etc.) or have got bad mental health and because of which I do not want kids. I was stuck on Ajay's sentence - it's good for an individual to have as many children as they want (if they choose to do so). Our conclusion after discussion was that having kids is a good to have option and it is still immoral to have children. But yeah it took a lot of discussion which is a good part of this show. Push you to think like a book.
Population control by coercion is a big NO. That should be a no-brainer. The next question is: Is population control a desirable goal if it is achieved by voluntary decision-making & free rational choice of citizens. Clearly, you think the answer to that question is also NO. Population control, even if there is no coercion, is not desirable because People are BRAINS, not stomachs. This then puts a big onus on the government to put its act together and improve governance & service delivery in the crucial areas of justice, education, and healthcare. People are brains only if they are well-fed and well-educated. The fact that population control is such a big development agenda in the developing world is an admission in itself that these governments have failed to provide decent governance. So perhaps it is with a sense of resignation and despair that development experts say, "Sigh! let's just not produce more people into misery"
It's good to play in two steps. The first is to push state coercion on personal things off the table. Next comes the theory of development economics which asserts that high prosperity requires a low population, or that there is a causal impact from fewer births to greater prosperity. That is also wrong and should be pushed aside. India is not poor because there are so many people. India is poor because of mistakes in the working of state and other institutions. Finally: for each brain to flourish the country has to be a good one. Yes of course!, but we can make it simpler and say "it is desirable to be an advanced economy" which is a true proposition at all levels of population or TFR.
Anything achieved by "voluntary decision-making & free rational choice of citizens," as you put it, is fine. If a couple decides not to have kids, that is their choice. But when a state decides that people should have less kids, it cannot achieve that without coercion. And that's evil. (It is a separate point that wanting less people would also be a terrible goal to have, because, as we have shown, people are brains not stomachs.)
It might be more accurate to be more nuanced? Higher population is good if Intelligence Density/ Population Density > 100. Intelligence Density being sum (IQ) / sum (Population) for the country or region. Is it a non-linear equation? So maybe a higher population might not always be an unmitigated good..?
@@amitvarma I see the land of Eugenics ahoy ! Societies are beginning to see the benefits of designer kids... high IQ, stable minds, healthy bodies. It's a win-win... and like the maturation of AI, biotech also seems to be on a take-off threshold. Irrespective of who makes it a reality.. the parents or the State or a combination of the two. Forcing goodness on an embryo unable to display volition..
