Viswanathan K's Thoughts

In this interesting podcast , Alex Tabarrok repeatedly points out there is no one answer on what works, and there’s no certainty on what comes next. Nah, he wasn’t talking of life in general; he was making those comments on the topic of what it takes to sustain economic growth:   Traditional wisdom says the must-have’s for economic growth include strong institutions, rule of law, free markets and democracy. But then, he says, there’s the elephant in the room: China. It used to be fashionable to point at India and China’s populations as problems not just for those countries, but increasingly for the world as they get richer, and consume and pollute more. Then again, both countries will invest more in R&D as they get richer, and having more people would increase the odds of new ideas and solutions to today’s problems. “People as stomachs” or “People as brains”, he calls the two views. Which is right? Today, China’s growth looks unstoppable. But he points out, a couple of...

Did you think that “fake news” arose in the Age of Social Media? That the transition to the “post-truth” world happened only recently? That the tendency accelerated with Putin, Trump and the rise of right wing? Wrong, writes Yuval Noah Harari, in his forthcoming book, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century. Wiping out or creating countries to suit one’s agenda is an age old tactic. In 1931, Japan created a fake country called Manchukuo to justify its aggression against China. China in turn denies the existence of Tibet. Britain called Australia “nobody’s land” and set about occupying it. The Zionists called Palestine “a land without a people”. “In fact, humans have always lived in the age of post-truth. Homo sapiens is a post-truth species, whose power depends on creating and believing fictions.” And no, continues Harari, it isn’t only in politics we do this: “We have zero scientific evidence that Eve was tempted by the serpent, that the souls of all infidels burn in h...