Who doesn’t love quotes? Everyone loves quotes! Quotes are the best!

Welcome to episode 12 of Watching the Wheels, hosted by Amit Varma, Shruti Rajagopalan and Pranay Kotasthane.

In this episode, Amit, Shruti & Pranay share 20 quotes they turn to again and again — on mobility, human nature, reading, excellence & humour. You will find Ambedkar & Rawls on caste and fairness, Pinker & EO Wilson on human nature, Schelling on models, Schopenhauer on reading, and Finding Dory. There’s a Swades couplet, two lines from Newton, & poems in Tamil & Urdu. In the Infinite Game, we will witness the follies of male self-confidence — and the recommendations at the end will keep you awake at night in a good way!

TABLE OF CONTENTS00:00 Hype the Episode!00:21 Intro: That’s What She Said01:54 Main Course02:29 Haves, Have-Nots and Want-To-Haves05:41 Caste as a Division of Laborers11:11 Nature, Nurture & the Middle Stage14:14 Pinker, Axelrod & the Blank Slate23:45 Models, Mentors & Being Interesting33:04 Plans, Progress & Public Life47:09 The Art of Not Reading51:48 Favourite Films & Hindi Movie Lines1:02:07 Excellence, Pratchett & Brecht1:07:58 Poems in Tamil & Urdu1:12:28 The Infinite Game1:27:14 Recommendations

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There are so many people! There are so few things! Are we going to run out? Is the earth going to hell? How on earth (pun intended) can markets help?

People are brains, not stomachs. No, we’re not running out of things. Yes, markets can solve these problems.

Welcome to episode 11 of Watching the Wheels, hosted by Amit Varma, Shruti Rajagopalan & Pranay Kotasthane.

In this episode, Amit busts the myths around too many people & too few things. Shruti steelmans the environmental position before elaborating on how markets & voluntary action can be a force for good. The Infinite Game this week will delight lovers of Indian cities, which is all of us, right? Right?

TABLE OF CONTENTS00:00 Hype the Episode!00:22 Intro00:39 Main Course 13:52 Are We Running Out of Things?34:15 Markets & the Environment1:45:03 The Infinite Game2:10:00 Recos

For full show notes with many fantastic resources, click here!

Mohandas Gandhi lived a life of action, wrote furiously for decades, constantly examined himself & the world, & kept changing. He contained multitudes.

Welcome to episode 10 of Watching the Wheels, hosted by Amit Varma, Shruti Rajagopalan and Pranay Kotasthane.

In this episode, our hosts discuss what we can learnt from Gandhi — and what we should not. His genius, his contradictions, his morality, his failures, his will, his multitudes. There is also The Infinite Game at the end of this episode — can Amit redeem himself?

TABLE OF CONTENTS00:00 Hype the Episode!00:28 Intro01:09 Main Course04:47 Means Over Ends20:32 Nonviolence43:11 The Self-Taught Man52:07 Gandhi the Blogger55:10 Bias For Action56:02 Skin in the Game1:00:38 The Problem With Top-Down Change1:19:36 The System is the Problem, Not the People1:27:20 The Power of Symbols1:37:35 The Big Tent1:43:30 Patriotism and Nationalism1:55:44 The Infinite Game2:07:38 Recommendations

For full comprehensive show notes, please go to the YouTube page for this episode!

Do you own your own body? Your own land? Your own money? The State has, at some point, told someone no to all three. This episode is about such PolicyWTFs. Your head will spin as you watch the wheels go around.

Welcome to episode 9 of Watching the Wheels, hosted by Amit Varma, Shruti Rajagopalan and Pranay Kotasthane.

We pick one Policy WTF each from our hall of shame. Pranay traces how an anti-dumping duty on a chemical input gutted India’s textile exports and women’s factory jobs. Shruti tells the story of a legitimate 1979 land sale in West Bengal, overturned in court 25 years later under an obscure right of pre-emption still on the books today. Amit recounts Romania’s Decree 770, Ceaușescu’s ban on abortion, and its human cost. Plus a nail-biting Infinite Game, & recommendations spanning jazz, Romanian cinema & British satire.

TABLE OF CONTENTS00:00 Hype the Episode!00:20 Intro02:38 Main Course 03:39 Policy WTF #1: Protectionism and India’s Textile Exports12:47 Policy WTF #2: West Bengal’s Right of Pre-emption28:46 Policy WTF #3: Romania’s Decree 77059:23 Infinite Game1:16:57 Recommendations

For full & compehensive show notes, click here!

Are AI swarms out to get humans?

Welcome to episode 8 of Watching the Wheels, hosted by Amit Varma, Shruti Rajagopalan and Pranay Kotasthane.

In this episode, Shruti talks about the Open AI- HuggingFace incident & shares her latest paper on governing agentic AI.

TABLE OF CONTENTS00:00 Hype the Episode!00:32 Intro00:57 The OpenAI-HuggingFace Incident05:05 Our experience with LLMs16:58 Inside the Breach26:09 Anthropomorphizing Agents37:06 It's All Code Says Pranay1:02:37 Shruti’s Paper: Governing Agentic AI1:11:45 Two Millennia of Legal Personhood1:18:53 Three Categories of AI Agents1:33:30 The Stack1:56:16 Infinite Game2:06:57 Recommendations

For full show notes, please go to the YouTube page for this episode!

Most of us don’t achieve early success. Or we wonder about building a second life even as the years slip by.

Is it doable? Yes.

Welcome to episode 7 of Watching the Wheels, hosted by Amit Varma, Shruti Rajagopalan and Pranay Kotasthane.

In this episode, Amit shares his thoughts about late blooming: why he relates to it so much, the late bloomers he admires, & the ways in which growing older is a feature & not a bug. All three hosts share a path of becoming a late learner & bloomer. Also, our finest edition of The Infinite Game sees a worthy winner!

IMPORTANT: Cohort 5 of Amit’s course, LIFE LESSONS, runs from October 3 and is now open for registration: https://lifelessons.co.in/

TABLE OF CONTENTS00:00 Hype the Episode!00:58 Life Lessons & Late Blooming08:56 Main Course: How to Be a Late Bloomer16:19 The Myth of Early Achievement34:56 Late Bloomers to Inspire Us!56:27 The Tradeoffs of Ageing1:11:38 Advice For Late Bloomers1:36:27 The Infinite Game1:50:26 Recommendations

For full show notes, head on over to this episode's YouTube page.

Numbers can help you see the world clearly — or they can be turned into a weapon against you. This week, a masterclass in spotting the difference.

Welcome to episode 6 of Watching the Wheels, hosted by Amit Varma, Shruti Rajagopalan and Pranay Kotasthane.

In this episode, we go deep on why numbers matter, where they mislead us even with the best intentions, and the deliberate tricks used to bend numbers into propaganda.

TABLE OF CONTENTS00:00 Hype the Episode!00:29 Intro08:30 Why Numbers Matter29:30 The Limits of Numbers42:55 How Numbers Can Fool Us1:08:04 Defence Against the Dark Arts1:25:37 The Finite Game1:32:21 The Infinite Game1:44:06 Recommendations

For the full show notes of this episode, please head on over to the original YouTube page for this episode!

Why should we care about government spending?

Welcome to episode 5 of Watching the Wheels, hosted by Amit Varma, Shruti Rajagopalan and Pranay Kotasthane.

In this episode, we launch Pranay Kothastane & Sarthak Pradhan’s new book Fiscal Fables: A Citizen's Guide to Public Finance. Pranay gives a masterclass in the public finance frameworks. Amit provides comic relief through limericks. And in the Infinite Game, we understand why Shruti is not a professor of geography or history.

Please pick up Fiscal Fables right away: https://amzn.in/d/04Btr8MD

TABLE OF CONTENTS00:00 Hype the Episode!00:20 Intro: What a book!01:18 Main Course: A Citizen’s Guide to Public Finance04:10 Why we should care about government spending?11:50 Kinds of Taxes16:45 India’s Failed Tax Experiments29:50 Why Taxes Exist35:14 The Tax Code is Not a Social Engineering Manual54:45 Indian Cities and Decentralization 1:10:36 Centrally Sponsored Schemes1:21:04 Fiscal Federalism1:33:22 Infinite Game1:56:06 Recommendations

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