Lines on Maps Are Toxic! | Episode 51 | Everything is Everything
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- čas přidán 28. 06. 2024
- We have normalized lines on maps -- but they are unnatural to the way we live. They are toxic in the ways they push us to think of people in categories decided by the accidents of geography and politics. We must free our minds. We must tear down these walls.
Welcome to Episode 51 of Everything is Everything, a weekly podcast hosted by Amit Varma and Ajay Shah.
Please note that EVERYTHING IS EVERYTHING IS NOW AVAILABLE AS AN AUDIO PODCAST on the podcasting app of your choice, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pocketcasts etc.
If you like watching Everything is Everything, please like, subscribe, share, comment. :)
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
00:00 Packaging
00:13 Introduction: 'What Maps Are There?'
01:37 Chapter 1: Economists Discover Gravity!
11:31 Chapter 2: India’s Tryst With Borders
15:34 Chapter 3: The European Model
24:30 Chapter 4: The Expanding Circle
28:32 Chapter 5: Communities of Choice
34:49 Chapter 6: The Lives of Others
37:56 Chapter 7: Recommendations
USEFUL RESOURCES:
1. Amit on Twitter: / amitvarma
2. Ajay on Twitter: / ajay_shah
3. The Seen and the Unseen -- Amit's audio podcast: seenunseen.in/
(Also on all podcast apps. And CZcams, though less than 1% of listens come from here: / @theseenandtheunseen )
4. Ajay's organisation, XKDR Forum, on CZcams: / @xkdr
5. In Service of the Republic -- Vijay Kelkar and Ajay Shah: amzn.eu/d/hwGILb3
6. The Art of Clear Writing -- Amit's writing course: indiauncut.com/clear-writing/
7. The India Uncut Newsletter -- Amit's newsletter at indiauncut.substack.com/
8. Pushpesh Pant Feasts on the Buffet of Life - Episode 326 of The Seen and the Unseen: • Ep 326: Pushpesh Pant ...
9. Arati Kumar-Rao Took a One-Way Ticket -- Episode 383 of The Seen and the Unseen: • Ep 383: Arati Kumar-Ra...
10. Marginlands: Indian Landscapes on the Brink - Arati Kumar-Rao: amzn.in/d/3v5YoGG
11. Toba Tek Singh -- Saadat Hasan Manto: tinyurl.com/5n8je3bb
12. Memories and Things - Episode 195 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Aanchal Malhotra): • Ep 195: Memories and T...
13. Remnants of a Separation - Aanchal Malhotra: amzn.in/d/gHOiE9J
14. A Trade Deficit With a Babysitter -- Tim Harford: timharford.com/2005/12/a-trad...
15. History of European Morals -- WEH Lecky: amzn.eu/d/3xapvbH
16. The Expanding Circle -- Peter Singer: amzn.eu/d/gkcVzaH
17. 1000 True Fans - Kevin Kelly: kk.org/thetechnium/1000-true-...
18. The Lives of Others -- Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck: www.amazon.com/Lives-Others-M...
19. Jhumpa Lahiri on Writing, Translation, and Crossing Between Cultures - Episode 17 of Conversations With Tyler: conversationswithtyler.com/ep...
20. The Notebook Trilogy -- Agota Kristof: amzn.eu/d/48p4Ffp
Produced by Amit Varma
Shot by Vaishnav Vyas and Nomsita MS Haritashya: / vaishnav.vyas
Edited by Nomsita MS Haritashya: / nomsitaharitashya
Thanks to Gaurav Chintamani for helping with sound: / gaurav_chintamani
Chapter image by Simahina: / i_am_simahina
That’s my house in the background. :)
Ironically enough, the neighbour’s cow destroyed our humble little bamboo fence a couple of days ago.
Wow, lovely place to have a home!
Cows don't seem to respect borders any more than humans do. 🙂
Ajay’s reaction to ‘samose jaate hai, kachori aate hai’ is legendary. For a tiny microsecond he looked like he reevaluated his decision to have this show with Amit and resigned to his fate of what’s done is done
Time ?
You win the comments section today 🎉
This conversation reminds me of the quote that the "indo-pak border is the line that disappears when you cross it." that I heard on Chris Lydon's series on Pakistan back in 2011. It's true of the EU too in terms of porosity, but more so between and Pakistan given the spectre of division and the diametrically opposite affinities one experiences on the "other side".
Quality of production man 🤌🤌🤌🤌🤌
Didn't think two uncles talking about geography could make me cry, but here we are. So grateful for everything you do.
Love the out of focus activities in the back ground, little boys and girls playing in a field with Kash flowers…reminds of Pather Panchali.
Dr Shah continues to surprise me with his knowledge of the dynamics of borders. Circumstances of my upbringing allowed me to witness first hand the porousness of Naga-Burma border and heard first hand accounts of WB-EB border.
Perhaps what was even more fascinating for me were the lives of those who lived in enclaves.
Traveling through state borders in India is a delightful experience. I remember taking the meter gauge train from Kerala to Tamil Nadu. The music changes from Malayalam to Tamil film music, the colors of the houses become deeper and vibrant as the coconut trees are replaced by palm trees.
Amit makes the funniest Dad jokes that Ajay does not get....the Gujrat Bengal border 😂😂😂
I still don't understand it.
😂
Is it because both are on opposite ends? Could you explain the joke?
I am with Ajay here, i don't get it either
Samose aate hai, kachori jaate hai! 😂
At last someone is talking about this truth. Really happy to listen to this discussion.
A Californian was asked if he thought of himself as Mexican or American. He said that he, and his forefathers, were always Californian. It was the borders that had moved.
Basically everything is everything. Geography, culture, knowledge. Lines doesn't exist.
Those lines may have been a product of historical serendipity but some lines have grown thicker over time. This tells us there is some fundamental sociological/ historical/ economic/political force behind its "success".
@@ikjuy1238 i disagree with the usage of last word. It should be a verb instead of the noun. Otherwise people will think it's a One off event not a continuous process.
Bless the gravity model , based my dissertation and my masters specialisation around it. Absolutely wild model if you trace its evolution with a plethora of applications from urban transportation systems to free trade agreements and even international asset trade (Portes and Rey (2005)).
I love how Ajay pronounces superlatives
To expand on Ajay's West and East Germany Argument, the divide carries over generations. In the latest European election the AFD got the most votes in the former DDR States, a large number of them were young and first time voters. The Division does effect people even thirty years after unification and my prediction is, that it will carry on even longer.
What a beautiful landscape!
Wonderful episode!
No better way of demonstrating that everything is everything than presenting the gravitational law in an economic context!
Could you please think aloud about the incentives that exist to keep borders in place and who is benefiting from them? I can think of the military complex as one.
@18:11...underappreciated joke by amit😅
28:18 there are some lines I can think of that cut through individual houses and neighborhoods. Mostly memetic lines. Thoughts?
These ideas are beautiful and more like utopian ideas, Reality is Harsh, there are lot of Socio anthropological parameters like religion demographics etc are not being considered of a region which play greater Role, without those these are just Utopian Ideal Ideas
All important ideas are ahead of their time.
Good point. So if you are a geopolitical policy thinker- you ought to ensure the "mutual distance" between the two societies come down.
Perhaps, by allowing people to people exchange, perhaps by partnering with your so-called rivals in matters of mutual interests. To a creative person, there are many "levers" available, if we have a useful mental model.
@@ajayshah5705 thanks for the reply, don’t take me wrong, I’m a great appreciater of your work, just giving inputs, yes indeed great ideas are ahead of time
Nice Episode and location...Suchitra Vijayan's 'Midnight's Borders' is an interesting book about travels along the Indian Borders.
Cool
Borrowing a few ideas from the episode India Needs Decentralization and Nassim Taleb's Antifragile, I wonder if it would make sense for districts/city states arising organically and evident geographically to be universally accepted as the biggest unit of adminstration with people, goods, and capital free to move as suitable.
Listening
National rhetoric is a separate episode its invaded privacy in multiple ways, become dramatically uncomfortable for those who value people vs nations
While I get what you are saying Ajay Sahab but when you are saying border areas you are only imagining a certain border area. I get the argument about the proximities of people on the India-Bangladesh border or for that matter the US-Mexico one as you pointed out, but what about border areas such as Turtuk in Leh and Hundarman in Kargil or for that matter border villages towards the LAC ( which Arati Kumar Rao also mentioned in the episode of the Seen and the Unseen) in Leh where although the villages on both sides are very close, there is barely any interaction among the people- let alone any transactions, monetarily? In such places borders being " lines on a map" apply in a strict sense and it is impossible to " tear down the walls". What are your views on such areas and especially on the loneliness of the people of such border areas? Don't you think then that there are many layers to even the border areas and depending on what type of border area ( porous or non-porous ) you live in, your privileges ( read mercies ) also get decided?
Although all the ideas are correct but it felt very utopian. Many other parameters like religion, geography need to be considered.
Amit and Ajay - Can you do an episode on what is now called Wokeism. There seem to be two sides to this coin and would be good to know the origins and trueness of it.
First!
2nd :D
Borders reminds me of this documentary called Borderlands. czcams.com/video/6KKDkFo1IQ8/video.html
Its about the life of people who cross the border for various reasons. And how that has affected them.
Europe union has come after many wars, strife over centuries, even though they have different cultures same as India,
does it mean India has to wait. 😢
And more importantly we first need to create the nation state within India.. When and how. 😕
It's step by step..
First split India into its divisible parts based on structure, culture, although it's a mammoth incisive task that needs to happen together while being mindful of the many intricacies.
A new episode on this plz
amit talk about education system in india specifically about engineering student of gujarat who are not able to get even 3 lpa ctc sfter spending lakhs gujarat's education system is totally fraud
We have a forthcoming episode on education. Hang in there!
@@amitvarma thanks
East West Germany and North-South Korea have a communist entity on one side. So complete cut-off, including information.
India and Pakistan are different, though not much travel but information flows. And we remained the same in many ways. Same with India - Bangladesh.
terrorists flow