10 Frameworks That Shaped Us | Episode 127 | Everything is Everything

gentle readers, welcome to everything is everything. This is AJ Sha. This is Amit

everything. This is AJ Sha. This is Amit Whma. You come here for enlightenment,

Whma. You come here for enlightenment, but today we will give you intimacy.

What you will find is an intimate act because here's what happened. We were at this great life lessons conference in Goa, meet up in Goa, gathering in Goa of like-minded souls which we spoke about

in the last episode and one of the things we decided we will do out there is the first ever everything is everything shoot with a live audience of specially selected life lessons people and we said let's make it a special

episode. Let's not make just make this a

episode. Let's not make just make this a regular EIE episode but let's also make it personal an episode in which we offer to the world and to our friends a part

of ourselves. Now alas something

of ourselves. Now alas something terrible happened. It rained. It rained

terrible happened. It rained. It rained

in Goa in October. Who would have thought? But it did and therefore we

thought? But it did and therefore we couldn't shoot that episode because for a variety of reasons. So we're shooting that episode today. All ye life lessons people who were there and really wanted

to attend this, you have missed the live recording. But we shall still offer

recording. But we shall still offer Ajasha a part of ourselves. Will we not?

Let's go for it. So what we are going to do today is we are going to share 10 frameworks five each which shape the way that we look at the world and the way

that we think within life lessons we actually have a webinar on frameworks with which you can look at the world but that's more normative stuff we are suggesting hey this framework is good for this this is good for that etc etc

this is a much more personal episode it's about what sort of shaped us on our journey through life and then looking back with hindsight we can say h this was big for me that was big for me etc

etc. AJ H how did you figure life out?

What was your journey like?

>> I think the words that matter most here for this conversation is first principles thinking that I somehow got onto this track that you have to be able to argue it from first principles and

then that inevitably takes you to this kind of toolkit. If you're willing to accept an edifice as a given saying all these assumptions are there and then I'm going to design integrated circuits

great more power to you. But if you are going to try to do first principles thinking, which really is our greatest defense against all the of the world, the only way to protect yourself

from all the nonsense of the world is first principles thinking. Then we need this kind of tool chain as a raw material about how we will think.

>> I got to tell you gentle readers that he mentioned the word So every once in a while for the last few years I will hear AJ saying something like I just wrote a BS article or I'm working on a BS article and I was always

thinking that man this is such modesty but why is he saying this? I mean it's isn't it going too far but BS my friends is business standard. He's written a column for the business standard for the

last 30 years. That's what he meant.

>> Okay Amit let's get going. Tell me your first.

>> So my first framework was really understanding natural selection, right?

And this is super important because it's not a subject that should only be taught in biology classes. I discovered it through popular science writing, reading Steven Pinker, a blank slate, then all the great books by Richard Dawkins,

selfish gene, blind watchmaker, reading Daniel Dennett, consciousness evolves.

Um and uh our last couple of episodes have been on this and we are going to have one more great episode on this where we talk about evolution in a larger context. Why is this important?

larger context. Why is this important?

You know I uh cited that great quote from the temple of Apollo at Delelfi in the last episode. Know thyself. It is

important to know ourselves and understand ourselves to be able to make the most of ourselves to be at to come to peace with who we are and to be able to construct and craft the best possible

version of ourselves. And so I think that this is deeply sort of uh important to me. It's it's given me a frame of

to me. It's it's given me a frame of looking at myself and it's given me a frame of looking at the world. And

though I was an atheist long before I discovered uh natural selection and we have a great episode on atheism where we spoken about how atheism is not a system of belief as much as a non-belief. You

just don't believe in things as uh proof of. So I was always an atheist in that

of. So I was always an atheist in that sense but natural selection solidified it and I can do no better than quote Douglas Adams on this where Douglas Adams has this beautiful quote where he writes about natural selection. The awe

it inspired in me made the awe that people talk about in respect of religious experience seem frankly silly beside it. I take the awe of

beside it. I take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day. And honestly I've been a person

any day. And honestly I've been a person much more than you drawn to fiction drawn to the arts drawn to literature because the to me the greatest mystery

is not perhaps the mysteries of science or economics or whatever. They are the mysteries of human nature. You know why do we love? Why do we cry? Why do we flounder? Why do we struggle? Why do we

flounder? Why do we struggle? Why do we feel lonely and seek companionship? Why

are things so hard sometimes? And I just feel that understanding ourselves, understanding human nature uh really helps figure out and come to terms with if not always figure out some of these

puzzles and natural selection gets you there. And also, you know, earlier I

there. And also, you know, earlier I mentioned being the best version of yourself. I think natural sele once you

yourself. I think natural sele once you understand the ways in which you're wired, you can figure out what you want to mitigate and what you want to amplify and it's just a smoother road. Why are

you laughing like that? Am I so deeply attractive that you can't just help burst out with happiness?

I was thinking that if a genie appeared and gave you a window into the human

heart versus a window into a quazar uh 50 million light years away, which would you pick?

>> I would pick the human heart even though it sometimes seems that the quazar is easier to gro.

>> Yeah, I I would pick the quazar any day.

You you give me like, you know, two neutron stars orbiting around each other, they're going to crash. You give

me a camera looking at that scene. Let

me build a whole observatory with instruments there. I take it any day.

instruments there. I take it any day.

>> Ladies, this is Aisha. This is why he doesn't ask you questions and listen well. He's thinking of quazars.

well. He's thinking of quazars.

AJ, tell me about your first framework.

>> For me, the biggest thing that has really dawned on me slowly over the years, so if there is a biggest single thing I would want to say to myself at age 20, it is this. And it has taken me,

you know, all the years ever since to slowly understand this. My slogan is the world is complex. Okay. And I could come at this from many different points of views. Uh, one notion of world is

views. Uh, one notion of world is complex is the randomness inherent in the world. All our tidy stories about

the world. All our tidy stories about the past are just so because we see the outcome of the lottery. But when you look forward, you are facing that full

raw uncertainty. So it's a constant

raw uncertainty. So it's a constant reminder that you know it's not a done deal that the battle of Stalenrad worked out the way it did. There was plenty of randomness along the way. And when you

look at the future, every simplistic analogy that this will be like the battle of Stalenrad is suspect because it doesn't give credit to all the

randomness that was there in the past.

So our human mind looks at history and forms these just so stories which are filled with selection bias and a certain outcome happened. But the world is very

outcome happened. But the world is very different. The future will contain

different. The future will contain randomness. The second source of

randomness. The second source of randomness is nonlinearity. So nonlinear

science teaches us humility. It teaches

us that when there are nonlinear equations in fray, small changes today can generate large changes deep in the future. They show us phenomena called

future. They show us phenomena called chaos where really there is a radical level of uncertainty and you can't know and control the future. The third way in

which you see that the world is complex is that the information is widely distributed everywhere in the world.

Nobody has the information.

There are pieces of information everywhere. No matter how much computer

everywhere. No matter how much computer revolution you do, no matter how much surveillance you do, there isn't enough information going on. So even if you know the laws of motion, even if you

know the scientific theories, even if you can model those probability distributions, we actually have patchy scanty tiny bits of information. So as

an example, uh the global weather system. Okay, you know how to model, you

system. Okay, you know how to model, you know, one cube in the air at a time. It

obeys the Navier Stokes equations. What

we don't have is enough data. You'd need

a ridiculous amount of information and then a ridiculous amount of computing power to actually make weather forecasts good and peer into the future of which

way a cyclone will go and very often the data is lacking. So when you put these three things together that there is an inherent randomness in the world, there is an inherent nonlinearity in the world

and there is just not enough information to form halfdeent models then it just encourages us to take three steps back

that the world is more difficult to comprehend and control than we think and this leads to many many implications and

intuitive ideas. So for example when

intuitive ideas. So for example when we've talked about firms for me the single grand organizing principle around firms is how is a firm to deal with this richness and complexity of the world

where the customers are not one the customers are varying all over India all over the world and the information is not one you should not have the fantasy that the senior management of the

company knows everything that is going on actually information is distributed your tens of thousands of employees all have little bits of information and how they choose to act on that information

is something that is shaped by the nature of power and autonomy within the organization. So to be humble rather

organization. So to be humble rather than saying one mind is so great I will give orders I will tell everybody what to do. This is an example in a firm

to do. This is an example in a firm context. There are many many other

context. There are many many other implications. U but this information

implications. U but this information problem it is related to many other things. The socialist calculation

things. The socialist calculation problem it is related to Hayek's view of the role of the price system. It has

many many implications but I consider it a central building block that if you are so fatuous as to believe that you know then yeah go build a China model and see

how badly that works out you know that engineers view of the world the recent Dan Wang book okay all these delusions flow from that arrogance that the world is actually not complicated

>> and I'm actually going to come down from the quazar to the human heart again and I'm going to say that this is a deeply resonant lesson for me because if there is one quality I'm glad I came upon if it was a little late in life. It is

humility. It is appreciating the complexity of the world. I think when I was an arrogant young man who knew nothing, the worst thing that could have happened to me is had I succeeded. And

that was a matter of luck. And if I had had grand success in any domain come upon me, I would have taken it for granted. I would have thought, "Oh, I am

granted. I would have thought, "Oh, I am so great. That is why I have succeeded,

so great. That is why I have succeeded, I would have stopped learning." So

sometimes people think I'm being my Bengali self-pitying self and I say that, "Hey, I failed all my life." But

it's actually a blessing that I failed all my life because that is what made me successful in becoming who I am for whatever that is worth. And not just becoming who I am in terms of personal

humility which is the only path to growth but also who I am in terms of appreciating this complexity of the world, appreciating the complexity of other human beings and therefore being

more empathetic, more compassionate and more appreciative of the magic of the universe around us. So you know uh again just resonate with everything.

>> I want to dwell on that last point a little more. When we see that we don't

little more. When we see that we don't have the information that nobody will have the database of all the facts of the world then actually you start asking so where is that information and the

answer it is in every single human being. So the only way to be a good

being. So the only way to be a good society to be a good organization is to harness that information and the

incentives and the energy of each human being. So we should come at this life

being. So we should come at this life from the viewpoint of saying there are so many people and they all have little nuggets of information. And they all have pieces of the jigsaw puzzle. And

our job is to create organizations, create societies and create a personal journey whereby we create conditions where more people are willing to come forth and give us the information. When

others give us knowledge, when others give us information, we become stronger.

Whereas if we are arrogant and we think I have the information, then we are less keen to listen to other people.

>> And I love how you spoke about the answers being all around us and in every grain of sand as it were. So I will read out Bob Dylan for you. Do you like Bob Dylan? Have you heard in every grain of

Dylan? Have you heard in every grain of sand?

>> No, I have not.

>> I hear the ancient footsteps like the motion of the sea. Sometimes I turn, there's someone there. Other times it's only me. I am hanging in the balance of

only me. I am hanging in the balance of the reality of man. Like every sparrow, like every sparrow falling, like every grain of sand. Bob Dylan himself. And

let's move on to the next chapter.

Amit tell us you're next.

>> So my next chapter is uh actually an extension of what you spoke about when you spoke about the complexity of the world and humility. The next big framework that I learned which shaped the way I looked at the world was

spontaneous order. You know we've spoken

spontaneous order. You know we've spoken in our economic fallacies episode about how we are hardwired to think of the world in a top- down way and we think everything is an engineering problem. it

can be solved to if a country isn't running well leader you know if some particular situation is messed up you know figure out the guy who will fix it

we have the engineering mindset towards everything and this is intuitive because we were hardwired in prehistoric times hunter gatherer tribes etc etc top down could work but it is profoundly

against the reality of the world right now in a sense u natural selection itself is a result of spontaneous order.

Everything happens from the bottom up.

There's a beautiful book by Matt Ridley called the evolution of everything. I

did an episode uh of the scene and the unseen with him when he had visited Bombay many years ago. And there he speaks about how spontaneous order applies to so many things right from

natural selection to languages to the economy to cultural norms to how a society conducts itself etc etc right to common law for example all of that and

it's a miraculous process to see Adam Ferguson once memorably used a phrase uh where he spoke of things that are the result of human action but not human design that there's so much around us

like the evolution of languages there's no central committee that sits and decide.

No one does that. But gradually through the way people use language, it evolves in beautiful ways. And if you actually look at how it sort of evolves, it is far more complex and even

we give it credit for because by using the term language as if it is one thing, uh we actually don't do it justice. Like

you look at for example Hindustani, right? We have spoken in past episodes

right? We have spoken in past episodes in a nationalism episode about how politics took it away into Hindi and Uru but before that how did it arise and it arose through many many many different

languages which we today call dialects kind of coming together and there's this famous quote about how a language is a dialect with an army so there is no reason for say Hindi to be inherently

superior to Bhjpuri or Meli but it is just that that happened to be the homogeneous language around which people gathered and you see this beautiful movement that as you go through India, you go from village to village to town

to town. Every few miles a dialect

to town. Every few miles a dialect changes and it is subtly different from the previous village but it is recognizable to the previous village you were at and to the next village you will go to but if you go enough it has

changed and become something else entirely. So even what we think of as

entirely. So even what we think of as one language actually contains multitudes and as beautiful and this process of spontaneous order plays out you know most spectacularly for me in

the economy you know we had done that episode on four papers that changed the world and dear readers I don't know what the magic is but an arcane episode on what you would think is such a academic subject four papers that change the

world is actually one of our most popular episodes right and people still talk about that to me and all the papers are in the a great of course but the one I'm referring to is Frederick Hayek's a use of knowledge in society the price

system it's so beautiful people don't realize that actually prices are a language prices are how we speak to each other what do you want today what do you lack what is missing in your life and what do I lack and what is missing in my

life and we could be sitting a thousand miles away from each other but we can speak to each other and fulfill each other's needs and make each other happy this is sounding so sensuous already

through the magic of crisis and this is spont spontaneous order in action. So

that whole mental framework we have that oh somebody's got to plan it from the top down information bureau information decisions

all of that is not necessary you know there are all these beautiful mechanisms through which society runs itself through which languages evolve through which words mean one thing today and

another thing tomorrow all these genz terms lit lit meant something else once upon a time But lit means one thing now.

Sick. Sick meant something. You know

once upon a time it wasn't good to be sick. Today when someone says Amit

sick. Today when someone says Amit you're so sick, man. It it just I just feel so good. I'm like like yeah in multiple ways. But how did you know? We

multiple ways. But how did you know? We

contain multitudes of sick right? Why

did I digress like this? I digressed

because we digress. That's what we do.

So spontaneous order. That's my sort of big revelation. It's beautiful. It's

big revelation. It's beautiful. It's

magical. We received a comment some time back from somebody in a previous episode saying Amit should explain spontaneous order by the evolution of everything by Matt Ridley. That's a great book. Read

Matt Ridley. That's a great book. Read

about spontaneous order. Put it in GPT5.

Ask it for examples. Dig deep into each example. Get deep reports. The way the

example. Get deep reports. The way the world works is amazing. And to think that individuals have the hubris of thinking, you know, spontaneous order, bottom up.

It's beautiful.

So AJ, what's your second framework? Our

fourth framework overall >> here. I want to talk about the state.

>> here. I want to talk about the state.

For most of us, we are brought up with some notion that the state is maybe a bit of a mother, is a nice guy, is benevolent, he's a bit of an NGO, is

here to shower welfare on all of us.

Okay? And over the years I understood that this is all really a wrong way of thinking. And while sometimes there may

thinking. And while sometimes there may be some nice things that states do, if we go in with this approach, we're setting ourselves up for failure. So two

things are the right way to think about the state. The first is what Max Weber

the state. The first is what Max Weber taught us uh in the early 20th century that the definition of the state is a community that achieves and maintains a

monopoly of physical violence over a given territory. At heart the state is a

given territory. At heart the state is a violent creature and it is in the game of achieving a monopoly of violence and wielding that violence. Okay, that's the

job of state. It's ugly. It's not

pleasant. We should not go into this thinking he's a nice guy. The state is not an NGO. The state is not your mother. The state is a community that

mother. The state is a community that achieves and maintains the monopoly of violence on a given territory. So it has to be viewed with suitable hesitation

and concern that oh you've got the only gunda on the block. You've got a violent creature who's achieved a monopoly of violence. Okay. Now the puzzle of all

violence. Okay. Now the puzzle of all politics is how do you convert this monopoly of cursive power into human welfare. Okay. So what you have is

welfare. Okay. So what you have is something genuine. It is a monopoly of

something genuine. It is a monopoly of coercive violence. It can become very

coercive violence. It can become very ugly. The state can just harm its own

ugly. The state can just harm its own people. It can butcher its own people.

people. It can butcher its own people.

So I find myself very skeptical when people make all kinds of claims around this is a legitimate state. You and I have an episode on state legitimacy that

just because something is a state and it has achieved and maintains uh monopoly of violence on a given territory, it does not become a nice guy. So the

puzzle is how do you convert this coercive power into human welfare and that's far from figured out. Some good

liberal democracies in the world have made more progress towards this than others. And in this the choke point that

others. And in this the choke point that we get is public choice theory. In

public choice theory we understand that those individuals that make up the state. The state is the community that

state. The state is the community that achieves and maintains a monopoly of physical violence on a given territory.

It's a community. It is made of people.

It is manned by people. And public

choice theory teaches us that those people are just bloss and me. Okay? They

have objectives. They are pursuing their own maximizations.

whatever they be but their maximization is not the welfare of the people. So

this package of the fundamental insight into the state I feel is really revolutionary and you know most people in India don't get

it. The people think that the state is

it. The people think that the state is something benevolent to the state are good guys and then you are always railing that oh but there are bad people that it is the fault of this local

policeman that he's behaving badly. In

principle, the state is great. Whereas

actually the right way to think is that the state is a community of self-interested individuals pursuing their own interests who happen to have a horrible thing

called the monopoly of physical violence on a given territory. Okay, there you are. Now what you going to do? That is

are. Now what you going to do? That is

the subject of politics and economics.

If we get all this into our head, then we are at the starting gate of genuine understanding and hopefully building a better country. But if we not able to

better country. But if we not able to get to this starting gate, then we're just going to be delusional and we'll get many things wrong.

>> Beautifully put. And gentle readers, we have a bunch of episodes on the street.

Episode 25, episode 26, the episode on public choice theory, all of which uh sort of illuminates this and uh you know uh gives a lot of light. And you know, we've often cited Hanland's razor on the

show that never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity. And I would actually go far

stupidity. And I would actually go far enough to say that you should assume the state to be both malign and incompetent.

Incompetent because the state often imagines it can do a lot more than it actually can. Like our last two points

actually can. Like our last two points about the complexity of the world, about spontaneous order are really cautionary tales to the state that do not try to be a man of system to think that you can

imagine society on a chessboard. It's

very dangerous to try and do that. The

state has one job and one justification only which is to look after our rights and thereby bring about human welfare as we discussed in episode 25. And it's um

sort of important to kind of understand that and stick to that. And the malign bit just comes from public choice theory. People are not bad but you give

theory. People are not bad but you give people the wrong incentives and they will do things which are inevitably bad that you put people in positions of power. Power corrupts absolute power

power. Power corrupts absolute power corrupts absolutely. You give people the

corrupts absolutely. You give people the wrong incentives and they will try to increase their power. They will try to increase uh their budget, their departmental budgets etc etc and the

state just bloats and bloats and bloats.

I think uh Buchanan has this great frame where he talks about the protective state, the productive state and the predatory state. And unfortunately

predatory state. And unfortunately my thesis is that every state with time will morph into the predatory state.

There is no way around it. The original

liberal conception is of the protective state. The state exists to serve us. We

state. The state exists to serve us. We

are the rulers. A state is a subject.

That inverts itself immediately. Then

you have the notion that oh you can have a productive state that a state will actually almost you know uh it's an entity on its own its own welfare matters. It will collect more tax to GDP

matters. It will collect more tax to GDP ratio. It will make money with it

ratio. It will make money with it whatever. And that's a flawed way of

whatever. And that's a flawed way of thinking. But inevitably what you end up

thinking. But inevitably what you end up with is a predatory state. And it is so normalized that we don't even question it. And we really need to sort of qu

it. And we really need to sort of qu tell me something you worked in uh you worked with the state in the belly of the beast in fact for a long long time.

So is this view of yours something that evolved over a long period of time or did you always see this? It

>> it took me all my life to get these things deeply. So my apologies for all

things deeply. So my apologies for all the mistakes that I made.

So my third framework which was for me it was a light bulb moment once you see it you can't unsee it is understanding what John Stell calls a double thank you moment. Stell wrote this great article

moment. Stell wrote this great article 15 20 years ago which I absolutely love because I I write about markets all the time but I've never managed to write one piece that is so fundamentally explains

the magic of markets. And here's what he calls a double thank you moment. If I go to a cafe and ask for a cup of coffee, then at the time the coffee is handed to me, I say thank you. And at the time I

hand my money over, the uh person behind the counter says thank you. We are both saying thank you to each other. It is a double thank you moment. I value the coffee more than the money I paid for it. They value the money uh more than

it. They value the money uh more than the coffee that they are giving me. Both

of us are better off. And this is fundamental because we are hardwired to think of the world in zero some ways.

Perhaps because our instincts were shaped in times where again we were hunter gatherers, life was nasty, brutish and short. Everything did seem zero sum. If you got an extra leg of the

zero sum. If you got an extra leg of the lamb you have hunted, somebody else did not have access to that and so on and so forth. But we live in very different

forth. But we live in very different times. And the truth of the modern world

times. And the truth of the modern world is that all interactions are positive some interactions, right? Whenever two

people transact in a voluntary way, they are doing so because they are both of them are better off. It is a double thank you moment. It is a positive sum game and take this to its next

conclusion. This means that the way to

conclusion. This means that the way to maximize human welfare is to maximize double thank you moments is to maximize such interactions. You know there's a

such interactions. You know there's a famous Angus Madison graph of uh you know human welfare GDP etc. the massive growth where till the 18th century 19th

century is kind of the line is flat and then it explodes upwards and it explodes upwards. Yes, of course, part of that is

upwards. Yes, of course, part of that is technology, the industrial revolution, railways, the steam engine, so on and so forth. But a lot of that is a spread of

forth. But a lot of that is a spread of markets that it enabled that you have more and more people to trade with. And

the more and more people you that you can trade with, the more and more people you can a make happy by doing something that um they want that makes them better off for profit. I once wrote a column

called profit is the greatest philanthropy. You know, there is no

philanthropy. You know, there is no better way to make someone better off than by profiting from a voluntary interaction in the free market, right? I

sell you something, you buy it because it makes you better off and obviously I make money, it makes me better off. And

that's how you know society solves it own problems. Uh there is this um sort of tricotomy people have created. Ragu

Rajan and Rohini Nelikani have you know described the three arms of the world as being state society markets and I argued with Rohini on my episode with her where

I felt that no markets are a mechanism through which people in society fulfill each other's needs it is not a third separate thing and the framing is dangerous because when you frame it like

that you are almost implicitly saying that society's interests are one thing market is something else and I'm like no market is a fantastic mechanism one of many through which we can fulfill each

other's needs. And the way it works is

other's needs. And the way it works is through double thank you moments. And

this is why we should be very wary and very careful of the state interfering in markets. That any interference in a

markets. That any interference in a double thank you moment is reducing the welfare of both people involved. And

therefore, you know, you want the state to maintain the rule of law which you need for a market to function. But do no more than that. That regulate with a super light touch. the more you try to

bring about social outcomes or control greed or you know stop profiteering the more you are getting in the way of people helping each other and making each other better off. So just

understanding the double thank you moment uh was a big deal for me and once you get that framework in your head you just look at the world differently.

>> I think it was Gorbachev who said that markets are not a feature of capitalism.

markets or the invention of civilization.

>> So AJ, what's your third one?

>> My next big idea is rule of law. Okay,

we started that problem. There is the state. It is a coercive creature and

state. It is a coercive creature and power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. So when we give

corrupts absolutely. So when we give some mere mortals cursive power, it's going to go very badly. What could you do different? The big idea in this field

do different? The big idea in this field is rule of law. Rule of law is our only hope is our only defense against the

inevitable progression of coercive power into tyranny. What is rule of law? Okay,

into tyranny. What is rule of law? Okay,

it's a whole machinery that there should be separation of powers. We have an EIA episode on that between a legislature, the executive and the judiciary. Only

the judiciary should be able to sentence me to jail. The executive should only be able to do an investigation. And only

the legislature should be able to define what are the punishments for what kind of problems and the legislature should face free and fair elections that there

should actually be honest competitive elections out in the country which determines who is a legislator. The

legislature should write the laws not the joint secretary. Okay. So these are the basics about how laws arise and then you get to the actual machinery of how

the laws interact with the society under conditions of rule of law. The law

should be composed by the legislature only. The law should be known to the

only. The law should be known to the people. Okay? So you and I should have

people. Okay? So you and I should have ready easy access probably from a website for a compact body of law. If

you start saying the law is 50,000 words, you kind of lost it because then the people will never know the law. The

people will always trip up and make mistakes and a government official will always be able to challenge you saying, "Oh, but this is the law that you violated."

violated." Then the enforcement of the law should be evenhanded. selective enforcement of

be evenhanded. selective enforcement of law against your political opponents and critics is the greatest catastrophe for a country because then after that people are feeling that you know you'll attack

me not because I violated a law but you'll attack me because you don't like me. So this combination that there are

me. So this combination that there are 50,000word laws and ordinary existence involves violating laws plus selective enforcement that when the government

decides to go after somebody they will always be able to find bad things done by that person and there you've got you into a slammer. At the tail end of this journey somebody in the executive will

do an investigation and find that somebody is accused of a crime. At that

point, what you want is a proper legal process that there should be a hearing in front of a neutral person. It can't

be the boss of the officer or some other employee of the executive. It has to be a true judiciary that a judge has to be independent and the hearing has to take

place in front of a judge where prosecution says something to the judge and the accused should have access to all the information like what crime am I

being accused of. Okay, this is a KFK- problem that you should get a hard document that articulates what is a crime you are accused of. You should get a document with all the evidence that

was relied on for the purpose of constructing that accusation and then in front of a truly neutral judge. The

accused should be able to argue that no this is actually wrong. Your evidence is wrong or your argument is wrong or here I bring you five contrary facts and then the judge and only the judge should be

able to award punishment. And because

all humans are frail and we think that judges can make mistakes, there should be multiple levels of appeal. Okay, this

is the whole machinery. This machinery

goes by the glorious name rule of law, right? Rule of law is the way in which

right? Rule of law is the way in which you take that coercive creature and convert it into something that is not just a raw exercise of power. To flip it

around, rule of law is where there is low discretion with civil servants. So

the civil servant should not be able to decide what is a crime, what is not a crime because that that's written down in the law in explicit black and white terms, not vagueness, precise

articulation of what is a violation. The

civil servant should not have discretion in deciding who to investigate. The

civil servant should not have discretion in deciding who to prosecute. Okay, so

these basics are about how you take away the power from the civil servant and that is how we get a good society.

Beautifully said and I'll give a bonus framework here which is something that I learned from Francis Fukoyama which is when he talks about the state he talks about scope versus

strength where he says that a state can either be a state that does some things or many things and it can either do them well or badly and the Indian state as we've discussed before is a state that

does many things badly whereas both of us agree it should do a few things well and what are those few things rule of law is number one for me that's where it starts. If you can do rule of law well

starts. If you can do rule of law well and uh you know that's if that's where state capacity actually delivers then the rest can flow from there but we have to get that fundamental piece right.

>> Okay AIT take us to the next.

>> So the next one is a personal one and I wrote a newsletter post about it. We've

discussed it on the show before and it has inspired a tattoo by one of our listeners and that is a concept of I play to play. So here's a story. Tigrant

Petroian the famous uh Russian grandmaster, the famous Soviet grandmaster at the time was playing a game of chess and it so happens he was deaf but this that wasn't a factor in this particular conversation. He grew

deaf over a period of time I believe and he in the last round of this tournament this other person his opponent wanted a draw. So he thought that okay maybe uh

draw. So he thought that okay maybe uh Tigran wants to draw also so let me see how it goes. So he sat down and at one point he leaned forward and he whispered to Petroian are you playing to win and

Petroian just shook his head and said no. So now our man was hopeful because

no. So now our man was hopeful because he wanted to draw. Petroian wasn't

playing to win. So of course he'll you know maybe take a draw. So couple of more moves go by and then he leans forward and he says are you playing to draw then? And Petroian says no. So now

draw then? And Petroian says no. So now

our man is confused. He's not playing to win. He's not playing to draw. Why is he

win. He's not playing to draw. Why is he playing? So then he asked then why are

playing? So then he asked then why are you playing? And Petroian said I'm

you playing? And Petroian said I'm playing to play. And I love the story.

This is Ajasha. This has shaped me. It's

become the philosophy of my life. That I

believe and I advise every young person I speak to that you have to play to play. Don't play to win. Don't think of

play. Don't play to win. Don't think of outcomes. Don't think of grand goals.

outcomes. Don't think of grand goals.

Play to play. Play for the beauty of it.

I did an episode with Ghirandas where he was speaking about the myth of Seephus.

And uh in the myth of Seephus, of course, Seephus rolls his rock up the mountain, he gets a rock up the mountain, it rolls down, and he rolls a rock up again, and it rolls down again.

And it's it's it's a story about futility, but I view it differently.

It's a sad story about futility only if you believe that the point of rolling the rock up the hill is to get the rock to the top of the hill. But what if you believed the point of rolling the rock up the hill is to roll the rock up the

hill, then you can be happy because that's what you're doing. That is your dharma. You do what you have to do. you

dharma. You do what you have to do. you

play the long game, it doesn't matter.

You are in the moment. You're enjoying

what you do. And this brings me to another sort of framework that I I've learned about while doing the scene and the unseen of thick and thin desires. Um

you know Luke Burgess wrote a book called wanting where he looked at the work of the philosopher Reneer and Reneer um was a philosopher who was once when he was a young man asked to teach a literature course and he needed the

extra pocket money. So he said fine I'll do it and he compiled a reading list of all the classics and then he realized that in all of those classics all the heroes and heroins they want something because somebody else wants that thing

it's not intrinsic and he called this mimemetic desire right and from this later um arose a frame of thick and thin desires. A thick desire is intrinsic to

desires. A thick desire is intrinsic to you and it can be very deep but it can be so hidden you're not aware of it. And

a thin desire is a desire of a shallow superficial kind. You may not really

superficial kind. You may not really want it. Maybe you want it because

want it. Maybe you want it because others do and you want their validation.

But it can be massively intense. And

thin desires could be like a young man wanting a Mercedes or wanting to be vice president because that's a done thing, right? Or a woman saying that okay, I

right? Or a woman saying that okay, I have to be pleasing. I will get married and I will have two children and etc etc. But is that really what they want?

Or are they are they just thin desires of adapted from the world? And it takes a long time to get to your thick desires. And sometimes when we don't

desires. And sometimes when we don't play to play, when we play to win, that wind that we visualize at the end of the journey, the rock at the top of the hill as it were, is is a thin desire. It's

not such a big deal. Which is why I sometimes think that goals are toxic.

You know that you put a goal out there, Oscar, etc., etc. If you get to the goal, you'll find you aren't happy because of a phrase you used recently in a life lessons webinar, hedonic

adaptation. That becomes a new baseline.

adaptation. That becomes a new baseline.

You achieve something and you immediately normalize it and take it for granted. I think what really matters is

granted. I think what really matters is the joy of the small things and that's a joy of just doing like I think of I think of thin and thick desires in terms of writing. For example, you can want to

of writing. For example, you can want to write because you want to get an acclaimed novel out and win the book a prize and all that, but those are thin desires. Or you can want to write

desires. Or you can want to write because you just love the magic of sitting with a blank page and filling it up and there was nothing there and there is something there and you made it happen and even you didn't know you had

it inside you. And that's a beautiful process. The process of telling a story

process. The process of telling a story that can make someone laugh and can make someone cry and that can tell you something about yourself you didn't know till you wrote it down. And that is a thick desire. So I think the thick

thick desire. So I think the thick desires all manifest themselves in the phrase I play to play. Uh which I absolutely love. And one of our gentle

absolutely love. And one of our gentle readers actually got I play to play tattooed on his arm. And I I was obviously very moved by that. But also I was like body mutilation. You I'm a

little oldfashioned that way. But yeah,

it's moving. So this is a philosophy that just means a lot to me.

AJ, what's your next framework?

>> My next framework is life is not a spectator sport. Okay, this is a slogan

spectator sport. Okay, this is a slogan I coined for myself. This is about the trade-offs between doing versus consuming. Okay, so all of us, we read

consuming. Okay, so all of us, we read the books of others, we watch the movies of others, we watch uh other people playing cricket and so on. But I've just

always felt that it is so much better to organize a life around one's own creations, one's own activities, the things you do with your own fingers. So

I always say that I'd rather play my own shitty cricket rather than watch the heroes of the world playing cricket because you're doing it and it's 100x

more exciting, more powerful when you do it yourself. So that's my proposed

it yourself. So that's my proposed slogan. Life is not a spectator sport.

slogan. Life is not a spectator sport.

just do things. It's always better to do things than to take other people's things. The balance between consuming

things. The balance between consuming and making.

>> I love that as a philosophy. I in the defense of watching sport I will say that even when you are watching sport as you know when Vashna and I watch football together you are in a manner of speaking participating you're thinking

about strategy about tactics that's why you read war books for example uh that's got its own glory but your broader point is absolutely well taken that we should have a bias for action. It's like Neil Simon said, the world is full of two

kinds of people. The watchers and the doers. And the watchers sit around

doers. And the watchers sit around watching the doers do. You Aisha are a doer. And I aspire to be a doer like

doer. And I aspire to be a doer like you. But sometimes I'm happy being a

you. But sometimes I'm happy being a watcher also.

>> So I I have a story about this from my life in research. And I've started seeing this happens to many other people that uh my excitement is in doing

research. Okay. So reading papers is a

research. Okay. So reading papers is a means to that end and very often I will end up reinventing something doing something from scratch which actually other people have done and that's okay

because if the purpose is the happiness and the joy of actually doing you're happy if your purpose is to get a publication or a patent then you're unhappy so yeah I do read other people

because it jogs the mind but the primal pleasure is of actually coming up with ideas of inventing stuff of doing things and then you know you turn the key and

the door opens and you see things that have never been seen before or too bad somebody's already seen them before.

>> You also play to play.

>> Okay, Amit, what is your last one? So

the last one I almost feel embarrassed saying it because I say it so often that people you know joke about it but it's again a beautiful line that resonates with me and uh sums up uh a deep lesson I have learned. So since we are doing

this episode in the spirit of sharing our deepest selves there's a great quote by Annie Dillard. How we spend our days of course is how we spend our lives and there's a profound truth in this that especially when you're young in the last

episode we spoke about how men are wired to aspire for greatness. And when I was young I was I aspired for greatness. So

I wanted to write great books, to make great movies one day, to think great thoughts, to just generally be great because yeah, and the danger there is that you're never in the moment. That

every day is effectively a waiting room for a glorious future that lies ahead.

And even when you intellectually figure out that even if I get that glorious future headonic adaptation, it isn't worth it. You still keep dreaming about

worth it. You still keep dreaming about it and you miss the day that you are in.

But actually actually our life is an accumulation of days, right? And each

day at a time if you can live it fully uh you will end up with a glorious life.

Uh you know so I want to wake up in the morning looking forward to what I am doing that day. And I haven't had a full-time job for the last 17 18 years for exactly that reason that I want to be the master of my own time whatever that's worth. I want to wake up in the

that's worth. I want to wake up in the morning. I want to look forward to the

morning. I want to look forward to the day. I want to feel happy with how I

day. I want to feel happy with how I spend the day. I'm happy with how I spent today shooting with you chatting with you doing mutter grashi. Are you

familiar with that term? It is one of the great terms of our times and how we spend our days doing mutashi is how we spend our lives in happiness right so I

I think we don't give enough attention to this that we are not mindful enough that we spend too much time living either in the past or in the future and it's a present moment where all the action is I mean what is what is

happiness happiness is not a memory of a time where you think you must have been happy because good things happened to you no happiness is you are in this moment you with this friend, you share an interesting thought, he cracks a

joke, you don't get the joke, you laugh anyway. That is a moment. How we spend

anyway. That is a moment. How we spend these moments is how we spend our days, is how we spend our lives. So, it's a big and profound lesson for me. In

addition to everything that you said, I also want to say that there's a feeling of powerlessness that overwhelms us when we think of the

word life in the context where the world is complex. Okay? So when you pair these

is complex. Okay? So when you pair these two together, the world is complex and I have 100 years to go. What the hell am I going to do? What can I plan? It just

makes us degenerate into apathy. A day

on the other hand is a tangible problem.

Okay, I woke up today. What shall I do today? Today is something that I have

today? Today is something that I have some agency and I can make progress about.

>> Beautifully said.

So AJ you know uh you've shared so much wisdom with us. Share some more. What is

your last framework?

>> My last lovely idea is give unconditionally.

Okay. And I think that too many people in the world are doing a hustle. They're

doing a series of trades where you're trying to do transactions and kind of maintain IUS or explicit contracts and

we are looking to prosper. We are

looking to extract better terms for ourselves from the world and it's a trading game of trading favors and trading IUS and that's how we climb a ladder and I mean I get it. I know that

there is a part of that in every life that has to be lived. We do need to think about these things. But what is really happy is to just give unconditionally.

Why bother? Why keep track? Why keep

accounts? Why keep score? Just give

unconditionally. We become happy when we give. And ultimately life is not about

give. And ultimately life is not about prospering. It is about flourishing.

prospering. It is about flourishing.

We're trying to do something at a bigger scale. We should be good to the people

scale. We should be good to the people around us. Some of them will be good to

around us. Some of them will be good to us and great things will happen in our life. And what better deal is there than

life. And what better deal is there than that. So I think of it as a fear and

that. So I think of it as a fear and insecurity and a scarcity mindset to monitor transactions and to think of what have I

given that person has not given back to me and so on. Whereas I feel it is very nice to graduate to an abundance mindset

to a secure comfortable mindset and give unconditionally. It is in our

unconditionally. It is in our self-interest because when we give unconditionally, we become happier and it saves mental bandwidth because then you're not keeping score. Okay? So,

you're not counting, you're not keeping track. It's so much better. Then you get

track. It's so much better. Then you get to be in an elevated place. You think of the world, you look at the world, you think about truth and beauty and all the good things in the world because you're

not keeping track. And uh some of the people around will come back to you with senseless acts of kindness and irrational acts of beauty and then

you've got a life made. So what better life do you want? Give unconditionally.

>> So I have two comments to make and one viferous demand at the end of it. And

comment number one is that while talking you casually shared this wonderful framework that uh you know you shared with us during life lessons of prospering versus flourishing. So do

sign up for life lessons. There's just

such wisdom in there. The second thing I want to share with all of you and I hope I don't get too sentimental while sharing it is that I have known AJ for many years. This part of giving

many years. This part of giving unconditionally is something that I have experienced myself been the beneficiary of. He actually lives this. So whenever

of. He actually lives this. So whenever

I give advice to people I say do as I say don't do as I do. But in this particular case do as he does he's actually done it. Now my viciferous demand Aisha is this that if you are going to be generous you also have to be

generous with your fing recommendations.

You promise recommendations I will give one and you have to also think of one.

Uh so why I'll give mine before you get to yours which is Mark Strand's collected poems. My favorite poet of all time means a lot to me personally. Um

his last book of poetry called almost invisible is a masterpiece. Wrote that

just before he died. his little pros poems almost like one paray is just magnificent but that entire collection is included in his collected poems hardback so I strongly recommend you get

that and in a sense sometimes I feel that you know if you read that book I'll feel like you know a part of me as well what about you Aisha what's on my mind

right now there is a very lovely essay by Dario Emodel of anthropic he's written a essay which is called machines of loving grace which is a line from a

poem and uh he's asking us to think deeply about what will happen in the world when

we make more progress in AI and I'm not a crazy RA booster of many technological paradises but I feel he's sensible and

thoughtful and it makes you think and I recommend all of us should read that essay Okay, >> Omit, >> let's go inside. Come on, man.

>> Let's get the job done.

>> Omit, >> walk the path of greatness.

>> Let's walk the path of greatness.

>> You go. I will follow partly to make sure that any obstacles on the path are encountered by you first and I can craftily avoid them.

>> I'll clear all the spiders webs >> as we pass.

Take my hand.

You'll make it. I swear.

So easy. Now, two apps a day.

Enough. Enough. Enough. Put it down. Put

it