Category: Open Thread

Open Thread – 03/13/2021 – Brown Pundits

A long (paid) piece on Substack, They came, they saw, they left no trace…
except for all of Western Civilization. This is about the genetics of Italy.

My usual 7 PM PDT Friday night chat on Clubhouse will be about the genetics of Italy (Saturday morning India time). this link should work (if you are on an iPhone click it).

What Can Biden’s Plan Do for Poverty? Look to Bangladesh. The usual Nicholas Kristof thing. That being said it is interesting that when there is talk about Bangladesh’s economic success (relative), a fair number of Indians point out major issues (reliance on the single sector for export). This is all fine…but honestly, it feels l ike sour grapes. In 2020, a horrible year, Bangladesh was #3 in growth in the world (and the fastest large nation).

Going to do an interview with a linguist who studies Proto-Indo-European for my podcast. Interesting how his papers suggest Indo-Iranian and Balto-Slavic are a clade. R1a FTW!

Update: Someone on the Subreddit found the archives of the original BP site from 2011/2012 (I have the archives in MySQL but haven’t loaded them; we suffered intense hacks from Hindutva in 2012/2013 so moved to blogspot for a while).

Also, BP got a Clubhouse Club! So we’ll do chats there soon.

Open Thread – 03/06/2021 – Brown Pundits

A Muslim Indian is kind of annoyed that I say “Muslims in the subcontinent are descended from Hindus.” By this, I mean 99% of the ancestry.

Of course, it can be hard to see the impact of Iranian ancestry. I’m going to look more closely to update my estimate.

I recently got contacted by a British research group. They sample thousands of Bangladeshis, and unlike the Pakistanis, they saw no internal structure aside from some individuals who seem to be a Tibeto-Burman tribal people. Like I said: the Bangladeshis might be called Hindus by Pakistanis, but the Pakistanis marry like they’re Hindus, the Bangladeshis don’t.

Open Thread – 01/29/2021 – Brown Pundits

“Razib Khan’s two part essay on Indian history is brilliant. While it’s long for a blog post, you’ll learn more about India than you would in many full length books.”

-Scott Sumner

From The Money Illusion. I think this is obviously hyperbolic, but I’m actually rather proud of these two pieces of writing, which come in about 10,000 words. The two essays:

– Stark Truth About Aryans: a story of India
– Stark Truth About Humans: a story of India

Also, for an “Indian face,” Ramesh Ponnuru on the pro-life movement in America.

I understand my Substack is spendy for Indians. I’m thinking of doing a “special offer” for Indian readers. And yet, as it is, I would estimate that 25% of the people who subscribed have South Asian names! (I will tell you I have more than 500 subscribers as of now)

What’s going on with the protests and the farm stuff? Too much stuff in the US for me to track India. Any articles you recommend?

Reading An Environmental History of India. I would recommend it, it’s pretty decent as an introduction to someone who has no background in this field or topic.

Brown Pundits