Mohit Satyanand on Bihar: “When 70% of a state’s population depend on agriculture, they are locked in a cycle of tiny, fragmented holdings, low levels of capital and technology, and low productivity. Migration of unskilled labour to the rest of the nation is not a viable route to prosperity for 130 million people. The state needs to attract industry and modern services, if it is to stand a chance of catching up even with its neighbours, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh.”
Emily Balcetis: “What is your personal commitment to this goal? And if it feels low to you, then looking backwards, you might be motivated in that middle ground. But if it is something that you’ve always wanted to do, you’re passionate about, and you’ve already shown interest, looking forward might be a source of motivation.”
Economist on paper: “Technology can close the gap between paper and screen, but not entirely. Typing will never be as distinctive as handwriting. Doodling on a phone is just not as satisfying. And some of the attractions of the analogue become even clearer as digital technology becomes more pervasive and powerful. Catalogues do not have to be checked for viruses (however obsessively people wiped them down in the early days of covid-19). As machines get better at generating text, more exams and interview tests may be conducted with pen and paper, just to be sure. Mastery of digital technologies is vital. But a sense of touch, authenticity and humanity still matter—and not just on paper.”
ThePrint: “In arguing your ideas, rather than reflecting on them, you’ll meet challenges to your thinking and formulate responses. And the agility you’ll develop can spur you into stronger ideas. Dialectic done right, [Dr. Mitchell] Green says, helps you hone your position. Rather than thinking in, you talk out—and get real-time feedback on how you construct your ideas. In that, you can learn not only what you think, but also how you think.”
Donald Boudreaux: “One of the finest yet most-underappreciated features of the free market is its ability to discover and correct errors. Errors are unavoidable. Resources are used wastefully here and suboptimally there. Some people in some capacities are poorly informed. Particular workers are underpaid while others are overpaid. Today this employer has ‘excessive’ bargaining power, as does that seller of widgets. But nearly all of these errors are profit opportunities. Alert and creative entrepreneurs earn profits if and when they successfully ‘correct’ market errors. Underpaid workers, for example, are like $100 bills lying on the sidewalk. Ditto for consumers buying overpriced outputs. Because market participants spend their own money, they confront powerful incentives not to err and, no less importantly, both to be on the alert for their errors and to correct their errors ASAP. The market punishes strongly the throwing of good money after bad. The market also, because it typically features simultaneous ‘experiments’ – that is, different firms simultaneously trying their hands at satisfying the same consumer demands or ‘solving’ the same ‘problems’ – readily exposes those particular activities that work best.”
