writing

notes on recovering from a viral infection

the core mechanism • you can practice behaviours, not just skills • identity is downstream of practice • what you end up practicing will often depend on your environment

gain-of-function research on tax cuts

short • people have multidimensional preference sets • we love the ability to make choices

notes on my hometown

similarities between law and code • structural issues in the drafting process • finding abstractions and constructing ontologies • plain language drafting • examples of great drafting

prose poetry • eu propaganda

the lower limit on dispute resolution time • ai judges • slowness as legitimacy • dworkin’s dream

Whole Earth Discipline rekindled my reading habit • RAND in Santa Monica • digital competition as license raj • competitive exams and unproductive investment • the Ezra Klein rabbit hole

in defense of paying people to do things • incentives solve principal-agent problems • motivated agents exist but are unevenly distributed and hard to identify

medical regulation in India • enforcement without infrastructure • regulatory capacity

the development of modern states • statecraft has a technology tree • parliamentary democracy • separation of powers • rule of law

State governments are reluctant to wade in; the area is complex and requires attention from medical and legal experts

poorly maintained registers • opaque regulators • inconsistent standards • rethinking regulation as a tool for improving health coverage

Don’t do too many things at once. Do a few things, do them well, do them quickly. Finish things, one after the other, and move on.

literature’s resistance to levelling • the privilege of being a reader

escaping formalism for substance • why legal training teaches you to avoid the real world • learning to form opinions under uncertainty • choosing outcomes over process • strong beliefs, loosely held

literary earworms • finding identity • developing taste • rainbow kitten surprise • self-loathing

fear and writing • professional compromises • the erosion of caring • honest feedback • fighting mediocrity

Wisconsin’s partial veto • data federalism • Pew on religion in India • Caravan profiles • OMB Circular A-4

judicial in-group bias in Indian courts • VaccinateCA and state capacity • Scott Alexander poetry • Sasha Chapin on self-loathing

Article 25 and the reform clause • protecting religious freedom while reforming practices • state control of Hindu temples • cognitive dissonance in Indian secularism • dynamic equilibrium between competing visions

five levers of power • bully pulpit for signaling • master of the roster • collegium leadership • process innovation • judicial decision-making • structural tradeoffs between popularity and effectiveness • balancing judicial independence with executive cooperation

do the right things by thinking hard about priorities • actually execute through focus and work sessions • treat your brain like a trainable dog • block distractions ruthlessly • use panic for necessary but stupid tasks • exercise and health matter too

refusing reflexive judgment • charitable examination of motivations • understanding structural incentives • why people do what they do • evil is rarer than cynicism suggests

economists and lawyers • the limits of interpretation • what is Law™

The drafters have missed an opportunity to modernise the regulatory structure for drugs by maintaining a status quo

legal realism • rule of law in India • the English roots of constitutional traditions

book hauls • New Labour memoirs • HPMOR regrets • Raj Chetty on social mobility • lepidopterists and the ministry of health • relearning math

book review • the causes of low government spending • weak state capacity

quitting smoking