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The Seen and the Unseen - hosted by Amit Varma

The Seen and the Unseen - hosted by Amit Varma

Written by: Amit Varma
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 The Seen and the Unseen, hosted by Amit Varma, features longform conversations that aim to give deep insights into the subjects being discussed. Timeless and bingeworthy.All Rights Reserved Political Science Politics & Government Social Sciences
Episodes
  • Ep 434: An Ode to Meanderness

    Ep 434: An Ode to Meanderness
    Dec 29 2025
    Enough serious talk about economics and geopolitics. As the year draws to an end, it's time to sit and chill with friends -- and let the mind meander. Shruti Rajagopalan and Pranay Kotasthane join Amit Varma in episode 434 of The Seen and the Unseen to talk about friendship, horses, second acts -- and more! (FOR FULL LINKED SHOW NOTES, GO TO SEENUNSEEN.IN.) Also check out: 1. Shruti Rajagopalan on Twitter, Substack, Instagram, her podcast, Ideas of India and her own website. 2. Pranay Kotasthane on Twitter, LinkedIn, Amazon, Puliyabaazi and the Takshashila Institution. 3. Emergent Ventures India. 4. The Takshashila Institution. 5. Episodes of The Seen and the Unseen w Shruti Rajagopalan: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20. 6. Episodes of The Seen and the Unseen w Pranay Kotasthane: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16. 7. Shruti Rajagopalan Remembers the Angle of the Light -- Episode 410 of The Seen and the Unseen. 8. Pranay Kotasthane Talks Public Policy — Episode 233 of The Seen and the Unseen. 9. Dance Dance For the Halva Waala — Episode 294 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Jai Arjun Singh and Subrat Mohanty). 10. The Adda at the End of the Universe — Episode 309 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vikram Sathaye and Roshan Abbas). 11. We Are All Amits From Africa — Episode 343 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Krish Ashok and Naren Shenoy). 12. You’re Ugly and You’re Hairy and You’re Covered in Shit but You’re Mine and I Love You — Episode 362 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Krish Ashok and Naren Shenoy). 13. Long Distance II -- Tony Harrison. 14. Deepak VS and the Man Behind His Face — Episode 373 of The Seen and the Unseen. 15. The Poetic Feminism of Paromita Vohra — Episode 339 of The Seen and the Unseen. 16. The Heart of Disruption -- Episode 86 of Everything is Everything (on Amit's heart issues). 17. The Practice of Medicine — Episode 229 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Lancelot Pinto). 18. How I Reversed My Type 2 Diabetes -- Episode 9 of Everything is Everything. 19. The Art of Podcasting -- Episode 49 of Everything is Everything. 20. The Art of Reading -- Episode 120 of Everything is Everything. 21. Sudhir Sarnobat Works to Understand the World — Episode 350 of The Seen and the Unseen. 22. Inside the Hearts of Men and Women -- Episode 118 of Everything is Everything. 23. Understanding Human Sexuality -- Episode 126 of Everything is Everything. 24. Kavitha Rao Chases Chatto and Roy -- Episode 416 of The Seen and the Unseen. 25. Shephali Bhatt Is Searching for the Incredible — Episode 391 of The Seen and the Unseen. 26. The Life and Times of the Takshashila Institution -- Episode 433 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Nitin Pai and Pranay Kotasthane). 27. I Guess the Lord Must Be in New York City -- Harry Nilsson. 28. After Virtue -- Alasdair MacIntyre. 29. The Light in Winter -- Episode 97 of Everything is Everything. 30. The Black Paintings -- Francisco Goya. 31. From Strength to Strength -- Arthur Brooks. 32. Songs of Surrender -- U2. 33. Creep -- Radiohead. 34. Choo Lo -- The Local Train. 35. Second Act -- Henry Oliver. 36. BR Ambedkar's Grammar of Anarchy Speech in Hindi on Puliyabaazi. 37. Mohak Mangal, Veritasium, 3Blue1Brown, Jared Owen, Van Neistat and vlogbrothers. 38. We're here because were here -- The vlogbrothers video Amit mentions. 39. Mathematica -- David Bessis. 40. A Sixth Of Humanity — Devesh Kapur and Arvind Subramanian. 41. In Praise of Floods -- James C Scott. 42. Seeing Like a State -- James C Scott. 43. Against the Grain -- James C Scott. 44. A Passion for Cycling -- Episode 53 of Everything is Everything. 45. Everything that turned out well in my life followed the same design process -- Henrik Karlsson. 46. On agency -- Henrik Karlsson. 47. Notes on the Synthesis of Form -- Christopher Alexander. 48. Anaximander -- Carlo Rovelli. 49. Divya Prakash Dubey: Ek Jeevani -- Episode 399 of The Seen and the Unseen. 50. Ibnebatuti -- Divya Prakash Dubey. 51. Divya Prakash Dubey and Terry Pratchett on Amazon. 52. His Dark Materials -- Philip Pullman. 53. The Day Ryan Started Masturbating -- Amit Varma. 54. Amit's backscratcher. 55. Notebook LM. 56. Learn LM by Ashish Kulkarni. 57. Bojack Horseman on Netflix. 58. The Reflections of Samarth Bansal — Episode 299 of The Seen and the Unseen. This episode is sponsored by The Six Percent Club. Join them to go from content idea to launch in just 45 days! Amit Varma runs a course called Life Lessons, which aims to be a launchpad towards learning essential life skills all of you need. For more details, and to sign up, click here. And have you read Amit’s newsletter? Subscribe right away to The India Uncut Newsletter! It’s free! Also check out Amit’s online course, The Art of Clear Writing. ...
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    2 hrs and 55 mins
  • Ep 433: The Life and Times of the Takshashila Institution

    Ep 433: The Life and Times of the Takshashila Institution
    Dec 15 2025
    India's policy ecosystem was once a desolate landscape, stuck in bad ideas of the past. One institution shook it all up. Nitin Pai and Pranay Kotasthane join Amit Varma in episode 433 of The Seen and the Unseen to describe their journey building the Takshashila Institution. (FOR FULL LINKED SHOW NOTES, GO TO SEENUNSEEN.IN.) Also check out: 1. Nitin Pai on Twitter, LinkedIn, his own website and the Takshashila Institution. 2. Pranay Kotasthane on Twitter, LinkedIn, Amazon and the Takshashila Institution. 3. The Takshashila Institution. 4. Takshashila's courses and Open Takshashila. 5. The Liberal Nationalism of Nitin Pai — Episode 318 of The Seen and the Unseen. 6. Pranay Kotasthane Talks Public Policy — Episode 233 of The Seen and the Unseen. 7. Episodes of The Seen and the Unseen with Nitin Pai: 1, 2, 3. 8. Episodes of The Seen and the Unseen w Pranay Kotasthane: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15. 9. The archives of The Acorn, Nitin Pai's blog. 10. The Life and Times of Gurcharan Das -- Episode 425 of The Seen and the Unseen. 11. Assembling India's Constitution -- Rohit De and Ornit Shani. 12. The Overton Window. 13. Nitin Pai's 2011 FAQ on Anna Hazare and the Lok Pal bill. 14. Arthashastra and History of the Peloponnesian War. 15. Distance From Delhi -- Various Takshashila authors. 16. The Age of the Partial Outsider — Janan Ganesh. 17. The Prestige -- Christopher Priest. 18. Everything Evolves -- Mark Vellend. 19. Humankind -- Rutger Bregman. 20. A Sixth Of Humanity -- Devesh Kapur and Arvind Subramanian. This episode is sponsored by The Six Percent Club. Join them to go from content idea to launch in just 45 days! Amit Varma runs a course called Life Lessons, which aims to be a launchpad towards learning essential life skills all of you need. For more details, and to sign up, click here. And have you read Amit’s newsletter? Subscribe right away to The India Uncut Newsletter! It’s free! Also check out Amit’s online course, The Art of Clear Writing. Episode art: ‘Lighthouse’ by Simahina.
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    3 hrs and 49 mins
  • Ep 432: Vasant Dhar's Lifetime in Artificial Intelligence

    Ep 432: Vasant Dhar's Lifetime in Artificial Intelligence
    Dec 1 2025
    He's been working in AI since the late 1970s, and started a pioneering machine learning hedge fund in the 1990s. Now he's a professor, a podcaster, a Substacker, a yoda -- and has just written a cracking book on the subject. Vasant Dhar joins Amit Varma in episode 432 of The Seen and the Unseen to discuss the life and times of AI through the life and times of Vasant Dhar. (FOR FULL LINKED SHOW NOTES, GO TO SEENUNSEEN.IN.) Also check out: 1. Vasant Dhar on Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Scholar and NYU Stern. 2. Thinking With Machines: The Brave New World of AI -- Vasant Dhar. 3. Brave New World -- Vasant Dhar's podcast. 4. Vasant Dhar's Brave New World on Substack. 5. Brave New World — Episode 203 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vasant Dhar). 6. Brave New World -- Aldous Huxley. 7. Death of a Salesman -- Arthur Miller. 8. Aldous Huxley interviewed by Mike Wallace. 9. Anil Seth On The Science of Consciousness – Episode 94 of Brave New World. 10. How the Mind Works -- Steven Pinker. 11. Anthony Zador on How our Brains Work — Episode 35 of Brave New World. 12. The Naked Sun -- Isaac Asimov. 13. Human and Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare — Episode 4 of Brave New World (w Eric Topol). 14. Daniel Kahneman on How Noise Hampers Judgement — Episode 21 of Brave New World. 15. The Nature of Intelligence — Episode 7 of Brave New World (w Yann LeCun). 16. Philip Tetlock on the Art of Forecasting — Episode 31 of Brave New World. 17. Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction — Philip Tetlock and Dan Gardner. 18. "When you control the mail..." -- Clip from Seinfeld. 19. The Future of Liberal Education — Episode 11 of Brave New World (w Michael S Roth). 20. The Surface Area of Serendipity -- Episode 39 of Everything is Everything. 21. When Should We Trust Machines? -- Vasant Dhar's TEDx talk from 2018. 22. From Strength to Strength -- Arthur Brooks. 23. The Innovator's Dilemma -- Clayton Christensen. 24. Raghu Sundaram on Building a Great University -- Episode 88 of Brave New World. 25. Power and Prediction -- Ajay Agrawal, Joshua Gans and Avi Goldfarb. 26. The Paperclip Maximiser. 27. The Wealth of Nations -- Adam Smith. 28. The Theory of Moral Sentiments -- Adam Smith. 29. Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister — Jonathan Lynn and Antony Jay. 30. Aswath Damodaran on Investing — Episode 33 of Brave New World. 31. The Damodaran Bot. 32. Dmitry Rinberg on the Mysteries of Smell — Episode 62 of Brave New World. 33. Alex Wiltschko on the Sense of Smell — Episode 81 of Brave New World. 34. Sandeep Robert Datta on Smell and the Brain -- Episode 90 of Brave New World. 35. Alex Wiltschko on Digitizing Scent -- Episode 97 of Brave New World. 36. A Billion Wicked Thoughts -- Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam. 37. Being You: A New Science of Consciousness -- Anil Seth. 38. Noise -- Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony and Cass Sunstein. 39. Thinking, Fast and Slow -- Daniel Kahneman. This episode is sponsored by CTQ Compounds. Check out The Daily Reader and FutureStack. Use the code UNSEEN for Rs 2500 off. Amit Varma runs a course called Life Lessons, which aims to be a launchpad towards learning essential life skills all of you need. For more details, and to sign up, click here. Amit and Ajay Shah also bring out a weekly YouTube show, Everything is Everything. Have you watched it yet? You must! And have you read Amit’s newsletter? Subscribe right away to The India Uncut Newsletter! It’s free! Also check out Amit’s online course, The Art of Clear Writing. Episode art: ‘The Mage’ by Simahina.
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    3 hrs and 28 mins
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Philips was transparent and honest on the different medicines currently prevailing and why medicine is called as medicine.

The liver doctor

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