Amit's Blog

The Geopolitics of Silence: Inhibition, Interruption, and Trump's Disruptive Diplomacy Prelude: The Quiet Power in a Noisy World In the intricate dance of human interaction, from intimate conversations to the grand stages of global diplomacy, the interplay between interruption and restraint reveals profound truths about power, cognition, and influence. Chronic interrupters, driven by swift verbal processing and an urge to dominate the floor, often appear as forces of unyielding energy—predicting sentences, leaping in with corrections or additions, projecting confidence that can overwhelm quieter voices. Yet, this haste, rooted in accelerated lexical access and reduced inhibitory control, frequently masks shallower listening and missed nuances. Neurolinguists and psychologists have long noted that while such individuals excel in anticipatory prediction, they risk premature closure, truncating complex ideas and eroding mutual understanding. Contrast this with the masters of inh...

How Cartography Conceals the True North of Europe—and the Temperate Heart of Asia   The Cartographic Illusion That Shapes Global Perception For centuries, the dominant image of the world has been filtered through the Mercator projection —a 16th-century navigational tool repurposed as the de facto visual language of global geography. Designed to preserve compass bearings by stretching landmasses toward the poles, it succeeds as a sailing aid but fails catastrophically as a representation of true size, distance, and latitude . This distortion has embedded deep misconceptions in the public imagination, particularly the belief that the United States is significantly farther north than Europe , and that East Asia is uniformly “tropical” or “exotic.” In reality, the opposite is often true. This note undertakes a reorientation of the Northern Hemisphere’s major population centers— the contiguous U.S., Europe, China, and Japan —through the lens of latitude, climate, demography, and ...

Australia's Journey from Racial Exclusion to Multicultural Resilience: Transformation and Tension Australia's history reveals a profound evolution from entrenched racial discrimination, akin to apartheid, to a vibrant multicultural society shaped by immigration. Beginning with colonial-era policies like the White Australia Policy and Aboriginal Protection Acts, which enforced segregation and exclusion, the nation underwent pivotal changes through activism, international pressure, and legislative reforms, such as the 1967 Referendum and the 1975 Racial Discrimination Act. Sporting events, including West Indies and Indian cricket tours, and the 1956 Melbourne Olympics mirrored shifting racial attitudes, culminating in the dismantling of discriminatory immigration in the 1970s. This opened doors to Asian migrants, transforming demographics: from a predominantly Anglo-Celtic population of 19 million in 1999 to over 27 million today, with 31.5% overseas-born and Asian ancestries s...