My actual name is Abhimanyu (after the Mahabharat Character) but I anglicized it to Abhi after too many people couldn't pronounce it. It's pronounced uh-bhi-MUN-yoo (uh-bhi) for short.
I was born in Richmond, VA, to two first generation immigrants from India. I moved to Mumbai, India, when I was 5, to live closer to family. I later moved to Dubai, UAE, when I was 8, and my family has been based there since.
I was born July 21st, and my Big Three are Cancer (Sun), Aquarius (Moon), and Capricorn (Rising).
Areas of Interest
I have a couple areas of interest,, kinda like questions I'm thinking of at any given time. These broadly influence a lot of my areas of research.
Provision of Public Goods: I've long believed that certain basic necessities — particularly education and healthcare — be universally accessible. Yet our current systems face significant structural and political challenges that undermine this goal? What policy design can we use to make these programs legitimate and free of fraud, such that we're not losing money every year? I'm particularly interested in exploring models that have succeeded internationally and understanding what makes public provision politically sustainable. Key readings that inform my thinking include T.R. Reid's The Healing of America on comparative healthcare systems, and Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson's Why Nations Fail on the institutional foundations of prosperity.
Democratic Backsliding and Institutional Trust: The erosion of public confidence in institutions represents one of the defining characteristics of the modern political landscape, and is the cause I perceive for large scale populism growth around the world. I'm drawn to works that explore the disconnect between elite institutions and ordinary citizens, particularly those from working class backgrounds. How can institutions become more inclusive and representative in a way that they're not wholly rejected? What reforms might help bridge the cultural and class divides that fuel distrust? Books that have shaped my perspective include Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt's How Democracies Die, Amy Chua's Political Tribes on identity and political polarization, and Arlie Hochschild's Strangers in Their Own Land. I hope the institutions I hold in such high regard will address this problem head on.
Economic Development: Growing up visiting my family in India, I've experienced firsthand the cognitive dissonance of extreme poverty persisting alongside rapid growth and wealth. While economic development is complex, emerging evidence from randomized controlled trials and direct cash transfer programs (like those implemented by GiveDirectly) suggests direct aid may be more effective than traditionally assumed. I'm drawn to the rigorous, evidence-based approach of the Effective Altruism movement for thinking systematically about how to do the most good. Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo's Poor Economics, which won them the Nobel Prize, provides groundbreaking insights into the economic lives of the poor, while William MacAskill's Doing Good Better offers a framework for effective altruism in practice.
Philosophical Takes
I'm a pretty amateur philosopher, but I'm committed to learning more, and this encompasses what I've learnt from reading as well as from hearing people say cool things in Debate Rounds.
Morals: I believe in moral intuitionism, conditioned on two claims: (i) moral facts are first principles, and (ii) they are known through intuition rather than constructed by theory or convention. Ethical systems don’t generate morality; they organize and refine intuitions we already have, keeping those that survive reflection and discarding those that don’t
Epistemology: I hold a broadly realist and permissive epistemology: knowledge does not require explicit justification, and testimony counts as a basic source of belief. Reliability and truth matter more than internal access, and beliefs formed through stable, truth-tracking processes can count as knowledge even when justification is incomplete.
Metaphysics: I lean realist about what exists: numbers are real entities rather than useful fictions, and personal identity is grounded primarily in psychological continuity, especially memory. Persistence over time matters more than strict bodily sameness, though I remain open to indeterminacy at the margins.
Mind: I reject reductive physicalism about consciousness. Mental states—especially phenomenal experiences like pain—are not exhausted by physical description or computation, even if they depend on physical substrates. Consciousness is something over and above purely functional or neural facts.
Language: I take meaning to be grounded primarily in speaker intent rather than communal use alone. Words mean what agents aim to convey with them, and reference is fixed by intentional acts, even if social conventions play a stabilizing role downstream.
Mathematics & Probability: I am a mathematical realist: mathematical truths exist independently of human minds, and proofs are discoveries rather than inventions. In probability, I adopt a Bayesian framework—uncertainty reflects degrees of belief constrained by coherence and evidence, not long-run frequencies alone.