pkphilip
9 hours ago
The level of corruption in India is beyond belief - and the issue is not just with the politicians. The general populace itself is extremely corrupt.
It does not help that the dominant religion thinks of truth and morality as extremely subjective.
All of this leads to a very low trust society where each person is only for themselves and their families. So it is not at all surprising that the biggest cities where people live in extremely densely populated clusters turn out to be extremely unlivable places.
vmurthy
9 hours ago
You’ve gone from corruption (which I agree with) to something about dominant religion thinking of truth and morality as subjective ( which is debatable as you have cited nothing - infact seems like it’s your opinion and nothing else) to low trust ( which I agree with). What’s the logical link to cities being unlivable? The article says that mayors and councillors lack powers which is the major problem.
Yizahi
6 hours ago
The culture of selfishness, cheating and corruption IS a major factor in making a city unlivable. I've lived for a long time in a city somewhere in between on such scale, here are my observations:
Trash and graffiti are directly proportional to the levels of selfishness of the population. At the extreme point there are those horror videos of rivers covered in trash and trash mountains near residential buildings.
Grassroots organization of building inhabitants into an org which collect fees and is responsible for the building maintenance and cleaning is impossible below certain level of egoism of the citizens.
Disregard for the neighbors leads to the same disregard by the officials and thus abandonment of investing of the public transit. It then degrades or stays at trash tier and everyone tarts buying cars. Those cars are then parked everywhere, completely destroying all lawns near housing and near offices. Sidewalks are blocked by parked cars too.
In some cities egoistic citizens are burning trash for heating (it's cheap) and pollute air for millions living in the city.
Officials work expecting bribes and nothing is done without greasing someone's pocket.
And the list goes on and on. At a certain point just visiting a city populated by the more empathetic people, or at least governed by such, becomes a revelation. Especially if such city is poorer by the numbers, so makes do with less.
dilawar
8 hours ago
Not sure about the subjective part though I feel that the OP is right.
My experience growing up in India is that we are extremely tolerant of corruption and self aggrandisement. In fact, people speak of envy and admiration of folks working in govt who even takes bribes even to issue death and birth certificate.
The corruption of the profession of teachers and doctors is something I've witnessed myself. In just the last 20 years, no one in my village shows any respect for both of them. Things were very different when I was a kid.
Personally I do believe that ours is a very cynical, low trust and 'corrupt' society. Though southern India is much better than North (especially the Ganges planes).
square_usual
6 hours ago
> Though southern India is much better than North
I grew up in South India and spent a lot of my adulthood in the North, and I don't think the South is much better. It's different in many ways, which makes some people think it's better, but it's just as corrupt and messed up.
user
8 hours ago
user
8 hours ago
polotics
6 hours ago
It's funny I never noticed anything in Hinduism that would claim truth or morality are subjective. Can you list —I don't know— some Upanishad or the Baghavad Gita? I was always under the impression that the Indian mess was a side-effect of centuries of British rule traumatizing society.
user
8 hours ago
leosanchez
8 hours ago
> It does not help that the dominant religion thinks of truth and morality as extremely subjective.
Would like to learn more about this.
square_usual
8 hours ago
> It does not help that the dominant religion thinks of truth and morality as extremely subjective.
This is categorically false.
leosanchez
8 hours ago
I wish the down voters would explain why you are wrong.
sometimes_all
7 hours ago
I am assuming that the downvotes are less about the fact that your parent comment is wrong, and more about the fact that the grandparent is not "categorically" false. It has some accurate aspects, but cannot be easily dismissed away.
A lot of accommodation to context (NOT subjectivity) in ethical considerations in many of the Indian epics and religious texts, which a lot of western-oriented viewers who've grown up with more black-and-white mentalities regarding good and bad might view as corruption. Add to that a preference for oral retellings of such topics, and viewpoints start differing regarding the same topic even within the same country. However, deeper readings of the same might tell them that concepts of duty and truth are still paramount, which kind of negate the argument.
It's far easier, however, for critics to think that citizens tend to cherry-pick the arguments in such texts which somehow might justify bad actions, while ignoring the importance of personal duty, honor and search of truth. And thus, it's easier for said critics to blame things on the subjectivity of said religion instead of looking at the context, and call it a day. But there's more to the argument than that; you also need to consider the history of the land, major events, and economic and social patterns which have nothing to do with religion. You also need to consider that some individual states which have the religion as dominant are institutionally much stronger than other weaker states; also, the "extreme subjective morality" part is also prevalent in some other religions, and the countries they dominate are not necessarily corrupt.
square_usual
6 hours ago
> I am assuming that the downvotes are less about the fact that your parent comment is wrong, and more about the fact that the grandparent is not "categorically" false. It has some accurate aspects, but cannot be easily dismissed away.
First, the parent comment just stated that out as fact without any argument or evidence, so I don't feel the need to provide any of my own to dismiss it. As the old adage goes, claims made without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
Then, if it was just that I asserted that the GGP was wrong (which they are, 100%), then the sibling comment asking for more evidence wouldn't also be in the negatives, which it is at the time I write this.
The simpler idea is this: GGP (or someone like them) is just downvoting people calling out their orientalist woo about "[Hiduism] thinks of truth and morality as extremely subjective", which is simply false. The only "strains" of Hinduism that you could even remotely argue have relativistic worldviews are ancient philosophies that are not held by any practicing Hindu today, so even with whatever you're arguing their statement, as written, is categorically false. It's like saying Christianity is a mystical religion because the Gnostics existed.
I'm assuming the rest of your comment is written by AI because it sounds like AI, so I'm not going to bother responding to that.
sometimes_all
5 hours ago
> I'm assuming the rest of your comment is written by AI because it sounds like AI, so I'm not going to bother responding to that.
Should I also assume that you're going to just dismiss stuff you do not want to talk about as "written by AI"? Nothing I wrote was AI-generated. I have better stuff to spend AI tokens on than HN comments, of all things.
I also believe that the downvoting people have a bent towards the "orientalist woo", and getting them to put their bias into words and fact/evidenced-based discussion is expecting too much out of smaller minds, but it's not as unfounded as you think it is.
> ancient philosophies that are not held by any practicing Hindu today
You'd be surprised as to how much these ancient philosophies (or whatever translations/strains people ascribe to) still hold fort. I've seen people debating them in Indian management classes, and hold them as closer to fact instead of ancient opinions.
dartharva
8 hours ago
You'd think so, but things are a LOT worse in the country's rural/sparser spaces in every aspect. Urban citizens are at least mostly self-aware, and high population density in cities has some dampening effect to prevent most of the social bads from going beyond intolerable limits.
It all stems from the general phenomenon of Indians still being stuck in the subsistence mindset - including those who don't need to. This is because 1) unlike the US and Europe, (almost all of) India has never had a nontrivial period of continuous and consistent economic security, and 2) The country has a MASSIVE load of "liability" population of a size ridiculously disproportionate to the "asset" population, despite having the largest youth count in the world.
India is one of the very rare wonder countries that would have fared much better (nonviolently) balkanized.
JKCalhoun
8 hours ago
My Western eyes look worriedly upon India as it may well give us a glimpse of a horrible future awaiting all major cities.
I don't know what the answer is, but good luck, India. We're all hoping you can solve this.