Europe submits voluntarily

[whichphilosophy]

(This is the sentiment you expressed in your other posts, so I'll reply to it here. Please tell me if you think I'm overlooking something.)

Sorry, but you are completely in the wrong here. Sweden is one of the most globalized countries in the world. It alss performs very well in various international rankings. Not the absolute best, but among the better you'll find on the planet. Certainly much better than the Middle East.

Yes, Sweden has problems. Declining schools, rising gang violence, the absurd housing situation in Stockholm, high youth unemployment. The solutions to our problems are not to be found in the Middle East.

You seem to have not noticed the global migration patterns. It's Middle Easterners who want to move to the West, not the other way around.

That Sweden should be more like the Middle East, no thank you. But you are free to go the Middle East if you want to. See how open they are to foreign influence...

Your ideas on violence and culture are also wrong. Honor killings and forced marriages are a part of some cultures, not others. In some countries honor killings are not considered murder as far as the law is concerned.

Yes, I'm aware Sweden is great at patting ourselves on the back and claim we're awesome when we're not. It's self aggrandising and stupid when all the evidence proves we suck at it. Good work for playing the Swedish tune.

Forced marriages were standard in Sweden just a hundred years ago. We did similar things tout honor killings as well, to keep women obedient. It's a common feature of agrarian cultures. It always goes away when cultures become industrialised. It's not incorrect to define "culture" the way you are. But I think it is too wide to be interesting in this context.

Bottom line forced marriages and honour killings is not a unique feature for the middle-East. You got to separate their rituals and schemas of communication from the stuff people do due to purely economical or technological factors. Those will always be the same regardless of culture, given the same factors.

It's common for a rich region to attribute their behaviour to their culture. As well as the reason they're rich. When in reality it's way more complicated. That's what fascists and racists have done for ever. History has always proved them wrong. To put it mildly it's retarded. Sweden isn't rich thanks to its culture.

The Swedish moved on from its old barbarism and through understanding the concepts of human rights, the value of employees and of fair play it built a tolerant and prosperous society. This is very much to do with its mind set which influences its culture. India is industrialised but human rights have hardly evolved. Some Arab countries have advanced technologically like Saudi Arabia which also hosts several oil businesses. A person can be technologically advance and still be a barbarian.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Yes, I'm aware Sweden is great at patting ourselves on the back and claim we're awesome when we're not. It's self aggrandising and stupid when all the evidence proves we suck at it. Good work for playing the Swedish tune.

Forced marriages were standard in Sweden just a hundred years ago. We did similar things tout honor killings as well, to keep women obedient. It's a common feature of agrarian cultures. It always goes away when cultures become industrialised. It's not incorrect to define "culture" the way you are. But I think it is too wide to be interesting in this context.

Bottom line forced marriages and honour killings is not a unique feature for the middle-East. You got to separate their rituals and schemas of communication from the stuff people do due to purely economical or technological factors. Those will always be the same regardless of culture, given the same factors.

It's common for a rich region to attribute their behaviour to their culture. As well as the reason they're rich. When in reality it's way more complicated. That's what fascists and racists have done for ever. History has always proved them wrong. To put it mildly it's retarded. Sweden isn't rich thanks to its culture.

The Swedish moved on from its old barbarism and through understanding the concepts of human rights, the value of employees and of fair play it built a tolerant and prosperous society. This is very much to do with its mind set which influences its culture. India is industrialised but human rights have hardly evolved. Some Arab countries have advanced technologically like Saudi Arabia which also hosts several oil businesses. A person can be technologically advance and still be a barbarian.

Sweden moved on from its old barbarism when they began having to invest in human capital (ie industrialisation). Any old loser in the factory wasn't good enough. A good worker could outperform a bad worker by magnitudes. This is industrialisation. That always kicks off human rights.... eventually. It leads to fair play and leads to a tolerant and prosperous society. This is standard in any country that industrialises, assuming it also is democratic. The same happens in totalitarian regimes as well. Just much much slower, and since we haven't had industrialisation more than a hundred years ago in totalitarian country, we don't know yet the trajectory of those. And the Internet is likely compressing the speed of the cultural shift in ways we only now can start seeing. But we can draw certain conclusions from Iran, Chile, Argentina, Kina, USSR and so on. In all these countries ideas of human rights spread as well. Maybe we shouldn't overstate the importance of industrialisation in such cultures. But I think it's a factor.

Sweden have about 70 years of industrialisation before we got a cultural shift away from arranged marriages. Sweden actually went from being one of Europe's most backward countries (ca 1880) to most advanced (in 1950). This can be compared with the tiger economies in Asia that did similar extraordinarily rapid shifts-

India is a bit of a special case since industrialisation was well on it's way before the British came, and then the development went backward. And then when the British left industrialisation was badly mismanaged by a lefitst government. So we can't compare the time-lines of Sweden and India as neatly as we can between, let's say Sweden and Iran, or Sweden and USA, or Sweden and Syria. But India let the market forces sort itself out about in the 80'ies after which we see exactly the same kind of trajectory toward all the values we take for granted in modern industrialised countries. I'd say India maybe is where Sweden was 1930 or maybe 1940 as far as human rights are. Among the urban middle-class arranged marriages are dying, if not dead already. Of all the Indians I've worked with... and it's in the hundreds, none had arranged marriages. Or at least what they said. They all reported that it was dead in their area, (Mumbai, Bangalore and Puna).

So basically... I think you're wrong. I see no reason to believe that India won't develop to share all the same basic values as any modern industrialised country.

Saudi Arabia is also a special case. Any totalitarian regime with oil act to ossify the agrarian culture. The Saudi king basically pays everybody a bribe to keep doing the same useless shit they did when they were tribal. I mean... they're still tribal. The Saudi king is only using his money to keep his people backward. There's no industrialisation to speak of. Their countries oil industry is built and run by foreigners. The mechanic by which industrialisation leads to social progress is the shift in the power base away from the capitalist to the worker. If that shift in the power base doesn't occur, there will be no or slow progress. Sooner or later the Saudis will realise how they're being fucked in the ass by the Sauds. Women just got the vote in Saudi Arabia. That's a hint at the direction it's going.

NPR's Planet Money just recently released a podcast where they talked about Bangladesh, a country right in the beginning of industrialisation. The program isn't about this shift in cultural norms. It's about economy and the economy of Bangladesh. But it does in a very practical sense demonstrate what happens to an agrarian culture and agrarian values when it's women start migrating to the cities and start making their own money. This is the best example I can show. And Sweden was once like this. USA was once like this. Britain was once like this. The history is full of these tales. And we had the cultural norms to accompany it.

http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/08/12/431961808/episode-497-the-sisters-who-made-our-t-shirt

edit: Evolution is a good analogy. If you look at all the animals in the world as they are now it's easy to assume they've always been that way. But on a wider time-scale we see that there are hardly any stable forms. There's a rapid and colossal change in every direction. Human cultures are the same. They all change extremely quickly and adapt very fast.

 

[Tammuz]

(This is the sentiment you expressed in your other posts, so I'll reply to it here. Please tell me if you think I'm overlooking something.)

Sorry, but you are completely in the wrong here. Sweden is one of the most globalized countries in the world. It alss performs very well in various international rankings. Not the absolute best, but among the better you'll find on the planet. Certainly much better than the Middle East.

Yes, Sweden has problems. Declining schools, rising gang violence, the absurd housing situation in Stockholm, high youth unemployment. The solutions to our problems are not to be found in the Middle East.

You seem to have not noticed the global migration patterns. It's Middle Easterners who want to move to the West, not the other way around.

That Sweden should be more like the Middle East, no thank you. But you are free to go the Middle East if you want to. See how open they are to foreign influence...

Your ideas on violence and culture are also wrong. Honor killings and forced marriages are a part of some cultures, not others. In some countries honor killings are not considered murder as far as the law is concerned.

Yes, I'm aware Sweden is great at patting ourselves on the back and claim we're awesome when we're not. It's self aggrandising and stupid when all the evidence proves we suck at it. Good work for playing the Swedish tune.

Forced marriages were standard in Sweden just a hundred years ago. We did similar things tout honor killings as well, to keep women obedient. It's a common feature of agrarian cultures. It always goes away when cultures become industrialised. It's not incorrect to define "culture" the way you are. But I think it is too wide to be interesting in this context.

Bottom line forced marriages and honour killings is not a unique feature for the middle-East. You got to separate their rituals and schemas of communication from the stuff people do due to purely economical or technological factors. Those will always be the same regardless of culture, given the same factors.

It's common for a rich region to attribute their behaviour to their culture. As well as the reason they're rich. When in reality it's way more complicated. That's what fascists and racists have done for ever. History has always proved them wrong. To put it mildly it's retarded. Sweden isn't rich thanks to its culture.

Excuse me? You say Sweden sucks, I provide data to the contrary, and you just wave it away as "pretention". If you are not going to argue with actual facts and data as the basis, then there is no point in talking to you.

If Sweden sucks so badly, then why do people want to come here?

And the cultural values of a country are indeed very important to its performance. Why do you think southern Europe is such a mess? Why is Germany the strongest economy in the EU and not France or Spain?

 

[TSwizzle]

Dear oh dear. What a pickle the English courts have got themselves into.

Asian muslim victims of child sex crimes suffer more than white infidel children and their attackers should accordingly be punished more severely, the court of appeal has ruled.
Ruling on a convicted paedophile’s appeal for a lesser sentence, Mr Justice Walker said it was right Jamal Muhammed Raheem Ul Nasir had been given a longer spell in prison because his victims were Asian muslim.

Guardian

Celebrating diversity.

 

[whichphilosophy]

The Swedish moved on from its old barbarism and through understanding the concepts of human rights, the value of employees and of fair play it built a tolerant and prosperous society. This is very much to do with its mind set which influences its culture. India is industrialised but human rights have hardly evolved. Some Arab countries have advanced technologically like Saudi Arabia which also hosts several oil businesses. A person can be technologically advance and still be a barbarian.

Sweden moved on from its old barbarism when they began having to invest in human capital (ie industrialisation). Any old loser in the factory wasn't good enough. A good worker could outperform a bad worker by magnitudes. This is industrialisation. That always kicks off human rights.... eventually. It leads to fair play and leads to a tolerant and prosperous society. This is standard in any country that industrialises, assuming it also is democratic. The same happens in totalitarian regimes as well. Just much much slower, and since we haven't had industrialisation more than a hundred years ago in totalitarian country, we don't know yet the trajectory of those. And the Internet is likely compressing the speed of the cultural shift in ways we only now can start seeing. But we can draw certain conclusions from Iran, Chile, Argentina, Kina, USSR and so on. In all these countries ideas of human rights spread as well. Maybe we shouldn't overstate the importance of industrialisation in such cultures. But I think it's a factor.

Sweden have about 70 years of industrialisation before we got a cultural shift away from arranged marriages. Sweden actually went from being one of Europe's most backward countries (ca 1880) to most advanced (in 1950). This can be compared with the tiger economies in Asia that did similar extraordinarily rapid shifts-

India is a bit of a special case since industrialisation was well on it's way before the British came, and then the development went backward. And then when the British left industrialisation was badly mismanaged by a lefitst government. So we can't compare the time-lines of Sweden and India as neatly as we can between, let's say Sweden and Iran, or Sweden and USA, or Sweden and Syria. But India let the market forces sort itself out about in the 80'ies after which we see exactly the same kind of trajectory toward all the values we take for granted in modern industrialised countries. I'd say India maybe is where Sweden was 1930 or maybe 1940 as far as human rights are. Among the urban middle-class arranged marriages are dying, if not dead already. Of all the Indians I've worked with... and it's in the hundreds, none had arranged marriages. Or at least what they said. They all reported that it was dead in their area, (Mumbai, Bangalore and Puna).

So basically... I think you're wrong. I see no reason to believe that India won't develop to share all the same basic values as any modern industrialised country.

Saudi Arabia is also a special case. Any totalitarian regime with oil act to ossify the agrarian culture. The Saudi king basically pays everybody a bribe to keep doing the same useless shit they did when they were tribal. I mean... they're still tribal. The Saudi king is only using his money to keep his people backward. There's no industrialisation to speak of. Their countries oil industry is built and run by foreigners. The mechanic by which industrialisation leads to social progress is the shift in the power base away from the capitalist to the worker. If that shift in the power base doesn't occur, there will be no or slow progress. Sooner or later the Saudis will realise how they're being fucked in the ass by the Sauds. Women just got the vote in Saudi Arabia. That's a hint at the direction it's going.

NPR's Planet Money just recently released a podcast where they talked about Bangladesh, a country right in the beginning of industrialisation. The program isn't about this shift in cultural norms. It's about economy and the economy of Bangladesh. But it does in a very practical sense demonstrate what happens to an agrarian culture and agrarian values when it's women start migrating to the cities and start making their own money. This is the best example I can show. And Sweden was once like this. USA was once like this. Britain was once like this. The history is full of these tales. And we had the cultural norms to accompany it.

http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/08/12/431961808/episode-497-the-sisters-who-made-our-t-shirt

edit: Evolution is a good analogy. If you look at all the animals in the world as they are now it's easy to assume they've always been that way. But on a wider time-scale we see that there are hardly any stable forms. There's a rapid and colossal change in every direction. Human cultures are the same. They all change extremely quickly and adapt very fast.

Are you saying that In Sweden during the 1930s most people were living on nothing, life was cheap, workers treated like dirt with no regular contracts, they worked in sweatshops and sewage flowed everywhere due to bad maintenance and buildings falling down: Were there areas in Sweden with water and electricity cuts as long as 20 hours on some days. India is a big economy but in reality money does not flow freely through the economy of the workers because they only are able to buy enough for basic essentials. From my visits to India it is not really moving at all.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Excuse me? You say Sweden sucks, I provide data to the contrary, and you just wave it away as "pretention". If you are not going to argue with actual facts and data as the basis, then there is no point in talking to you.

If Sweden sucks so badly, then why do people want to come here?

And the cultural values of a country are indeed very important to its performance. Why do you think southern Europe is such a mess? Why is Germany the strongest economy in the EU and not France or Spain?

I didn't say Sweden sucks. Sweden is great. But it's culture sucks. Sweden is more than it's culture. I'm here for a reason. I love Sweden.

 

[Tammuz]

In what way does its culture suck? The culture is the foundation that builds and maintains the society.

Name a country with a culture you like. Yemen? Saudi Arabia?

 

[DrZoidberg]

Sweden moved on from its old barbarism when they began having to invest in human capital (ie industrialisation). Any old loser in the factory wasn't good enough. A good worker could outperform a bad worker by magnitudes. This is industrialisation. That always kicks off human rights.... eventually. It leads to fair play and leads to a tolerant and prosperous society. This is standard in any country that industrialises, assuming it also is democratic. The same happens in totalitarian regimes as well. Just much much slower, and since we haven't had industrialisation more than a hundred years ago in totalitarian country, we don't know yet the trajectory of those. And the Internet is likely compressing the speed of the cultural shift in ways we only now can start seeing. But we can draw certain conclusions from Iran, Chile, Argentina, Kina, USSR and so on. In all these countries ideas of human rights spread as well. Maybe we shouldn't overstate the importance of industrialisation in such cultures. But I think it's a factor.

Sweden have about 70 years of industrialisation before we got a cultural shift away from arranged marriages. Sweden actually went from being one of Europe's most backward countries (ca 1880) to most advanced (in 1950). This can be compared with the tiger economies in Asia that did similar extraordinarily rapid shifts-

India is a bit of a special case since industrialisation was well on it's way before the British came, and then the development went backward. And then when the British left industrialisation was badly mismanaged by a lefitst government. So we can't compare the time-lines of Sweden and India as neatly as we can between, let's say Sweden and Iran, or Sweden and USA, or Sweden and Syria. But India let the market forces sort itself out about in the 80'ies after which we see exactly the same kind of trajectory toward all the values we take for granted in modern industrialised countries. I'd say India maybe is where Sweden was 1930 or maybe 1940 as far as human rights are. Among the urban middle-class arranged marriages are dying, if not dead already. Of all the Indians I've worked with... and it's in the hundreds, none had arranged marriages. Or at least what they said. They all reported that it was dead in their area, (Mumbai, Bangalore and Puna).

So basically... I think you're wrong. I see no reason to believe that India won't develop to share all the same basic values as any modern industrialised country.

Saudi Arabia is also a special case. Any totalitarian regime with oil act to ossify the agrarian culture. The Saudi king basically pays everybody a bribe to keep doing the same useless shit they did when they were tribal. I mean... they're still tribal. The Saudi king is only using his money to keep his people backward. There's no industrialisation to speak of. Their countries oil industry is built and run by foreigners. The mechanic by which industrialisation leads to social progress is the shift in the power base away from the capitalist to the worker. If that shift in the power base doesn't occur, there will be no or slow progress. Sooner or later the Saudis will realise how they're being fucked in the ass by the Sauds. Women just got the vote in Saudi Arabia. That's a hint at the direction it's going.

NPR's Planet Money just recently released a podcast where they talked about Bangladesh, a country right in the beginning of industrialisation. The program isn't about this shift in cultural norms. It's about economy and the economy of Bangladesh. But it does in a very practical sense demonstrate what happens to an agrarian culture and agrarian values when it's women start migrating to the cities and start making their own money. This is the best example I can show. And Sweden was once like this. USA was once like this. Britain was once like this. The history is full of these tales. And we had the cultural norms to accompany it.

http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/08/12/431961808/episode-497-the-sisters-who-made-our-t-shirt

edit: Evolution is a good analogy. If you look at all the animals in the world as they are now it's easy to assume they've always been that way. But on a wider time-scale we see that there are hardly any stable forms. There's a rapid and colossal change in every direction. Human cultures are the same. They all change extremely quickly and adapt very fast.

Are you saying that In Sweden during the 1930s most people were living on nothing, life was cheap, workers treated like dirt with no regular contracts, they worked in sweatshops and sewage flowed everywhere due to bad maintenance and buildings falling down: Were there areas in Sweden with water and electricity cuts as long as 20 hours on some days.

Exactly. There's an area of Stockholm with the nickname "Siberia". When it was first built up around 1890 - 1910 the houses were built without plumbing or electricity, even though that was available at the time. Working class housing was speedily built and often collapsed. Regulation was non-existent. The only regulation that existed was the lowest tolerable ration of vodka an employer had to give their staff during the work day.

India is a big economy but in reality money does not flow freely through the economy of the workers because they only are able to buy enough for basic essentials. From my visits to India it is not really moving at all.

That may have been true in the 80'ies. But not any longer. India is expanding rapidly. The Indian IT consultants I meet in Sweden. Their main complaint about working here is the lower standard of living in Sweden for IT consultants. There's a lot happening over there. India's expansion of it's economy is dramatic.

Just check this out. Indias growth of GDP has outperformed Sweden since 1995. Consistently and every year. That's not nothing.

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG

Also... check out the numbers for Africa. We have this image in the west of Africans having to walk miles to get water. A lot of Africa is on par with the poorer countries in Europe.

 

[arkirk]

The "study" was about as "scientific" as phrenology ...come on do you not know what a politically motivated statement looks like when you see one. "Most liberals are mostly words and no hard work." That is a ridiculous statement and about as far from science as you can get. I can understand YOU being drawn to such statements and even believing them...but they are pure opinion.

Well, article did not say that, I said that and I am sorry if I offended anyone but it is consistent with their findings which frankly is not surprising at all.
Oh, just yesterday I read a study which found that socially liberal but fiscally conservative are smarter than the rest.

A fiscal conservative IS ALSO A SOCIAL CONSERVATIVE. It all has to do with how fervently you pursue permanentizing and locking in place economic disparities. You don't seem to have any ability to share anything excepting your conservative positions. I reiterate what I have already said...These "studies" are expressions of selfish opinion and little else.

 

[dystopian]

A fiscal conservative IS ALSO A SOCIAL CONSERVATIVE.

What.

That simply isn´t true. You´re falling for a classic equivalency fallacy in thinking that because there´s often a degree of overlap between conservative and fiscal conservative policies, that they are therefore the same thing. The fact is that this overlap is not universal, and there is no requirement for a fiscal conservative to adhere to social conservative policies or vice versa. Indeed, once you look beyond narrow Anglo-American politics, you´ll find there´s quite a few examples of parties and politicians that are fiscally conservative while holding socially liberal positions.

It all has to do with how fervently you pursue permanentizing and locking in place economic disparities.

This has nothing to do with fiscal conservatism. Fiscal conservatism at its purest is about reducing deficits and running balanced budgets. While it is true that many fiscal conservative parties pursue policies that do not help income inequality (and sometimes worsen it), these policies are not an inherent feature of fiscal conservatism. They are simply the means by which some politicians/parties hope to achieve fiscal conservative goals. But one could just as easily attempt to balance the budget and reduce deficits by reducing spending on areas/programs traditionally seen as conservative/right wing hobby horses, while maintaining or increasing pro-equality spending. That too, would be fiscal conservatism, and is certainly not as rare as you seem to think.

 

[whichphilosophy]

Are you saying that In Sweden during the 1930s most people were living on nothing, life was cheap, workers treated like dirt with no regular contracts, they worked in sweatshops and sewage flowed everywhere due to bad maintenance and buildings falling down: Were there areas in Sweden with water and electricity cuts as long as 20 hours on some days.

Exactly. There's an area of Stockholm with the nickname "Siberia". When it was first built up around 1890 - 1910 the houses were built without plumbing or electricity, even though that was available at the time. Working class housing was speedily built and often collapsed. Regulation was non-existent. The only regulation that existed was the lowest tolerable ration of vodka an employer had to give their staff during the work day.

India is a big economy but in reality money does not flow freely through the economy of the workers because they only are able to buy enough for basic essentials. From my visits to India it is not really moving at all.

That may have been true in the 80'ies. But not any longer. India is expanding rapidly. The Indian IT consultants I meet in Sweden. Their main complaint about working here is the lower standard of living in Sweden for IT consultants. There's a lot happening over there. India's expansion of it's economy is dramatic.

Just check this out. Indias growth of GDP has outperformed Sweden since 1995. Consistently and every year. That's not nothing.

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG

Also... check out the numbers for Africa. We have this image in the west of Africans having to walk miles to get water. A lot of Africa is on par with the poorer countries in Europe.

.I've worked and travelled in India and China. China is rapidly developing its infrastructure. India is hardly moving with disgusting slums and broken sewage pipes hence the term Smelly Delhi. I’m talking about Connaught place in New Delhi which is a commercial centre. Round the back streets garbage piled up, wild dogs roamed about and the roads were so filthy that you didn't know they were roads. Its METRO system is however a complete contrast. In China due to increases in wages which I observed over a ten year period, the money was spent in the economy and as a result created new jobs in tourist resorts, modern shops and restaurants and a boom in housing. Not so in India. Indian billionaires have money to invest in Europe but the poor do not. There is one massive series of housing projects in Noida which is close to DELHI where there are huge housing projects. Indians will tell you the country is now a developed country but it is simply not true.
Need to see a doctor in China. There are numerous modern facilities springing up. When I worked in Huangdao a visit to the doctor was just 10 RMB for a slight cold. For this one gets a full medical such as X ray, a blood test in 7 bottles and he results come back in an hour.
My family base is in Manila close to the some slum towns. After my first months in India, that slum in Manila was like Beverly Hills compared to New Delhi.


China meanwhile has transformed whole areas of Beijing into a modern city.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Exactly. There's an area of Stockholm with the nickname "Siberia". When it was first built up around 1890 - 1910 the houses were built without plumbing or electricity, even though that was available at the time. Working class housing was speedily built and often collapsed. Regulation was non-existent. The only regulation that existed was the lowest tolerable ration of vodka an employer had to give their staff during the work day.

India is a big economy but in reality money does not flow freely through the economy of the workers because they only are able to buy enough for basic essentials. From my visits to India it is not really moving at all.

That may have been true in the 80'ies. But not any longer. India is expanding rapidly. The Indian IT consultants I meet in Sweden. Their main complaint about working here is the lower standard of living in Sweden for IT consultants. There's a lot happening over there. India's expansion of it's economy is dramatic.

Just check this out. Indias growth of GDP has outperformed Sweden since 1995. Consistently and every year. That's not nothing.

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG

Also... check out the numbers for Africa. We have this image in the west of Africans having to walk miles to get water. A lot of Africa is on par with the poorer countries in Europe.

.I've worked and travelled in India and China. China is rapidly developing its infrastructure. India is hardly moving with disgusting slums and broken sewage pipes hence the term Smelly Delhi. I’m talking about Connaught place in New Delhi which is a commercial centre. Round the back streets garbage piled up, wild dogs roamed about and the roads were so filthy that you didn't know they were roads. Its METRO system is however a complete contrast. In China due to increases in wages which I observed over a ten year period, the money was spent in the economy and as a result created new jobs in tourist resorts, modern shops and restaurants and a boom in housing. Not so in India. Indian billionaires have money to invest in Europe but the poor do not. There is one massive series of housing projects in Noida which is close to DELHI where there are huge housing projects. Indians will tell you the country is now a developed country but it is simply not true.
Need to see a doctor in China. There are numerous modern facilities springing up. When I worked in Huangdao a visit to the doctor was just 10 RMB for a slight cold. For this one gets a full medical such as X ray, a blood test in 7 bottles and he results come back in an hour.
My family base is in Manila close to the some slum towns. After my first months in India, that slum in Manila was like Beverly Hills compared to New Delhi.


China meanwhile has transformed whole areas of Beijing into a modern city.

Vast and sprawling urban slums is a sign of the beginning and middle of industrialisation. Toward the end of it urban slums are dismantled and cleaned away. We get stuff like welfare and so on. It was the urban slums of Europe and USA that killed the extreme economic liberalism/libertarianism of the 19'th century. Sweden used to be just like India today.

China is actually going through the same phase now. But in China they have communism. They also have similar urban slums, but they're well hidden and with better maintained hygiene. Relatively speaking being at the bottom of the ladder is better in China than India. All thanks to the glorious leader. Travel for the poor is also heavily subsidised in China, which means that it's easier to hide the urban slums of industrialisation. They can be further away. The cops in China also physically carry away anything that doesn't make Beijing pretty. This is not something to Chinas credit IMHO.

Like it or not, the sprawling urban slums of India is a sign of progress. Initially industrialisation is not pretty. But it does make life better for everybody. Agrarian life is no picnic.

 

[whichphilosophy]

Exactly. There's an area of Stockholm with the nickname "Siberia". When it was first built up around 1890 - 1910 the houses were built without plumbing or electricity, even though that was available at the time. Working class housing was speedily built and often collapsed. Regulation was non-existent. The only regulation that existed was the lowest tolerable ration of vodka an employer had to give their staff during the work day.

India is a big economy but in reality money does not flow freely through the economy of the workers because they only are able to buy enough for basic essentials. From my visits to India it is not really moving at all.

That may have been true in the 80'ies. But not any longer. India is expanding rapidly. The Indian IT consultants I meet in Sweden. Their main complaint about working here is the lower standard of living in Sweden for IT consultants. There's a lot happening over there. India's expansion of it's economy is dramatic.

Just check this out. Indias growth of GDP has outperformed Sweden since 1995. Consistently and every year. That's not nothing.

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG

Also... check out the numbers for Africa. We have this image in the west of Africans having to walk miles to get water. A lot of Africa is on par with the poorer countries in Europe.

.I've worked and travelled in India and China. China is rapidly developing its infrastructure. India is hardly moving with disgusting slums and broken sewage pipes hence the term Smelly Delhi. I’m talking about Connaught place in New Delhi which is a commercial centre. Round the back streets garbage piled up, wild dogs roamed about and the roads were so filthy that you didn't know they were roads. Its METRO system is however a complete contrast. In China due to increases in wages which I observed over a ten year period, the money was spent in the economy and as a result created new jobs in tourist resorts, modern shops and restaurants and a boom in housing. Not so in India. Indian billionaires have money to invest in Europe but the poor do not. There is one massive series of housing projects in Noida which is close to DELHI where there are huge housing projects. Indians will tell you the country is now a developed country but it is simply not true.
Need to see a doctor in China. There are numerous modern facilities springing up. When I worked in Huangdao a visit to the doctor was just 10 RMB for a slight cold. For this one gets a full medical such as X ray, a blood test in 7 bottles and he results come back in an hour.
My family base is in Manila close to the some slum towns. After my first months in India, that slum in Manila was like Beverly Hills compared to New Delhi.


China meanwhile has transformed whole areas of Beijing into a modern city.

Vast and sprawling urban slums is a sign of the beginning and middle of industrialisation. Toward the end of it urban slums are dismantled and cleaned away. We get stuff like welfare and so on. It was the urban slums of Europe and USA that killed the extreme economic liberalism/libertarianism of the 19'th century. Sweden used to be just like India today.

China is actually going through the same phase now. But in China they have communism. They also have similar urban slums, but they're well hidden and with better maintained hygiene. Relatively speaking being at the bottom of the ladder is better in China than India. All thanks to the glorious leader. Travel for the poor is also heavily subsidised in China, which means that it's easier to hide the urban slums of industrialisation. They can be further away. The cops in China also physically carry away anything that doesn't make Beijing pretty. This is not something to Chinas credit IMHO.

Like it or not, the sprawling urban slums of India is a sign of progress. Initially industrialisation is not pretty. But it does make life better for everybody. Agrarian life is no picnic.

The Chinese are communists but not dumb. You often see on TV the leader's phrase, Communism with Chinese characteristics. To me the equation is

Communism + Chinese Characteristics = Capitalism

At the head office of my former Chinese employer the pay was low compared to Europeans but the staff received
Cheap rental or for those from outside Beijing free accommodation
Lunch Free
Breakfast Free for those who came early
Dinner Free for those who worked late
For staff in company accommodation (from other provinces) all food and transport was paid for.
Actually some of the old Hutongs are now bed and breakfast places for tourists
Every community has an elected party official who ensures a litter free clean environment.

For Chinese living in Beijing I was surprised at the quality of government housing. The general corridors looked uninviting but the apartments were modern and as good as any in Europe.
Each complex has gardens, and a recreation park for Children. There are also outdoor exercise machines for the elderly.

In India I commented on one slum area. There were no pavements or roads. At the time it was raining and I saw people getting their shoes or feet covered in Mud. When I suggested India should build some apartment blocks for lower income people and knock down such slums, I was told these were government built houses.

 

[barbos]

Well, article did not say that, I said that and I am sorry if I offended anyone but it is consistent with their findings which frankly is not surprising at all.
Oh, just yesterday I read a study which found that socially liberal but fiscally conservative are smarter than the rest.

A fiscal conservative IS ALSO A SOCIAL CONSERVATIVE. It all has to do with how fervently you pursue permanentizing and locking in place economic disparities. You don't seem to have any ability to share anything excepting your conservative positions. I reiterate what I have already said...These "studies" are expressions of selfish opinion and little else.

You make no sense. I think gays can marry, I also think they should have weddings they can afford.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

China is actually going through the same phase now. But in China they have communism. They also have similar urban slums, but they're well hidden and with better maintained hygiene. Relatively speaking being at the bottom of the ladder is better in China than India. All thanks to the glorious leader. Travel for the poor is also heavily subsidised in China, which means that it's easier to hide the urban slums of industrialisation. They can be further away. The cops in China also physically carry away anything that doesn't make Beijing pretty. This is not something to Chinas credit IMHO.

Yeah, it's a lot easier to get around China than most third world places and the prices are cheap.

In Shanghai, bus fare is generally 33 cents, a connecting bus is 16 cents if you use the wireless payment cards. (This is implemented as a discount when you take another bus within a certain time period so it only works if the system knows you took both buses.) I believe the longest subway runs get to something over a dollar, all the within-the-city subway trips we have taken are 50 cents.

 

[Trausti]

LOL. Looks like Europe finally realized that gullibility is not a virtue.

European nations once friendly to refugees abruptly yanked their welcome mats Thursday, as Germany considered slashing its benefits and Croatia announced it was closing most of its road links with Serbia “until further notice.”

The German measures would overhaul asylum codes to stem the massive flow of migrants into Europe, scaling back the generous policies that have made Germany a beacon for desperate war refugees and economic migrants pouring out of the Middle East, Africa and beyond.

In a 128-page draft law produced by the German Interior Ministry and obtained by The Washington Post, the government would speed asylum procedures, cut cash benefits, hasten deportations and punish those with false claims and phony paperwork.

The tough new measures, the draft bill states, are needed to cope with the huge influx of refugees into Germany, where 800,000 asylum applications were expected this year in a country with a population of 81 million.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/croatia-is-the-new-frontline-in-europes-refugee-crisis/2015/09/17/3723efc0-5c93-11e5-8475-781cc9851652_story.html

 

[TSwizzle]

LOL. Looks like Europe finally realized that gullibility is not a virtue.

It will all end in tears.

 

[Warpoet]

Now hopefully we Americans learn something from this and elect Donald Trump, that way we can send all those god damned spics back across the border before they take over America and destroy our culture.

This fucking thread is a massive skidmark and has degenerated into nothing more than base bigotry and xenophobia under the guise of defending "Western values." The fact that that appears to be the prevailing sentiment here says quite a lot.

 

[DBT]

The World is a complex.

Simple solutions, however emotionally satisfying, sometimes may cause more problems than they solve.

That's all I've got to say on the subject.

 

[whichphilosophy]

China is actually going through the same phase now. But in China they have communism. They also have similar urban slums, but they're well hidden and with better maintained hygiene. Relatively speaking being at the bottom of the ladder is better in China than India. All thanks to the glorious leader. Travel for the poor is also heavily subsidised in China, which means that it's easier to hide the urban slums of industrialisation. They can be further away. The cops in China also physically carry away anything that doesn't make Beijing pretty. This is not something to Chinas credit IMHO.

Yeah, it's a lot easier to get around China than most third world places and the prices are cheap.

In Shanghai, bus fare is generally 33 cents, a connecting bus is 16 cents if you use the wireless payment cards. (This is implemented as a discount when you take another bus within a certain time period so it only works if the system knows you took both buses.) I believe the longest subway runs get to something over a dollar, all the within-the-city subway trips we have taken are 50 cents.

Taxis are also very cheap compared to Europe. I haven't been to China since 2009 but the fares were 2.00 or 2.50 RMB per km Travelling 6km to the office was only US$4.00.00