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Dating in Delhi when you're poor

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Re: Dating in Delhi when you're poor

#151

Post by s5300 »

908B64B197 wrote: post #120
flemhans wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Mumbai, our friends were pretty well off and had a housekeeper who came 2 x 2 hours daily (preparing lunch and dinner, doing laundry, and cleaning around). The housekeeper, being paid pretty well, had her own housekeeper so she could have time for all these housekeeping gigs. The well-off friends had never tried their aircon because it "was not that hot" (35 degrees C) and rummaged around to find the remote. It wa…

> The housekeeper, being paid pretty well, had her own housekeeper so she could have time for all these housekeeping gigs. Sounds like her housekeeper should get better customers.

She may be fair skinned, her housekeeper may be dark skinned. In India, something as simple as that can determine how much you may make as a housekeeper. Sucks, right?

Re: Dating in Delhi when you're poor

#152

Post by sombremesa »

retrac wrote: post #147
sombremesa wrote: post #7

My first thought when reading this was hoping that these types of articles will reduce the comments I see on the internet that try and compare Delhi/Mumbai squalor to LA. Then I read the first comment on this HN thread, which is directly comparing this to Toronto. So either Westerners don't realize that people in these places are making less money in a month than the middle class person can expect to spend in an aver…

I am sorry if my comment was presumptuous or inappropriate. It was not intended to be. I prefaced it with a disclaimer trying to contextualize how I was trying to relate to the story. I am aware I live in a rich country, that food and medical care as such are not an issue by comparison, even as a very poor person. I saw that the woman in the article earns barely a third what I received from the government in social a…

I apologize for calling your comment out, it was not exactly the kind of comment I wanted to address. I should've provided a better example.

My comment was actually not about your comment specifically, but about making these comparisons without the appropriate cultural context taken into account. I'm not passing a moral judgement or saying it's inappropriate, I'm just expressing a desire to have these comparisons be more meaningful by explicitly acknowledging the context.

I have an issue with making a direct comparison as in "X phenomena is the same as Y phenomena", because it glosses over a LOT when you compare countries like India and America.

Re: Dating in Delhi when you're poor

#153

Post by captain_price7 »

sombremesa wrote: post #98
hilbertseries wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there’s a little more nuance to what happened in echo park. Echo Park lake has always had some homeless people living there, but it was nowhere close to 200 prepandemic. There was also some attempt to relocate everyone, it’s the city of LA so obviously no one really trusted them. But it’s weird to me see a public park that’s meant to be used by everyone taken over and then when it’s taken back. LA is destroyi…

> it’s weird to me see a public park that’s meant to be used by everyone taken over That's what a majority of urban poor in India live on - public/unclaimed land (i.e. informal housing). They're not counted as homeless as a result, unlike in LA. That's how LA can appear to have a comparatively larger homeless population, even if it's a lot smaller in reality. In India this type of housing is illegal and can be destro…

I'm hesitant to call the slum population "homeless". We have people in the parks, footpaths too, and that's very different from people living in many of these slums.

Here are a few facts: some of these slums are 100+ yrs old. A lot of them have "permanent" homes, something lot harder to uproot than tents. And lastly, if the government attempted to destroy them, it won't be just poor people, almost entire society will be outraged. Something similar happened here in Dhaka.

Re: Dating in Delhi when you're poor

#154

Post by cheriot »

wahern wrote: post #113
pm90 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s not about building more housing. It actually is. From: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2021/06/08/1003982733/squ... > By the 1980s, homelessness emerged as a chronic issue. There were many factors, including the federal government deciding to slash the budget for affordable housing. By then the California state government had significantly cut taxes and gutted social programs, including for state-funded men…

> Gov. Gavin Newsom's campaign promise to lead an effort to produce those 3.5 million units. He is leading an effort. Whether he's spending enough of his own political capital is another question. But one of the problems in California is that the state constitution guarantees municipalities "home rule". That means very little can be accomplished without local cooperation, including local zoning board cooperation. It'…

> California is a NIMBY paradise, legally speaking.

100%

However the state has and can overrule cities. First ADUs were legalized and next, if SB9 passes, duplexes. It's baby steps, but it's possible and probably the only way forward.

Re: Dating in Delhi when you're poor

#155

Post by winter_blue »

lota-putty wrote: post #126

India hosts 400% of humans of its healthy capacity; 150 people per sq km. What the world sees is the tip of the iceberg. Someone alien to India might have to spend decades to get all the idiosyncrasies that run here. For starters, good portion of sexual harassments/rapes are not reported. Even unnatural deaths go unnoticed or ignored.

> India hosts 400% of humans of its healthy capacity; 150 people per sq km.

Urban areas in almost every part of the world have higher density. For example, New York City has 10,716 people per sq km, and Manhattan (a borough of NYC) has a density of 26,821.6 person per sq km.

So I'm not sure what you're point here is.

Re: Dating in Delhi when you're poor

#156

Post by [deleted] »

sombremesa wrote: post #7

My first thought when reading this was hoping that these types of articles will reduce the comments I see on the internet that try and compare Delhi/Mumbai squalor to LA. Then I read the first comment on this HN thread, which is directly comparing this to Toronto. So either Westerners don't realize that people in these places are making less money in a month than the middle class person can expect to spend in an aver…

[deleted]

Re: Dating in Delhi when you're poor

#157

Post by zamzoid »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #143
wil421 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve done outreach and volunteer work before. Not sure how you interpreted my reply but it was not a negative question. These topics are of interest to me.

I took it as negative because you closed with this: They were offered housing while they get back on their feet and chose not to take it. It's full of implicit accusation that the homeless are difficult, uncooperative, causing their own problems and you can't help them because they are irrational pains in the butt. I interpreted it that way in part because many homeless services are so bad they help keep the problem…

I am wondering why you think a basic income check wouldn’t help anything, because it seems to exactly solve the issue you describe. You sign up for the check (or a lot of the times, get it automatically from the IRS), get it regularly, and buy food with it. Very little bureaucracy compared with food stamps. I agree that one must not call those who rely on the checks entitled and refuse them any further assistance. I think the best thing is to do what we can to help people get back on their feet or at least in a stable situation, and a basic income check would be only one (albeit major) element of that.

I concede that distributing the checks may be difficult to those without stable mailing addresses. Then it may help to for example allow distribution in cash at the local post office.

The pandemic stimulus checks appear to have had a tremendous impact in reducing poverty, see https://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-government-program-cu..., at least based on the studies there. I don’t know what the path is for this becoming regular policy, but the proposed child tax credit is projected to greatly decrease child poverty (although it has its own problems, it’s tough to get people to understand it exists and how to use it).

Re: Dating in Delhi when you're poor

#158

Post by captain_price7 »

bserge wrote: post #148
sombremesa wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up in Delhi (as may or may not be obvious from this thread), and once witnessed the aftermath of a home having been burgled. The policeman on the scene summoned the watchman of the gated community and physically assaulted him (drawing blood), accusing him of having been negligent. You can bet there was not a single consequence of this. The watchman was one of the underclass, and this is just what's expected. I…

I'm just wondering, if things are so bad, why are there no riots? Doesn't seem like there's much to lose tbh. In my home country, they stormed the parliament and burned parts of it because the wrong party gained power (by fraudulent votes). If they were killing low class people, there would be riots, bombings and murders all around.

Because things aren't so bad.

I live in Bangladesh, now, and I don't think we're much improvement over India (except the caste problem). I once witnessed the aftermath of a policeman beaten by public because he assaulted a shopkeeper. So while people doesn't have much legal recourse, they aren't exactly powerless either.

Similarly rich & powerful evade justice, but I wouldn't go as far as saying "there's rarely any justice for anyone". The state may fail to provide justice, but people find their ways, and that sort of keeps the worst impulses of the powerful in check.

Re: Dating in Delhi when you're poor

#160

Post by [deleted] »

hellbannedguy wrote: post #142
bakuninsbart wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experiences with homeless people in California are very limited to my trip there 10 years ago. I did have a really good conversation with someone giving me some tips about SF for a dollar, and I was robbed by someone else while walking home late at night. Neither of those guys seemed mentally ill, but if my own country is anything to go by, a lot of these people have serious mental issues to deal with, and sitting…

The ones who can't use a toilet are a handful, and will never get off the streets. Most homeless I have known whom are homeless just want a piece of land, with a outhouse, and maybe some fire pits so they can cook. They want a piece of land where cops don't ticket, or get harassed. Homelessness is just going to get worse. It's time to open up available federal, state, and local land, to free camping. I've given up on…

[deleted]
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