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India’s elites have a ferocious sense of entitlement

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Re: India’s elites have a ferocious sense of entitlement

#81

Post by neckbeard »

16s wrote: post #45
knodi wrote: post #25

I have seen this kind of behavior going on in India for so many years. There are countless cases of where rich people would push poor people on bikes off the road and into ditches with their cars. I'm convinced that this stems from the religious caste system which has now become the monetary class system in these new times. I always wondered why don't the poor just revolt, they're treated so badly, almost like slaves…

There are countless cases of where rich people would push poor people on bikes off the road and into ditches with their cars. That would be a serious crime in the USA. If you did that, and you got caught, you would be in very serious trouble. And, it would not matter how rich you were. That's assault, perhaps with intent to harm or kill and civilized society does not tolerate it.

Must be a different USA to this one:

http://www.vaildaily.com/article/20101104/NEWS/101109939/107...

Re: India’s elites have a ferocious sense of entitlement

#82

Post by javert »

not_that_noob wrote: post #71

Humans are apes. It happens right here in Silicon Valley too. Atherton has nice little yellow signs that say 'No Through Traffic'. Why? They don't want the poor people from Redwood City coming through. In fact, one Atherton gentleman went to a RWC City Council meeting complaining about it and asking RWC to put up signs on their side too. The folks at RWC apparently told him to go stuff himself, that those little yell…

Humans are not apes. Neither literally, nor figuratively. That's not only incorrect, but it's a vicious thing to say, and it has dangerous implications.

Re: India’s elites have a ferocious sense of entitlement

#83

Post by trhtrsh »

dalke wrote: post #41
LAMike wrote: post #3

I'm not from India but my parents are from Sri Lanka and when I went back there I was surprised to find what seemed to be middle class families having maids and butlers (they call them servants). Maybe some rich people in India must feel like they have the right to do it because they grow up having those people cater to their every need

You may not know this but you are touching a very sensitive issue. Which is better for the country: asking people to employ domestic workers, or have higher unemployment? Let's take South Africa, which I know better than any place in Asia. There's high unemployment. The government encourages people to hire domestic workers. Checking now the rates are about US$ 1/hour. These are maids/domestics, gardeners, childminder…

The solution of course is higher taxation or philanthropy. The gardener should be paid to build a public garden, not private garden.

You should be paying someone who is more efficient than you at those tasks, so you can write software to solve problems more efficiently than your customers do otherwise. That is wealth creation across a community.

You should not be paying someone (x N) to work at a much lower hourly wage than you simply because you have accumulated more wealth.

Now, some dose of income inequality is healthy, to motivate individuals to better themselves and be valuable (education, skill, physical execise), but extreme inequality is to be remedied by rebalancing the income, not just making someone work for you.

Re: India’s elites have a ferocious sense of entitlement

#85

Post by not_that_noob »

trhtrsh wrote: post #75
not_that_noob wrote: post #71

Humans are apes. It happens right here in Silicon Valley too. Atherton has nice little yellow signs that say 'No Through Traffic'. Why? They don't want the poor people from Redwood City coming through. In fact, one Atherton gentleman went to a RWC City Council meeting complaining about it and asking RWC to put up signs on their side too. The folks at RWC apparently told him to go stuff himself, that those little yell…

Or maybe they just don't want people using residential streets as highways? Do you know what "through traffic" means? If those poor people try to stop their cars in Atherton, they aren't "through traffic".

Those are public streets in Atherton, that they want to treat as if it was their private property. If it was all private they can do what they like. The roads belong to the public - including the folks from RWC.

Re: India’s elites have a ferocious sense of entitlement

#86

Post by aswanson »

In a recent incident, three poor Dalit boys inadvertently caused a small fire in a local community centre where they worked.

The fact that children are labelled as anything other than children, that Indian society calls them "Dalit" at birth, to me, summarizes why the region will remain retrogressive for a long, long time.

Re: India’s elites have a ferocious sense of entitlement

#87

Post by huhtenberg »

scscsc wrote: post #35

It's not the rich. It's the "nouveaux riches"... Happens all over the world. Little education + fast money does that.

Precisely.

This is exactly it. If one is born into money, the sense of entitlement is in-bred and it doesn't need to be asserted explicitly, leave alone aggressively.

Re: India’s elites have a ferocious sense of entitlement

#88

Post by not_that_noob »

javert wrote: post #82
not_that_noob wrote: post #71

Humans are apes. It happens right here in Silicon Valley too. Atherton has nice little yellow signs that say 'No Through Traffic'. Why? They don't want the poor people from Redwood City coming through. In fact, one Atherton gentleman went to a RWC City Council meeting complaining about it and asking RWC to put up signs on their side too. The folks at RWC apparently told him to go stuff himself, that those little yell…

Humans are not apes. Neither literally, nor figuratively. That's not only incorrect, but it's a vicious thing to say, and it has dangerous implications.

That was more figurative, and perhaps too much of a literary flourish. My point is that this behavior is endemic to our species, and not unlike that observed among chimps or other members of Hominoidea, as detailed in: http://evolvingthoughts.net/2012/03/are-humans-apes-monkeys-...

That is to say, the rich in all societies take and do what they like, modulated either by internal moral codes or external legal enforcement.

Re: India’s elites have a ferocious sense of entitlement

#89

Post by Xcelerate »

You know, it's really interesting how people can become oblivious to the concerns of others. It's not necessarily wealth that does it either. It can be a job promotion, parents that always bend to the will of their child, or a variety of other factors.

The most shocking thing is that I don't think these people realize they are doing it either. Now certainly there are some who realize it and just don't care (psychopaths or sociopaths), but I think it is more common that people lose the ability to think about the consequences of their actions.

Evaluation of my actions is something I try hard to do with myself. It is very, very difficult to objectively evaluate yourself and how you come across to others. Something you may not even think twice about can have a lasting, negative effect on someone else. You don't know what that person is going through; maybe they just got laid off or lost a relative -- who knows what really.

Re: India’s elites have a ferocious sense of entitlement

#90

Post by not_that_noob »

seivan wrote: post #8

This happen to be a very Chinese and Indian thing. You don't see this in say countries like Sweden or Germany.

Actually, in countries with strong legal systems where the risk of losing money is real, this sort of behavior is held somewhat in check. But when no one is looking, or the risk of being caught is low, it happens. One can make the argument that the entire mortgage crisis was one where the insiders (rich people on Wall Street) knew the edifice was crumbling, and went ahead and made bets against its survival, while selling instruments out the back door that were the opposite bets. These were promptly sold off to the hinterlands of the country. And of course the poor saps that bought overpriced houses paid the price. Those on Wall Street not only made obscene amounts of money on those bets, but never were prosecuted for it. It's good to be rich.
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