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India is drowning in its own excreta

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Re: India is drowning in its own excreta

#101

Post by Spooky23 »

lordgilman wrote: post #23
ChrisNorstrom wrote: post #6

India isn't alone. Dubai is having a massive problem with sewage and in the US there are a lot of communities that have septic tanks which, when they fail, can cause ground water pollution. Even in St. Louis, Missouri, USA we still have overflows in which the sewer system excess gets purged into streams and rivers when it becomes too much to handle for the sewer system. A lot of US cities have this problem. And this…

As I understand it a large amount of sewer overflow in the US comes from old combined sewers. Replacing them is already in action but it's a slow and expensive process as many of the sewers built before the 60s/70s were combined. My point is that I don't think it's fair to group the US in with Dubai and India as the US faces sewer problems of a different sort entirely. Our overflow comes from rainwater overwhelming t…

You're 100% right. In the US, the problems are about handling the days where the top 5% of storm waterflow overwhelms the system.

Another thing to think about is that many sewer systems were built before big suburban buildouts, and typically the original urban areas are located near rivers or the ocean... so the suburban systems often connect to the older urban infrastructure.

Many of the changes in development patterns in the last 50-75 years have increased stormwater flows. Roads, shopping centers and other landscape features are either impermeable or are designed to divert water "away". And... there are fewer wetlands or other areas to absorb the water, so you're hammering these systems with massive amounts of water that were really rare 100 years ago.

"Fixing" things in the US is tough depending on the location. Many places are implementing strategies to reduce peak storm waterflow, like mandating swales or ponds for big sprawl-ly development projects and building big stormwater tanks/basins under roadways in more densely developed areas.

Re: India is drowning in its own excreta

#102

Post by jbattle »

ayushgta wrote: post #79
swombat wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most countries I care to live in don't have issues of open defecation and water sources contaminated with shit. Generally, people care about basic hygiene issues before they look at the other stuff. If a country's hygiene is so bad it has a 100x larger chance that it might kill you, the rest is irrelevant. Between that and the corruption, India is one country I'm not setting foot in for the foreseeable future. It's a…

> India is one country I'm not setting foot in for the foreseeable future. Yes its a shame. You don't have to live there. But 1 of every 6 fellow humans do. And not all of them openly defecate. Some are even pleasant enough to shake hands with. Many take a lot more antibiotics to ward off the germs but still die early. Lucky for you you don't have to die early :) but armed with antibiotics and Fiona's travel guides (…

Which in a round-about way - means that sanitation problems in India might turn into problems for the rest of humanity through the over/misuse of antibiotics leading to widespread resistance.

Re: India is drowning in its own excreta

#103

Post by k2enemy »

api wrote: post #100
aashaykumar92 wrote: post #4

Having been to India quite recently (and being Indian), I talked to a lot of family members there about this issue, among others, as I saw it happen time and again. One of the things that really frustrated me was the pure lack of accountability in general. I said 'among others' earlier because I am also referring to environment issues such as littering and pollution. The people there aren't dumb--they know all of the…

It's interesting that getting people to cooperate to improve the commons is so hard, given the obvious and stark benefits to everyone in doing so. The only solution that has ever actually worked is for government to step in, tax, regulate, and build infrastructure. I'm not aware of any case in all of history where anything else has been effective. I think this presents a real problem for libertarian theorists. The ba…

> The only solution that has ever actually worked is for government to step in, tax, regulate, and build infrastructure. I'm not aware of any case in all of history where anything else has been effective.

That is far from the truth. One of the recipients of the 2009 Nobel (memorial) in economics documents cooperative solutions to commons problems: http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/2...

Re: India is drowning in its own excreta

#104

Post by userulluipeste »

killerpopiller wrote: post #38
naanalla wrote: post #32

Indian here. Yes population is the biggest problem for us.Which naturally leads to many problems like this one. * I agree with author this is absolutely true for slums like Mumbai. (But does not apply to whole India. Second tier urban areas scenario is not this bad ) * I agree that in most of rural area practice open defecation. In general whey open defecation is in practiced, * Since we have too many people even one…

imho the overpopulation needs to be adressed the chinese way. I don't think that throwing tech at it will solve the problem. I remember vaguely, that one indian gov. wanted to sterilize slum inhabitants and wasn't reelected.

The population is not a problem, the population is a resource. Of course, to be (more) valuable (than it is now) it has to receive some attention/investment. The sterilization of people that possess the potential of growing and becoming beneficial to society is, for the society as a whole, a form of self-mutilation.

Re: India is drowning in its own excreta

#105

Post by api »

k2enemy wrote: post #103
api wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting that getting people to cooperate to improve the commons is so hard, given the obvious and stark benefits to everyone in doing so. The only solution that has ever actually worked is for government to step in, tax, regulate, and build infrastructure. I'm not aware of any case in all of history where anything else has been effective. I think this presents a real problem for libertarian theorists. The ba…

> The only solution that has ever actually worked is for government to step in, tax, regulate, and build infrastructure. I'm not aware of any case in all of history where anything else has been effective. That is far from the truth. One of the recipients of the 2009 Nobel (memorial) in economics documents cooperative solutions to commons problems: http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/2...

Are these theoretical or have they been done in the real world?

I have seen an endless procession of game-theoretic illustrations of nove problem solving techniques. In the real world the only technique I have seen work is "hey, you, stop shitting there or go to jail." The reason is that game-theoretic arenas are idealized computational worlds where all the rules and influences are known, while real environments are full of unknown perturbing factors not accounted for in the model.

Don't get me wrong. I would love to see such a real world example, since I dislike authoritarianism. But I'm just not encouraged by what I see. I do know that telling people "things would be better for all of you if..." never works. People would rather suffer than change their behavior, even if a change in behavior is low-effort and brings about an increase in wealth or standard of living. I actually sometimes think the problem is that people are insufficiently greedy-- inertia and laziness is more powerful than desire.

As evidence for my final cynical dictum I present: American eating habits. People would rather be miserable, fat, poisoned zombies than to stop eating empty carbs with a side of sugar and mystery meat. They choose the comfort of the known over a healthier, more alert, and longer existence.

Re: India is drowning in its own excreta

#106

Post by checker »

ChrisNorstrom wrote: post #6

India isn't alone. Dubai is having a massive problem with sewage and in the US there are a lot of communities that have septic tanks which, when they fail, can cause ground water pollution. Even in St. Louis, Missouri, USA we still have overflows in which the sewer system excess gets purged into streams and rivers when it becomes too much to handle for the sewer system. A lot of US cities have this problem. And this…

Our nation's capital still has the same problem, although it's in the process of being fixed:

http://wamu.org/news/13/04/10/dc_water_takes_aim_at_sewage_o...

Re: India is drowning in its own excreta

#107

Post by pessimizer »

bshastry wrote: post #17
rockyj wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are right, and the reason that people don't care enough is because they have so much on their plate. I live in India, and I have realized that apathy is prevalent here because it is the only way to survive for the educated middle class Indian. If you start thinking about the abject poverty, mind boggling corruption, lack of infrastructure, the safety of women, the general social practices, crime, population bomb…

> the reason that people don't care enough is because they have so much on their plate. This is the 'false cause' fallacy[1]. It is akin to saying, because I have too much work stacked up, instead of making progress, I'd rather cool my heels and not do anything at all, ever. [1] https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/false-cause

No, it's not. It is akin to saying thay I have too much work stacked up, so instead of making progress on issue X, I'd rather invest my limited resources on issues other than X. That is not a logical fallacy, that's basic decisionmaking.

Re: India is drowning in its own excreta

#108

Post by Alterlife »

api wrote: post #100
aashaykumar92 wrote: post #4

Having been to India quite recently (and being Indian), I talked to a lot of family members there about this issue, among others, as I saw it happen time and again. One of the things that really frustrated me was the pure lack of accountability in general. I said 'among others' earlier because I am also referring to environment issues such as littering and pollution. The people there aren't dumb--they know all of the…

It's interesting that getting people to cooperate to improve the commons is so hard, given the obvious and stark benefits to everyone in doing so. The only solution that has ever actually worked is for government to step in, tax, regulate, and build infrastructure. I'm not aware of any case in all of history where anything else has been effective. I think this presents a real problem for libertarian theorists. The ba…

> It's interesting that getting people to cooperate to improve the commons is so hard

As an Indian I attribute this to a combination of the bystander effect and broken windows theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory)...

By their powers combined, all of us (even those among the 'educated class') turn into captain litterbug.

Re: India is drowning in its own excreta

#110

Post by dudujdjd »

spikels wrote: post #73

Open defecation is also practiced in San Francisco. I have seen is occurring in front of my apartments and on the street. You can find human feces on almost any walk through SOMA, the Tenderloin or Civic Center area if you know what to look for (expert tip: dogs don't look for hiding places to poo). We have decided this is not a problem.

>>We have decided this is not a problem

I have never seen this on a street of NYC. Never, not even once. I'm sure it happens but it most be rare. I've lived here for 25 years. It must be really bad in San Francisco for this to be common. Kind of makes me want to no live there. All I can think about that city is that it is a CRAPPY city.

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