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Silicon Valley thought India was its future, now things have changed

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101–110 of 181 posts

Re: Silicon Valley thought India was its future, now things have changed

#101

I had to laugh at this one. I'm neither a fan of social media nor the current Indian government, but this article is either ridiculously out-of-touch, or is aimed towards an ivory-tower audience nicely cosseted within universities far away from the country they're writing about. There might've been an idealistic Silicon Valley in the 1990s-2000s, but if it ever existed, it's gone now, replaced by high-growth corporat…

> replaced by high-growth corporations whose goal is the same as all high-growth corporations, ie money and growth at the expense of everything else.

Why do people say this? It's not insightful, I guess it's like some kind of ingroup signaling?

It's also, you know, not true. The growing companies like Amazon and Uber don't make money, and the money making companies don't do things "at the expense of everything else", or else they wouldn't be in their current markets. They would be selling heroin.

The CEOs don't want it to be true:

https://www.businessroundtable.org/business-roundtable-redef...

and neither do the corporate owners, since the same retirement funds own all the companies that are competing with each other, and so they don't really try that hard:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/04/the-autopi...

Sometimes owners even want the company to stop existing:

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-05-27/exxon-...

Re: Silicon Valley thought India was its future, now things have changed

#102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're overestimating Trump. India under Modi is in the process of trying to build an authoritarian Hindu nation-state with a completely alternative model compared to the secular, western-inspired mode it has run on up until now. Trump, despite tricking a few LARPers into thinking he had some kind of great agenda was just a TV show host. He was about as likely to rebuild the US in some kind of new image as a televang…

India has always been run on a far more authoritarian model than the U.S. Yes, it's a true democracy but freedom and democracy are not the same thing, and the legacy of the former colonizers is very much there still. Modi is just pushing the overall authoritarian stance of Indian institutions in a different direction that anyways provides him with a lot of shallow, surface popularity.

I’d say it is less by Modi directly and more by the nazi inspired organization called the RSS that’s shaping up India lately. The only difference is that they won’t be repeating the hubris/mistakes of a Fuhrer style set up with a single point of failure.

Re: Silicon Valley thought India was its future, now things have changed

#103
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suddenly realized it was propaganda too when I go up to this gem of journalistic objectivity: "His “Digital India” campaign (whose website, incidentally, has pretty horrid design) [...]"

He isn't exactly incorrect, judge for yourself :) https://www.digitalindia.gov.in/

unusable on mobile..

Re: Silicon Valley thought India was its future, now things have changed

#104
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given the timelines involved, I'd say it's more likely that not that Modi is following in the footsteps of Xi Jinping. In fact most of Asia is in the hands of some kind of ethno-nationalist leader, from Duterte in the Phillipines to Suga in Japan, Xi in China or Jae-In in S. Korea. Modi is not really exceptional when viewed on the scale of other asian leaders. But Asia has always had a much more ethno-nationalist ben…

[flagged]

I am from one of the countries mentioned, and I am not sure I have any idea of what you're talking about.

Re: Silicon Valley thought India was its future, now things have changed

#105
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I gave you actual examples of improvements I’ve seen with my own two eyes. People can’t drink gdp. I don’t doubt there could be an IT cell. What I was reacting to was the idea that it is a major reason for Modi’s success. Like “Russian collusion” this is just cope by people who can’t accept that it is they who are the unpopular ones. People don’t understand that propaganda like hypnotism only works on people who are…

Well people can drink their own blood. I actually knew people who were massacred in gulbarga society. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulbarg_Society_massacre Your screed reads like an apologia for Hitler. I actually know Muslim friends in ahmedabad that cannot buy or rent a house in normal housing societies and have been ghettoized into Muslim enclaves with non existent municipal services. I am glad that I live in t…

I suggest learning more about what the word dharmic actually means. It seems clear to me that you are using some non-standard interpretation of its meaning.

Re: Silicon Valley thought India was its future, now things have changed

#106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't being "dharmic" a reference to performing your caste duties irrespective of whether you will be rewarded in this life. The reward comes next time in the form of a caste upgrade. They are verses that specify that one must perform ones caste duties ("dharma") no matter what even if you are better at other things. Why on earth would United states turn dharmic?

That seems to be colonial/Christian interpretation of dharma. You should perhaps watch some videos of what actual Hindu gurus say.

I'm also very troubled by the misuse of the term dharmic in this thread.

Westerners misusing Indian terms to suit their own desires should be pushed back on. It sometimes seems like a deliberate strategy to confuse and therefore hide the philosophy conveyed by those terms even though much of that philosophy is universal and nonsecular.

Also, in reading threads on this forum over the years, it is quite clear that many fall into the classic trap of confusing ethnicity with religion. Leaders that call for extremist measures are usually promoting the interests of some subset of their community - not promoting the ideals called for by their religion - but many of their followers don't understand religion well enough to realize that. This is just as applicable to the west as it is to other places.

Re: Silicon Valley thought India was its future, now things have changed

#107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was in response to the OP about western values. Are you not sick and tired of a colonial propaganda of attributing everything to the west. I pity people who actually believe Renaissance or Industrial revolution was something that happened overnight. Even as the "liberal" elite and evangelists try to force their agenda on the rest of the world, their own homesteads are turning more dharmic.

Isn't being "dharmic" a reference to performing your caste duties irrespective of whether you will be rewarded in this life. The reward comes next time in the form of a caste upgrade. They are verses that specify that one must perform ones caste duties ("dharma") no matter what even if you are better at other things. Why on earth would United states turn dharmic?

[deleted]

Re: Silicon Valley thought India was its future, now things have changed

#108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Yeah, western countries are known for having about 50% of their population relegated to an untouchable status without any chance of social mobility or partaking in the benefits and rituals of the other 50% - and not only in this life, it's for eternity.

> and not only in this life, it's for eternity.

Kind of hard to make that argument and simultaneously argue that the soul transfers to a new body at death and is confined to Earth (or worse) until the soul reaches a stage of enlightenment sufficient to move to heaven. Its arguable whether caste applies even in this life - and definitely does not between lifetimes as even the highest type of body on this planet (human) is not assured.

Re: Silicon Valley thought India was its future, now things have changed

#109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, western countries are known for having about 50% of their population relegated to an untouchable status without any chance of social mobility or partaking in the benefits and rituals of the other 50% - and not only in this life, it's for eternity.

Untouchable status is flat-out illegal in India, and the Indian government has gone to huge lengths to help former pariahs/untouchables (now properly called Dalit) improve their education and social status. To the point where the formerly privileged non-Dalit are now complaining that they don't get anywhere like the same attention from government and are at risk of being left by the wayside. These complaints might be…

> Untouchable status is flat-out illegal in India,

How many municipal workers cleaning streets and toilets are from higher castes ?

Re: Silicon Valley thought India was its future, now things have changed

#110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I am from one of the countries mentioned, and I am not sure I have any idea of what you're talking about.

It's a sad attempt to rescue the reputation of a modern nationalist movement the poster sympathises with by imbuing it with the moral righteousness of the independence movements of the 20th century.
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