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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

#111

Post by markdown »

manishsharan wrote: post #100

I highly doubt the veracity of the article about the SUV driving young man and the vegetable seller; this story confirms your worst stereotypes about India and gets eyeballs but it is bullshit. I would like to point out that poor people in India are a very well represented : Communist part and Marxist parties are doing very well in India. Every political party courts the votes of poor people. If you pull shit like th…

> Btw , Salman Khan (the actor) is facing jail time.

For a crime he committed over a decade ago, right? You think that's justice?

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

#112

Post by raganwald »

Am I the only one who sees this exact same behaviour here in North America, and indeed, here on Hacker News? A sense of entitlement? A feeling that things like anti-discrimination laws are an inconvenience to be brushed off, taxes are a way of stealing the hard-earned wealth on entrepreneurs, and so on?

I see nothing particularly Indian about this story. It seems like part fo the human condition. That being said, we have abolished slavery. Women have the vote and are struggling to control their bodies. Although the rich control the media, the poor still have a vote.

We humans can change.

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

#113

Post by acjohnson55 »

tusharc wrote: post #16

There is an implied causality in this article. Being rich -> Lose empathy. I'd be curious to know if there indeed is causality in either direction (Less empathetic people get richer) or is it just correlation masquerading as causality.

I can see it working in both directions, and I'm sure it does.

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

#114

Post by thrownaway2424 »

16s wrote: post #59
nbouscal wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it would not matter how rich you were. Which USA do you live in?

Every part of America I have ever been in would not tolerate that. It's illegal.

Whatever one does in America, in a car, is not a crime, even if a dozen people die. http://www.streetsblog.org/2013/04/08/immune-from-prosecutio...

As a bicyclist, I can tell you as a matter of personal experience that Americans do in fact run bicyclists off the road frequently. I have never heard of such things being prosecuted, even when the cyclists were seriously injured, or when their bike is ruined.

Now, why does this happen? It's because the American in his expensive 4-wheel drive Porsche SUV abomination has a certain mindset that he's entitled to something, because he paid a lot of money for his car. When someone is walking or cycling down the road at less than 60 MPH, that person's sense of entitlement becomes enflamed, and they sometimes reach the point of violence. Don't take my word for it. It is a proven fact that people in more expensive cars break the law much more frequently than those in less expensive cars.

So you see, sense of entitlement is not just for India. In America, cars are for real people, and anyone on a bicycle must be in the lower caste.

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

#115

Post by bruceb »

pekk wrote: post #96
rm999 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In India being upper middle class can provide you with a lifestyle (and I think therefore mentality) that resembles upperclass in the West because of cheap labor and weak labor laws. I know doctors in India who have live-in servants, chefs, drivers, etc.

Agreed: if you have a maid, you cannot really say you are middle class any more

Yes you can.

Many unmarried techies live in the same apartment and share a room and still have a maid/servant. These guys earn $500-$1000usd a month. They have a TV but it isn't a flat screen. They have a decent mobile phone but it is not an iphone 5. They might have a decent motorcycle but not a car..

They split the cost of the servant who comes from another part of India. The servant might cost $150 a month, split 4 ways. The techies are not above middle class at all. The guy they employee is just really poor.

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

#116

Post by walshemj »

hkmurakami wrote: post #50
ashray wrote: post #6

Ooh, no comments, I'll bite. The last time I said something negative about Indian society I had my personal details thrown all over HN. Wonder what's going to happen this time. So here's the thing. This article is pretty spot on. We, the privileged of India, do indeed feel entitled. There's absolutely no doubt about that. My theory is that the population pressure in India is so very high that you're always fighting f…

>These people struggle (or think that they do..) for so long in the rat race that they forget that they have risen above it and gone far beyond that. If these are people who have "made" the money themselves in their own generation, I can see why/how they still view themselves as middle class. It's a mindset. I have had the fortune of getting to know many SV millionaires who grew up in modesty/poverty, and still buy s…

Actually the upper class in the UK are known for shabby chic ie wearing the same 2nd hand Barbour coat that smells of Labrador for 20+ years.

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

#117

Post by coopdog »

hkmurakami wrote: post #50
ashray wrote: post #6

Ooh, no comments, I'll bite. The last time I said something negative about Indian society I had my personal details thrown all over HN. Wonder what's going to happen this time. So here's the thing. This article is pretty spot on. We, the privileged of India, do indeed feel entitled. There's absolutely no doubt about that. My theory is that the population pressure in India is so very high that you're always fighting f…

>These people struggle (or think that they do..) for so long in the rat race that they forget that they have risen above it and gone far beyond that. If these are people who have "made" the money themselves in their own generation, I can see why/how they still view themselves as middle class. It's a mindset. I have had the fortune of getting to know many SV millionaires who grew up in modesty/poverty, and still buy s…

I don't think it's just about money though. There's this entitled class who just fundamentally believe they are superior, the example from the article being the guy who threw over the fruit stall because the crowd wouldn't move.

It's actually a problem in Australia where we all sort of treat each other as equals, for example our hospitality classes won't scrape and bow and call you sir, and everyone is ok with that. Racism has started to emerge because the only Indians who can get to Australia are the rich ones. All it takes is a few bad interactions and people start to write off the entire race, when I'm sure that 99%+ of Indians are actually pretty damn nice people.

I just wonder if those new generations will be less cheap but more entitled than ever.

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

#118

Post by prawn »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #103
davidroberts wrote: post #74

This does not just apply in India. A long time ago, I had a job soliciting donations door to door in the US. We did all we could to avoid the rich neighborhoods and actively sought out the poor minority neighborhoods. People in those neighborhoods with only two dollars would give one to help others. In the rich neighborhoods, they would call the police the moment they saw you. If I ever had to have a heart attack in…

In the UK a lot of door to door collecting for charities is done by private companies who take a significant chunk of the donation for themselves. Perhaps richer people are more likely to know this and be sceptical of door to door collections. They may also value their time more and not like being "hassled". This does not necessarily mean that they do not provide charity donations. They may just do it in a smarter wa…

Or they have already selected charities or provide professional support, and don't want countless more charities hitting them up.

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

#119

Post by walshemj »

javert wrote: post #80
hkmurakami wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many SV millionaires still consider themselves to be "upper middle class" (rather than say, lower upper class), and while it may be a bit inaccurate in an absolute monetary sense, the sentiment may actually be somewhat justifiable considering their relatively lack of influence/status/connections that really drive the country (the "old money", for instance). In that sense, even the SV millionaires are outsiders to the…

I don't think "old money" really "drives the country" in the US. Although that is probably also a bit of an overstatement in Europe as well, this issue is really one of the major historical distinctions between the US and Europe.

oh I don't know America likes to think it doent have a class system but look at the Bushes old money also Bill Gates fits into this class where as say Larry Ellison doesn't

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

#120

Post by cynicalkane »

cafard wrote: post #109
ashray wrote: post #6

Ooh, no comments, I'll bite. The last time I said something negative about Indian society I had my personal details thrown all over HN. Wonder what's going to happen this time. So here's the thing. This article is pretty spot on. We, the privileged of India, do indeed feel entitled. There's absolutely no doubt about that. My theory is that the population pressure in India is so very high that you're always fighting f…

I have never been closer to India than San Diego, and most of the persons of Indian descent I know speak with either a Midwestern or a Mid-Atlantic accent. Evidently the point has been made about American entitlement, so I'll pass on that. In general it seems to take a couple of generations of security for any given elite to look around and decide that it has obligations. In an American context, think of the Rockefel…

Actually, It took Rockefeller 0 generations to decide he had obligations to society. Massive philanthropy and libertarian-flavored egalitarianism was a hallmark of the old "robber barons". My hometown library was a Carnegie library, and the college I went to was founded by Rockefeller. Rockefeller also funded one of America's first colleges for black women (Spelman).

By contrast, the Indian elites described in the OP seem to consider themselves above humanity and the law. Wealth alone does not make you a horrible person, though it's fun to believe that it does.

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