Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

India Is Winning Its War on Human Waste

gatesnotes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 303 posts

Re: India Is Winning Its War on Human Waste

#121

Post by up_and_up »

avar wrote: post #16

> Unfortunately, in many places, it’s not > feasible to lay down sewer pipes or build > treatment facilities. [...] But giving > people access to toilets isn’t enough. You > also have to persuade them to use the > toilets. I can't find it now, but there was a news video making the rounds a year or two ago that showed that this problem is much more fundamental than that. It showed a Indians in a tiny village who were…

> But somehow the problem persists, it's unbelievable.

Before you get too high and mighty there....

Not long ago (1996) here in the USA, they were still removing all the outhouses that had been positioned directly over fresh-water streams all over Appalachia. See "Straight Piping". [1]

Its easy to judge poor people in other countries, we forget how recently we were (and maybe still are) making similar mistakes.

[1] - https://www.arc.gov/magazine/articles.asp?ARTICLE_ID=94

Re: India Is Winning Its War on Human Waste

#122

Post by gozur88 »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #115
gozur88 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where is the money for this 10x increase?

From the GDP lift caused by lifting large populations out of disease and poverty. Thought experiment: how fast do you think our scientific knowledge would advance if 90% of the US were living in poverty and spent most of their day simply figuring out how to survive?

Sure, but the only way to lift large numbers of people out of poverty is growth. That's not something you can do by fiat.

Re: India Is Winning Its War on Human Waste

#123

Post by [deleted] »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #111
akvadrako wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the sentiment and some aspects of science, like medical trials, may scale fairly well. However the most significant scientific discoveries seem to come from the top of the pile. You need to be in the right place and time with the right background to make the right connections that reveal a previously hidden truth. Science is about seeing something that's staring you in the face but nobody has even notice…

Even finding many major breakthroughs like the blue LED is ultimately just probability. The more people who are able to find them, the more breakthroughs you will find.

[deleted]

Re: India Is Winning Its War on Human Waste

#124

Post by gumby »

sidlls wrote: post #102
staticassertion wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first or second chapter of Diffusion of Innovation covers a case where a health organization official tried to convince people to boil their water. No one did it. The concept of "germs" was so foreign to them, and their beliefs about water were already so ingrained. It was a complete failure. It seems obvious to say "if you drink dirty water you will get sick" but you're assuming that people can make so many conn…

People understand just fine what "illness" is. Every culture has a long tradition of medical practice since long before anyone knew what a germ was, and people in many civilizations (this isn't some eurocentric western-world thing) have known for hundreds or thousands of years to keep feces away from their food and water. It seems obvious because it is obvious and has been, in India and practically everywhere else, f…

>> In many places there is no connection between 'germs' and illness because germs are not a concrete concept to them.

> People understand just fine what "illness" is. Every culture has a long tradition of medical practice since long before anyone knew what a germ was, and people in many civilizations (this isn't some eurocentric western-world thing) have known for hundreds or thousands of years to keep feces away from their food and water.

The germ theory is relatively recent and was not readily accepted in Europe. And for that matter Europe was very late to adopt a theory of keeping faeces away from their food and water.

Traditional Brahmanism in India is extremely fastidious. Sadly by connecting the practices to caste they did not become widespread among others.

Your sense of obviousness is inconsistent with the investigations of history or sociology.

Re: India Is Winning Its War on Human Waste

#125

Post by eru »

abandonliberty wrote: post #103
avar wrote: post #16

> Unfortunately, in many places, it’s not > feasible to lay down sewer pipes or build > treatment facilities. [...] But giving > people access to toilets isn’t enough. You > also have to persuade them to use the > toilets. I can't find it now, but there was a news video making the rounds a year or two ago that showed that this problem is much more fundamental than that. It showed a Indians in a tiny village who were…

This is an area for innovation. Managing change/altering beliefs are extremely difficult. To help iron deficiency in Cambodians, they were encouraged to cook with iron ingots. No one used them. So they shaped the ingot into a lotus flower. Dice. Cultural investigation showed that fish were symbols of luck, health, and happiness. Fish-shaped ingots worked out! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucky_iron_fish

The Wikipedia article you linked says that the lotus flower shape was rejected as well.

Re: India Is Winning Its War on Human Waste

#126

Post by redsummer »

Hinduism is a big problem. The Ganges is literally a river of shit - it has 120 times the safe level of fecal matter. Yet Hindus regard it as purifying and it's considered holy to have a dip in it.

When you have a culture like that, it's going to be hard to persuade people to not shit in the water they drink.

Re: India Is Winning Its War on Human Waste

#127

Post by lern_too_spel »

oblio wrote: post #99
lern_too_spel wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't carve away at science fiction without the human capital to do the science. Lifting huge populations out of disease and poverty is going to have a larger effect on scientific progress than spending money on directing the few who can do science right now.

I think you were a bit too negative but I don't agree with your downvotes. Back to the topic: I agree with you. I think people underestimate, especially in the current Trumpist/Brexitist/etc. climate, the long term impact that lifting ~4 billion people out of poverty will have. By 4 billion people I mean China, India, Africa. China's probably 20 years away from having 30% of the world's middle class in their country.…

I don't see my comment as negative. Both are good, but one is going to have an order of magnitude larger effect on scientific progress than the other.

To say that the effect of Gates's work will be to merely bring more people along for the ride instead of getting left behind as the original commenter stated is not understanding the full effect of his work. Gates is accelerating the ride.

Re: India Is Winning Its War on Human Waste

#128

Post by eru »

EGreg wrote: post #109
sqeaky wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where is "out the window"? People are going to be walking through that and it will flow downhill towards the water table and into well water. "out the window" is "everywhere" for most purposes.

Better than shitting in people's pots and then loading them up with food and soup.

Did anyone ever do that?

Re: India Is Winning Its War on Human Waste

#129

Post by giardini »

graycat wrote: post #100
avar wrote: post #16

> Unfortunately, in many places, it’s not > feasible to lay down sewer pipes or build > treatment facilities. [...] But giving > people access to toilets isn’t enough. You > also have to persuade them to use the > toilets. I can't find it now, but there was a news video making the rounds a year or two ago that showed that this problem is much more fundamental than that. It showed a Indians in a tiny village who were…

Don't need much in the way of sewer pipes. I live in the US, in NY, 70 miles north of Wall Street, in a house with two bathtubs, four sinks, three toilets, one washing machine, and one dish washer, with nearly no use of "sewer pipes". Right, no city sewer. Instead there is some PVC pipe, cheap, super simple to work with, darned rugged, and, presto, bingo, a big concrete box in the ground just behind the main piece of…

You can eliminate the mud by adding a settling tank for the well water. Water flows from the well to the settling tank, where it sets awhile as the mud settles out. Frome there it goes to general distribution. Put a small plug at the bottom of the settling tank for flushing the mud out periodically and a vent or a valve at the top of the tank to drain off gases that are in the well water.

What gases? Glad you asked!

Mostly natural gas that is in the water. This is especially important for people with a water well who live in an area where fracking is done. w/o the settling tank you may find that your faucet, while open, can sustain a significant flame.

Re: India Is Winning Its War on Human Waste

#130

Post by eru »

graycat wrote: post #100
avar wrote: post #16

> Unfortunately, in many places, it’s not > feasible to lay down sewer pipes or build > treatment facilities. [...] But giving > people access to toilets isn’t enough. You > also have to persuade them to use the > toilets. I can't find it now, but there was a news video making the rounds a year or two ago that showed that this problem is much more fundamental than that. It showed a Indians in a tiny village who were…

Don't need much in the way of sewer pipes. I live in the US, in NY, 70 miles north of Wall Street, in a house with two bathtubs, four sinks, three toilets, one washing machine, and one dish washer, with nearly no use of "sewer pipes". Right, no city sewer. Instead there is some PVC pipe, cheap, super simple to work with, darned rugged, and, presto, bingo, a big concrete box in the ground just behind the main piece of…

I wonder whether your setup could be made to work with a higher population density?
Post reply on HN