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India Is Winning Its War on Human Waste

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Re: India Is Winning Its War on Human Waste

#221

Post by throwaway12837 »

nojvek wrote: post #4

Two of the most forward thinking folks I believe are Bill Gates and Elon Musk. While Elon wants to carve way into science fiction, Bill wants to ensure no one gets left behind. Exciting time to be alive. In this case big kudos goes to Narendra Modi and the Indian govt to ensure this happens. I believe such fundamental things are the most effective when govt pushes for it rather than individuals.

Frankly I'd take Steve Jobs over those two.

People who want to do "good" to boost their (and their nations') egos are rather dangerous. When you fight a war for "righteousness" rather than greed, you're one awful enemy to have.

Then again, Steve was a Zen student. No surprises there.

Re: India Is Winning Its War on Human Waste

#222

Post by babyrainbow »

perfmode wrote: post #215
babyrainbow wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok. "Educated" people don't shit where they drink from. But they do much worse. Things like dumping toxic industrial waste that can make a whole region of people chronically ill to a river..Or drive machines that spew toxic gases literally to the face of fellow human beings.. I mean, is anyone really any better?

externalities are different, no?

are they?

Re: India Is Winning Its War on Human Waste

#223

Post by joe636434 »

throwaway12837 wrote: post #221
nojvek wrote: post #4

Two of the most forward thinking folks I believe are Bill Gates and Elon Musk. While Elon wants to carve way into science fiction, Bill wants to ensure no one gets left behind. Exciting time to be alive. In this case big kudos goes to Narendra Modi and the Indian govt to ensure this happens. I believe such fundamental things are the most effective when govt pushes for it rather than individuals.

Frankly I'd take Steve Jobs over those two. People who want to do "good" to boost their (and their nations') egos are rather dangerous. When you fight a war for "righteousness" rather than greed, you're one awful enemy to have. Then again, Steve was a Zen student. No surprises there.

World would not have been much different without appleII and iPods. All Steve did was produce products for rich. Not something like RMS who founded free software movement and changed the direction of software industry for the good of humanity.

Re: India Is Winning Its War on Human Waste

#224

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: India Is Winning Its War on Human Waste

#225

Post by anigbrowl »

kaybe wrote: post #177
anigbrowl wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like it would be simpler and easier to just give them skillets than faffing around with ingots. If one is worried about the perception of value or suspicion of gifts one could offer to trade them for their existing cookware.

The weight also plays a big role, especially since they're carried around a lot.

That's a point I didn't consider.

Re: India Is Winning Its War on Human Waste

#226

Post by graycat »

sbierwagen wrote: post #200
graycat wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Why are you putting every other word in italics?

Italics are for definitions, for words used with some meaning other than the standard dictionary meaning, or for a common phrase essentially quoted but without a specific source and not proposed by me to be taken at face value. So, in each case the italics are to permit my being more clear about just what I am saying.

Re: India Is Winning Its War on Human Waste

#227

Post by anigbrowl »

trprog wrote: post #173
anigbrowl wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like it would be simpler and easier to just give them skillets than faffing around with ingots. If one is worried about the perception of value or suspicion of gifts one could offer to trade them for their existing cookware.

Of course it would be simpler and easier but who is going to pay for it? Cambodia is a nation of around 15 million people and a large proportion of them are affected by iron deficiency. You are talking about trying to get skillets/ingots into the hands of hundreds of thousands of people, if not millions. Even cutting the cost of each item by $1 reduces the overall cost to either the organization(s) running the progra…

The economic upsides from improved public health outcomes make it seem like a textbook case for foreign aid - it's easy enough to quantify the cost of the iron deficiency. Admittedly I'm thinking in autocratic terms rather than about the need for buy-in and all the other factors.

Re: India Is Winning Its War on Human Waste

#228

Post by Jack000 »

adventured wrote: post #71
blobbers wrote: post #60

India is Winning Its War on Human Waste!!! ... unfortunately San Francisco is losing that same war.

Or you could be intentionally exaggerating the problem by about 100 fold. Perhaps you'd like to show me the stats that indicate a million people (or even how about 2.5% - ~100k people) in the San Francisco metro area have begun shitting in the streets, in their drinking water, etc.

haven't been to India but anecdotally the amount of public defecation between DT SF and rural China is about the same - ie. quite rare in practice but brought up ad nauseam in online discussions, often to serve a political point.

on the other hand the only times I've managed to step in human feces is DT SF and DT Vancouver..

Re: India Is Winning Its War on Human Waste

#229

Post by Cyph0n »

tropo wrote: post #207
hangonhn wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. China has historically used toilets. In fact, the earliest documented case of a flushing toilet date from the Han dynasty ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/851957.stm ) , which is more than 2000 years old, but that's rare. Most Chinese toilets were buckets in a separate room. China historically used night soil as fertilizers. These bucket toilets were carried out of the house and later used to fertilize c…

China, India, Korea, and Japan all used pig toilets. In some places, usage was 22.7% as of 2003. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_toilet

That's disgusting honestly. Doesn't that pose a health hazard to the people who consume that meat? I don't eat pork so I never knew how filthy pigs can be!

Re: India Is Winning Its War on Human Waste

#230

Post by thevardanian »

staticassertion wrote: post #40
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…

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…

I don't think that maybe necessarily the case as these very people will boil milk before drinking it. It is basic practice in rural India to boil milk before consuming it even if it was straight from the cow. So I find it extremely odd that these very people couldn't connect the dots and make the same leap onto impurity of water.
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