Hacker News Reader

Comment by rorykoehler | Hacker News Reader

It's not patronising at all. It's the reality. They got major shit to deal with. We all do but theirs is on another scale. Pretending they don't because of some misguided fear of being seen as patronising doesn't change it one bit. Like I said I hope they are successful as I hope we all are so we emerge from this existential threat together stronger and more wise but I fear for a place like India based on what I saw more than I do Europe or the US or even SE Asia.

View on HN

I felt it was patronizing because the original article is about manufacturing progress in a country that has been notoriously behind the curve on manufacturing. Making iphones is not what one normally associates as a dirty or polluting industrial effort.

Instead of directly discussing the merit (or not) of this move by Apple, you chose to bring up an unrelated topic of general environmental problems in India.

Lets imagine the article was about Apple opening a new manufacturing facility in Texas. Would you have brought up other social/political/environmental challenges that Texas faces (oh i don't know, like racial equity, or floods)? My guess is that would be unlikely, since its kinda off-topic and would be clear you are trying to express some other gratuitous concern you may have about that region.

> Would you have brought up other social/political/environmental challenges that Texas faces (oh i don't know, like racial equity, or floods)?

Yes. For examples, look at the top comments for the top three HN articles on Foxconn in Wisconsin.

sure! lets do this exercise.

1. I did a google search of "site:news.ycombinator.com Foxconn in Wisconsin", and opened the top 3 links.

2. first link: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19037625. The top comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19038615) seems to be about cronyism and corruption in the terms offered to Foxconn by the Wisconsis government? I could be a bit off, i haven't followed that story closely. But, and this is important, its not about generalized corruption, its about corruption on this Foxconn deal!

3. second link: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18328772. here the top comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18329445) is directly quoting the article about Foxconn getting exemptions from the environmental laws in Wisconsin. This is directly relevant to the article posted, again not about generic environmental concerns.

4. third link https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19630358. This one doesn't have much commentary, but here we see irrelevant comments which are not directly tied to the article, which are much in the vein of the original comment above.

Does that help clarify my position, and why comments of this nature are not helpful? Its totally fine to bring up environmental/social/political concerns, if they are relevant. They are not in this case.

All the more reason to invest, industrialize the economy?

And how do you suggest India "deals with it"? Because you've discarded creating more job opportunities as a viable solution.

I didn't. I said I have mixed feelings. Damned if they do damned if they don't. From what I have read there are some great initiatives to modernise farming methods with technology in order to reduce burning. They should pursue this aggressively. India has a lot of sun. They should pursue solar electricity aggressively. One other thing that struck me was how poorly Indian cities are designed. Not walkable at all. This is a huge mistake that should be acknowledged and worked on. I know its a pipe dream but I really think India could benefit from not embracing the choas so much.

I think to answer your question the best path forward is to continue as is with economic growth targets but also on a political level to be relentless in not accepting that what exists now is remotely good enough. Bring the problems up front and centre and never stop talking about them. Cuties inertia seemed to be particularly strong in India. That said India has some of the brightest minds in the world at the moment and has developed amazing capabilities so the problem isn't insurmountable if it is acknowledged and faced head on.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com