Ask HN: What Happened to India? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What Happened to India?

1 pointgraderjs9 comments

Indian culture created many amazing things that are like incredible technologies for the human body, all different kinds of meditation and breathing exercises and yoga in my personal experience these things are incredibly transformative and operating in ways that Western science is too imbecilic to understand at this time. now we have studies showing that long-term "meditators" have structural changes and behavior changes in their brain and nervous system but that's just for one type of meditation there are so many types of meditation and yoga and and breathing exercises and other practices that could be creating structural or genetic or other changes in us. What I'm saying is these are incredible technologies and even though I have less experience of it it seems that India has a lot of really good social technologies as well like some amount of religious diversity and organizing social narratives and religious stories that let people feel meaning within a larger framework. I'm not saying everything is perfect at all but all I'm wondering is this society created many incredible things technologies that far advanced beyond our present understanding of our so-called civilized and so-called you know "most developed" societies in the west. So what I'm wondering is like why isn't India "ruling the world" or possessing an apparent you know highest quality of life?

What you're describing is basically nationalism and saying you're a nationalist and then looking at the difference between that and realpolitik. Meet any person from [insert country here] and they'll say the same thing about their country in some point of view.

The thing with realpolitik is power comes from the ability to produce stuff, at least in our current world, which is where the discrepancy between your view of the world comes from.

I feel so sad for you because it sounds like you're saying you can't defend your country or protect its fruits from being taken without being something you think is bad, a "nationalist", which seems like a way to avoid facing the guilt of not fixing those problems. I think nationalism is realpolitik because nationalist beliefs, stories and myths are useful, and I think you can take from those beliefs that which is useful, and you can support nationalist ideologies, without being a nationalist or limited to that label. I think without allowing yourself to do that, you miss out on the joy you can get joy from the unity with the collective, a sense of national pride and common purpose. Your view just sounds like it lacks a lot of hope. I hope you find that hope! I think the answer to the India question is simply one of military technology and strength, and the lesson is you need a good war machine to protect the good peace machine. BTW, I'm not Indian.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuOyf9smG9cv8k52NvCkz...

Thanks for sharing, i look forward to watching that

Colonialism by Western countries, predominantly by the English.

Why didn't India beat the colonists when they invaded (if that's how it went...i don't know that history)?

India was already colonized by the Mughals so at first the Indian states were siding with Europeans against what they saw as colonizers. Then the British and French, having kicked out the Mughals, fought each other using alliances of local states. By the time the many nations of modern India realized Britain was turning them into part of their empire it was too late as Britain was the hegemon on the subcontinent and had made the rulers of the principalities that were left very rich in the process.

This is a huge oversimplification but that’s the gist of it.

Wow, makes sense. Makes me really interested to read more about Indian history. I like "Why the West Rules - for now" by Ian Morris, for world history. Can you recommend a book?

Holy Cow! Tell us more.

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