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Comment by instagraham | Hacker News Reader

It was extraordinarily tragic how people responded to the Economist's piece about lead in turmeric here in India.

While normally most of the stupidity lies on one side of the political spectrum, you could see both sides lambasting it as a hit piece by Big West against traditional healing and spices.

Most people took the "everything is contaminated anyway, why single out turmeric?" route. This is the best route to take if you want lead contamination to continue.

The biggest tragedy about ideological divides is how it makes people immune to truth-seeking behaviours. Lead contamination should not be political. Lead doesn't care who you vote for or on what basis you are butthurt.

Kudos to our neighbours for, once again, showing us that there are better ways to do things.

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Here is the link to the conversation. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38139011

My summary, there are Two sets of bad comments: one US Americans who think all regulations are bad (shockingly common here) and Indians who think all criticism is a personal insult to them.

> US Americans who think all regulations are bad (shockingly common here)

Yeah, it's annoying and a perfect example of how intelligence, knowledge and smarts in some areas do not indicate anything about general intelligence, knowledge and smarts in life. Brilliant doctors and engineers can be completely incapable of using a screwdriver or unaware of how anything outside of their domains functions. And frustratingly, they often assume that because they're brilliant in their field, their brilliance applies elsewhere.. but it doesn't.

> Indians who think all criticism is a personal insult to them

I've seen this as a common trend on any India-related discussion. Does anyone have any ideas as to why?

> I've seen this as a common trend on any India-related discussion. Does anyone have any ideas as to why?

My theory is the rise of Hindunationationalism, and nationalism in general in India, which leads to the feeling of needing to defend ones country against any perceived attacks. Combine this with a huge country and rising levels of English proficency and you will get that type of comments on English speaking online boards.

It's sadly a bit worse than religious nationalism.

It's start with that common religious nationalist myth:

'We are the best/greatest in the world, because god made us So (baked just right).'

Then continue with a that bit that separate it from Cesarism (and Stalinisme):

'But we aren't the greatest country in the world, we aren't at our rightful place: ahead of our ennemies'.

Then you have different follow-up. A Maoist 'we should improve and work hard, especially you, to make up for it', Or a more fascist/whiny approach 'its because of those pesky I internal traitors (usually Jews, sometimes communists, it seems to be Muslims in India currently)'.

The issue is that India nationalism is moving from a somehow Maoist mythos (except with more competent leadership, which isn't hard tbh) to a victim hood, whiney myth that imho lead to at best reactionary thinking, at worst fascism (I don't think they're there at all, I don't think they can their society is too much... Indian? to be really fascist, but I can see castes becoming a real thing again.)

In general, I think nationalism is like being proud of something you don't control and don't have any impact on, so a bit dumb, but Human. I'm OK with it, mostly. But add paranoid victimhood to nationalism and you have the dumbest ideology in the world.

Also combined with the fact that many people in the west genuinely do look down on India. Not necessarily in an overtly racist way, but thinking it's still the India of the 1950s, rather than a country which can build supersonic jet fighters and land probes on the moon.

Further combined with the fact that in some rural parts of the country, life actually has not changed that much from the 1950s.

People can't verify all the info they come across and start trusting some sources as reliable. Many Indians used to trust facts/opinions from Western media as reliable and neutral but after the arrival of social media, lot of prejudices and fake news from the same sources are exposed so the trust deficit makes almost all the opinions questionable. There is also a section driven by ideology or biases due to past history.

The downfall of the previous govt in 2014 was a case study in "don't get caught or called out for bullshit". Citizen-led and media-driven discussions on corruption decimated any speck of pro-govt voices in the country.

The govt that replaced them took note, and used old laws to effectively crush dissent in mainstream media (major newspapers and the top TV channels) while building an army of loyal followers fuelled by bot-energy who invade any comment section seen to criticise the Modi govt.

It is hard to say how much of the country is nationalist. perhaps only the 35% odd per cent that voted for Modi in a first-past the post system are possibly in this club. But online, they dominate discourse.

It is a strategically built system, with Whatsapp forwards decided in advance and lines of thought determined through centralised control. It made use of the analytics Obama used and even pioneered the use of newer companies like Cambridge Analytica even before Brexit, to control discourse on social media.

Some people genuinely drink the cool-aid, but rarely does an intelligent person do so. Nationalists are usually upper-caste and elite and prone to self-victimhood ideals about how they are oppressed.

I wonder if the topic comes up about common Mustard oil, which I use to cook with almost every day, and how it is actually banned for human consumption or anything other than a topical rubbing oil in the US.

That’s probably just the FDA being racist, though. My family has been eating mustard oil for generations and my grandparents lived to their 80s in Bangladesh. My parents have the “for topical use only” mustard oil in their cupboard—they never even noticed the warning until I pointed it out. I’m much more concerned about the canola or soy oils…

Probably... not? There's even a food approved version.

https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/cms_ia/importalert_89.html

(Btw I knew someone who drank hard liquor and smoked pipe tobacco who lived to their 80s.)

The subcontinent has a face-saving culture where direct criticism is socially discouraged. By contrast, Western Europeans and Americans especially almost seem to revel in criticism. I think it’s actually a cultural superpower that enables them to be successful in the modern business world.

(I’d love to understand what causes this tendency. My speculation is that it’s the “salvation through faith alone” of Protestant Christianity. If you’re not defined by what you do, maybe you’re liable to take criticism of your actions less personally.)

It can be simultanenously true that it was a hit piece by Economist, and that there is a real problem regarding lead in turmeric which will now not be solved.

The title in the Economist was "How to stop turmeric from killing people?" which suggests that the problem is turmeric (suggesting hit piece), not lead, while the text tells a different story. But many people will only remember the title.

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