That's just blatantly racist. As a counter example look at kitty which is pushing terminal standards forward which is written by an Indian
Are there any essential characteristics of American culture responsible for this?
Okay, but quite obviously OP is.
>I am defending the fact that humans do in fact have cultures, and those cultures have real world impacts. You would not see scenes like that in Japan or Singapore, or at least much more rarely.
Indians are such a major presence in Singapore that Tamil is one of its official languages. Littering is also a part of both countries' criminal codes, with hefty fines and, in SG's case, jail time being prescribed. It seems pretty clear, then, that cultural essentiality is at least insufficient as an explanation in these contexts.
You can ask why Singapore and Japan have harsh fines, and India does not. You can also look at how people behave when there isn't a cop watching them.
At a high level, law is just a tool for enforcing cultural norms, and is only sufficient to police small amounts of deviation on the margin. If the majority, or even a significant minority, of people woke up tomorrow and decided to break the law, there would be little that could be done in any country.
Sure, and you can also ask why drawing conclusions from the ether is superior to relying on examining actually measurable parameters.
This would help you get a pulse of the comparative culture. That said, observing culture directly IS measurable.
You look at culture that leaves trash everywhere and that itself is a data point.
If you live in a culture that does not appreciate quality and the only focus is to make money whatever way possible, you will do whatever in order to make money. The likelihood of people starting to produce quality stuff in such a community is very low.
If everyone around you is throwing trash on the street, you will likely do that as well. You must have your basic needs met before you can start worry about things like quality and unfortunately many people in India does not have this kind of security afaik.
1. Doctors that prescribe drugs and shouldn't be prescribed to a lot of people.
2. A too unregulated big pharma that makes a lot of money selling these drugs and pushing them to the doctors.
3. Unhealthy food that leads to people taking these unnecessary drugs in the first place.
4. No social security net for people that obviously need help and are unable to help themselves.
This summer I visited the US and let me tell you that the food is really, really bad and probably a big source to a lot of issues the US have in my opinion. If you consume hazardous foods, you will get sick both mentally and physically and it was nearly impossible to get good healthy food during my visit. After my visit to Bulgaria it was easily the worst breakfasts and food in general I've had. I was bloated and feeling like shit the entire time in I was in the US and chocked of all the homeless people clearly on drugs that were just hanging around everywhere in the big cities. I actually lost 2kg during my stay because I was a bit disgusted by the food. It was just fat with extra fat. Every. Single. Meal.
Then I went to Italy, and my stomach was back to normal almost immediately and I've never had better food than in italy. My stomach was thanking me every day and it's easy to see why. They have make everything from fresh produce, basically no conservatives and other crap that both the US and the western/northen europe have in basically everything.
Man the bread in Italy is on another level and available everywhere. Even if you order a sandwich in a gas station it's like freshly baked and tastes amazing. When you go to restaurants, the pasta is made the same day as you order it and so on. Zero km restaurants.
The world should copy whatever Italy is doing food wise because man they have shit figured out.