Canada vs. India

Takkon wrote:

What kind of stupid question is this? It would be more interesting to compare Brazil and India, rising stars, not a rich-ass country with low population density and lots of natural resources to a country that was owned by another country 70 years ago and has hundreds of millions of people.

+1

Solow-Swan model applies.

People used to roar about the Asian Tigers the same way. It's easy to grow up when you're coming from the bottom of the barrel.

If anything, this proves we need less emphasis on foreign aid, and more arbitrage opportunities in foreign trade.

Takkon wrote:

a country that was owned by another country 70 years ago

Canada - like India - was owned by foreign multinationals a century ago.

But unlike Canada, India managed to hang onto so many of its cultures.

So here too, India is more successful.

QatzelOk wrote:

Canada - like India - was owned by foreign multinationals a century ago.

But unlike Canada, India managed to hang onto so many of its cultures.

So here too, India is more successful.

Are you implying Canada had a culture at any point? The aboriginals were a minority population to begin with and different tribes had different cultures.

I'm not sure how you'd classify Indian culture, the country did split into two, then three countries. And all of them, specifically Bangladesh are still excessively poor.

India's "success" is a pure numbers game. With a country of substantial population density, profit can be made in even the lowest labor sectors. Even on a net gain of $1 an hour, let's say, for each bottom worker's product, if you have a million workers, you will net a million profit for the company. The way Indian businesses work is particularly scrupulous. Not unlike the Chinese, Indian corporations can make substantial wealth for the few who run the company and thus the actual numbers may appear well but the averages do not.

It's not even a case where the average Indian is below poverty, it's that most Indians are absolute dirt poor. Granted we have to factor in urban vs. rural and the fact that no country with an exorbitant population can have meaningful averages. However even in cities the average Indian will struggle. You also have to consider that countries like Indian and China can more easily "cook" the books. Numbers can be inflated to present favorable output, etc, etc.

Having had several friends and aquantances visit India or be from there, it is a pretty horrific country on the world stage in terms of human rights and financial well being. I actually argue it has not grown much at all. Some I think are being blinded by India's natural growth and taking it as some great leap.

Most countries have substantially evolved in the last fifty years.

And yes, countries like Canada have not "evolved" as evidently as a country like India, but this is irrational thinking.


For example, in the 1980s, Canada had substantial stock of computers, food and automobiles.
In the 2000s, this is still the same, but more individual have computers because it's a natural cycle.

In India in the 1980s most people did not have computers, sufficient food and less automobiles.
In the 2000s this has not changed.

However it's far easier to notice when say a village full of people going from having no computers to have 5 computers in ten years, than it is to notice a village with 50 computers have 80 computers in ten years.

It doesn't mean the village that got 5 computers when it had none had grown and been more successful than the village that went from 50 to 70.

Why? Cause the village with 50 computers doesn't need 5 times the computers in a ten year span.

Also the technological growth worldwide has accelerated.

10 years in this era can see substantially more growth than 50 years in the 1800s.

Thus we may look at the last 50 years in India and see incredible growth in medicine, technology and transportation, but it doesn't mean it'special.


Also note that when you're coming from behind you can see ahead how to accomplish certain goals.

India didn't invent nuclear weapons, computers or automobiles.

Thus it's easier for them to just buy blueprints or outright steal them.



Here's another example:

Kid A builds a treehouse out of lumber he bought at the local hardware store.
He incorrectly builds the treehouse the first two times before correctly doing so the third.
He then buys a television with an extension cord and install a tv in his treehouse.
He then sets up a wireless router and adds a computer to it.

The whole project takes him 4 years to complete.


Meanwhile 3 brothers from across the street observe Kid A's treehouse and how he built it and added features to it.
They go to a super store and buy lumber, a tv, a wireless router and extensions chords and set about building their own treehouse.

They finish their project in 1 year.


What's more impressive?

Keeping in mind the three brothers bought an older tv and an older computer and Kid A has now installed a fridge.

Quote:

Canada - like India - was owned by foreign multinationals a century ago.

Not really. Canada, the current state, owes its population to the foreign multinationals. That is to say that the same people who owned Canada a decade ago own it today. Not so with India.

QatzelOk wrote:

Canada - like India - was owned by foreign multinationals a century ago.

But unlike Canada, India managed to hang onto so many of its cultures.

So here too, India is more successful.

Why does this make India more successful? The "indigenous" cultures in Canada were inferior and an obstacle to progress. Canada should be proud of its history of wiping these out.

Quote:

Why does this make India more successful? The "indigenous" cultures in Canada were inferior and an obstacle to progress. Canada should be proud of its history of wiping these out.

The NATIVES of India managed to NOT get genocided to make room for "religious" gun-owners from Europe.

This makes the many Indian cultures more successful than the Apache, Blackfoot, Cheyenne, Maori, or Palestinians.

Most of Canada became a cultureless mass of brainwashed consumersésoldiers with no culture to get in the way of the brainwashing. Not so India.

QatzelOk wrote:

Most of Canada became a cultureless mass of brainwashed consumersésoldiers with no culture to get in the way of the brainwashing. Not so India.

Are you willing to also embrace the fact Indian culture has promoted greed and corruption?

Cause it basically has considering where the country was and where it is now.

RG wrote:

Are you willing to also embrace the fact Indian culture has promoted greed and corruption?

No, I'm not, because this isn't true.

Businessmen have embraced greed and corruption all over the earth. They aren't culture. They try to destroy culture so that everyone depends on commercial media for social norms.

In most of Anglo Canada, the only "culture" is car ads and billboards. Everyone speaks the same language as ABC and Fox news, and they want to be as bland and meek as possible so that American multinationals will hire them to work in a branch plant.

QatzelOk wrote:

No, I'm not, because this isn't true.

Businessmen have embraced greed and corruption all over the earth. They aren't culture. They try to destroy culture so that everyone depends on commercial media for social norms.

In most of Anglo Canada, the only "culture" is car ads and billboards. Everyone speaks the same language as ABC and Fox news, and they want to be as bland and meek as possible so that American multinationals will hire them to work in a branch plant.

Here's the thing my good chum, Canada, Australia, America, etc, etc.

Really have no culture.

I mean even in South America the only country that has any deep culture is Brazil and that culture is partying. I'm being serious here.

The colonies don't and are not suppose to have culture really. They were settlements for Europeans, in Canada's case, mainly the French and the English.

What fucking culture do you expect to find in a settlement now?

For the record Quebec is pretty rich in their French/Canadian culture.

India like most poor countries has sustained their culture not through some special vigilance, but due to lack of finances and stability to evolve. Really though the current and to some degree previous generation of Indians is moving far away from their culture. Shit like the Kamasutra isn't an end all be all for married couples and how about not eating beef?

The richest families in India don't give two shits about Indian culture, those Indians praying and keeping up with past times do so for sanity reasons as a way to deal with poverty.


I say this coming from a pretty poor Russian home, culture is set to die.

RG wrote:

I say this coming from a pretty poor Russian home, culture is set to die.

Actually, many cultures have already been killed by commercial tyrants.

But in our day, it looks more like commercial tyranny is set to die. The only real question is how many innocent humans (and other creatures) it will take with it.

The more people drag their feet, deny that we live under greedy tyrants, or support unsustainable levels of consumption and unequal distribution of resources... the more damage our powerful but anachronistic Status-collector Elites will cause.

Canada will not necessarily fare any better than India. Alberta is currently sucking its oil out of the ground as quickly as possible, and polluting its future water supply. The grandchildren of this generation of Albertans might be as well off as the people of Bangladesh are today.

Foresight is a terrible thing for a culture to lose. Business culture (media) doesn't allow you to think.

Indian culture - because it is less commercialized/financialized/Modernized than Canada - will survive a post-corporate world better than the lost and declawed pets of multinationals freezing to death in Calgary or Toronto.

Well you're just a liberal patriot Qatze.

Common now, the Alberta oil sands are overblown out of sheer jealousy. When we run out, we run out.

It's not going to drive Canada into the dark times.

Canada
No one gives a shit about cricket.

India has a rich history in math, sciences, religion, architecture, cultures etc. In its ideal form it would be a wonderful amalgamation of cultures, but sometimes things have gone a tad wrong. The caste system continues, women and children have it rough and religous difference keep the country on the brink of civil war. Relationships with Pakistan are less than cordial

Canada is also an amalgamation of cultures, but far more harmonious than India. Human rights have lept forward since the second world war. Canada was not a 'rich-ass country' fifty years ago, but owing to smart conservation practises, smart health care, easy access to world class education and so on, we have become comfortable, educated and healthy enough to enjoy the richness of the Great Canadian Back Yard.

Canada is blessed with natural resources from diamonds, gold, cobalt, timber and farmland to oil to wildlife. We have clean air, clean beaches, world class sports facilities for horses, hikers, environmentalists, skiers, and so on. Being born here is like winning a divine lottery.

The Indians who have moved to Canada are doing v well. There's every indication that with economic and political harmony Asian Indians will thrive in the next century, and I wish them all the best luck in achieving their goals.

edit:

Godstud wrote:

Canada
No one gives a shit about cricket.

ICC Americas championship
2000: Champions
2002: Runners up
2004: Champions
2006: 3rd place
2008: 3rd place
2010: Champions
2011: Champions

Altough Inda is obviously more relevant than Canada nowadays, I can't get all the hype India has been receiving in the media.
Take Pofo for example, you have Singh on the banner above, but not Italy's Mario Monti. You have an "India section" inside the Asia & Australasia forum, but not a "France section" inside the European forum.

Sure, India will be a top 5 world power by 2020, but I don't think it's currently a new China. The GDP per capita is below Bolivia and Nigeria, HDI equal to Congo, GDP equal to Canada and lower than Italy. Aren't we putting the cart before the horse?

In world politics, economical prosperity is not the only thing, by that logic Luxemburg should be given prominent position on the banner, India if nothing but only because of its sheer population and geographical position demands a place on the banner. You really can't ignore 15% of the world population.

This seems a very silly thread. How to compare two wildly different nations? How to judge success without any definitive definition of what constitutes success? Why not compare Bangladesh and Liechtenstein? Or the USA and Guinea Bissau? What's the point exactly?

Canada is successful, but India has seen greater economic development, in a large part because it had to develop to begin with.