And naturally Trumpism's solution is to escalate to an even more extreme thing: active-duty military and prison riot control guards for largely law-abiding civilians
Conversation
Interesting how between Tocqueville and today, one of the highest-trust societies in the world turned into one of the lowest. Absolutely no tolerance for conflict or friction. Everything is either picket-fences norman rockwell painting or a crisis that calls for maximal response
3
5
36
The weird American love for libertarianism is I suspect more a rational reaction to this perception of "trust won't work here" than any actual psychological or ideological preference for radical individualism a la Sovereign Individual.
1
4
32
Growing up in India, which is much more densely packed around lot fewer resources, with a shit ton more friction around everything, I was really much more used to mutual accommodation. A common phrase was "thoda adjust kar lo" (just adjust a little). Trains, streets, everywhere.
1
1
38
This is a natural response in a society that has no illusions about its prosperity level. India is a poor country that knows it's a poor country, and except for a few weird people in bubbles, most navigate life with the expectation of a lot of mutual accommodation, compromise etc
1
1
25
The US by contrast is a middling-prosperous country that is convinced it is heaven on earth. And arranges matters so that a minority can have the best version of that illusion, while the rest just have to be either suing each other or on hold with customer service all the time.
1
8
51
Not saying the US should adopt the Indian level of misery tolerance and crappy mutual accommodation as a cost of living life. But it should definitely get to a more realistic sense of its actual prosperity level. Which is not "heaven" (and despite everything, not "hell")
1
3
34
Curiously, the make america great again line studiously ignores all the actual ways in which the US is NOT great, that are obvious on day 1 to any visitor. One look at American inner cities after I landed here in 97 from India and I was like "this is way worse than Mumbai slums"
1
3
35
(which was a genuine learning for me btw... based on tv/movies my previous mental model was: "the poor in the US have water, toilets, cars and TVs, why are they acting like they are worse off than people with nothing in Dharavi...)
4
22
I rarely talk about comparisons to India because native-born Americans are absolutely convinced they have absolutely exceptional versions of every problem that require exceptional solutions. Leads to interesting reactions when I *do* make such comparisons.
3
1
25
Replying to
For those who don't get how the US poor can be worse of than Indian poor despite being materially better off, here is a post I wrote about that a while back, positing a "4th world condition"
3
16
50
