It is facile to blame all of the developing world's problems on "the same deep-rooted culture/religion problem of ignorance, corruption, and generally not giving a shit about others." For starters, aren't there causes of ignorance, corruption, or not giving a shit about others?

> "For starters, aren't there causes of ignorance, corruption, or not giving a shit about others?"

Not really. It's the default state of human kind. Individual rights, scientific enlightenment, and all that were invented by Europeans in the 1500s. Before that, all of human history is pretty brutal and poor.

These things are always local, there where social behaviour is rewarded with riches, and ignorance and corruption staved by judicial enforcement and education.

Not only in the 1500s, but also in the roman empire, the greek civilisation, the ancient arabian, egyptian, chinese, japanese, indian empires you can find evidence of civilisations that practised science, had fair laws and promoted kindness to one another.

That the Europeans receded into blunt stupidity for 1500 years does not mean that we were the first or the last to come out of it again.

edit: I also would like to point out that also after the 1500s European history is quite bloody and brutal.

> Before that, all of human history is pretty brutal and poor.

Interesting that you brought it up.

Ironically, it was India that was probably ahead of other civilizations way earlier than 1500s.

Then history happened.

And then finally Europeans happened - the same Europeans who invented "individual rights, scientific enlightenment, and all that".

>And then finally Europeans happened - the same Europeans who invented "individual rights, scientific enlightenment, and all that".

And what was their effect? Governance that, while not fully democratic, was less capricious than that which preceded it. A dampening of some of the worst effects of the caste system. Fewer women burning on pyres. A national language that's internationally prominent, which India has reaped enormous economic benefits from even as the country's leaders deny its value for political reasons (and suppress the poor and entrench their own position by promoting regional languages, while sending their own children to english-speaking schools).

It's fashionable to pretend that colonialism was nothing but evil European exploitation. But the reality is that many of the people at the bottom saw great benefits (and conversely the mother country rarely if ever saw a return on investment).

> It's fashionable to pretend that colonialism was nothing but evil European exploitation.

Please show me where I said that. My point was more towards associating Europeans with "individual rights, scientific enlightenment, and all that".

Of course there were benefits, and some were very important one. But let's not pretend it was purely humanitarian, or just for the benefits of the locals.

I'd strongly suggest you find historical records of The East India company and it's ledgers - the unholy amount of money the English siphoned out of India was an eyeopener to me. Until then, I too believed that colonization was good.

I am not even going into the details of separation of the country, the manner in which it was done, and the massacre that followed.

It was evil exploitation by definition and by reality. There were some benefits I give you that, chief among them is bringing the masses to the democratic political mainstream (speaking only about India; this did not happen in most of Africa) Mother country? Investment? Show me that place in history where capital flowed in to a colony.

> I think India and Africa pretty much have the same deep-rooted culture/religion problem of ignorance, corruption and generally not giving a shit about others.

>This sort of culture has been accumulated over centuries and isn't going to go away anytime soon.

I agree with the overall sentiment in your post. Some more explanation about the culture in India which is accumulated over "centuries" would be nice. Which centuries are we talking about?

I starts conquest of muslims from 15-16 century , effect of that in society and culture. Then european conquests from 18 century and then british rule for 200 years, first 100 under british east india company and then under queen victoria. India got its freedom in 1947 but for me it was never free. Indian and african countries were not freed to be developed and stand up for themselves. colonizers made sure of it before granting freedom to these countries. As an Indian living in the capital all my life I can say that I dont see the country getting better until everything that is working here is dismantled and fresh new start happens with new models and technology. Which seem like it will take a long and hard time added with a lot of destruction thats already happening to achieve that.

Caste System(More like Racism. Keeping groups of people away from economic opportunity), Families where people have been desperately poor for generations(poor people create more kids on average and most of them end of poor and desperate)... 100's or millions with no primary education/even literacy...

Can you give me examples of this caste system probem?

After actually living in India for some time - my impression has been the opposite - overzealous affirmative action

If you're in a position where you even have to submit a resume or deal with an organization that even knows what affirmative action is, you are already in a better caste than the majority of India.

The affirmative action is dictated by the government. Not private organizations - especially at the education level

Interesting that you should mention India and Africa. I'm a South African, whose ancestors migrated from India 100+ years ago, and we still maintain some, tenuous cultural ties to India (my car stereo only plays Bollywood music, for example). I have to say, as painful as it is to admit it, that you may have a point about a culture of "ignorance, corruption and generally not giving a shit about others".

A few weeks ago, the South African government was engulfed in scandal when a family that migrated from India in the early 1990's, the Guptas, managed to land a chartered airliner at the country's main air force base for a wedding, by pulling some strings, and get a police escourt for their wedding party. This is a family that is widely suspected of getting rich by gaining state contracts, with less than clean hands-they managed to ingratiate themselves with both the Mbeki and Zuma administrations, despite the fact that most supporters of the former are spurned by the latter. The outcry over their jet adventure was so great that government heads actually began rolling, although it is suspected that President Zuma was behind the order, and is untouchable. It was later revealed that the Guptas managed to re-value their expensive property in Johannesburg, to an absurdly low amount, so they could avoid paying rates (which they could easily afford at a higher level). I gather that this sort of thing is not uncommon in India.

I am not picking on India alone, lest Indian nationalists assume that I am. Pakistanis who migrated from the 1990's on, managed to exploit the South African department of Home Affairs to the point that a South African passport became fairly worthless (this damage is being repaired, but it will be many years before a South African passport is trusted in the first world).

South African Indians, managed to distance themselves from the Guptas and the Pakistanis (more recent immigrants), and are generally well regarded because as a group, we never aligned ourselves with the apartheid regime - and this has resulted in considerable economic success in post-apartheid South Africa. However, when I think about it, we are also quite corrupt. Zuma and his family have been funded by South African Indians - it was just revealed that Zuma's son lives in a home owned by a Durban Indian's family, and there are numerous other examples, including court cases, of Zuma being funded, and corrupted by Indians.

On a personal level, not a week passes without hearing about some acquaintance doing something crooked. Recently, I heard of someone who didn't bother renewing their driving licence, and being involved in a car crash getting a family member to take the blame. I am surprised that South African Indians have managed to maintain a "reality distortion field", and avoided being characterised as a corrupt group, a description that could easily apply to many (not all) of us.

The fact that diverse groups of South Asian immigrants, separated by time and nationality are all corrupt in South Africa indicates that there is a cultural element to this behavior. I hope blind nationalism and defensiveness (something I have noticed when discussing these matters) don't stand in the way of the necessary introspection.