
A Different Kind of Recession - HBS Student Reflects on Visit to India - JoelSutherland
http://www.zacharyclayton.com/2009/03/04/a-different-kind-of-recession/
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rjprins
Peoples minds work on such a strong relative level.. You can be upper-middle-
class in California and kill yourself from depression. You can live in a slum
and work all day and be happy (Theoretically that is, if they weren't
constantly reminded by a skyline, TV, commercials and rich tourists of their
relative position. In fact, commercials are designed to lower your happiness,
as they essentially try to show that life can be better.)

Not only happiness, but truth is relative for people. Exploring boundaries
(like travelling) is the only way to be able to better position and evaluate
standpoints on any subject.

The minds natural tendency to zoom in must be countered, consciously and
regularly. For us, (I assume the people in Dharavi are not reading this) this
can also definately be source of happiness and a way to set your focus on the
right kind of things in your life.

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vinutheraj
I have always been intrigued by this facet of humankind, that people who are
so poor can live life so happily, thinking about the small things in life.
Maybe its about choices, the more choices and freedom we have, the more we
miss the things we could have been, or could have done ?!

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whughes
Making generalizations about rich and poor is very dangerous. It may well be
cultural, and many areas which are poor happen to have that cultural
attribute. Perhaps it is also related to media exposure. I doubt that
happiness is directly related to wealth or lack of wealth. Obviously there are
many happy middle-class people and many sad poor people.

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jonnycoder
I've been to Mexico and India (Bangalore) and it provides a wake up call on
how lucky I am to have been born in California, obtained my degree and get a
job at a fortune 50 company. Travel is a good way to get out of your shell and
experience what it's like outside your own little world.

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dawie
Agreed that recession is misleading in the title.

I recently got back from India and I didn't make it into Dharavi. One thing
that I found though is the fact that India didn't get the Memo that there is a
world recession going on.

They are still building and expanding like crazy. On one Island I was they
where building 3 new dive shops...

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g__g
That is so true. I live here but even to me it seems that the entire county's
under construction!

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ojbyrne
The "recession" reference seems misleading. Poverty is kind of timeless.

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old-gregg
Do we have to supply every submission with a mandatory comment regarding the
title?

I mean that was your first reaction, right? After reading the post the voice
inside told you _"gee, I wish he picked another title, I better post a comment
about it?"_

And by the way, I found the title perfectly fitting and clever: we can bitch
and moan about deteriorating US roads and infrastructure, about property
values in California going down by 41.3% all we want, but that's far from
another, raw meaning of "low".

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rms
It's a feature that we'll hopefully get added to the codebase eventually ---
community revoting on titles. Bad titles are really annoying.

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old-gregg
I find loud people who're so "misled" and "frustrated" by titles to be more
annoying that titles themselves. Take this thread, for instance: one boring
nerd wasted time commenting on "misleading" title, then another computer dork
without life revolted, and you responded, and now look - all 3 of us are
wasting everybody else's time on this stupid title!

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ojbyrne
More annoying than ad hominem attacks?

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old-gregg
Dude... you've got to get outside and see some sunlight. I'm serial.

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chiffonade
Wow, an entire blog post dedicated to white guilt.

