National/racial flamewar is not allowed here and we ban accounts that do it, so please don't do it on HN again.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18494646 and marked it off-topic.

To anyone reading this, no a billion people don't shit on the streets of India. India is a young democracy bursting at the seams, education is probably the most important challenge it faces right now and my hope is that it alleviates a lot of these issues.

To your point about plastic bags, many many people are cognizant of the ill-effects of plastic bags in India. Many of my friends actively try to avoid it. It's just that when you're a developing nation or minority everyone talks in blanket statements than nuanced views like "rural India" or "10% of Northern India", it has to be all "Indians shitting on streets". Whereas, some flaw in the developed countries is always attributed to the actual states where there is a problem rather than all of the population.

Have you been to India ? No one does this in the cities, it's a problem in the villages where the govt. hasn't built enough toilets (due to corruption or plain neglect). The current govt. organized a program just to counter this, how effective this program is up for debate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swachh_Bharat_mission

Any problem, including education about safe hygiene practices, is massively difficult at scale. Educating people in the rural areas will solve this problem, but when it's many millions it can be slow so more innovative methods need to be thought of.

Even in the US there is a rise in the "anti-vaccine" crowd. A topic that is supposedly so-obvious that everyone should be against it. Yet, education at scale is an important solution to protecting kids against anti-vax parents.

The problem is not that the government hasn't built any toilets, the problem is that some people don't build toilets on their own.

I have two toilets at home, I haven't waited for the government to build them for me.

You likely have a functioning sewer system and fresh water taps to your home.

Americans always underestimate the amount of effort and wealth it takes for the infrastructure that maintains their normalcy.

It doesn't take a genius, sewer system or fresh water taps to build a dry toilet though. Nothing to do with America.

It does take land that you possess and are willing to sacrifice for long-term composting. We're passing judgement here without knowing anything about the social systems in these places.

> You likely have a functioning sewer system a

Functioning septic systems are also not paid for by the government and a large portion of the non urban U.S. still uses them. A much smaller portion of the non urban U.S. is still on well water. Perhaps most importantly, federal and state governments don't pay sewer and water systems in most cases.

(Though Hookworm is resurfacing because people don't realize that they have to invest in their septic systems)

@dang Might want to take a look at this subthread.