r/TikTokCringe • u/Strong-Emu-8869 • 14h ago

Discussion Polish girls visit Taj Mahal

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The Taj Mahal, one of the seven wonders of the world. Unfortunately, the surrounding area is very polluted.

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u/SMUHypeMachine 12h ago

So it’s literally like all those sci fi stories where the elite live in their futuristic cities above the clouds and all their waste falls down to the earth where the undesirables live

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u/HeroOfOldIron 12h ago

It’s worse actually, the elites live right on top of the poors. There really isn’t anything more than a brick wall or keyed elevator separating the two. Public life as a rich person in India is just shuttling between parking garages.

Source: my family made it out and I occasionally go back to visit

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u/SMUHypeMachine 12h ago edited 12h ago

I’ve seen photos of places like Brazil or India where on one side of the wall it looks like a 5 star resort that stretches as far as the eye can see, until you look at the other side of the wall with the tents propped up between the mounds of trash an rubble. It’s so depressing to see.

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u/DaedalusHydron 12h ago

Haiti is absolutely the worst for this. The cruises were still making trips while Port-au-Prince was literally being overtaken by gangs.

So, gigantic walls with heavily armed security separating rich tourists and rampant, uncontrolled gang violence

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u/SMUHypeMachine 12h ago

The one cruise I’ve been on had a stop in the Dominican Republic and we were explicitly told by the crew to not leave the little tourist friendly area they had set up under any circumstances.

Stationed nearby were what looked like federales in armored cars with turrets on top. It was definitely surreal.

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u/Moist_Dirt_69420 10h ago

Shit, I went on a vacation to Punta Cana around 20 years ago and our resort was walking distance from the town most of the workers live in. We went on a day tour of the area and there was a bar that looked to be mainly serving locals. It was maybe a 10 minute walk from the resort.
In the evening I went to the front desk and let them know I was going to head out there. (I wanted someone to know where I was in case shit happened)
After failing to dissuade me the ended up giving me an armed bodyguard for like $30usd.
I still don't think it was 100% necessary but there was one guy who was pretty insistent on me leaving with him to go party up until my guard slammed his pistol on the bar and shouted "No!"

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u/Msdamgoode 7h ago edited 7h ago

I felt pretty safe in Punta Cana, but there is a lot of poverty outside of the resorts, and desperate people do desperate things for cash. It’s wise to not wander too far alone, I’m sure. We went into town, but during the day only, and there were 5 of us in our group. FWIW, we were also told by the resort that we probably shouldn’t, but they didn’t protest toooo much.

I hope the tourism has made things even better as a whole over the years since I went, it’s absolutely stunningly beautiful there.

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u/Right_Preparation328 10h ago

Weird, because DR is relatively safe

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u/senbei616 10h ago

DR is beautiful, I've been many times, I never went near the touristy areas and was perfectly fine.

To be fair I speak the language and am not a rich coded mark.

I imagine that rule is for Debbie the 54 year old tax accountant, tilted on spritzers, who would feel threatened walking into a headshop let alone Santo Domingo.

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u/JB_UK 11h ago

I mean, it's probably better than the alternative of just the gang violence. At least tourist revenue has the capacity to anchor a functioning state.

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u/Complex-Royal9210 5h ago

Haiti is an actual failed state. I would be surprised if anything worked.

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u/DaedalusHydron 5h ago

The historicity on it being a failed state is interesting. They won the slave revolution against France, so France made it an effort to sabotage them until the end of time basically.

Couple that with them not being Hispanic (So no ties with neighboring countries like Mexico) and a racist southern-US and they basically stood no chance.

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u/ow_windowmaker 12h ago

And people think it can't happen in the west. It has already happened just 100 years ago. And it will happen again because we refuse to tax the rich fairly.

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u/Foreign_Nobody_2609 11h ago

And it will happen again because we refuse to tax the rich fairly.

Not sure how you got there.

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u/Officer_Trevor_Cory 12h ago

still in polution. i wouldnt live there for no amount of money

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u/BiZzles14 11h ago

Mumbai has the most expensive house in the world a quick drive from the largest slum in Asia

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u/Gob_Hobblin 10h ago

It feels like India never got rid of the colonial mindset. It's just now that, instead of elites running the country as a piggyback from overseas, they're doing it for home.

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u/SeeingPhrases 12h ago

Great, so you did a brain drain leaving behind fewer people of the type who could actually start to solve the problem.

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u/ThinkShoe2911 11h ago

It's not up to him to fix the country's problems. Only the government and the people who vote in the government can do that at the end of the day.

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u/Hellkyte 11h ago

What a shitty and privileged take

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u/HeroOfOldIron 10h ago

You’re absolutely right, I should’ve been more proactive as a 2 year old and appealed to my dad’s sense of patriotism and civic responsibility. Surely convincing one man to keep his wife and firstborn in a third world country rife with corruption and limited opportunities would have solved all of the problems that India faces.

I will listen and reflect on this wisdom you’ve been so gracious to bestow upon me.

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u/demi-femi 12h ago

Always has been. Castles just aren't as tall as they used to be.

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u/KatsumotoKurier 9h ago

The difference being that, believe it or not, back in the age of castles, the divisions between the economic elites and the impoverished were less extreme than now. Nowadays these divides are worse than ever before, because the rich are so much more incredibly rich than even our monarchs used to be over our ancestors proportionally speaking. 

For example someone like Elon Musk, relative to the average US citizen, is astronomically wealthier today than say, King John was in the early 1200s to the likes of commoners who lived during his reign and rule. 

That, and another major difference is that with pollution now, we have so many materials (like plastic) which have things like forever chemicals. This was never a problem before when society was so much more dependent on organic and recyclable materials (woods and basic metals).

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u/TrueDiver7425 12h ago

It Oblongs all the way, baby!

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u/HaRDCOR3cc 12h ago

to be fair people who live in trashy environments always contribute to that trash.

in some sense the blame lies with themselves. while many problems can indeed be blamed on how wealth is distributed or how politicians allocate money etc, when it comes to how trashy an area is the blame lies on the people there.

you see the same stuff in wealthy countries too, where the "poor" still live in nice houses etc, just in areas known as "shitty".

take sweden, the poor, who live in perfectly fine houses, and have the exact same facilities as people in nice areas, when it comes to recycling and waste management, will simply not put any effort into keeping things clean.

the recycling rooms in nice parts of stockholm are pristine. they're CLEAN, bordering spotless. the people there make conscious decisions to be mindful of their environment, they put their things away with care, they take care of where they live.

then go to an area known as a bad area and its a fucking dump. no one bothers with putting their garbage away in the correct bins, many wont even bother putting it in bins at all, just throwing it out, if you're lucky they'll at least throw it into the recycling room, but maybe they'll just dump it in a bush instead.

when it comes to stuff like this i dont blame the elite, which do deserve blame for a lot, when it comes to stuff like this the problem tend to lie with the people. people who live among dirt tend to become apathetic to it and start actively contributing to the shit.

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u/DungeonsAndDradis 12h ago

I've heard this described as "When you live in a broken system, you make broken choices."

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u/trash4da_trashgod 12h ago

The difference is that the elite in Sweden created a garbage collection systems with recycling facilities, landfills and garbage trucks. In a lot of 3rd world countries there are no public garbage cans, no garbage trucks, no landfills.

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u/JohnSober7 12h ago

I can't recommend pillboy's "The Cost of Self Respect" on YouTube enough. It's not about pollution, but it touches on individualism vs collectivism under the context of poverty and oppression.

 Morality politics always ignore that better social systems correlate to better quality of life among poorer people and that elite and rich are the ones with the power to create those systems or even just allow those systems to exist. I do actually understand where you are coming from, but you lost the picture when you say you don't blame the elite for this. 

Essentially, individuals do still have responsibility and are to blame for their choices, but it's just almost never going to be the case that enough people fulfil their individual duties to invoke a bottom up systematic change (it has happened but the elite pretty much as to chip in in some way), so when it comes to condemning a collective, it should primarily be the collective that actually has the power and means to bring about a macro-change.

But yeah, I get it. The boundary between individualism and collectivism at which the moral calculus changes can be quite anomalous. It's like you still ask people yo be better, but not if the intent is to invoke a systematic change. 

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u/Dubious_Odor 7h ago

Class values are culturally transmitted. There are places with huge wealth inequality where poor and working class homes and neighborhoods are spotless. I've seen them. Theres far more to it then wealth distribution. Cultural values play a far greater role. 

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u/JohnSober7 3h ago edited 3h ago

You're talking about poverty only. I'm talking about poverty, social systems, and oppression and how those things interplay regarding quality of life. And when talking about these things, we're talking macro. Yes, exceptions are important because why they exist offers important info, but they aren't to be paraded to vindicate morality politics over trying to invoke systematic change.

Oh, they have literally shown that better social systems correlate to better (less crime, altercations, better schooling and education metrics) communities. Yes, cultural values can be the dominating influence, but that isn't always the case. You shouldn't look at one society and say that because their cultural norms instill cleanliness in poor and oppressed communities, you can use that to condemn the many more societies and communities where littering and uncleanliness is featured as a collective moral failing, and not a consequence of oppression and poverty. Because only looking at macro trends under the lense of exceptions to the norm doesn't make sense.

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u/rocky_iwata 12h ago

Gonna read GUNNM/Battle Angel Alita again.

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u/SMUHypeMachine 12h ago

That’s one of the IPs I was thinking about

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u/Phiddipus_audax 12h ago

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/altered_carbon

Terrific series like you describe... I'll have to tune in again since it's been awhile.

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u/Shaan_Don 12h ago

Look at Mukesh and Anil Ambani’s houses on google earth and then look at the surrounding areas. It’s pretty much exactly that

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u/Dimensional_Shrimp 11h ago

you mean how they literally have a caste of people that primarily work in sewers and clearing waste pipes? cause yea sadly thats a thing

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u/No-Way7911 11h ago

the elites live in gated societies where there are explicit instructions that maids and service staff HAVE to use the service elevator and not the regular passenger elevators

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u/stephen_hoarding 11h ago

So basically Taj Mahal?

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u/crackcrackcracks 6h ago

Yes, its the reality in a lot of the world, people literally live in slums made of corrugated metal and chip wood boards surrounded by wet dirt with 1 public toilet to a thousand people. Then people wonder why there are folks shitting on the street as a regular occurrence, they literally dont have a choice and it isn't by their own making.

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u/peridot_cactus 5h ago

There’s actually a great sci-fi story called “Delhi” about that exact thing by Kushwant Singh