https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/473247789728952321

Just use VSCode / SublimeText / Notepad++

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19357372

And almost every view you have of India, even your most recent one seems to be based on stereotypes and Bollywood films.

If you actually said these things to an Indian in person, they would call you a bigot.

^ That was an actual insult.

This is the first time I dropped the second sentence. I've only quoted it twice and I quoted it fully the first time.

I tried to answer your question by trying to inform you that the scenario your painting is incredibly, incredibly unrealistic.

I also feel that the context of the argument changes when you take into consideration what my top-most statement was.

I was expressing disbelief at the prevalence of old-age homes in western civilization. I took the article as a way to express that sentiment.

I acknowledge that dementia can be rough, and even I have had one or two extended family members who have gone through the same. My own grandfather passed away from Alzheimer's and yes, the last year was difficult. I'm not uncomfortable to face the question. What is a hypothetical to you was a brief reality to me. I'm just trying to make you see things from a different perspective.

All I was trying to do was to understand what I felt was a dissonance in your world view w.r.t how we treat our children vs. how we treat our parents with regards to professional care. That's all.

EDIT: The only reason I omitted the daughter-in-law statement is because it paints you in a poor light if you think that it's her duty to take care of aging in-laws. It came off as a bit sexist and I didn't want to derail the conversation.

What is confusing to me is your insistence to see the worst-case scenario and treat what is the last 3 months of their lives to the year-to-year scenario.

Please don't call me simple minded when I'm trying to be civil.

Now, back to your reply. You're saying that for you to put your child in professional care you would have to be an addict or abusive or schizophrenic. However, these don't seem to be preconditions for putting your parents in professional care. So going back to the statement I was focusing on:

As long as you can provide good quality care, there isn't much of a moral difference how it's done.[1]

Is it fair to say that you feel this is true for one's parents but not for one's children?

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19354278

I only ask that you don't let the plot devices of Bollywood films have a non-trivial influence on your world view.

The statement of yours that I was originally replying to was:

As long as you can provide good quality care, there isn't much of a moral difference how it's done. Just don't see how a trained professional changing vessels is worse than resentful daughter-in-law doing the same.[1]

The extended case I wanted to talk about was of a healthy, financially sound adult. Not kindergartens or extreme circumstances that lead to foster care. Say this adult wanted to put their 3-year old into an institution of permanent professional care. Would you find that to be the same as putting one's parents in an old folks home? Or is there some difference?

I am going to assume that you have children, because your entire tone changed when I brought up kids. If I'm wrong, please correct me. Would you be fine with putting your children in such an institution if you felt overwhelmed by the responsibility of child-rearing?

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19354278

There are challenges in taking care of your in laws but raising a child is easily a more painful and arduous task, so it's not very extreme in the larger scale of things.

Also, I didn't bring up virtue. One of the other commenters is fixated on me demonstrating moral superiority so I'm trying to speak to only that person w.r.t. virtue.

I originally replied to that commenter with a statement that implies that there is literally zero virtue in taking care of your parents in India. Nobody praises you or holds you in higher esteem for doing so over here.

Or to equate it more fairly, if a parent paid somebody to permanently take care of their children while they they visited them periodically, would that be as moral as putting their parents in a nursing home?

You asserted that as long as the quality of the care is acceptable, the source shouldn't make too much of a difference. I tried to give an example that would meet these requirements and still be questionable and you completely shut down.

It might surprise you but leaving India for education or employment is actually pretty commonplace and is not actually in conflict with the picture I have painted of India.

However, India hasn't been as successful as China in rapid development without it affecting cultural values. China has pretty swiftly achieved modernization without westernization which I think was one of the sub-goals of it's architect: Deng Xiaoping who laid the foundations of the same in the 1980's.

Our equivalent of Deng was unfortunately only a brilliant economist, so his 1991 reforms were limited to economic reforms with no social safeguards to help avoid Westernization.

As such, India right now is in a massive state of flux. There are Indians abroad similar to the one's you had met who have siezed the opportunity given to them to massively elevate their quality of life. There are also Indian's abroad who left the country with a very specific goal of either: 1) bringing their family in the next decade or so or 2) secure enough money for an early retirement and return to India.

It really comes down to the type of mindset their parents valued, not the country they were born/raised in.

Can this concept be extended to a parent-child relationship where the parent is replaced by a trained professional?

The visit may have been uncomfortable for you because of the absence of societal and cultural rules to help streamline these situations.

No matter how my life turns out, I will still do the same for my parents as they have done for theirs.

For large swathes of the population, putting your parents in and old-age home is seen as a complete and utter betrayal for the sacrifices they made for you.

One thing that has given me a bit of comfort was an answer I heard when somebody asked one of the great minds of the 21st century, Jennifer Lawrence, "what happens after we die?"

https://youtu.be/5LoBGoQPUNc?t=371

Whenever I find myself feeling a bit envious about the obvious advantages that are there in western countries, the reminder of the existence of this absurdity immediately removes all feelings of jealousy.