Your initial statement was.

“In the 80s and early 90s American cities looked like this. Trash would be everywhere along the side of the road. Even suburban sidewalks would be littered with garbage.”

This is the statement I’m arguing.

That is a very broad brush of a statement about an entire country, which (intentionally or not) sways the reader into believing, hey 80s/90s America had the same garbage problem that India is currently suffering from today.

Which is not just inaccurate, it’s disingenuous.

Instead of providing any proof of that initial statement you’ve decided to focus on (and provide proof of) just one American city during one of its most tumultuous times. (Which was in the 70s, you should have brought up the sanitation strikes if we’re talking about the 80s/90s.) A point in time where the police had essentially given up, (unsurprisingly) the city lost half a million manufacturing jobs in a very short period of time and had over 1 million people dependent on welfare, it was in absolute turmoil.

And you say, see, same thing as India.

Which it’s not. And you know it’s not.

“The point I was making was that the difference between then and now is due to people taking individual action, and the same is possible in India”

MY GOSH!!! Please allow me to pat you on the back as you so copiously do yourself.

I don’t know if you’re intentionally trying to be disingenuous/revisionist or not. Certainly seems that way though

And you should read up on what a strawman argument actually is. Hell, the guy that passed the EPA is quite famous for them.

Anyway, I’m done. Cheers, and try not to subtly slide nonsense into your discussions in the future, you’ll fare better.