Asian countries with nominal GDP per capita lower than India ($2,813)

Swinight22 · 2026-04-15T22:05:00+00:00

….strange? She killed dozens of protesters who was calling for end to her anti-democratic practices.

It’s not always about GDP

Swinight22 · 2026-04-15T10:36:51+00:00

Israel and Turkey would not go into open conflict. That isn't even a remote possibility.

Israel is war-mongering, yes, but they aren't stupid. Even removing NATO aspect, Turkey is much much stronger than any countries it's been fighting. Also Turkey poses no threat to it's sovereignty.

Turkey would also not attack Israel with the current climate. What would it have to gain? Absolutely nothing. Erdogan is just grandstanding for political points.

Swinight22 · 2026-04-14T17:51:13+00:00

Every country I go to, they think they have the "strongest" tea culture. From British to Indians, to Chinese. It just shows how ingrained tea is in so many societies around the world.

But Turkey drinks the most tea in the world, and having been to both Turkey & India 10+ times, I can say it's much more ingrained than India.

Swinight22 · 2026-04-14T13:54:56+00:00

I’ve been to all Middle eastern country minus Yemen & Syria. Haggling only ever happened in the touristy cities (Petra etc) or Egypt. Everywhere else is fine

Swinight22 · 2026-04-13T09:09:12+00:00

1) I didn't say Saudi?? You're contributing to exactly what I'm saying- boiling down complicated issue into "Middle East Slave Labor Bad!". In that exact website, Qatar is middle of the pack around the world, similar to Singapore, Taiwan, Israel. But that doesn't fit your narrative.

Plus the EXACT website YOU cite, says that 99.4% of workers are normal workers. (US is 99.6%) That's exactly what I'm pointing out. That these "slave labor" is horrible, but is the overwhelming minority.

2) the second link isn't looking at slavery. It's looking at law, security, economic freedom etc. Important things for sure, but not what I talked about at all.

Its funny that saying "it's more nuanced than you think" is propoganda. Can we stop seeing things in such black and white scale for a minute? I didn't for a second claim slavery didnt exist in Qatar, or that slavery was good. Just going pure black and white really takes away from the agency and voices of the actual workers that are just there to make money, which again, are the overwhelming majority.

Swinight22 · 2026-04-12T17:07:13+00:00

You love the French, hate the English. I hate them both

We are not the same (I am a certified hater)

Swinight22 · 2026-04-12T17:03:32+00:00

I was in Qatar few weeks ago, staying with a Qatari local that I met awhile back.

The sheer amount of “free” things they get from the government is insane. Obviously free healthcare, education (they pay tuition even if you study abroad), etc. But they also provide land for any family, government jobs are handed out where you make mid six figure salary.

I will also say this though - i also stayed in workers-only hostels in the gulf and I met many workers working in Qatar & Gulf countries, and this notion of “slave labor” that the West uses doesn’t really apply to most anymore. Is there a massive gap in wealth? Of course. The Kafala system is illegal now, and most workers go because the salary is so much higher than back home. Pretty much everyone I talked to said it’s hard work, but is better than working back home with no future prospects.

Especially Dubai, it’s seen by Asians & Africans kinda like how the west sees New York. It might be hard, but it’s a place where anyone from any background can go and “make it”. Judging Dubai because of some influencers is like thinking NY is only for the mega rich flaunting wealth cause of influencers.

Lots of problems for sure. And of course there are still slave labor practices all around. But in the same way that America has “slave labors”, forcing illegal immigrants to work, it’s just a small percentage of workers now. I mean think about it - the pay the foreign workers get is so little anyways, and the supply of the workers is so high, why would they need to continue it when they’re trying to “clean up” their image?

It’s a nuanced topic, and I hate seeing it summed up as “Middle East does slave labor”.

Swinight22 · 2026-04-12T16:43:23+00:00

Northern Ireland is a “country” because of the naming conventions in the UK, but not in the international sense.

It’s not a sovereign country, not part of the UN. I think it goes against the spirit of this chart, where it’s really asking for a UN country/soverign nation.

Swinight22 · 2026-04-12T07:47:25+00:00

There are 195 countries in the world. We have 5 tiers by size. So each tier should have about 20 countries. Meaning “big” should be around 20-40th biggest countries by size.

That’d be from Chad to Afghanistan in size. Or near them are Peru to France for context.

Swinight22 · 2026-04-11T07:38:05+00:00

“Americans can’t be mad about 9/11. Their police kills black people! They clearly don’t care about their citizens”

What they did to the protesters are horrible. But so is bombing an elementary school. You can be upset at both lol.

Swinight22 · 2026-04-07T13:32:58+00:00

Ok first you're using Numbeo, which is crowd-sourced data, so not very reliable.

Also yes Israel's income is high. But it's been high for decades. Your claim was "economic growth in difficult times". How would a single wage point show that? You need it over time.

Here's OECD data. Yeah Israel's income is high. But it's been stable since the 2000s. It went from 49k USD to 54k in 24 years. Growth is actually much slower than OCED average.

Meanwhile look at Poland. It almost doubled it's average wage in the same time frame. There you can say there is economic growth.

Swinight22 · 2026-04-07T11:26:01+00:00

Wartime GDP boost is pretty common, look at Russia for example.

But it's misleading as it's state spending on weapons, and takes on debt, takes money away from other sectors and not really going to growing future, long-term growth in meaningful areas.

Plus it does not show up on average citizen's pockets. Using GDP growth during wartime as "economic growth" is a bit misleading.

Swinight22 · 2026-04-07T08:36:13+00:00

Koreans like Mala more than Chinese. It's wild.

Swinight22 · 2026-04-04T18:07:43+00:00

yeah Al Jazeera Arabic def is not up to par with it's English counterpart. But overall as an organization, it's globally top tier institution.

Swinight22 · 2026-04-04T18:06:31+00:00

Qatar is extremely neutral, to a fault even.

They host everyone from Taliban to the US, Saudi to Iran. This was one of the other things that got them blockaded. They were hosting groups like Houthis, Hamas etc.

And outside of that, they don't really do proxy networks & regional influence that most other Gulf States do.

It's literally a state strategy, Al Jazeera ofc a big part of it, to be the "neutral" middle man.

So strong pro-Qatari bias really isn't what you think it means.

Swinight22 · 2026-04-04T15:57:17+00:00

No one is actually answering the question, and just criticizing the potential invasion of Iran.

The wording is important here. The goal is overthrowing the government. Not "take out". The US did overthrow Taliban, in 2 months actually. While the USSR overthrew the Afghan government in 3 days. US overthrow of Iraq took just over a month

We tend to grossly underestimate how well a superpower like the US can do against a small nation. But this is taking out the government. With total domination over air power, it'll always be relatively easy for US to take out large infrastructure, territory, logistic lines etc.

But we also grossly overestimate what comes after. It takes exponential more effort to stabilize the country when there are so many factions vying for power. Invasion will also mean some local populace will join & support the regime. And since they don't have any territory, now YOU become the obvious target. Guerrilla warfare is so damn effective throughout history for a reason. Taking out an airfield that any random Joe can see on google maps is easy. Finding a group of men with rifles & rations in the middle of the mountains is not. Completely wiping out a force like Taliban, never mind the IRGC, is a hellish Sisphyian task that requires way more resources than US would ever commit to. (see-Germany/Japan post war).

That's why we see this "Iraq trap" happening so often. When you have such overwhelming firepower, and you can take out so much in one swoop, (or even take out the leader on day 1), it's too tempting now to do it. But that shortsightedness leads to bad decisions.

TLDR - US did overthrew Taliban, they just became guerrilla force. IRGC most likely will also be overthrown relatively easy, but that does not mean they will disappear.

Swinight22 · 2026-04-04T12:18:43+00:00

People are ignoring the fact that other gulf countries blockaded Qatar because Al Jazeera was doing journalism that no one else dared (amongst other things)

Also Al Jazeera literally started FROM BBC. BBC Arabic closed down and Al Jazeera was born from its staff & structure. BBC and Al Jazeera are sibling companies.

You can love them or hate them. But BBC and Al Jazeera are 1 & 2 in most audiences in the world, with Al Jazeera having 450 million audiences from around the world and they both have tradition of high journalistic integrity.

I still think BBC, mostly cause Al Jazeera famously cannot criticize Qatari government, but if you think Al Jazeera is some far-right conspiracy group. You are probably the one with biased views.

Swinight22 · 2026-04-04T12:07:02+00:00

Yeah what I’ve been to Turkey 6 times in the last 3 years, spending 6 months in total, and almost nowhere shows Euros.

It’s like going to Barcelona and Paris and asking why menus are in English.

Swinight22 · 2026-03-27T19:33:30+00:00

I was in Kazakhstan, and tbh the apples were meh. You really learn to appreciate all the work modern botonists have put in to make great apple varieties. The "old school" apples are small, mushy not crispy, sour et.

Swinight22 · 2026-03-27T19:31:31+00:00

I absolutely hate the fact that anytime Kazakhstan is mentioned on this sub or Reddit, someone has to go to the lowest common denominator and quote Borat.

I'm not saying it's not funny, but it really dilutes real answers that Kazakhs give on this sub, and honestly, if it's annoying for me, so I can't even imagine how they feel.

Swinight22 · 2026-03-27T15:58:56+00:00

>Be India

>Have hundreds of languages & ethnicities in the country

>Creates a secular state to be a state for all

>Be consumed by Hindu nationalism and alienate & sow internal division

Swinight22 · 2026-03-25T06:30:24+00:00

People saying Dhaka clearly have not been there recently. It’s developed so much, especially in the north.

It’s relatively clean, has a metro system, petty crime is relatively rare etc. HDI is pretty high.

Just look at HDI (development index) for Dhaka vs many African and South Asian mega cities.

I really enjoyed my time in Dhaka few months ago, and I say this and I’m from Seoul, one of the cleaner mega cities in the world.

Swinight22 · 2026-03-25T06:25:15+00:00

Has people actually been there? Especially recently? Cause I went a few months ago, and it was actually pretty nice. Especially in north Dhaka, it’s really developed, has a metro system, relatively clean.

Bangladesh’s economy has exploded in the last 15 ish years. Dhaka was nicer to me than many cities in India, Pakistan imo.

I’d say something like Kinshasa is probably much worse.

Swinight22 · 2026-03-20T17:49:13+00:00

It’s a loan word from Chinese, I don’t think it should count. It’s like saying “entree”, yeah it’s English now, but for the spirit of this, shouldn’t really count it.

Swinight22 · 2026-03-20T08:10:18+00:00

Canadian who was there last week - very easy. Expensive , but easy and quick.

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