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Yea dude. I don't think its a slur either. let me rephrase as: 'people who grew up in caste system societies', are more likely to normalize 'caste systems'. I

• dang 8y ago
  The objectionable part is not the factual mention of a caste system. It's the facile generalization you make from it, and then apply to a specific person. The comment somehow managed to combine several kinds of nastiness: racial glibness, psychologizing glibness, internet glibness. You singled out the racial/national background of a CEO who is simply manifesting generic CEOness. Google is obviously no more of a "caste system" than the hierarchies of other corporations. Criticizing "people like this" for implicit bias seems, to me, like implicit bias in its own right. I don't mean to come down so hard on you as that sounds. I don't think there was malicious intent behind your comment—it was just a speculation of the kind many of us might make over beers or whatever with friends. In such a context, such a comment is probably harmless. The problem is, on an internet forum like HN you're broadcasting to an audience of millions. You can't simply import intimate conversation into this context: it doesn't survive the transition, and sometimes it turns out nastier and more harmful than you intended. In this respect the medium is the message and we all have to live with that.