7 ms·

I am with Mike on this one. I am in the position of seeing this whole story from far away from SV from a small Eastern European country. I think to be far away

by nadam 15y ago

I am with Mike on this one. I am in the position of seeing this whole story from far away from SV from a small Eastern European country. I think to be far away helps me have a perspective on this 'playing the racism/sexism card' story. I know lots of Eastern-European guys who has been programming since they were 12 yeaers old, are very good at it, are intelligent, etc. but have incomparably worse 'social status' than anybody in the U.S, even black people or women. Lots of talent wasted, lots of people earning fractions of money what they could with a little more connections and 'social proofs' behind them. Here in Eastern Europe we are used to that life is hard, you have to be so good that they cannot ignore you. You have to convince people about how good you are through email or skype, you have to try to get a visa, etc... Women and black people who are born in the U.S. are much more privileged compared to most of the world's population. I have worked at local branches of U.S. companies. I had lots of white/black males/females as my bosses. All of them earned much more money than me and not all of them had the knowledge I have on software development. Anybody with even absolutely mediocre knowledge and not very much experience from the U.S was called 'senior associate', but even very experienced eastern europeans were sometimes titled simply 'associate', etc... I've seen lots of brilliant people with Ph.D-s doing the most boring grunt work, because that's what is outsourced here. But that's life. You have to earn 'social proof' with hard work. I don't think black people or women who are citiziens of the U.S are in especially bad situation in this regard.

calibraxis 15y ago
Are you aware the US jails more of its people than any other nation? No other country comes close. Like 5% of the world's population but 25% of its prisoners. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarcerat...) As you can verify by digging deeper into the data, the US is highly racist; massive numbers of Blacks are incarcerated. (This is what happens when a society was recently forced to stop formal slavery, without other fundamental changes. You still have to control them.) You can imagine how this destroys Black families, as well as the pervasive racist attitudes which are necessary to keep otherwise decent people from uniting to tear the system down. The argument that racist attitudes make a difference is all the more compelling, when you consider that tech investors often make snap judgements on pitches which last mere minutes. Assuming you can even get to that point. So with all due respect, I'm not sure you have a clear view of the US. Though I have no doubt that your country is exploited by foreign powers, like the US. (People who'll do that to their fellow citizens will happily do the same — or worse — to you.) And I don't just mean relatively skilled software programmers.
- grammaton 15y ago
  I'm terribly sorry, but you're making a huge leap here. The fact that "massive numbers" of blacks are incarcerated does not automatically imply pervasive racism. The one does not necessarily imply the other.
  - Rariel 15y ago
    What about the fact that Black men were disproportionately executed for rape, so much so that they stopped making the death penalty an option for rape cases? Is that institutionalized racism or just bad luck?
    - grammaton 15y ago
      I was under the impression that it was actually poor men who were executed disproportionately for rape. And while we're tossing stats around, how about the general amount of crime committed by said Black men? It is higher per capita, is it not? Is that due to racism too?
      - Rariel 15y ago
        You are incorrect, it is not poor men. "Of the 455 men executed for rape in the United States between 1930 and 1967, 90 percent were African American." Although I'm sure the vast majority of those men were poor. re: stats please provide some if you'd like some in return because you've made a huge generalization and I'd say that it's your bias speaking (not racism). In response to your question, if it is true that black men commit more crimes I'd say that the situation of blacks in america is directly tied racism, slavery and the like so yes, it is due to racism too.
        grammaton 15y ago
        "Between 1930 and 1967" You're going to have to do better than citing stats that are 44 years old. All this proves is that 44 years ago, there was a problem, which is not exactly a point of contention among most sentient beings at this point. "you've made a huge generalization and I'd say that it's your bias speaking (not racism)." Seriously? These are not obscure statistics I'm talking about here. Here, check this one out: "As of 2005, statistics show that offending rates for blacks were more than 7 times higher than the rates for whites." Taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States#Characteristics_of_offenders http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States#Char... Or how about: "These specific facts about the Bell shooting are just a few of the hundreds of thousands of data points that reveal a hard truth: any given violent crime in New York is 13 times more likely to have a black than a white perpetrator. While most black residents are law-abiding and desperately deserve police protection, the incidence of criminal activity among young black males is off the charts." Taken from http://www.city-journal.org/html/eon2007-04-02hm.html http://www.city-journal.org/html/eon2007-04-02hm.html And that was with five minutes of Googling. I'm not making some wild, off the wall assertion here. This is a well known and exhaustively documented fact. "I'd say that the situation of blacks in america is directly tied racism, slavery and the like so yes, it is due to racism too." I figured you would. Slavery ended 150 years ago, so if you want to assert that some 7 generations later it's still having effects, I welcome you to provide data to that effect. This, right here, is the problem in a nutshell - the minute these facts are mentioned, the hue and cry of racism and slavery goes up, and all further thought on the matter stops. The causes of this situation are complex, and reducing them to one dimensional truisms does no one any favors.

by nadam 15y ago

calibraxis 15y ago

Are you aware the US jails more of its people than any other nation? No other country comes close. Like 5% of the world's population but 25% of its prisoners. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarcerat...) As you can verify by digging deeper into the data, the US is highly racist; massive numbers of Blacks are incarcerated. (This is what happens when a society was recently forced to stop formal slavery, without other fundamental changes. You still have to control them.) You can imagine how this destroys Black families, as well as the pervasive racist attitudes which are necessary to keep otherwise decent people from uniting to tear the system down. The argument that racist attitudes make a difference is all the more compelling, when you consider that tech investors often make snap judgements on pitches which last mere minutes. Assuming you can even get to that point. So with all due respect, I'm not sure you have a clear view of the US. Though I have no doubt that your country is exploited by foreign powers, like the US. (People who'll do that to their fellow citizens will happily do the same — or worse — to you.) And I don't just mean relatively skilled software programmers.

grammaton 15y ago
I'm terribly sorry, but you're making a huge leap here. The fact that "massive numbers" of blacks are incarcerated does not automatically imply pervasive racism. The one does not necessarily imply the other.
- Rariel 15y ago
  What about the fact that Black men were disproportionately executed for rape, so much so that they stopped making the death penalty an option for rape cases? Is that institutionalized racism or just bad luck?
  - grammaton 15y ago
    I was under the impression that it was actually poor men who were executed disproportionately for rape. And while we're tossing stats around, how about the general amount of crime committed by said Black men? It is higher per capita, is it not? Is that due to racism too?
    - Rariel 15y ago
      You are incorrect, it is not poor men. "Of the 455 men executed for rape in the United States between 1930 and 1967, 90 percent were African American." Although I'm sure the vast majority of those men were poor. re: stats please provide some if you'd like some in return because you've made a huge generalization and I'd say that it's your bias speaking (not racism). In response to your question, if it is true that black men commit more crimes I'd say that the situation of blacks in america is directly tied racism, slavery and the like so yes, it is due to racism too.
      - grammaton 15y ago
        "Between 1930 and 1967" You're going to have to do better than citing stats that are 44 years old. All this proves is that 44 years ago, there was a problem, which is not exactly a point of contention among most sentient beings at this point. "you've made a huge generalization and I'd say that it's your bias speaking (not racism)." Seriously? These are not obscure statistics I'm talking about here. Here, check this one out: "As of 2005, statistics show that offending rates for blacks were more than 7 times higher than the rates for whites." Taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States#Characteristics_of_offenders http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States#Char... Or how about: "These specific facts about the Bell shooting are just a few of the hundreds of thousands of data points that reveal a hard truth: any given violent crime in New York is 13 times more likely to have a black than a white perpetrator. While most black residents are law-abiding and desperately deserve police protection, the incidence of criminal activity among young black males is off the charts." Taken from http://www.city-journal.org/html/eon2007-04-02hm.html http://www.city-journal.org/html/eon2007-04-02hm.html And that was with five minutes of Googling. I'm not making some wild, off the wall assertion here. This is a well known and exhaustively documented fact. "I'd say that the situation of blacks in america is directly tied racism, slavery and the like so yes, it is due to racism too." I figured you would. Slavery ended 150 years ago, so if you want to assert that some 7 generations later it's still having effects, I welcome you to provide data to that effect. This, right here, is the problem in a nutshell - the minute these facts are mentioned, the hue and cry of racism and slavery goes up, and all further thought on the matter stops. The causes of this situation are complex, and reducing them to one dimensional truisms does no one any favors.