7 ms·

No, it is not. If I propose adding "don't be sneaky little hobbitses" to the MIT license and people don't want to add it, is it evidence that we have sneaky Ho

No, it is not. If I propose adding "don't be sneaky little hobbitses" to the MIT license and people don't want to add it, is it evidence that we have sneaky Hobbits infiltrating the software developer community? Or something more serious, people who are against the PATRIOT Act are evidence that we need the laws and they are not patriots, anyway? Is it the level of discourse we want? You take what's in the bill at face value and believe it has only positive effects, and don't even consider why others might be against it. NYT mentions that the bill "would make South Asians (...) more vulnerable to unfair accusations of discrimination." https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/02/us/south-asians-are-divided-over-a-pending-ban-on-caste-discrimination.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/02/us/south-asians-are-divid... My attempt to understand their argument: imagine you are from India, living your life, conducting interviews, working to the best of your abilities, then someone sues you, alleging that you only didn't hire him, because of his cast. Now, you'll spend months if not years trying to prove that you didn't, while people around you will believe the accusations and start treating you like a casteist bigot. Then, as this gets more and more common, companies stop hiring people from South Asia because they don't want to deal with this. Now, is this true or is it their only argument against it? I don't know, but you can see how people could be against it for other reasons than "oh I want to discriminate so hard and this bill won't let me".

TMWNN 3y ago
>Then, as this gets more and more common, companies stop hiring people from South Asia because they don't want to deal with this. And what is wrong with this solution, compared to the alternative of American companies and the American people being forced to deal with foreign prejudices and beliefs imported into their country? When children get into a fight, adults intervene by separating the combatants and sending them home regardless of who is "right". As a non-Indian American, I don't know who is "right" regarding the existence and extent of caste-based discrimination. I don't care. I shouldn't care. I shouldn't have to know or care in the first place!
- innagadadavida 3y ago
  > I don't care. I shouldn't care. I shouldn't have to know or care in the first place! Newsom vetoing the bill is on similar grounds - no one should care or talk about cast and certainly it should not be mentioned in any CA bill.
  - TMWNN 3y ago
    I know. I am going further, and stating that if South Asians are arguing *in the US* about the existence and extent of caste-based discrimination, and it's gotten to the point that a law was proposed and almost enacted, maybe we Americans should question whether we should have the arguers, as well as the arguments, in the US in the first place. I mean, you can say that the South Asian presence in the UK is because of the legacy of empire and all that. You can kind of sort of make the same argument for Canada. But that in no way applies to the US. The US has zero obligations of any kind to India. Like all immigrants Indians should be evaluated on their potential to contribute to the US in positive and negative ways.
    - belltaco 3y ago
      > maybe we Americans should question whether we should have the arguers, as well as the arguments, in the US in the first place That certainly doesn't sound blanket racist against an ethnicity of 1.5 billion people... Land of free speech indeed.
      - TMWNN 3y ago
        >Land of free speech indeed. Yes, and I want to keep it that way. I ask again: What is the obligation for America, or Americans, to host intra-South Asian arguments and their arguers? Arguments that do not, in theory, involve any non-South Asians whatsoever? Is the only allowed outcome one in which the number and volume of said arguments hosted by America increase? As I said: >Like all immigrants Indians should be evaluated on their potential to contribute to the US in positive and negative ways. There is no inherent right for South Asians to enter the US other than on the US government and its people's sufferance of same. If Americans decide that the disadvantages from the presence of South Asians (or Kenyans, or Danish, or Guatemalans, or New Zealanders) exceed the advantages, there can and should be consequences regarding immigration, visa, and naturalization laws. What should not happen is to preemptively squelch any efforts toward determining this as "blanket racism", any more than existing laws that apply uniformly toward all of a particular national origin are such.
- JambalayaJim 3y ago
  Dealing with foreign beliefs and prejudices is part and parcel of having an immigration system. The US, having been built on immigration, has been dealing with these kind of “motherland” conflicts for its entire history. Sometimes these American soil conflicts spill back out onto the motherland countries in a big way, as Cuba, Ireland, and Israel/Palestine can all attest. If caste-based discrimination is rampant then certainly it should be a bigger part of the screening process for immigrants. You can even refuse entry for immigrants from South Asia entirely - though I suspect this is a massively losing proposition for the US as a whole. What you cannot do (as you seem to be implying) is wholesale cast out American citizens based on their ethnicity or place of birth. Or at least I would hope not! I am a Canadian citizen, born in India. I have the exact same rights as any other Canadian - any Canadian telling me “your problems are not Canada’s” would be incorrect, and I would consider them a racist as well. I don’t practice any caste based discrimination. I wouldn’t even know the caste I might have belonged; the caste of anyone I know; or how to determine caste! I would still vote against this bill.
  - TMWNN 3y ago
    >Dealing with foreign beliefs and prejudices is part and parcel of having an immigration system. It is inevitable. That does not mean that we can, or should, tolerate all such examples indefinitely. >Sometimes these American soil conflicts spill back out onto the motherland countries in a big way, as Cuba, Ireland, and Israel/Palestine can all attest. I am well aware. But all those conflicts occur "back home". Boston Irish support for the Nationalists in Ireland may not have been a wonderful thing to other Americans, but at least Americans did not have to deal with the conflicts on their own soil. Miami anti-Castro Cubans did not fight Miami Cuban Communists on American soil. On the other hand, the reports of widespread celebrations in heavily Arab-immigrant sections of European cities during the current Hamas attack on Israel, and the well known huge rise in attacks on native Jews by said immigrants (and, more worryingly, their descendants) in France in recent years, ought to be very concerning to Europeans. >If caste-based discrimination is rampant then certainly it should be a bigger part of the screening process for immigrants. You can even refuse entry for immigrants from South Asia entirely - though I suspect this is a massively losing proposition for the US as a whole. Maybe. Probably. At least the sheer diffuseness of the issue of caste-based discrimination—we can't quantify its existence, and as a non-Indian I cannot personally speak to its existence, one way or another—makes that calculation likely. If the problem were so widespread and visible that non-Indians were routinely witnesses to it, that might be a different story. >What you cannot do (as you seem to be implying) is wholesale cast out American citizens based on their ethnicity or place of birth. Or at least I would hope not! Nowhere have I suggested such. I have only said that if there is a widespread caste-based problem, one solution is to reduce or block further entry by those of South Asian origin to the US, and possibly revoke the visas of non-US citizen South Asians. The frenzied claims by others that I have proposed to revoke First Amendment protections on South Asians in the US, or that I advocate the expulsion of all South Asians (regardless of US citizenship), are only in their minds. >I am a Canadian citizen, born in India. I have the exact same rights as any other Canadian - any Canadian telling me “your problems are not Canada’s” would be incorrect, and I would consider them a racist as well. I disagree. As a naturalized Canadian citizen part of the duties and responsibilities that accompany receiving a new citizenship is to abandon the detrimental parts that came with the old. That includes prejudices and behavior that would cause societal turmoil in the new country. The onus is on the new citizen, and not the new citizen's new country. >I don’t practice any caste based discrimination. I wouldn’t even know the caste I might have belonged; the caste of anyone I know; or how to determine caste! Again, speaking as a non-Indian, how is this possible? Were you naturalized as a small child, and your parents never once spoke of the caste they belonged to? I thought every Indian in India was aware (whether they like it or not) of their caste.
- sachislife 3y ago
  > When children get into a fight, adults intervene by separating the combatants and sending them home regardless of who is "right" Americans are not "adults" of the world and others are not "children". Stop with this patronizing and condescending bullshit. The world doesn't revolve around your ass. > I don't care. I shouldn't care. I shouldn't have to know or care in the first place! Same. Hard Same. Next time when one of your european self appointed "adult" attacks another european self appointed "adult", don't cry like a b---h when the rest of the world continues to live their life like it doesn't matter.
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ethanbond 3y ago
Maybe if you’re starting from no priors, but actually we’re starting from the prior of 2,000 years of religion-driven apartheid (arguably mandated, but happy to concede this point), and ~50% of Indian-Americans still subscribe to the system that’s responsible for that apartheid (even if they might disagree with the apartheid itself). So with those priors, I simply cannot put much weight in “people accused of being discriminatory are worried they will be accused of being discriminatory.” That argument can be leveled against any civil rights action.

TMWNN 3y ago

>Then, as this gets more and more common, companies stop hiring people from South Asia because they don't want to deal with this. And what is wrong with this solution, compared to the alternative of American companies and the American people being forced to deal with foreign prejudices and beliefs imported into their country? When children get into a fight, adults intervene by separating the combatants and sending them home regardless of who is "right". As a non-Indian American, I don't know who is "right" regarding the existence and extent of caste-based discrimination. I don't care. I shouldn't care. I shouldn't have to know or care in the first place!

innagadadavida 3y ago
> I don't care. I shouldn't care. I shouldn't have to know or care in the first place! Newsom vetoing the bill is on similar grounds - no one should care or talk about cast and certainly it should not be mentioned in any CA bill.
- TMWNN 3y ago
  I know. I am going further, and stating that if South Asians are arguing *in the US* about the existence and extent of caste-based discrimination, and it's gotten to the point that a law was proposed and almost enacted, maybe we Americans should question whether we should have the arguers, as well as the arguments, in the US in the first place. I mean, you can say that the South Asian presence in the UK is because of the legacy of empire and all that. You can kind of sort of make the same argument for Canada. But that in no way applies to the US. The US has zero obligations of any kind to India. Like all immigrants Indians should be evaluated on their potential to contribute to the US in positive and negative ways.
  - belltaco 3y ago
    > maybe we Americans should question whether we should have the arguers, as well as the arguments, in the US in the first place That certainly doesn't sound blanket racist against an ethnicity of 1.5 billion people... Land of free speech indeed.
    - TMWNN 3y ago
      >Land of free speech indeed. Yes, and I want to keep it that way. I ask again: What is the obligation for America, or Americans, to host intra-South Asian arguments and their arguers? Arguments that do not, in theory, involve any non-South Asians whatsoever? Is the only allowed outcome one in which the number and volume of said arguments hosted by America increase? As I said: >Like all immigrants Indians should be evaluated on their potential to contribute to the US in positive and negative ways. There is no inherent right for South Asians to enter the US other than on the US government and its people's sufferance of same. If Americans decide that the disadvantages from the presence of South Asians (or Kenyans, or Danish, or Guatemalans, or New Zealanders) exceed the advantages, there can and should be consequences regarding immigration, visa, and naturalization laws. What should not happen is to preemptively squelch any efforts toward determining this as "blanket racism", any more than existing laws that apply uniformly toward all of a particular national origin are such.
JambalayaJim 3y ago
Dealing with foreign beliefs and prejudices is part and parcel of having an immigration system. The US, having been built on immigration, has been dealing with these kind of “motherland” conflicts for its entire history. Sometimes these American soil conflicts spill back out onto the motherland countries in a big way, as Cuba, Ireland, and Israel/Palestine can all attest. If caste-based discrimination is rampant then certainly it should be a bigger part of the screening process for immigrants. You can even refuse entry for immigrants from South Asia entirely - though I suspect this is a massively losing proposition for the US as a whole. What you cannot do (as you seem to be implying) is wholesale cast out American citizens based on their ethnicity or place of birth. Or at least I would hope not! I am a Canadian citizen, born in India. I have the exact same rights as any other Canadian - any Canadian telling me “your problems are not Canada’s” would be incorrect, and I would consider them a racist as well. I don’t practice any caste based discrimination. I wouldn’t even know the caste I might have belonged; the caste of anyone I know; or how to determine caste! I would still vote against this bill.
- TMWNN 3y ago
  >Dealing with foreign beliefs and prejudices is part and parcel of having an immigration system. It is inevitable. That does not mean that we can, or should, tolerate all such examples indefinitely. >Sometimes these American soil conflicts spill back out onto the motherland countries in a big way, as Cuba, Ireland, and Israel/Palestine can all attest. I am well aware. But all those conflicts occur "back home". Boston Irish support for the Nationalists in Ireland may not have been a wonderful thing to other Americans, but at least Americans did not have to deal with the conflicts on their own soil. Miami anti-Castro Cubans did not fight Miami Cuban Communists on American soil. On the other hand, the reports of widespread celebrations in heavily Arab-immigrant sections of European cities during the current Hamas attack on Israel, and the well known huge rise in attacks on native Jews by said immigrants (and, more worryingly, their descendants) in France in recent years, ought to be very concerning to Europeans. >If caste-based discrimination is rampant then certainly it should be a bigger part of the screening process for immigrants. You can even refuse entry for immigrants from South Asia entirely - though I suspect this is a massively losing proposition for the US as a whole. Maybe. Probably. At least the sheer diffuseness of the issue of caste-based discrimination—we can't quantify its existence, and as a non-Indian I cannot personally speak to its existence, one way or another—makes that calculation likely. If the problem were so widespread and visible that non-Indians were routinely witnesses to it, that might be a different story. >What you cannot do (as you seem to be implying) is wholesale cast out American citizens based on their ethnicity or place of birth. Or at least I would hope not! Nowhere have I suggested such. I have only said that if there is a widespread caste-based problem, one solution is to reduce or block further entry by those of South Asian origin to the US, and possibly revoke the visas of non-US citizen South Asians. The frenzied claims by others that I have proposed to revoke First Amendment protections on South Asians in the US, or that I advocate the expulsion of all South Asians (regardless of US citizenship), are only in their minds. >I am a Canadian citizen, born in India. I have the exact same rights as any other Canadian - any Canadian telling me “your problems are not Canada’s” would be incorrect, and I would consider them a racist as well. I disagree. As a naturalized Canadian citizen part of the duties and responsibilities that accompany receiving a new citizenship is to abandon the detrimental parts that came with the old. That includes prejudices and behavior that would cause societal turmoil in the new country. The onus is on the new citizen, and not the new citizen's new country. >I don’t practice any caste based discrimination. I wouldn’t even know the caste I might have belonged; the caste of anyone I know; or how to determine caste! Again, speaking as a non-Indian, how is this possible? Were you naturalized as a small child, and your parents never once spoke of the caste they belonged to? I thought every Indian in India was aware (whether they like it or not) of their caste.
sachislife 3y ago
> When children get into a fight, adults intervene by separating the combatants and sending them home regardless of who is "right" Americans are not "adults" of the world and others are not "children". Stop with this patronizing and condescending bullshit. The world doesn't revolve around your ass. > I don't care. I shouldn't care. I shouldn't have to know or care in the first place! Same. Hard Same. Next time when one of your european self appointed "adult" attacks another european self appointed "adult", don't cry like a b---h when the rest of the world continues to live their life like it doesn't matter.

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ethanbond 3y ago

Maybe if you’re starting from no priors, but actually we’re starting from the prior of 2,000 years of religion-driven apartheid (arguably mandated, but happy to concede this point), and ~50% of Indian-Americans still subscribe to the system that’s responsible for that apartheid (even if they might disagree with the apartheid itself). So with those priors, I simply cannot put much weight in “people accused of being discriminatory are worried they will be accused of being discriminatory.” That argument can be leveled against any civil rights action.