Classism in America • Hacker News Board

Re: Classism in America

#261

Post by adambard » Thu, Apr 07, 2016, 4:48 AM UTC

gozur88 wrote: post #250

adambard wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you realize that ours is one of the few jobs that can be conducted entirely remotely? Perhaps the remote-work train is destined to derail at some point in the future, but at the moment it's totally possible to find work that lets you live anywhere there's available internet.

Is it really? I see this written on HN all the time, but of everyone I know who tried to find a remote job failed. The people who ended up working remotely are the ones who worked in the office for many years and gained the trust of their employer. Then when the family moved (usually due to a spouse changing jobs) the employer decided to let them work remotely rather than letting them go, at least in the near term.

> The people who ended up working remotely are the ones who worked in the office for many years and gained the trust of their employer.

Well yes pretty much this. I worked for a year on-premises before switching to remote, and I can imagine it's harder to find remote work from the get-go.

Re: Classism in America

#262

Post by jdminhbg » Thu, Apr 07, 2016, 5:03 AM UTC

jpindar wrote: post #242

brandonmenc wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm from Northwest Pennsylvania, and everyone there would also say "different." I know, because in high school I became friends with a highly educated family who moved into town after having lived all over the world, and made an effort to match their more intelligent sounding speech (which included, among other things, adding -ly to adverbs.) My mom still occasionally teases me that I say "eye-ther" instead of "eee-t…

Pennsyltucky is almost south. :)

Only if you have trouble distinguishing Appalachia from the South.

Re: Classism in America

#263

Post by notlisted » Thu, Apr 07, 2016, 5:03 AM UTC

lemoncucumber wrote: post #208

LiveJournal is so low class, the author should've picked a nice middle-class platform like Medium to publish this

Funny, to me it was an indicator of her age (ie when she started using the Internet). I have the same reaction to articles on blogger. I associate Medium with minimalist know-it-all bearded fixie hipster programmers (under 35). :p Still better then the SV(u)btle peeps (but less exclusive, by invitation only peeps, let's keep it classy!).

Re: Classism in America

#264

Post by coroutines » Thu, Apr 07, 2016, 5:16 AM UTC

JPKab wrote: post #11

Because of where I grew up (rural South and Appalachia), my native accent is something that I've learned to mask in all professional settings. It doesn't matter how immaculate my grammar is: in the profession of software engineering, southern accent = ignorant bigot who can't be trusted. People's biases, conscious or otherwise, are noticeable. The irony is that I practice "code switching", so basically my coworkers h…

I think this kind of goes both ways.

I've had instances where if I reveal my technical experience with the usual way I speak about such things - I get cold/rude service. This happened at one of those AT&T storefronts, Best Buy, Fry's Electronics, and at more than a few Apple Stores. I don't try to be intimidating, but I do want to inform the person "helping" me if I can...

I've gotten into the habit of adopting a slower speech with a slight drawl in an effort to appear more relatable and honest about my intentions. It takes some patience as I have to describe my problem 'in a circle' and without a larger vocabulary. However, I don't get treated like sheltered upper-class and people seem to want to help me rather than avoid me.

I've also avoid sounding like the stereotypical homosexual. Just the "accent" makes some people freak out and say I'm 'shoving it in their face'. I'm looking at you Aunt Marlene. I reserve the lisp for Vegas and Chippendales.

Just something to think about...

Re: Classism in America

#265

Post by Tycho » Thu, Apr 07, 2016, 5:17 AM UTC

The telltale sign of classicism in modern America is how the upper middle classes continue to put up with inflated college tuition fees. They're basically paying to keep the lower classes out.

Re: Classism in America

#266

Post by hueving » Thu, Apr 07, 2016, 5:20 AM UTC

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #99

zeveb wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's remarkable to me how folks who would never, ever be seen to say anything rude about other races (or who would only do so very obliquely) will quite loudly smirk about how much they hate Southerners, how stupid they think Southerners are &c. It's all just class. One can be just as intelligent with a Southern accent as one can be stupid with another.

Exactly. As a southerner, I have an accent, but I also don't answer important questions fast. IOW, I pause a beat to collect my thoughts. People tend to think this too is a sign of "stupid". Really, it's just I don't like to be wrong. I'd rather be slow up front and be right, than fast up front and be wrong. However, our development culture tends to think everything needs to happen as fast as possible (the whole twit…

(impending anecdote) - this is something I noticed when I lived in the south for a while. More people tended to think before they spoke which would result in cleaner, less runny conversations compared to the typical word diarrhea I was accustomed to sifting through growing up in the Northwest. It was actually quite nice to deal with after a short adjustment period for me to discard my knee jerk reaction of assuming the heat fried everyone's brains.

Re: Classism in America

#267

Post by brandonmenc » Thu, Apr 07, 2016, 5:24 AM UTC

jpindar wrote: post #242

brandonmenc wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm from Northwest Pennsylvania, and everyone there would also say "different." I know, because in high school I became friends with a highly educated family who moved into town after having lived all over the world, and made an effort to match their more intelligent sounding speech (which included, among other things, adding -ly to adverbs.) My mom still occasionally teases me that I say "eye-ther" instead of "eee-t…

Pennsyltucky is almost south. :)

Well... I'm from Erie, which is more like Cleveland or Buffalo than central PA.

Re: Classism in America

#268

Post by mdpopescu » Thu, Apr 07, 2016, 5:24 AM UTC

wil421 wrote: post #30

dboreham wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much everyone in or from Scotland (true or not) does this to some degree.

For me, the Scottish accent is the hardest of the English accents for me to understand. I work with English speakers from New Zealand/Australia and India to the UK/Ireland. English and Scottish sayings/slang are my favorite. Southerns have some good sayings but they are not as enjoyable for me to hear, maybe because I used to them.

(Non-native English speaker here.) I worked for a Scot in Dublin for three months before I realized his accent wasn't Irish. I also had almost no problem understanding him.

On the other hand, I find it almost impossible to read text that is supposed to show Scottish accent, like the one from arethuza.

Re: Classism in America

#269

Post by hueving » Thu, Apr 07, 2016, 5:32 AM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #186

fnovd wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everyone southerner has "southern" values. The south also has urban areas where people lean more to the left than their rural counterparts. There are just fewer of them. They (unfairly) get stuck with the same stereotypes.

That's the idea of generalizations. They don't need to be 100% fair, just statistically useful. I'd wish people would get that, and only complain when a generalization is statistically wrong (e.g. doesn't really hold for the majority of the people it lumps along), instead of everytime they find a counter-example...

Simpsons paradox though. There are more conservative people in California than there are in Georgia (e.g. more people in California voted for Mitt Romney than people in Georgia). Slicing people up into states to make nice sound bite statistics is useless and leads to stupid stereotypes.

Re: Classism in America

#270

Post by mdpopescu » Thu, Apr 07, 2016, 5:33 AM UTC

lagadu wrote: post #140

WalterBright wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and who are genuinely ashamed of how much money they make. Are you sure that isn't an act? People pretend socially acceptable emotions all the time. If they donated the excess to the IRS (the IRS accepts donations!), I'd be a bit less skeptical.

> Are you sure that isn't an act? It isn't. I'm from a economically below-average country in Europe, have lived in a couple others and I've settled down in the north. Almost none of my friends (particularly back home but here too) know how much I make because it's genuinely embarrassing. It's something of a "why do I make so much more when I'm no better than anyone else here?" feeling. Also I know it's not just me, I…

Interesting! Thanks, this clarifies something for me - my wife is mortified because I freely discuss my income with anyone who asks, and it's way higher than the average. She considers it "bragging" and, as you say, embarrassing. I always thought I was showing friends / relatives / acquaintances that getting a lot more money is possible with not much effort - I work from home and don't have a degree.

Anyway - it's interesting to think of this mentality as part of "European culture".