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Tech workers flee Belarus as IT haven takes authoritarian turn

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21–30 of 203 posts

Re: Tech workers flee Belarus as IT haven takes authoritarian turn

#21
post #11
post #6

“There’s no borders at all for IT engineers. They can find a job anywhere.” Uhm yeah, but they also have parents, siblings, girlfriends. Probably they might have some properties bought already. So as it may seem really advantageous to be in IT, one might not be able to move to another country just like that...

not all of them, but many engineers are willing to move if they don't have kids and can make it work

If this BS going on will end up in couple of months they might be able to move back soon. If not, living somewhere abroad without close ones is going to hurt them in the long run.

I moved out from my home country and in the place I live now people are nice, but I am never going to be one of them (so there are also not nice people, but it is easier to deal with not nice people from your own country).

Some people have it even worse, because I can go back to my own country and have my friends from school and family quite close by. There are people who are children of migrants that are still treated on the streets like they are not part of that society even though they grew up in that country. It gets even worse for them when they go to visit their parents country because they look familiar to people but when they speak they use English or broken local language which makes them foreign there as well. In the end they are not welcome in the place they grew up, they are not welcome in the place where they fit in by looks. They don't have a place in the entire world they can go and feel like home.

Re: Tech workers flee Belarus as IT haven takes authoritarian turn

#22
post #21
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

not all of them, but many engineers are willing to move if they don't have kids and can make it work

If this BS going on will end up in couple of months they might be able to move back soon. If not, living somewhere abroad without close ones is going to hurt them in the long run. I moved out from my home country and in the place I live now people are nice, but I am never going to be one of them (so there are also not nice people, but it is easier to deal with not nice people from your own country). Some people have…

The term for this in English is "third-culture kid."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_culture_kid

Re: Tech workers flee Belarus as IT haven takes authoritarian turn

#23
post #6

“There’s no borders at all for IT engineers. They can find a job anywhere.” Uhm yeah, but they also have parents, siblings, girlfriends. Probably they might have some properties bought already. So as it may seem really advantageous to be in IT, one might not be able to move to another country just like that...

And it's naive to say that there's no borders. You have to be qualified for the visa requirements. You also have to renew this visa every year or so. You have to start all over. Of course everything is possible with some effort and money, but i'm tired of seeing this term "no borders for it engineers".

Agree, it is no borders for "digital nomads" from first world countries having nice passports.

Take into account COVID-19 pandemic and it is not as easy to move somewhere just now.

Re: Tech workers flee Belarus as IT haven takes authoritarian turn

#24
post #6

“There’s no borders at all for IT engineers. They can find a job anywhere.” Uhm yeah, but they also have parents, siblings, girlfriends. Probably they might have some properties bought already. So as it may seem really advantageous to be in IT, one might not be able to move to another country just like that...

And it's naive to say that there's no borders. You have to be qualified for the visa requirements. You also have to renew this visa every year or so. You have to start all over. Of course everything is possible with some effort and money, but i'm tired of seeing this term "no borders for it engineers".

Yea, whoever wrote that never heard of a "language barrier." IT is not some universal language.

Re: Tech workers flee Belarus as IT haven takes authoritarian turn

#25
post #6

“There’s no borders at all for IT engineers. They can find a job anywhere.” Uhm yeah, but they also have parents, siblings, girlfriends. Probably they might have some properties bought already. So as it may seem really advantageous to be in IT, one might not be able to move to another country just like that...

And it's naive to say that there's no borders. You have to be qualified for the visa requirements. You also have to renew this visa every year or so. You have to start all over. Of course everything is possible with some effort and money, but i'm tired of seeing this term "no borders for it engineers".

[deleted]

Re: Tech workers flee Belarus as IT haven takes authoritarian turn

#26
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It also seems like Belarus is killing the goose that laid the golden egg here If some kind of deeper integration with Russia is on the horizon, as many have expected for years, then this might hardly matter. The overall Russian economy is so based on the export of natural resources, that the ruling stratum is hardly worried about other industries like the IT sector. All those Russians except for the ~10 million nee…

Man, Russia has way more people than I thought. For some reason I expected it to be less than 100 million total.

The Germans had that delusion too.

Re: Tech workers flee Belarus as IT haven takes authoritarian turn

#27

I have a theory that when news orgs nurture soft authoritarians (Bush/Patriot Act, Obama/espionage charges for whistleblowers) their weakened journalistic instincts leave a vacuum that's easy for harder line authoritarians to fill. That's what I believed happened in the US. I wonder if a similar process happened in Belarus.

What? There was no descent from liberalism in Belarus. It's been a dictatorship since shortly after the fall of the USSR. This is more like if Hu Jintao just became Xi Jingping.

Re: Tech workers flee Belarus as IT haven takes authoritarian turn

#28
post #17

I have a theory that when news orgs nurture soft authoritarians (Bush/Patriot Act, Obama/espionage charges for whistleblowers) their weakened journalistic instincts leave a vacuum that's easy for harder line authoritarians to fill. That's what I believed happened in the US. I wonder if a similar process happened in Belarus.

Curious why the onus is on journalists and not complacent political parties or branches/members of government. Sure, newsrooms can sway public opinion, but they’re also basically the only reason we know about those problems to begin with. Blaming them seems akin to treating a symptom, not the cause. Not trying to disagree. I do think journalists today are partially responsible for our current situation - especially W…

Also thinking journalists are at the root of society's ills is probably a sign you're buying into authoritarian propaganda.

Re: Tech workers flee Belarus as IT haven takes authoritarian turn

#29
post #6

“There’s no borders at all for IT engineers. They can find a job anywhere.” Uhm yeah, but they also have parents, siblings, girlfriends. Probably they might have some properties bought already. So as it may seem really advantageous to be in IT, one might not be able to move to another country just like that...

Yeah that is incredible. Minsk has been having the government shut down their internet and there are numerous other countries blocking people from contacting the outside world. Not to mention constraints around getting VISAs and also everything you are mentioning as well. There is a very real border around it. Even smaller issues would be language and time zone.

Re: Tech workers flee Belarus as IT haven takes authoritarian turn

#30

I have a theory that when news orgs nurture soft authoritarians (Bush/Patriot Act, Obama/espionage charges for whistleblowers) their weakened journalistic instincts leave a vacuum that's easy for harder line authoritarians to fill. That's what I believed happened in the US. I wonder if a similar process happened in Belarus.

Maybe, but at least some journalists have been spot on about the way trump is going from Day 1 and that hasn't made any difference.

He is still insulting war dead, threatening the validity of election, not even interested in solving COVID, and much more that I'm sure that you're already aware of. His approval ratings are at about 40%, that's not good but 40% is almost saint-like by (say) french standards. That's despite journalists reporting on this near constantly.

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