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Tech workers flee Belarus as IT haven takes authoritarian turn

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

#121

Post by Mediterraneo10 »

sam_lowry_ wrote: post #33
akira2501 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Language is not that much of a problem. They all speak Russian. Lithuania has a sizable minority of Russian speakers, and has historical ties to Belarus. Latvia is predominantly Russian-speaking. Ukraine as well. Knowing Belarusian, they can pick up Polish rather quickly. As a last resort, Russia is still freer than Belarus politically and better off economically. Smolensk is half an hour drive from the Belarusian bo…

This is quite inaccurate. Lithuania's minority of Russian speakers is not "sizable" at all. Much fewer ethnic Russians lived there historically compared to the other two Baltic states, and loads of the Soviet-era Russian transplants left after '91. Russian is pretty useless for doing business as a foreigner, people expect English.

In Latvia, especially Riga, Russian is spoken, but younger generations of ethnic Latvians are less and less welcoming of using it. Again, English is expected. There has been a distinct rise in shops in Riga where it's basically "Speak Latvian or English to me or GTFO".

Source: I'm a Russian speaker who visits all three Baltic countries at least 2-3 times a year, most recently last week.

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

#122

Post by bonoboTP »

joelbluminator wrote: post #100
throwaway5398 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Whites will become the minority in U.S and the UK in the coming decades. It's not that different in West Europe, Canada, Australia, etc. Overall it's a good trend for immigrants. 1. The US may become a white-minority country. Europe, not really. Whites are still the majority, and are going to remain so in the distant future. The "Great Replacement" isn't real. 2. Most immigrants to EU countries are from other countr…

We can argue about numbers all night long. It doesn't matter if the U.S / UK is 65% white or 40% white. They're much LESS white than they used to be. That's the trend. If you're a visible minority, you'd probably feel more comfortable in NY / Berlin / London today than you would have 50 years ago, and 40 years from now unless something unexpected happens - you'd be even more comfortable. I wasn't aiming for a discuss…

Given that Europeans (outside the UK) never have to officially pick a race on paperwork, probably many Arabs haven't given much thought to whether they are "white" and if not then what. You can't apply the American concept of whiteness all over the world. Their skin shades range over a large spectrum and is similar to other Mediterranean people's, like Greeks and southern Italians and Spaniards. Are tan skinned Sicilians white? Who cares, the concept doesn't work the same way in Europe as in the US.

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

#123

Post by skissane »

joelbluminator wrote: post #114
skissane wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can talk about the problematic experiences of immigrant minorities without bringing race into it. For example, my friend's father moved from Uruguay to Australia in the 1970s, and my friend told me his dad was teased at work for his accent and gaps in knowledge of English. Like most Uruguayans, he is of European descent, so arguably just as "white" as the English-speaking Australians who were teasing him were. You…

Absolutely right. Yet visible minorities usually have it worse. Your friend could at least go to the supermarket without getting stares.

I agree in principle, although exactly who counts as a "visible minority" is a bit of a complex question.

In Sydney, Australia, a woman wearing a niqab is still a rare sight, and she is likely to get starred at, a lot–even other Muslims are going to stare at her. Women wearing hijabs are a far more common sight, so they will get starred at a lot less, although I'm sure they will report being starred at sometimes too. But, a lot of Muslim women don't wear any head covering – like the women in my uncle's family – indeed, in Albanian Muslim culture, women rarely cover their heads, and a woman who starts wearing a hijab is likely to be suspected of religious fundamentalism, which is viewed about as negatively in their culture as in my own. Should my uncle's family be considered a "visible minority" then?

Sydney is over 20% Asian (including East Asian, Southeast Asian, and South Asian people in that term)–Asian Australians are a minority, and obviously a visible one–but do Asian people get starred at in Sydney solely on account of their race? You usually stare at the unusual, but in a city which is over 20% Asian, there is nothing unusual about seeing a Chinese/Indian/Japanese/Korean/Vietnamese/Filipino/etc person, you see them every day, you count them among your friends, classmates, coworkers, neighbours, etc.

I remember one time I ventured with a Finnish colleague to a working class bar in Bangalore, and we got a lot of stares there, because nobody was expecting to see people like us in such an establishment – by contrast, in the airport, hotel, offices, shopping centres, tourist sites, etc, nobody starred at us, because Indians are used to encountering foreigners in those places.

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

#124

Post by mhh__ »

krapp wrote: post #92
SomeoneFromCA wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well at least he doesn't not call the working clas "deplorables". Michael Moore has a very good comment on why Trump won in 2016, and why he still has a chance in 2020. Overall, Trump's performance up till COVID was okay, but he mishandled the pandemics terribly. Biden will win only because of this. Other than that Biden is boring bland candidate.

Hillary Clinton didn't call the working class deplorables. Here are her words, verbatim: “You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right?” “The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic—you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up.” As you can read, the "basket of deplorables" refe…

Even if Biden is boring, he's a good man to lead the US out of the quagmire it's in at the moment.

Trump is totally amoral, whereas Biden has experienced loss in a way that few can imagine. He's not perfect, but he knows how to play the congressional game and when he reaches out to people looking for change in the police who have lost a loved one you know he isn't lying.

The alternative was also Bernie, which I just cannot see ending well.

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

#125

Post by nullsense »

Chris2048 wrote: post #77
nullsense wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well they stuck with Trump after he "grabbed her by the pussy".

You put that in quotes, which usually implies a exact quote, rather than a third-party description of what someone said; But that is not an accurate quote. He said: ..when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. ... Grab ‘em by the pussy. You can do anything.

A more accurate quote doesn't make him look any better.

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

#126

Post by jamroom »

Chris2048 wrote: post #45
mhh__ wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 desp…

Trump isn't rated in a vacuum - There is too much hypocrisy in the opposition, starting with sticking with Biden after the allegation of sexual assault.

What’s you’re opinion on why the Republican Party stuck with Trump despite the numerous sexual allegations against him?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_sexual_miscondu...

I’m not trying to compare Biden and Trump in this, but you seem to imply in your post that dems should have dumped Biden because of that accusation. Why should Biden be treated differently than Trump?

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

#127

Post by hsitz »

skissane wrote: post #80
joelbluminator wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have quite a negative view of immigration. It works well for many people (while for others it doesn't). Children are quite adaptable. The West is long ago not 100% white and it's only gonna become more pronounced the coming decades. It's mixed. Whites will become the minority in U.S and the UK in the coming decades. It's not that different in West Europe, Canada, Australia, etc. Overall it's a good trend for immi…

> Whites will become the minority in U.S and the UK in the coming decades Regarding the US, that's a bit of a misleading statement. US Census Bureau projections have "white" people as a majority in the US until 2060, which is as far out as their projections go [1]. The claim that "whites" are going to become a minority soon is arrived at by redefining "white" to exclude white-identified Hispanic people. Indeed, "non-…

> The claim that "whites" are going to become a minority soon is arrived at by redefining "white" to exclude white-identified Hispanic people.

You can look at the numbers in your chart and see that basically all of the U.S. Hispanic population is found under this "white" category, 55 million Hispanics. Total Hispanic population in U.S. is at most a few million more. 90%+ of all U.S. Hispanics feel like they are part of a "white" majority? You must be joking.

So I don't think that "white identified majority" in the census numbers means what you think it does. The vast majority of Hispanics in it fully realize and are made to feel like they are part of a minority in the U.S.

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

#128

Post by joelbluminator »

type0 wrote: post #118
joelbluminator wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can argue about numbers all night long. It doesn't matter if the U.S / UK is 65% white or 40% white. They're much LESS white than they used to be. That's the trend. If you're a visible minority, you'd probably feel more comfortable in NY / Berlin / London today than you would have 50 years ago, and 40 years from now unless something unexpected happens - you'd be even more comfortable. I wasn't aiming for a discuss…

> I don't believe most Arabs think of themselves as white or are seen as white (nor do they want to be), especially if they are religious muslims As far as I know the religion has no effect on your skin color.

being white is not only about skin colour. many jews look white but they certainly don't feel white.

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

#129

Post by Twixes »

ArkVark wrote: post #119
jakozaur wrote: post #60

Emigrating from Belarus to Poland is easy. Even if one of your grandparents has Polish origins you can get easily equivalent of USA green card. Polish governament is working on new law to make it even easier and available more broadly. Given Poland borders before World War II were covering huge part of today Belarus a lot of people can take of the advantage. Regular work permit for IT proffesional is also rubber stam…

Poland is not a great place to live either. Sales tax is 23%, stores are all shut on Sunday (by decree of the Polish Catholic church, essentially), real estate prices are similar to the midwest USA due to restrictions on new builds, and taxes on labor and small business are high and complicated. The language itself uses a bastardized version of the Latin alphabet which is inferior to Cyrillic, and general pronunciati…

Poland definitely could be a lot better, but these are some odd points.

VAT is higher than in Germany, but lower than in Sweden. Nothing that gets anyone going really. Real estate is quite cheap (dollar to dollar, not exactly for Poles) for a European country, though Warsaw does stand out as the capital.

There isn't anything "bastardized" or "inferior" about either the Polish or Belarusian alphabet, or really any alphabet for that matter. They just come from different backgrounds.

Poland is also largely south of Belarus, including Warsaw being south of Minsk, so not sure about cold or darkness.

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

#130

Post by joelbluminator »

skissane wrote: post #123
joelbluminator wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely right. Yet visible minorities usually have it worse. Your friend could at least go to the supermarket without getting stares.

I agree in principle, although exactly who counts as a "visible minority" is a bit of a complex question. In Sydney, Australia, a woman wearing a niqab is still a rare sight, and she is likely to get starred at, a lot–even other Muslims are going to stare at her. Women wearing hijabs are a far more common sight, so they will get starred at a lot less, although I'm sure they will report being starred at sometimes too.…

So we basically have no argument. All I was saying was that as the West is demographically changing, visible minorities will have an easier time. Your examples just demonstrate my point. Maybe in 60 years the whole notion of visible minority won't even exist in the West. Now all that is just demographics. If some crazy fascist leader rises to power, which doesn't seem so far fetched nowadays, minorities may suffer again.
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