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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

#131

Post by skissane »

hsitz wrote: post #127
skissane wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

"White" in the US Census means someone who ticked the "White" box on the census form. A "White Hispanic" is someone who chooses to tick both the "White" box and the "Hispanic" box. Anyone can tick any box they like, out of the boxes available (and if they don't agree with the choice of boxes, they can write in whatever they like, and the Census Bureau will make its best effort to shoehorn their written response into its categories, or just put them in the "Other" bucket if it can't work it out). If they don't view themselves as "White", why are they putting themselves down as that on the Census?

> 90%+ of all U.S. Hispanics feel like they are part of a white majority?

I feel very hesitant in speculating about the feelings of tens of millions of people whom I don't know–and who of course are not all going to think or feel the same way, but who are going to have a very diverse range of feelings and opinions. Rather than speculating about their feelings, why not just go by what they voluntarily choose to put on their US Census forms?

> 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.

There are white minorities, so identifying as "white" doesn't necessarily make white-identified Hispanics non-minority. If an (ethnic majority) German or Russian or Finn moves to New York City, they are going to be an immigrant minority in their new home, but they and everyone else will see them as "white". A European-descended person who moves to New York City from Buenos Aires has Spanish as their native language instead of German or Russian or Finnish, but why would their experience be fundamentally different? The Spanish-speaking immigrant will be officially classified as "Hispanic", the German/Russian/Finnish-speaking immigrants wouldn't be, but they are all equally white ethnic minorities.

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

#132

Post by chupasaurus »

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…

Russia isn't drastically freer, but the lack of visa or work permit requirement with almost the same employment process as Russian citizens is a good bonus, although local employers might lower the salaries for immigrants.

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

#133

Post by skissane »

joelbluminator wrote: post #130
skissane wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ag…

Right, as I said, I never had a disagreement with your fundamental point, I just think your way of putting it was flawed

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

#134

Post by chupasaurus »

eternalban wrote: post #71
ivan_gammel wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absence of oligarchs has nothing to do with this. Belarus and Russia have very different political situation but IT industry is strong in both countries, even stronger in Russia. There are several reasons for it: strong educational system and engineering culture, piracy and almost no law enforcement of copyright, favorable taxation, government policies. It’s hard to underestimate the effects of investment in digitali…

You forgot to mention that Russia happens to have a lot of brainiacs. It's rare event to meet a dumb Russian in IT. I've never met one. I have worked with and managed outsourced engineers from Russia, India, and South America. The Russians were consistently the best: effective combo of smart + hard working. The only negatives were a reluctance to disclose bad news before SHTF, which was quite annoying, but I've alway…

Cheers from Urals.

> It's rare event to meet a dumb Russian in IT. I've never met one. I have worked with and managed outsourced engineers from Russia

Survivorship bias. There are a lot of dumb engineers here (in absolute numbers, the country is still 9th by population) mostly because of the IT industry growth in 2000s required more workforce, but they wouldn't be hired by the outsource companies since there is no shortage of better recruits (as of now).

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

#135

Post by skissane »

joelbluminator wrote: post #128
type0 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I suspect that outside the US, most Jews rarely if ever think about whether they are "white", much less about whether they feel "white"

US culture is very focused on racial categories – who is and isn't "white". Most other Western cultures are not – European cultures, Australia, etc

I think in Israel, people think about who is Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Mizrahi, Beta Israel, Arab/Palestinian, Druze, Secular vs Religious Zionist vs Haredi, etc, not about whether or not they or others are "white". The question of "who is white" is very American, not one that has a lot of relevance for Israeli society

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

#136

Post by dragonwriter »

fabatka wrote: post #72
dragonwriter wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> its the "last dictatorship in europe" Well, I mean, if you ignore the country that takes up 39% (maybe a little more de facto after recent unilateral border alterations) of Europe, sure.

In the quote I think Europe is meant in the cultural sense, and I guess you are talking about Europe in the geographical sense.

Belarus is no more (or less) culturally in Europe than Russia or any of the other cultures descending from historical Rus.

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

#138

Post by xyzzyz »

bonoboTP wrote: post #111
crispyporkbites wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most likely they will want to stay close to Belarus, as most will have family that remains and be hopeful that their country improves in the future.

Germany is just one country further; flights are fast and dirt cheap. If you go abroad, might as well go to a place where salaries are higher.

Surprisingly enough, tech salaries are not that much higher in Germany than they are in Poland. In Germany, the tech wages are surprisingly low, and when you couple that with higher taxes and high cost of living, it is not as attractive as US or Switzerland.

In more concrete terms: 60-70k EUR is what you are looking at in Germany in good job markets, while in Poland the figure is 30-40k EUR. When you consider taxes, housing, and other costs, the difference is really not that great.

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

#139

Post by auslegung »

mrslave wrote: post #137

There is at least a degree of cowardice in those who leave their home country when things get difficult.

I don’t know that that’s always true, but it may seem frequently true. The time to do something is before things get bad, but it’s difficult to convince oneself to act when things aren’t “that bad”. In short, it’s complicated.
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