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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

#141

Post by bonoboTP »

xyzzyz wrote: post #138
bonoboTP wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

Life is pretty cheap in Germany if you live a simple life. Supermarkets are famously cheap. Clothes, electronics cost the same as anywhere else. Rent is bearable outside of big cities and jobs are quite well distributed across Germany.

The big difference is in the savings. Even if you just make twice as much, your savings per month can be several times higher than in Poland, which makes a lot of difference if you want to go back to your country later on and buy a house etc.

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

#142

Post by postingawayonhn »

mrslave wrote: post #137

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

I think everyone has the right to make the best possible life for themselves. Life is short and if I was in that situation I'd rather not waste it living under a dictator.

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

#143

Post by spamizbad »

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #93
spamizbad wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Authoritarian propaganda alleges that journalists are fabricating news. I'm not alleging fraud but neglect and passive collusion. That is, journalists are allowing certain US Gov misdeeds to go largely unreported while amplifying US Gov voices w/o ever vetting if official claims are true.

A lot of misdeeds are documented but nobody is really outraged by them. There's certainly lots of bad stuff happening that doesn't have a legion of takery behind it to drive a certain narrative but... the reporting is there.

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

#144

Post by burfog »

mhh__ wrote: post #124
krapp wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What loss, his marbles? If you mean his son, well, Trump lost two brothers.

When in congress, Biden pushed for the harsh sentencing that we had, with the 1994 crime bill. Trump supported and then signed the First Step Act, which is legislation to undo some of that.

"Unless we do something about this, my children are going to grow up in a jungle, the jungle being a racial jungle" -- Biden, in 1977

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

#145

Post by samunism »

This is a harbinger for the western world too. Can any of us in the tech industry claim that silicon valley "authoritarianism" is not an issue?

Working in tech now is fraught with peril, especially if one says anything outside of the overton window. I wouldn't be surprised if this starts happening in America as well in a few years.

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

#146

Post by ClumsyPilot »

severino wrote: post #107
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.

> be hopeful that their country improves in the future Yes, but things can go into the other direction too, if for example the EU takes over and their good old country turns into another failed state ala Ukraine...

Ukraine was taken over by EU? What? This reads like gobbledygook

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

#147

Post by pas »

samunism wrote: post #145

This is a harbinger for the western world too. Can any of us in the tech industry claim that silicon valley "authoritarianism" is not an issue? Working in tech now is fraught with peril, especially if one says anything outside of the overton window. I wouldn't be surprised if this starts happening in America as well in a few years.

The issue is that currently public discourse happens on semi-public spaces. (Eg. Facebook, reddit, YouTube.) All slightly different mediums, different rules, different communities (and meta-communities, and other aggregates and hierarchies and moderation/reporting systems).

And the owners of these places want to extract profit from these places, they on one hand like the money, but they reasonably must police their places. Virtually millions of people can shout at the same time at the same place. Bullying, doxxing, harassment, SWATing, spam, scam, porn, gore, really fucked up ideologies, racism/xenophobia, and whatnot are cropping up.

And it's clear that people are not really interested in going back to the typewriter and mailing letters to various publications.

This large scale "politicing" is likely truly unprecedented. Bored and angry people can comment, like, upvote, downvote whatever anyone wrote/posted/created/asked.

> Working in tech now is fraught with peril, especially if one says anything outside of the overton window.

That's "fake news" - because the base rate is low, even if there are clear examples of it. (Eg Google firing Damore who pointed out that Google's diversity group/effort is very inefficient because it's unscientific, so inadvertently exposed it as a simple PR effort.)

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

#148

Post by ClumsyPilot »

mrslave wrote: post #137

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

A notion of duty to your country is well and good, but consider this:

1) Greater duty to family, what are you going to tell your wife when she asks you how is she meant to feed the kids and keep a roof while you serve a 20 year sentence for protesting? Or worse yet if you are maimed or killed.

2) This isn't like a 'normal' war, the course of action is not clear. Should I take up arms and attack government buildings, or would that backfire in terms of public support? Should I protest peacefully, or does that just give the dictator more time to prepare? If I already live outside, should I return to Belarus and put my body on the like, or would I be more effective donating cash that I am privileged to earn?

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

#149

Post by dominotw »

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…

>Even if one of your grandparents has Polish origins you can get easily equivalent of USA green card.

>Nothing compared to cruel H1B.

H1B doesn't need your grandparents to be from USA.

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

#150

Post by tehlike »

dominotw wrote: post #149
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…

>Even if one of your grandparents has Polish origins you can get easily equivalent of USA green card. >Nothing compared to cruel H1B. H1B doesn't need your grandparents to be from USA.

grandparent is for greencard/permanent residency equivalent - not for h1b.
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