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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

#191

Post by nine_k »

Karliss wrote: post #44
akira2501 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Most of those IT workers probably know Russian and English languages. Knowing both of them you can both get an IT work in Eastern European countries and deal with everyday life. I don't think language barrier is that big of a problem for them.

English will get you pretty far in the daily life in Western Europe, too, in places like Sweden, or Netherlands, or cities like Berlin. (Not in France, of course.)

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

#192

Post by burfog »

mhh__ wrote: post #153
burfog wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

As in Joe Biden's wife and children died in a car crash, and later one of his surviving sons died? Trump has no concept of morality or loss - you realise why he wasn't invited to John McCain's funeral, right?

This is 100% unjustified speculation. Dehumanizing an opponent helps to unleash hate.

John McCain's funeral was a political event.

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

#193

Post by usego »

sam_lowry_ wrote: post #58
markvdb wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Latvia is predominantly Russian-speaking. This seems to imply the majority of residents of Latvia speak Russian natively. That might have been correct had the USSR existed a bit longer, but history took a different turn. "Most Latvian businesses, especially in the Riga area, will happily serve you in Russian." That would be a more neutral and correct statement appropriate for this context. Also relevant would be ho…

Having being in Latvia a few times and knowing the historical context... I distrust Latvian language statistics. Still, even those statistics admit that Riga is mostly Russian-speaking [1]. This is where the IT crowd would land, anyway. [1] https://www.csb.gov.lv/en/statistics/statistics-by-theme/pop...

As the resident of Riga have to add that it depends on age. Young native Latvian people tend to avoid learning russian (but actually they have to while living in Riga). Also there is a constant goverment level pressure to ignore russian as a vital part of latvian life so you will always feel that you are not welcome in many places like the oficial institutions. But actually you could live for years there not speaking any latvian word :) Also it is worth to mention that english is starting to be more and more important (even more important than latvian) in daily life for IT people as foreign people in teams are much more usual now even than 5 years ago.

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

#194

Post by usego »

anoncake wrote: post #168
bonoboTP wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally speaking, this question in this form just doesn't come up much in Europe as, "who is white" is much less of a discussion point than in the US, along with all "race" discussions. This is not to say that racism or xenophobia don't exist in Europe, but animosity exists inbetween "whites" as well, and people can hate Arabs without thinking about it in terms of "whites" vs Arabs, and rather thinking about it as…

In fact, the idea that races even exist is considered outdated and racist. France recently removed the word from their constitution because of that. The same is being debated in Germany.

That doesnt remove the fact that older generation people and many younger too in EU still have "built in firmware" to instantly classify my / foreign culture people. And I doubt this will change for the next generations.

And BLM demonstrations in europe... Sorry, but this is ridiculous. Those are more about protest against goverment ant police than BLM.

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

#195

Post by usego »

skissane wrote: post #108
joelbluminator wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps some will consider Arabs white (which I doubt), but still many will see them as "other", which is the same thing, especially if they are muslim.

I'm an Australian from a Catholic family of British and Irish descent. My aunt married a Muslim man of ethnic Albanian descent (not actually from Albania, his family come from the Albanian minority in North Macedonia). I've met members of his family on a number of occasions over the years. I never thought of them as "other". I've never really thought about the question of whether he is "white", but his skin has alway…

Australia and US are historically a mix of immigrants from all the world so things are much different there than in "solid culture" countries where xenofobia is a part of life as a result.

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

#196

Post by Nginx487 »

severino wrote: post #172
Nginx487 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In any internet topic covering Ukraine or Belarus, you can find at least one toxic Russian actively hating its Western neighbors.

Only that they don't have to be Russian. One can be a westerner and still be able to think by itself. PS: sometimes I'm a Chinese too.

Which means, most probably you never been to Ukraine or Belarus, but you mock or hate them simply for the fact of belonging to their nation. Congrats, this is what nazis during WWII did. What people like you still do.

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

#197

Post by severino »

Nginx487 wrote: post #196
severino wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only that they don't have to be Russian. One can be a westerner and still be able to think by itself. PS: sometimes I'm a Chinese too.

Which means, most probably you never been to Ukraine or Belarus, but you mock or hate them simply for the fact of belonging to their nation. Congrats, this is what nazis during WWII did. What people like you still do.

Well, it doesn't usually take much time until one starts talking about nazis in a debate, does it? But I'm sure the pro-EU Ukrainians who ousted their legitimate president in 2014 would be very proud of me if I were a nazi, though...

https://hoaxeye.com/2014/12/22/nazi-flags-in-ukraine/

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

#198

Post by severino »

krageon wrote: post #187
severino wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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...

Even reading this charitably this reads like you need serious help re-discovering the world and what's going on in it.

Don't worry, I hope Mr. Navalny resumes his blogging soon so I can be as well informed as you are

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

#199

Post by [deleted] »

severino wrote: post #198
krageon wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even reading this charitably this reads like you need serious help re-discovering the world and what's going on in it.

Don't worry, I hope Mr. Navalny resumes his blogging soon so I can be as well informed as you are

[deleted]

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

#200

Post by ashtonkem »

varjag wrote: post #190
ashtonkem wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe that is exactly why companies like EPAM exist, to contract out the engineers left idle after the collapse of the USSR.

There's more or less noone working at EPAM in developer capacity who was an engineer before collapse of USSR, and it's been the case for a couple decades.

Right, but they would've been partially educated by the USSR's educational system, some of which would have outlived the USSR itself.
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