Earlier quoted context omitted.
I once asked a co-worker if he felt caste ever impacted him in any way. He said well when I went to the local visa office in India the officer behind the desk approving visas had a certain surname. Only 25 people a day are approved for a Visa and except for me, everyone else in the room had that officer's surname.
> Only 25 people a day are approved for a Visa and except for me, everyone else in the room had that officer's surname. How did you know the surnames of all the other people in the room?
Over 90% of Indian techies in the US are upper-caste Indians
491–500 of 656 posts
Re: Over 90% of Indian techies in the US are upper-caste Indians
#492Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Only 25 people a day are approved for a Visa and except for me, everyone else in the room had that officer's surname. How did you know the surnames of all the other people in the room?
I didn't. He did. I'll ask him to retell the story since as someone else pointed out he was confused by the details. So I'll try to get them from the story teller.
Re: Over 90% of Indian techies in the US are upper-caste Indians
#493Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am not from an upper caste either, but my experience doesn't match with yours at all. My peer group is less culturally Indian than others, but I wonder if experiences such as yours are more pronounced in certain regions or groups, more than others. I have never once been asked my caste, and I have never once seen my friends be asked their castes. But, I realize that being middle class in an Indian metro city alread…
I know in my brother's university (IT-BHU), they put caste names next to students' names. And this was a top-tier government university at that! In my University (IIT-D), I believe certain scholarship announcements revealed details about students' categories, ie whether they were SC/ST/OBC/General. Especially if it were a means scholarship. Worse case, professors in India have zero personality training, and will casu…
You might as well say that reservations revealed caste by showing people got through reservation quota, hence there is caste discrimination, hence more reservation is required.
Re: Over 90% of Indian techies in the US are upper-caste Indians
#494ITT: (Possibly) "Upper caste" Indians claiming: 1. This is due to a few bad apples 2. Reservation is the real problem (no it's not) 3. I don't do it therefore it doesn't exist I can tell you by experience the amount of concious and unconcious bias regarding caste amongst Indians both in India and abroad is ridiculous! I'm light skinned so people assume I'm "upper caste" and speak with me as such. My last name doesn't…
As a 24yo Indian guy living in the US, I find this comment very confusing. How do I even find out what "caste" I'm in? I've literally never heard that word used in a conversation with other Indian people ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Re: Over 90% of Indian techies in the US are upper-caste Indians
#495Earlier quoted context omitted.
//How the fuck is a person's caste relevant? This is normal for you? I agree. It shouldn't be. But then it shouldn't be relevant during admissions too yeh?
The merit(score) of a student is dependent on factors other than the student's aptitude such as the financial status of the family, guidance received at young age etc. The students from lower-caste communities usually are also from low-income families and lack proper guidance (partly because the parents are not educated) compared to students from upper-class communities. The reservation in academia is relevant to upl…
Re: Over 90% of Indian techies in the US are upper-caste Indians
#496Earlier quoted context omitted.
The implication is that, inherently, higher caste individuals were more gifted than lower castes, and that breeding over the years selected for those traits. You're confusing inherent trait with sociologically applied traits. In other words, there is no reason to assume there would be selective reproduction for ANY single trait in any of the castes, because your birth into those castes is random and meaningless. Unle…
I am not an evolutionary biologist so please excuse and correct any mistakes if you can. Lets assume there are some physical differences between the castes. These differences would have been brought into existence because at some point the respective populations were isolated and living under different sets of evolutionary pressures. If, over time, you remove physical isolation but replace it with cultural taboos aga…
Lets say tomorrow the society (lets presume all of them are WASPs) decides to divide themselves between people whose name start with a J (the most common letter for names in US, like James, John, Jennifer, Jessica, Jesse etc) and non-Js. And this J group declares themselves as the 'upper caste' with Js only marrying with Js and non-Js only among non-Js. Also they even live in physical isolation from each other.
Two thousand years later, which group will have higher IQ?
The answer is, you can't tell. Whatever is the starting group IQ of these two groups is, that's exactly what it would be for the latter.
Same goes with your theory about upper castes having higher IQ. Now the place where you might be right is (not that you realize that), if there is an IQ test available only to the J's, and they prefer to marry to the highest IQ person willing to marry them, but the other caste does not have this test available. Now, over generations, one group will be selecting for the IQ but the other won't be able to.
The 'IQ test' could be education (and jobs which require education like priesthood) which was generally only available or restricted to the Brahmins (so not 'all' higher castes). The more 'Vedas' you memorized (which weren't written down for a long period), the more esteemed scholar you were, this is why the have last names like Dvivedi or Dubey ('a scholar who memorized 2 vedas') or Trivedi (a scholar who memorized 3 vedas) or Chaturvedi or Chobey (a scholar who memorized all 4 vedas).
Here, you COULD see that if Brahmins are only allowed to be educated, and IFF they are choosing for those who show a 'higher score' in terms of IQ, then there can be an optimization for IQ.
A control group would be a higher caste which isn't optimizing for education or any other proxy for IQ (like being in successful business is a kind of IQ test, not as strong of an IQ test as being able to memorize vedas, but still, it is).
Re: Over 90% of Indian techies in the US are upper-caste Indians
#497Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wouldn't say it sounds "exactly" like they are the same. At least in theory, your income reflects your work and is not set for life, while a "caste system" is usually unescapable. And yes, of course being born in a wealthy family gives you privileges but I don't see anything wrong with people working hard to provide for their descendants. I understand that it breaks down in practice where wealth attracts wealth, bu…
I absolutely would call them the same. What is different in a caste system you are born into that provides privilege for some, but lack of resources to another and a class system that provides wealth and privilege for some, but lack of resources beginning at birth for others? When education from an early age is funded via property taxes (as much of the US is), we are baking in the inequality. If you come from a wealt…
Re: Over 90% of Indian techies in the US are upper-caste Indians
#498Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 2. Reservation is the real problem (no it's not) Of course Reservation IS the problem if you're unfortunate to be an upper caste. The problem is that a caste-based reservation did NOT eliminate caste-based bias, it amplified it. More and more castes, outside the original designation, demanded it in exchange for votes, and more and more upper caste Indians felt cheated as they lost limited opportunities that should…
Maybe true, but if you use that as a reason to harass an underlying, you will get fired if you work for me.
Discrimination of any kind: color, race, language, caste, class, gender, sexual orientation, anything else I missed, has no place in today’s society.
Re: Over 90% of Indian techies in the US are upper-caste Indians
#499Earlier quoted context omitted.
At some point, wouldn't it be difficult for people to tell? A person who grew up outside of India will only have a passing understanding of this nuance anyway, because they would not have been regularly exposed to the other group, so their entire understanding will be from what is passed to them by their parents. And the next generation will have next to zero understanding. Plus, those nuances will probably get erase…
Unfortunately, no. My wife's best friend is Hindu from Upper Caste. (Brahim) she was born in the United States. She always been so liberal and open minded. Most of her friends are Muslims. She is barely religious. But whenever it comes relationships, she brings up caste. She married into upper caste, she was very worried about caste of the guy. If her sister is dating a someone from a different caste, she brings it u…
So, she is kinda right. It is not casteist, but a word used in a derogative way for a certain ethnic group.
Re: Over 90% of Indian techies in the US are upper-caste Indians
#500Earlier quoted context omitted.
> generations of segregated reproduction have selected for higher IQ in the higher castes There is no natural selection going on here. People are born into a caste and, for all intents and purposes, their caste identity is fixed for the rest of their lives. The idea that these people have somehow developed a "higher IQ" over "generations" simply by being born to a particular caste makes no sense. Furthermore, the arg…
There is reproductive selection in that people from higher castes will tend to mate with people from higher castes and vice-versa.
In any case, your analogy was not this one in the first post, unless you are saying that higher caste meant higher IQ from the beginning.