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Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

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Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#381

Post by dundarious »

Pigalowda wrote: post #376
dundarious wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are or should be the consequences of these worries of yours?

The worry is that it will take many generations of significant investment back into the Dalit communities to bring them into parity with the rest of the Indian population. That even after the investment the longterm epigenetic effects from thousands of years of high intergenerational stress will show a significant increase in diseases of all types with higher all cause mortality/lower life expectancy.

Lifestyle factors drastically dominate when it comes to mortality/life expectancy. Also, the whole idea is highly speculative and would/should have no implications for workplace/hiring practices regardless.

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#382

Post by photochemsyn »

throwntoday wrote: post #342
photochemsyn wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same reason speakers on Palestinian rights often can. While they may be on the right side of the issue, it's also very easy for closed discussion spaces to rapidly devolve into pretty viciously anti-semitic tropes. The roots of this behavior as well as the fear of this behavior lie in a logical fallacy called composition, which is spelled out at the Nizkor Project (a site on the history of the Holocaust): > The f…

> Just because the Israeli government is highly repressive towards the Palestinian population in the West Bank and Gaza, and treats non-Jews as second-class citizens within Israel proper, does not mean that all Jews around the world share this behavior. This is a rather hilarious statement as almost no one believes that. You are committing the same fallacy that you repudiated. Anyway inference is kind of predicated o…

If Israel (and Saudi Arabia) were to adopt American democratic norms than all members of their population (by which I mean, populations under their military control) would have a right to vote in national elections, yes? So everyone in the West Bank and Gaza would get one vote, same as everyone in Israel proper, for electing members to the national legislative body. Perhaps some degree of federation (as with American states vs American federal) would be appropriate.

Now there was a period in American history when only white male landowners really had opportunity to vote, but that notion has been soundly repudiated, hasn't it? Even then there was a significant group who advocated for the expansion of voting rights to all. See composition fallacy again.

Similarly, the right to emigrate or own land would not be restricted to members of certain religious groups (imagine if that was the case in the United States!). Hence Israel doesn't actually meet the basic requirements of 'democratic norms and values', does it - and nor does Saudi Arabia. Curiously however, these two states are often referred to as "America's closest allies".

As far as repression, well the targeted assassination of an American-Palestinian journalist in Jenin is just one more example of this. See also the targeted assassination of a Washington Post op-ed columnist Jamal Khashoggi, ordered by Mohammmed bin 'Bone Saw' Salman in the Saudi embassy in Turkey, for comparison.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/24/middleeast/shireen-abu-akleh-...

'They were shooting directly at the journalists': New evidence suggests Shireen Abu Akleh was killed in targeted attack by Israeli forces

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#383

Post by ibejoeb »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #136
lolinder wrote: post #15

> “We also made the decision to not move forward with the proposed talk which — rather than bringing our community together and raising awareness — was creating division and rancor,” Newberry wrote. This doesn't surprise me one bit. Even on HN, every thread on this topic turns into a flame war with a bunch of people crying racism/religionism. How dare we discuss something we don't fully understand? How dare we critic…

> every thread on this topic turns into a flame war with a bunch of people crying racism/religionism Is there a term for shutting down a discussion by turning the belligerence to eleven? Such that people outside the discussion tune out not the views of those being belligerent, but the discussion itself?

Topic dilution is the closest thing I can think of that's already been coined. Rather than participate in good faith, the actors bring up some hot topic like racism, and off it goes until it's a full-on flamewar, or people drop out, or mods shut it down.

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#384

Post by yunohn »

car_analogy wrote: post #178
criddell wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not understanding the implication. Does it matter how limited the discrimination is?

The implication is that it's not limited. If they discriminate against Dalits, they probably discriminate against others too.

Which is true of all bigoted groups tbh. Quite harmful in how it manifests and grows, esp in corporate companies.

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#385

Post by seoaeu »

photochemsyn wrote: post #187
naravara wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe, Google, instead of just giving up you should be asking why a speaker on Dalit rights and inclusion is causing "division and rancor" in your community? Or is that also a difficult conversation you'd rather not have? The same reason speakers on Palestinian rights often can. While they may be on the right side of the issue, it's also very easy for closed discussion spaces to rapidly devolve into pretty viciousl…

The same reason speakers on Palestinian rights often can. While they may be on the right side of the issue, it's also very easy for closed discussion spaces to rapidly devolve into pretty viciously anti-semitic tropes. The roots of this behavior as well as the fear of this behavior lie in a logical fallacy called composition, which is spelled out at the Nizkor Project (a site on the history of the Holocaust): > The f…

“Only the Jews in country behave like ” isn’t the racially tolerant statement you think it is…

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#386

Post by [deleted] »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #136
lolinder wrote: post #15

> “We also made the decision to not move forward with the proposed talk which — rather than bringing our community together and raising awareness — was creating division and rancor,” Newberry wrote. This doesn't surprise me one bit. Even on HN, every thread on this topic turns into a flame war with a bunch of people crying racism/religionism. How dare we discuss something we don't fully understand? How dare we critic…

> every thread on this topic turns into a flame war with a bunch of people crying racism/religionism Is there a term for shutting down a discussion by turning the belligerence to eleven? Such that people outside the discussion tune out not the views of those being belligerent, but the discussion itself?

[deleted]

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#387

Post by hef19898 »

alex_smart wrote: post #366
hef19898 wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a manager is acting against an emoloyee, someone should ask very pointed questions why. If caste might be at play, yes, saidanager ahould get a very stern talk from his superiors and HR explaining how this behaviour is unacceptable.

>If caste might be at play Again, how is that determined? Do you assume that a caste angle might be at play every time the manager is upper caste and the employee's of lower caste? Do you wait for the manager to be stupid enough to outright utter a casteist slur at the workplace?

As a manager, if you see one of your directs singeling out one of his emoloyees, it is your job to find out why. That includes talking to the employee. And because caste is so hard to grasp for non-Indians talks like the one cancelled by Google are so important.

Maybe I have a different view on that, we German's are quite sensitive when it comes to anti-semitism. And as woth caste, if religion is never openly discussed, I have no idea how to spot a jewish co-worker. If that jewish co-worker would complain about about being discriminated, it's more than reasonable to follow up. Same goes for caste. It is up to the employer to create an environment where employees can raise those kinds of concerns openly, most fail. Honestly trying so actually goes along way.

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#388

Post by yunohn »

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #12

Quoted post unavailable.

> due to current policies

To be clear, are you talking about open immigration? Not that it’s truly open or easy to immigrate, but you seem to be hand waving in that direction.

What do you think should be done about this? It’s not clear to me that closing borders somehow fixes anything.

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#389

Post by Adverblessly »

mrcartmeneses wrote: post #95
naravara wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe, Google, instead of just giving up you should be asking why a speaker on Dalit rights and inclusion is causing "division and rancor" in your community? Or is that also a difficult conversation you'd rather not have? The same reason speakers on Palestinian rights often can. While they may be on the right side of the issue, it's also very easy for closed discussion spaces to rapidly devolve into pretty viciousl…

Would you dismiss Martin Luther King as an “activist”? But your point is in some ways valid, as it’s important to be able to see Israel through the lens of colonialism and to show that the state’s brutality applied to brown people of all faiths, including Jews. I also find it really strange that any criticism of Israel is labelled as anti-Semitic. I actually think equating the brutal behaviour of the Israeli governme…

I think you've inadvertently made the case for cancelling the "activit talk".

If for example you had a talk in Google Israel that presented the discrimination against Israeli arabs in modern Israel, I suspect you'd get a decent turnout and positive response (especially as Tech is unusually left leaning).

If you had a talk that mentioned colonialism (like you do in your post) you'll just get people fruitlessly arguing with each other ("This is our land from 2,000 years ago, the arabs are the colonists", "This is our/your land thanks to a UN decision, settlements that go beyond the 1948/1967 borders are colonialism", "All you jews are colonists").

You'd just end up further dividing your employees into hostile groups, even if they were previously able to work together (by just being silently tolerant of each other's opinions).

> I also find it really strange that any criticism of Israel is labelled as anti-Semitic.

I think this one is a problem "on both sides".

There are some on the Israeli side that will try to silence criticism by equating it to antisemitism.

There are some antisemites that will express themselves in the form of "reasonable criticism".

There are some that will innocently make some criticism that seems reasonable to them, but due to ignorance of the situation or facts, lack of nuance or just the difficulty of communicating cross culturaly via a limited medium end up with sometimes that seems antisemitic when examined at depth by "the other side".

And no matter which way you go, it is very hard to tell where you are.

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#390

Post by zajio1am »

alex_smart wrote: post #204
Vaslo wrote: post #65

Question from a layman. How does one know that someone is from another caste? If I was someone from India, how would I know what caste my fellow Indian is from? Is there some kind of code? Or where you are from?

Usually you know someone's caste from their last name. I am someone who was not given a caste-based last name because my parents were influenced by a regional movement against caste. (I didn't even have a last name to begin with but eventually added a non caste-based one to avoid visa issues.) Whenever I traveled by train and chatted up with a co-passenger, almost surely they would ask my name and would never be sati…

So why people (specifically immigrants in other countries) just do not change their last name to ones associated with higher caste?
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