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Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

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Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#851

Post by hirako2000 »

bgdam wrote: post #835
hirako2000 wrote: post #787

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's right, in the West at wide they roll up to anti discrimination laws, agreed they probably don't tackle the very specific problem castes pose, I would much rather have anti discrimination encompass them in a more generic form to tackle all forms of discrimination based on "classes" than making it an indian caste problem. I fail to see how the unambiguous distinction in names makes the problem solving any easier…

While I am in favor of generic anti-discrimination laws, I don't think they can be generic and target caste based discrimination. Let me give you an example: A hiring manager, gets two resumes. Both are equally qualified. He glances at one, see's the last name and decides on the spot to not hire him. Because of caste. If he's slightly clever, he'll atleast schedule an initial call with the candidate before inventing…

Exactly as it would "just" solve the use case without getting into the castes system specific worry. E.g: Candidate selection should be based on the skillset and fitness of individuals for the scope of work/description, without discrimination attriuted to personal affiliation, ethnicity, religion, gender or sexual orientation, difference, + "group identity", . The employer would thus commit infringement if when faced with two somewhat equals in fitness candidates he folds some individual based on gender or whatever else that falls into personal, group identity factor or affiliation to a certain group. I think it covers the caste system issue we see at the workplace without having to talk about castes in the legislation, and the benefit is that it allows the text to cover other group identifications.

Btw we have other avenues, anti discrimination is one that covers shutting down labelled candidates. Nepotism is described as favoring relatives or friends, just add "or group identified with" to it and boom that covers the caste system issue (and beyond). I'm no legalist so of course I'm not drafting a clear definition of group identity but you get the idea, i hope. I suspect we are stuck on this because on some side we have identity politics and quotas advocates wanting the legislation to accommodate their wishes, hence forbidding group identified favoritism in the law. This avenue is being at best ignored as a potential simple solution, at worst battled against with teeth and nails for other unrelated motives.

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#852

Post by djohnston »

rramadass wrote: post #849
djohnston wrote: post #845

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you have no evidence, he has evidence, and your argument is simply "I don't believe you." These are the same forum discussion strategies of white nationalists, and this has been a fascinating thread to read!

I wrote; >their veracity cannot be taken on faith If you think what he "claims" is evidence, i have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you. I will place my decade and a half of working experience across half a dozen companies in the US over any anonymous person's "evidence".

You'll do whatever you can to maintain the fragile worldview that you haven't been the beneficiary of a class-based system that discriminates and gives you an unfair advantage.

The interesting thing here is the isomoprhism between your reaction and those of other privileged groups forced to examine their ill-gotten gains, but on the other hand maybe it's not surprising, we're just chimpanzees with tools after all

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#853

Post by Aeolun »

MauroIksem wrote: post #767
Aeolun wrote: post #659

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, like how in my home country, it’s a ‘well known fact’ that people lower on the economic ladder like to give their children foreign sounding names, whereas people that are well off give their children traditional, and even double traditional names. Guess the country :)

Thailand

I guess it’s more common than I thought xD

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#854

Post by bena »

peripitea wrote: post #526
bena wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ever noticed how among professional bowlers, there are fewer conventionally fit guys? Why is that? You'd think they'd have the same ratio of fit guys as the rest of professional sports by your logic. Or. Is it because the current highest earning professional bowler has a lifetime career winnings of $5 million by 2019? Since he turned pro in 1980. So if you can, you play something else. Similar thing is going on here.…

A much more likely explanation on the bowling thing is that physical fitness is not required to be a good bowler. Consider: -There are lower-paying sports where fitness does matter, and they all have fit athletes at the top. -There are way more conventionally fit folks than there are pro athlete slots; It's not like the select few fit people in the world are being exhausted before they can fill the ranks of all profe…

You're throwing 12 - 16 pound balls about 16 mph in a way that causes the ball to spin. That takes a decent amount of arm and upper body strength to do it well consistently. Some amount of fitness is required.

If bowling paid like the NBA, you'd see very few non-fit pro bowlers.

At $5 million over 42 years, you bowl because you like it, not because it makes money. People who are fit but are otherwise not good enough to play high-paying professional sports can probably find better paying jobs elsewhere.

Professional bowling is populated by the people it is populated with partly because this is as good or better an option than others that they have.

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#855

Post by humsa »

I am surprised at how far from reality many of the comments are! I am an Indian living in both USA and India and I never witnessed cast-based discrimination to the extent some of the comments describe (I do understand it exists subtly) .. at least in the urban part of India where we live it is almost non-existent. I want the cast system to diminish - for me, the casts of my colleagues never mattered and so does for many of my Indian friends. but some people will link everything and anything to caste bias - they like to live in that shit. If you are telling them they need to improve performance, they will say you are saying this because I am so and so caste. There is a law called 'atrocity' heavily skewed towards victims where if a lower cast person complains of abuse, police will make immediate arrests. I know many upper cast people unfairly in jail due to misuse of this law. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scheduled_Caste_and_Scheduled_...) Brahmins are the most abused community in many parts of India for something their earlier generations did .. I read wome people complain about groupism in colleges - why there won't be, when upper cast person has to get 90% and above to get into a good college and due to reservation policy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reservation_in_India), lower cast person will get into same colleges even for 50-60% that too for free .. many people are reaping the benefits for reservation for generations now and getting richer and richer .. while poor Brahmin boys have nowhere to go.. Somebody needs to tell this part of the story as well..

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#856

Post by lumpoi »

thelit wrote: post #312
MontyCarloHall wrote: post #5

A good read for some additional context on caste discrimination in the American tech industry: https://www.wired.com/story/trapped-in-silicon-valleys-hidde...

As a Dalit myself, I wrote a Dalit 101 for non Indian audience. https://thelit.substack.com/p/dalit-101

I am not sure if you have rad Beautiful Tree by Dharampal. It has interesting info about Indian education during and before british occupation. There were large number of shudras and other castes(which he assumes in dalits) involved in various subjects. Like Malabar data from 1821, other castes where marjorly learning about Medicines, Astronomy. Which is kind of unheard before independence.

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#857

Post by throwaway894345 »

istjohn wrote: post #848
throwaway894345 wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> After Trump's nativist rhetoric, a steady stream of police brutality against black men like George Floyd making national news The media coverage of police brutality against black men predated Trump's candidacy and it was entirely falsely predicated: the media cherry-picked instances in which black people were killed by police (or rather, those instances were plastered on the front page of national outlets for weeks…

You're blaming left-wing rhetoric for right-wing violence. That doesn't compute. The voices shaping the narrative on the right have agency. They are not puppets of the left, and they don't get to simply point at woke Twitter and say, "They made me do it." There is a rot in American culture that is giving rise to anti-democratic and racist violence, it needs to be rooted out, and it has found shelter and succor not in…

It’s not “blame”, it’s looking at causality to try to understand how to get us out of this mess. I’m looking at why race ideologies (and violence) have exploded over the last decade in the same way we would look at the causes of a crime surge.

It doesn’t absolve individuals, but it gives the rest of us an idea about where to focus our efforts: on the influential institutions who are driving race ideology on the left and right. It’s better to plug the leak than try and save the boat by scooping water out.

Anyway, right-wing violence isn’t the only threat—left wing people campaign against liberties (especially free speech and equality) and they have their own violence (nationwide riots, property damage, assaults, and even the occasional terrorism). Moreover, left-wing people have their own anti-democratic bent: the “not my president” stuff in 2016 and calls for revolution, agitating for and rationalizing political violence, etc. I’m not comparing left-wing and right-wing sins, but rather noting that we want to defend against both and mercifully the solution is the same: deradicalize institutions.

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#859

Post by foolinaround »

How many folks here know about the word 'pariah'?

Do you use it in regular conversations or writings, or come across it in new articles/quotes etc and don't flinch at all?

Can you consider if you would have the same reaction if the 'pariah' word was replaced with the dreaded N-word?

I think this could be an educational issue.

This too is a slavery issue, instead of a group of people we know suffering through centuries of mistreatment and worse, these people in India have suffered for millenia...

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#860

Post by throwaway_1928 »

DSingularity wrote: post #809
throwaway_1928 wrote: post #790

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the same manner as the Europeans have already done repeatedly in history?

My statement was on the present and in no way an easy-vs-west value judgement. Everyone knows that the European colonialism and the ongoing neocolonialist story are pure evil.

A rational person would fear those with a long history of reckless violence a lot more than those with a marked history of non violence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahimsa

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