Google cancelled a talk on caste bias • Hacker News Board

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#931

Post by kalimanzaro » Sat, Jun 04, 2022, 7:02 AM UTC

TMWNN wrote: post #913

kalimanzaro wrote: post #817

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to wonder if the name Yingling was Asian, but it turns out to be the same as Yuengling the beer, which is an odd but phonetically correct rendering of Jungling with the umlaut. ("Youngling")

Will Weng, the longtime New York Times crossword editor, throughout his life had people (including me) who thought he was Chinese.

That is another Germanic one, probably related to: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_(surname)

>"Europe

Scandinavia

Wang is also an unrelated surname in Sweden and Norway. It is a variant spelling of the name Vang which is derived from the Old Norse word vangr, meaning field or meadow.

Germany and Netherlands

Wang is also a surname in the German and Dutch languages. The name is derived from Middle German wang/ Middle Dutch waenge, which is literally "cheek". However, in southern German, its meaning, "grassy slope" or "field of grass", is similar to the Scandinavian surname."

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#932

Post by kajecounterhack » Sat, Jun 04, 2022, 7:20 AM UTC

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".

The claim you're debating - "does caste-based discrimination exist" is more likely to be true with an anecdote "I've seen it" than with an anecdote "I haven't encountered it."

Those two anecdotes can both truthfully coexist, but the first one proves the statement while the second doesn't disprove it. The evidence needed to disprove such a statement is pretty large; an individual's work history is not enough to say confidently that discrimination isn't happening.

How many companies have you worked at, 6? How many companies are there with significant indian representation? At Google alone there are far more than six TEAMS with majority indian representation. How could you claim that your experience invalidates someone else's?

Meanwhile, if there are a handful of anecdotes that folks have experienced or witnessed caste-based discrimination, we should be pretty confident that it's a problem.

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#933

Post by kilburn » Sat, Jun 04, 2022, 8:19 AM UTC

narag wrote: post #841

doetoe wrote: post #813

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably these names were actually prohibited half a century ago, when only the (Castilian Spanish) names of Catholic saints were allowed

Biblical names forbidden? I don't think so. Actually not even foreign names. IIRC only names that were insulting or prone to be laughed at were forbidden.

During that time the civil servants working at the registry had ample provision to decide what names would or wouldn't fly, and many made up their own rules. This led to quite different rules in different parts of Spain.

That being said, these were civil servants under a fascist catholic dictatorship, so you can imagine that the range went from "only catholic saint names in spanish" to "if it sounds spanish-enough to me I'll allow it". Foreign names (John) were not allowed in most cases, just like they didn't allow names in any of the other languages of spain such as Joan (catalan), Jon (vasque), Xoán (galician).

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#934

Post by hawaiianbrah » Sat, Jun 04, 2022, 9:28 AM UTC

shostack wrote: post #608

bluesroo wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The parent comment died while I typed my response, so I'm just throwing it here to elaborate on your comment: I'm not Indian, but I read a lot about this when the Cisco stuff came out. The gist that I picked up from interviews with Indians dealing with this was that there is A LOT of cultural background that you'd be very unlikely to know if you hadn't grown up in a certain caste. A (likely shitty) analogy: You can l…

Reminds me of how in Inglorious Basterds they gave themselves away by how they gestured the number three with their fingers vs how Germans did it.

That’s exactly what I was thinking of, too!

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#935

Post by Melting_Harps » Sat, Jun 04, 2022, 9:36 AM UTC

rramadass wrote: post #915

senthil_rajasek wrote: post #874

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>by one Human Animal trying to "eat" another within .... This sums up your world view. I am sitting here thinking we are all debating with someone who wants to improve society for all humans...

Why do people refuse to face Reality? We are just Biological Animals with a Complex Social Structure called "Civilization" which is but just a veneer. Reminds me of one of my favourite passages from The Sea-Wolf by Jack London ; “Do you know, I sometimes catch myself wishing that I, too, were blind to the facts of life and only knew its fancies and illusions. They’re wrong, all wrong, of course, and contrary to reaso…

No post body was provided.

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#936

Post by boruto » Sat, Jun 04, 2022, 10:19 AM UTC

monkeycantype wrote: post #802

boruto wrote: post #776

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but it is the most overt explicit discrimination that I see every week. Could you give some examples?

Yes, Two employees hired via an Indian recruiting firm were not paid wages they were legally entitled to, that my company was paying for, and threatened with cancellation of their visas and legal action in India if they reported the underpayment. In one case my colleague agreed to pay back his last three months wages when he quit to the recruiting firm, not to my company that had already paid the wages. He wasn’t con…

None of this is remotely anything related to caste

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#937

Post by aws_ls » Sat, Jun 04, 2022, 12:01 PM UTC

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

"The challenge though is to force a smile when your Indian coworkers use casteist slurs because you know it will be worse if they find out."

I feel sad and sorry.

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#938

Post by u801e » Sat, Jun 04, 2022, 12:35 PM UTC

rramadass wrote: post #768

quadrifoliate wrote: post #724

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear a lot of instances of favoritism or nepotism in what you describe, possibly even corruption, but not much sounds like caste-based discrimination. "Incompetent person hires a lot of people they know instead of qualified candidates" is not really what's being discussed here, and I think Ms. Soundararajan would agree. As a side note, this illustrates quite neatly why most of us who come from India are somewhat re…

Well said. Americans have no idea of what caste-based discrimination looks like and hence merely use it to foist their own prejudices (i.e. "they terk err jerbs") onto the Indian community. Indians have such diversity amongst themselves (North vs. South, State vs. State, Linguistic, Religious etc.) that anything can be used as a bone of contention (real or imagined). The first thing to realize is that people with gri…

> Americans have no idea of what caste-based discrimination looks like

> [...]

> Hence i think Google did the right thing in cancelling this talk.

It seems to me that this talk could have been an opportunity for Americans to learn about caste discrimination and what it looks like.

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#939

Post by gverrilla » Sat, Jun 04, 2022, 1:06 PM UTC

bgdam wrote: post #832

shultays wrote: post #827

Earlier quoted context omitted.

caste certificate What, caste is an official thing in India?

Unfortunately, it has to be. If you want to decrease the effects of centuries of oppression, the oppressed have to be given a giant helping hand. Which is done by both the union and state governments in India in the form of reservations for people belonging to oppressed castes. Now this is a controversial subject, because there are people who have abused the reservations system, but overall I am of the opinion that i…

Seems like a great way to actually maintain oppression.

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#940

Post by rramadass » Sat, Jun 04, 2022, 1:29 PM UTC

kajecounterhack wrote: post #932

rramadass wrote: post #849

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

The claim you're debating - "does caste-based discrimination exist" is more likely to be true with an anecdote "I've seen it" than with an anecdote "I haven't encountered it." Those two anecdotes can both truthfully coexist, but the first one proves the statement while the second doesn't disprove it. The evidence needed to disprove such a statement is pretty large; an individual's work history is not enough to say co…

This is a classic example of wrong Critical Thinking. Let me write out the "proof" for you;

1) You have one anecdata from a person who IS NOT hiding behind anonymity. You have another anecdata from a person who IS hiding behind anonymity. Therefore Person 2's claims cannot be taken on faith.

2) The topic under discussion is part of Person 1's culture and hence he is familiar with all its nuances. Person 2 has no knowledge of the subject or at best a cursory knowledge from tabloids and not from any authentic sources. Therefore Person 2 cannot claim equal relevance with Person 1's knowledge.

3) Person 1 has lived and worked across both his and Person 2's cultures for a significant period of time. Thus he is familiar with thought processes of both sides w.r.t. the topic under discussion. Person 2 does not have any such experience. Thus Person 2's "claims" do not have the same weight as Person 1's.

QED.