234 karma · joined March 6, 2019
It's not that simple. I worked with hotdesking at Intel. Those workstations, although still small, were bigger than the (assigned) ones I saw at Google and Facebook when I interviewed there, and Intel's one offered more privacy. Visiting those companies for an interview was depressing - finding out your crappy cube at Intel was still better than the ones at FAANG. Surreal.
Throwaway account as I work there, but I'd like to make some minor corrections to this: I don't think most of Intel ever switched to hotdesking. It was a trial program. In my building it was on one or two floors. I can't speak for all the locations, but most of the other buildings at our site did not have this at all. Unfortunately I was on that floor and hotdesked for 2 years.
I'm pretty sure none of the process/fab folks were hotdesked (I used to work in that area and stayed in touch with those folks). Nor did any of the circuit designers/architecture folks get hotdesked. After a few years, the trial was over and everyone reverted back to having their own permanent desk.
It's incredibly unlikely that this is a reason for Intel's decline.
I think he means that it will be replaced by something else and the end results will be the same. A lot of problems we attribute to racism will be there due to some other cause. Problems have multiple sources, and solving one will not solve the problem. A common debate in society is precisely about how much of a given problem is due to racism. Some people assume it's very high, and others say it is just one amongst many.
Throwaway account of sorts here. I too am a South Asian who has been in the US for quite a while, and have lived in both red and blue states. I used to live in South Asia and the Middle East.
In my experience, Americans (of all races, including whites), are a ton more welcoming than I've seen anywhere else (well, except Canada of course). In fact, the most welcoming community I lived in was in a red state.
In contrast, people in the countries I lived in are much, much more overtly prejudiced. Here in the US I have no problem having a conversation with pretty much anyone - be they of another race or wealthy or in poverty. In South Asia those who were of a different social class were simply invisible. You don't get to interact much with those higher than you, and everyone pretends the poor simply don't exist.
And so much is dictated by your ethnicity/tribe.
I remember the situation in the US after 9/11. There were bad things happening across the country against people of Muslims or those suspected of being Muslims. But the majority were supportive. I remember my Saudi friend remarking "You know, if white people had done something like this in our country, it would not be safe for them to leave their home. And here I am not worrying at all about being outside. I know the majority has my back."
In over 20 years of living in the US, I've never had someone overtly treat me in a racist manner. Yet back home being treated in a prejudicial fashion was the expectation. Life's simply a lot better in the US.
Clearly, the US has lots of prejudism/racism issues. And it's visible. And you can see it in the statistics. And in my experience it has gotten worse in the last few years. We're not saying the US is alright. But when I look globally, the US is definitely in the better half, and probably pretty high in the better half.
Oh, and if you want an idea of how bad things can be even in Western Europe, I strongly encourage you to listen to Epsiode 684 of This American Life ("Burn it Down"): https://www.thisamericanlife.org/684/burn-it-down
You can see the transcript on the site.
Some of the stuff described there would be pretty outrageous/scandalous in the US. The difference isn't that sutff like this doesn't happen in the US (it probably does), but how the public reacts to it when it becomes mainstream news in a major city.
Oh, and just on the side: We South Asians are not really any better. I can't tell you how many times a fellow South Asian in the US complains about racist white people, and then has no problem making racist remarks about Chinese and African Americans. And when called out on it simply dismiss it with "Well that's just the reality!"
Nah, I was mostly hijacking your comment to bring the perspective forward for discussion. Reading the rest of your comment we're pretty much in agreement.
>I've even had a liberal acquaintance mention to me after the 2016 election that she "couldn't imagine how much worse [I] felt". Why? Because I am a ethnic minority, I need to be extra upset at the result?
Yes, I too have lived in both conservative and liberal places. And people in liberal areas are annoying this way. Living in such a place right now, I often joke that the worst part of Trump's election is that it has made all the local liberals even more insufferable.[1][2] Joking aside, this is a serious issue I've seen amongst left leaning folks, and although it's mostly not been directed to me, I've found it incredibly condescending, not to mention quite biased. Elif Shafak gave a fantastic TED Talk[3] which touches on this. When I lived in a very white conservative state, I never witnessed the locals treating others differently because of their appearance/ethnicity. In liberal areas, it is almost the norm - they are much more likely to interact with me based on my race.
Of course, that was years ago, and I don't know how the people are in those cities in the age of Trump. And of course, conservatives had their own set of issues (opposition to good health care, etc).
>The one area I kind of disagree with you on is that you come off as very individualistic, which is admirable. But at its extreme, it can become a caricature, much like an Ayn Rand novel. Every human willing or not is part of a community, and the effects of its treatment in that community will reflect on its psyche.
I'm aware of this, which is why I said I had reversed my position after extensively reading up on the topic. I can't deny the damage such actions do, and I am fortunate to have been somewhat immune from it. My comment is that one should not dump all of it on the history.
Case in point: Recently there has been a flareup between India and Pakistan. On Reddit's front page was a thread from the India subreddit with something like 6000+ comments. One of the top ones: "Let's not forget that the real culprit is the British and the manner they divided the country."[4] Really? Over 70 years after the British have left, it's somehow still there fault? I always have a metric for maturity: You become a mature adult when you stop blaming your parents for your problems (even if there is truth to it). It's when you realize that whatever the cause of your problems, you can't expect others to solve them. 70 years later and Indians still have not grown up.
And trust me: Even without trauma, I know it totally sucks to be in a community where you cannot find like minded folks. I've been halfway there, but not all the way. My brother, OTOH, did not come to the US and at some point had to move back to his "home" country - a country he had never lived in. His home country is very monolithic an homogeneous, and it completely sucks for him. His personality would be quite normal here in the US, but over there multiple people have suggested he has a mental illness and often treat him differently simply because his values differ, and the locals don't have the ability to comprehend that it can be different. No amount of individualism can shield you from that.
>Rather, that ignoring hundreds of years of stress and persecution is a myopic way to address historic imbalances. In order to control your future, you have to know your past, and yourself.
I'm not advocating ignoring history. I am disagreeing with the second sentence. I do not believe that one must know their own (distant/ancestral) past to have a fruitful culture. It's certainly one way, but not the only way, and IMO, not even a particularly good way. It's just a way. I honestly think this is more of an artifact - it's fairly natural that people pass on their culture to their kids in this manner, and when the past has been taken from you, you naturally feel disadvantaged.
>Both those groups also probably experienced institutionalized discrimination, but have no torch bearer yet. But we don't fix this problem by yelling at people to be more self deterministic (they would say you have some form of privilege and ignore you anyway). We fix this problem by acknowledging their grievances and usher them into the greater community so that power mongers don't divide and conquer.
I completely agree with you, as I have been on the receiving end of institutional biases, and have often in the past complained that a lot of these biases are ignored simply because they do not neatly fall into the gender/race/sexuality/age mental models. I don't see this being coupled to the other points in the comments.
[1] In 2017, a (very liberal) friend of mine cut off ties with a sporting club he was involved in, and implied it had to do with the politics of the organizers (conservative). I imagined scenarios where they openly made derogatory remarks akin to the extreme Trump voters, or otherwise ridiculed them for being on the losing side, or something. But no: The reason was that they were not "active enough" in the ongoing protests in the city against Trump's misogynistic remarks. My friend was essentially trying to say "Hey, I can be cool with you being conservative, but you have to prove you're the right type of conservative by taking part in these protests." How the tables had turned, when just a decade ago liberals criticized conservatives who demanded Muslim Americans make an explicit show of being loyal to the US.
[2] The January after the election, I attended a workshop series on soft skills. The person running the workshop started the series with comments along the lines of "I know you're feeling depressed at the outcome of the election", etc - without any qualifiers. It was just a given that no one in the workshop voted for Trump. It was otherwise a great workshop, but I've never recommended it to others because of this behavior (several similar occurrences in other sessions of the series).
[3] https://www.ted.com/talks/elif_shafak_the_politics_of_fictio...
[4] You get similar sentiments in African countries about both the English and the French.
May be a quirk of my browser...? I could edit the comment above yours just fine though.
>Nevertheless, an African American who adopts the notion that he is incomplete from a cultural standpoint because of the history of slavery is relieving himself of the obligation of shaping his own identity.
And
>Being in a profession will likely affect your culture. Scientists, programmers, business people all have their own cultures that often set them apart from their fellow countrymen/race. Not hard to find two scientists from across the world who are more at ease with each other's company than with people in their own countries.
I would be careful with this.
For context, I'm a third culture kid. I was born and raised in the Middle East, but my ethnicity is not Arab, and I don't have any claim to that area (not a citizen, need a visa to visit, etc). I came to and settled in the US. One of the nice things about the Middle East is that being a third culture kid is not unusual - it's full of them, from all over the world.
Now growing up and going to a school full of students from all over was one of the best things that ever happened to me. Any attempts at indoctrinating a superiority of one culture over others just couldn't stick. It was not a hypothetical discussion for me. I was interacting daily with people from all over, and I could see the flaws in the indoctrination. Even though I was part of an oppressed race with respect to the dominant one (Arab), there was no sense of inferiority. And much, much more importantly, being oppressed did not push me to be close to the culture of my parent's origin, and that was a giant blessing. As such, many people throughout my life have accused me of being "without culture", because I don't identify with any of the "recognized" cultures. Some aspects I borrow from one culture, others from another, and so on - and quite a few do not come from any "recognized" culture.
Getting to your comment, when you say "being without culture", I suspect you have a fairly narrow concept of culture, akin to all those who accuse me (and my "kind") of being without culture. For too many people in the world, culture is almost always tied to either geography, race, or nationality. In reality, culture is a much broader concept. For many/most people, culture is inherently associated with race or geography. But ultimately, culture is about your set of values, rituals, how you view the world, etc. And increasingly in today's world, these are not coming from race. Being in a profession will likely affect your culture. Scientists, programmers, business people all have their own cultures that often set them apart from their fellow countrymen/race. And profession is but one example.
Like it or not, you set your own culture. Some of it just comes naturally from being in a particular society/race, but at the end of the day, it is your choice what aspects you make a part of your identity and what you do not. And the more you do this, the more likely it is that someone is going to label you as "without culture".
It took me many years before I understood the problems associated with being "denied a culture" (e.g. slavery as you mentioned). For a long time I was not very sympathetic to this aspect. Eventually, after much reading on it, I have reversed my position. The evidence is out there, and there is a lot of damage done at a societal level. Nevertheless, an African American who adopts the notion that he is incomplete from a cultural standpoint because of the history of slavery is contributing to his own suffering.
I have nothing against this publication, and if it helps people out, more power to it. I do wish more people would realize that creating an identity based on your race/parents' nationality is not a prerequisite for anything, and you can still be whole if you don't. The corollary is that if you feel something is missing, and you decide to pursue an identity based on race/ethnicity you may still end up less than whole. Don't assume this path is a solution to your needs.
No matter what anyone tells you, you do get to pick your identity. Don't let anyone convince you that you are incomplete if you are not in touch with your ancestral heritage.
Along these lines, I once attended a lecture by a researcher at a local university. I think his research was more on the biological side of the brain, but he frequently collaborated on the "softer" side (psychology, etc). He described one study that I wish I had the reference for. The participants were provided with this prompt: I am _____. They were free to fill in the blank in anyway that felt true for them. The upshot: People who felt part of an oppressed minority focused mostly on their race/gender/sexuality. People who did not feel oppressed wrote ordinary statements like "I am an honest person." Or "I am a loving father". The unfortunate side effect of this is that those in the former camp are much more likely to perceive a negative interaction as tied to race/gender, etc. I personally have experienced this: A friend of mine of the same race as me was "performance managed" and eventually fired. He swore, without any evidence, that the whole thing was racially motivated by his former manager, who came from a race that historically has had issues with his. Now this friend had a history of demonstrating an identity tied to his race, so his reaction did not surprise me at all. Two years later, the exact same thing happened to me: Performance managed for BS reasons, and eventually fired. And my manager was of the same race as his. But the notion that it was racially motivated was just ludicrous to me. If I listed attributes of bad managers, he satisfied most of them. It was trivial for me to explain it away as "crappy manager".