Ask PG: Given that there will be more interviews, will there be more spots? - <AUTHOR>

More interviews makes me more nervous that there is more competition.<p>Or is the competition the same as last batch, because a proportional amount of spots have been opened up? <comment><USER2> I would guess it's going to be closer to the latter. Which alarms me, because we'd been hoping we'd be able to pause at around the same size for a cycle, after growing so much last cycle.

But so far when we've grown things have always turned out ok, modulo the usual minor breakage.

Anyone know where we can buy one of those vats they use to cook food on navy ships? We use the largest size home slow cookers you can get, and already we have 8 of them, which is starting to get awkward.

<comment><USER3> Groen makes them. You can order them direct:

[http://www.groenkettle.com/commercial_kettles_self_contained...](http://www.groenkettle.com/commercial_kettles_self_contained.html)

or from Atlanta Fixture company:

[http://www.atlantafixture.com/ItemSummary.aspx?CategoryGuid=...](http://www.atlantafixture.com/ItemSummary.aspx?CategoryGuid=827e9009-9c99-45e5-82f4-841a333b8251&PageNumber=1&ManufacturerGuid=3c2997b7-52f6-41cd-b745-35255d9183cf&SortMethod=Relevance&ContractOnly=N&gclid=CLDzu_LOgaUCFQqAgwodNhxpOQ)

There's also Cleavland kettles:

[http://www.webstaurantstore.com/third2857/products/steam- ket...](http://www.webstaurantstore.com/third2857/products/steam-kettles- braising-pans.html)

or, have an Amazon Prime account?

[http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search- alias%3Dap...](http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search- alias%3Daps&field-keywords=steam+jacket+kettle&x=0&y=0)

<comment><USER2> Thanks! Those things look serious. I wonder how you clean them.

<comment><USER3> Generic instructions:

[http://www.mafoodsafetyeducation.info/fs_work/feast/steam_ja...](http://www.mafoodsafetyeducation.info/fs_work/feast/steam_jacketed_kettle.html)

Instructions for a very large steam jacket kettle:

[http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:wfghJgxxPiQJ:n...](http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:wfghJgxxPiQJ:nhs.ky.gov/nslsbp/Level1CD/PowerPoint/SupportFiles/steam.pdf+steam+jacket+kettle+maintenance&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESiW5pfbxK- kib0BiuSENfBRsD3fgyddQTDmJPPoHa80FI4w7cEpWiXmUnve4u6jCHqrpj2n1AKeb3T4JZWc8akTdfozY6dHyP3e4V7XWjUpe5KV7y6eqt297qGxfTTesEhdF9Wv&sig=AHIEtbRiKuOVCuJ4B33G5q-nahFHU_H05g)

Brochure comparing Groen models:

[http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:Yr_W2uXNIJkJ:w...](http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:Yr_W2uXNIJkJ:www.f-ews.com/portal/MyInfo/DownloadDoc.aspx%3FDocsID%3D0920101025709+cleaning+steam+jacketed+kettles&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESgDd8yTB5G-JrlaldGpW-q0zQ0lHipodGpX5A2VEzKrk1CREeH7e8gLt5GMnVODEDHo64xXpU- sjqrmPQrhGCl60Oj49kbXla_xjpKxyW4S0ejRhh7TqXjmP5Hjjf3MzXZHvgVg&sig=AHIEtbS2vu6xjSKnH2og46O03P1ZnzlhHw)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> PG used to say "if you're not accepted, it doesn't mean that you're not good, it just means that we have a limited number of spots", but recently he has tended towards saying "YC will take as many good teams as we find". I'm not sure if this is a change in YC's philosophy about accepting teams or just that PG is less concerned about not hurting the feelings of people who aren't accepted.

(PG: I apologize if I'm completely off here, but the above is my impression of what you've been saying, at least -- if I've misunderstood what you've been saying I hope you'll correct me!)

In any case, the answer is the same: First, make sure that the YC team knows that they'd be idiots to not accept you; and second, if you're not accepted, go ahead with your startup anyway, and make sure that the entire world knows that the YC team were idiots for not accepting you.

<comment><USER2> You may be conflating two types of acceptance. We have a limited (though now larger) number of interview slots, so there it's the case that we can't interview everyone we want to. E.g. there are groups I voted to interview, but that we won't be interviewing, because not enough other YC partners did. But there's no such limit on the number of startups we can accept out of interviews.

<comment><USER5> Hey Paul, when I submitted my app I submitted as a single person. After the deadline I added two critical co-founders to help execute the technical side. Since then, I've been concerned that the app would have been considerably strengthened had I included the other co-founders in the app. Would like to hear your thoughts on this

<comment><USER6> He probably can't help you, especially this late. The best course of action probably would have been to email him as soon as the cofounders were official.

It would make sense for them to allow you to reapply as a late applicant (with all the disadvantages of being a late applicant) because you've had such a significant change since applying. That would set a dangerous precedent though: "I added one more feature to my demo! It's a significant change, so I can reapply!"

But that wouldn't be a huge deal since they only skim the late apps anyway. And for reapplying, the first question could be "What has changed since your on time application?" They could then very quickly reject people without a good reason to reapply.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> In line with the idea that if your struggling to keep up with workload then your not charging enough, perhaps here the total value of the program has become a lot higher than the equity being taken, hence the number of great applications.

Wonder if there would be merit in taking some more equity as a way to try and cap the size of future batches.

<comment><USER8> My impression is that a change of that nature would select against the applicants with strong alternative routes to funding. Either because they are already well connected and experienced, already have traction, or already have some other advantages.

So while it would reduce the number of applicants, it would also reduce the overall quality of applicants. Given that the problem with too many applicants is sifting through them to find the good ones, eliminating the good ones outright would be worse than merely having a higher chance of overlooking them.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Game dev communities? - <AUTHOR> Hello HN,
Most game dev communities that I've seen are forums. Are there any social news aggregators for game dev articles (iOS specifically) apart from gamasutra and a couple subreddits?
Thank you. <comment><USER2> What subreddits do you frequent? I'm interested in social games and game mechanics, though not so much "serious" game programming like OpenGL.

<comment><AUTHOR> <http://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/>

<http://www.reddit.com/r/IndieGaming/>

<http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/>

<http://www.reddit.com/r/gamereviews/>

These are those I know about. I don't really follow them much because I don't like most of what's posted there...

Edit: you've probably seen it all, but still: [http://www.google.com/search?q=farmville+site:news.ycombinat...](http://www.google.com/search?q=farmville+site:news.ycombinator.com)</comment></comment>


The Free-Time Paradox in America - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/A/archive/2016/09/the-free-time-paradox-in-america/499826/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> This article (in the tradition of Keynes) makes the implicit assumption that more leisure is good/brings happiness. (Hence the seeming paradox that rich people - those who should be able to afford more leisure - appear to work more.) I don't think that's true. There's a reason that retiring early is literally bad for your brain [0] - healthy adults are supposed to be engaged in productive activity. Whether productive activity means punching a clock, volunteering at a $nonprofit or striking out on your own, the point is that our minds and bodies need to be actively living, not just passively consuming.

If you view underemployed young people with lots of "free time" as trapped by leisure and cheap entertainment, the paradox goes away - they're not in an enviable position at all.

[0] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/this- is-y...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/this-is-your- brain-on-retirement---not-nearly-as-sharp-studies-are- finding/2015/10/29/7a0168ba-7dac-11e5-afce-2afd1d3eb896_story.html)

<comment><USER3> That's a misunderstanding of what free time is. Free time isn't unproductive time, its unrestricted time. Free time, if fully exploited, can't be worse than the alternative because you're free to do the alternative if its the best use of your time!

The problem is that people don't know how to use their free time, and so it ends up spent getting high and watching TV. Maybe people would be better at exploiting the time they have if they were allowed free time earlier in life. Kids are pretty good at taking advantage of the time they have, maybe if they were allowed to keep more freedom through to adulthood they'd keep the skill. Maybe if our non-free time weren't so stressful we wouldn't feel the need to use our free time just to unwind. Or maybe its that entertainment has gotten too compelling. I'd rather not believe that people have an innate need to be forced to do whatever they do.

<comment><USER4> You're right about kids: they spend much of their free time exploring and playing like they're hard wired to do it.

I think our 19th-century-style schools are the problem: we drum information and behaviours into kids until they forget how to be independent. All this time wasted sitting at a desk in a classroom means they might miss out on the chance to develop a passion for something, something that they would fill their free time with later in life. And then we're surprised that people just want to watch netflix.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, just think what a nice ornate roof we could build if we skipped foundations and spent all the time saved on the roof…

<comment><USER6> That misses the point, which is that rote memorization and the recitation of facts does not lay any kind of intellectual foundation, but rather attempts to turn children into diligent factory workers.

<comment><USER7> You think that memorizing facts in school is useful for factory workers?

<comment><USER8> It's the behavioral compliance of memorizing facts that you're not particularly interested in on demand that is a useful trait for factory/office workers

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I can think of a few other things the article doesn't touch on that influence me.

1) Once you become rich you also have a fair bit of say in what it is that you do. If you are an hourly worker stocking shelves at Walmart your autonomy is limited and the chance that boredom sets in is much higher than it might be for most white collar employees. Where white collar employee's is a proxy for rich.

2) An hourly worker can only grow their income linearly with the number of hours that they work. The rich often have huge leverage with the time they put in vs the amount of money they get out. Sales is one example of this, a hedge fund employee might be another case. This tends to favour the "you eat what you kill" type of compensation.

3) The people I know who become rich often do so not by diversification but typically from concentrating on one endeavor, typically a company. In this case the company tends to become a very large part of their life. They aren't always at their desk but they are always thinking about their company. Maybe this is just an offshoot of point 2).

<comment><USER10> Your comment touches on _how_ this happens, but not _why_.

If rich people have more say in what they do, why are they working instead of things that might be more "fun"? If rich people have far more leverage in their hourly earnings, why not work far fewer hours?

I'm not sure the article really solved it, either. It's a curiosity to me as someone who has determined the quality of life I desire and want to "work" the bare minimum to achieve that.

<comment><USER11> It's pretty simple really: making money feels good.

I run my own business, and as a result I have a very highly correlated effort- to-earnings relationship. The more I work, the more I make.

I _could_ spend my time doing "leisurely" activities away from work and I'd still make more than enough to live on, but instead I spend the better part of my work days (and oftentimes weekends) grinding away, trying to make _this_ my highest earning September yet.

I don't do this in the pursuit of some end goal. I have fairly modest tastes, and 90% of the money I earn goes into a bank account or brokerage where it sits forever.

All I can say is that earning money gives me the most concrete measure of achievement I've found. When I was a kid I played World of Warcraft relentlessly, and gaining another level in that game gave me the same sense of forward progress. Money feels like the grown-up version of that.

<comment><USER12> Wonder if this is somehow upbringing-related. I've never felt the "making money feels good" thing. Sure, it feels great to have a surplus on my bank account, so that I don't have to worry about not having money for food, or buying quality computing equipment when I need it, or helping a friend in need. But the act of making money? It always felt to me (and still feels today) as a period of grinding you have to endure, a painful sacrifice, that will ensure the bank balance will maintain its level.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> When you get rich, your life becomes much more interesting - You get more opportunities and you get 'lucky' more often. Also, your work actually makes your feel good about yourself. In effect, life feels like a game; you actually get to win from time to time.

The richer you get, the more you win.

When you're poor, life is boring, nothing good ever happens to you and your work makes you feel like shit. The only time poor people feel good is when they're playing a computer game which simulates the feeling of 'winning' which they never get in real life.

Games are fun because they put you on a level playing field with other players - Your skills actually have an effect on outcomes.

<comment><USER14> Very interesting theory - I think I agree. I would add though that a good portion of the causality is going the other way, where people who find work fun and stimulating become more successful, and those who are bored by it stay poor.

These are broad generalizations of course that don't capture all of what's really happening, but they're interesting to think about.

<comment><USER15> I think that your argument assumes a certain level of job attained already. Sure, software engineers who enjoy it more become more successful. I doubt that people finding stocking grocery stores correlates with their success at all.

<comment><USER16> I had a checkout clerk at Target the other day with Down Syndrome who seemed to LOVE her job and was very good at it. Unfortunately I don't see her working her way up to CEO.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I read this piece and was very saddened. Take it from someone who has been around a few more years than many others who contribute to this site. There is _nothing_ good - _long-term_ \- about sitting around idle for extended periods. It kills your initiative. It kills your character. It kills your options in life. It kills your soul. I saw this happen to several people who were very close to me growing up and I still grieve at what they suffered in later years as the price paid for the extreme short cuts and high life of their youth. And this survey fact as reported in this piece - that is, of one in five non-college-educated young men in their twenties being so very much out of work for sustained periods - is _not_ cause for celebration or for launching into philosophical discussions about the value of leisure in a developed society. It is instead a real tragedy, and I don't care how many survey participants check a box attesting that, for the moment, they can say they have had lots of fun doing pretty much nothing beyond partying and playing games over the past 12 months or more. I know that today it can often happen that there are very limited options in the workplace and this so-called leisure is really an enforced leisure not of people's own choosing. But that does not mean we should rationalize this to say that, after all, they do seem to be satisfied in their leisure. That is nothing more than a superficial covering-up of a bad situation. It is decidedly unhealthy for the individuals involved and for society as a whole to have large numbers of young men involuntarily idled for sustained periods in this way (wasn't that what we used to call the Great Depression). Work is not an evil. It is a big part of how we grow and develop as people. It is a big part of how we negotiate life. Let us hope there comes a day ahead when enforced "leisure" is no longer a norm and the leisure people enjoy is of their own choosing.

<comment><USER18> You're mixing up leisure and idleness.

You're right about idleness, it's like a person going rotten from lack of structure. Feeling bad, seeking cheap pleasures, going crazy.

But the alternative is leisure. Being able to spend hours playing music, writing or drawing, having conversations with friends, or watching the clouds. Building something for fun, or gardening. Making videos or youtubes, anything!

What causes someone to be idle while another person enjoys leisure? It's hard to say, probably a combination of their peers, their upbringing, their moral character.

But not working is definitely NOT a universal bad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> "narcotic undertow of cheap entertainment"

What a perfect way to describe the constant struggle I have with whittling away evenings drinking beer and playing Overwatch vs investing time in learning new skills or working on side hustles to generate additional income.

<comment> swagasaurus-rex Overwatch is got to be the least rewarding fun game to play.

<comment><USER20> What games are high reward? In terms of getting you a skill that causes "fulfillment" outside of the game, or gets you money?

<comment><USER21> as maligned as mmos are, being the gm of a guild gives you a lot of free training on how to be a manager: you have to learn how to motivate people to work together, defuse issues, deal with egos, even try to figure out ways to incentivize "unfun" activities so they get done (i.e. farming for raid materials etc.)

Not sure if you would put it on your resume, but IMHO if I was a hiring manager and I was hiring for an entry level mgmt position and somebody had "ran a successful wow guild with 50 members for 2 years" it would definitely be something I would see very positively

<comment><USER22> The local office manager was a successful wow guild leader, and he does put it into his resume and bio :) (not sure if it actually helped him land the job).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I remember coming home for Christmas/summer vacation while in college. I was good for about 10 days, enjoying my leisure. But then I wanted to get back to work. Leisure is boring.

The same thing happens when I go on vacation now. About 10 days, and I'm itching to get back to work. I have no interest whatsoever in retiring and puttering around doing meaningless tasks. I enjoy working, doing hard things, being in the fray, and most especially doing something productive that matters.

<comment><USER24> I've heard a lot of people say this, but I've never felt this way. After 10 days of vacation all I can think about is that I'd love to figure out a way to get 10 more. I also get bored/tired of sitting around doing nothing, but I guess that's just not really how I vacation. I use vacations and time away from work to explore and work on projects that I enjoy, and to me that's very fulfilling. I also really loathe working for someone else, so going back to work isn't particularly intriguing. Although I've been transitioning over the last year to working for myself, and that is starting to change the way I see things - partially because I can take long (multi-week) 'vacations' where I work in the evening and explore during the day.

<comment><USER25> >After 10 days of vacation all I can think about is that I'd love to figure out a way to get 10 more

This is every vacation for me. Scheming ways to never come back.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I think what's missing is how much more engrossing higher paying jobs are. Working on processing lines or customer service, you completely check out mentally. I wouldn't have been able to bear the thought of working more than I have to.

But now I'm in the business world and much higher up the ladder. Work is incredibly engrossing. I love it. And the higher up I go, the more I get to pick and choose the kind of stuff I want to work on. Making more is just a special bonus on top of extreme interest in your field.

So I think the premise is pretty much right. People who love their careers do more of it. People who don't love their careers don't have to do as much of it.

<comment><USER27> The executive function of the brain involves decision making and creativity. Many blue collar jobs are repetitive of just following a standard operating procedure over and over. It becomes taxing and creates an intrinsic limit to how much can be done. With many white collar jobs especially when promoted to higher levels of management and autonomy, the pleasure involved with decision- making makes work as rewarding as playing that game plus there's a monetary reward. The basic premise of the article is that if the undereducated people were afforded similar opportunities than we may have a different situation.

<comment><USER26> I'm not even sure if education has anything to do with it. I have lots of peers who chose careers where they "work-to-live" vs "live-to-work". An example may be a pharmacist who chose their career, and makes decent money, but the average pharmacist doesn't feel compelled to work extra hours. If you offered her more money at less hours, she would take it. Where you offer me more money, it won't really change the number of hours I am compelled to work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> The article points out a possible interesting reason why crime dropped around 1990 all over the developed world.

"So, what are are these young, non-working men doing with their time? Three quarters of their additional leisure time is spent with video games, Hurst's research has shown."

Perhaps 1990 was about the point when computer games got cheap enough and good enough to keep young men out of trouble.

<comment><USER29> [http://pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levitt/Papers/DonohueLevittT...](http://pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levitt/Papers/DonohueLevittTheImpactOfLegalized2001.pdf)

<comment><USER28> The thing about legalized abortion is that it would have had no effect outside the US.

Roe vs Wade had no effect in Europe or Australia.

[http://euc.sagepub.com/content/7/5/375.abstract](http://euc.sagepub.com/content/7/5/375.abstract)

<comment><USER29> That's interesting - though it doesn't disprove the theory in the US. For example, the declines coincided with the dates individual states legalized abortion as well (some predated Roe v Wade).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> The author avoids an obvious arrow of causality: some people like work, which causes those people to work hard, which is more likely to make them rich.

There are lots of interacting causes and feedback loops around behavior and wealth. But trying to understand a subject while omitting an important arrow of causality can make anything seem like a paradox.

It's weirdly taboo in liberal American journalism to suggest that one's industriousness might be a major cause of one's economic status. Or maybe not so weird: journalists work hard and are terribly underpaid relative to their contribution to society, because the structure of the industry makes it hard to monetize.

<comment><USER31> It's not difficult to understand why anyone might not want to argue that "poor people are poor because they're inherently lazy" from a strictly political perspective.

In addition, thought, how many children of wealthy families really turn out poor out of laziness? How many of those wealthy families were impoverished in the previous generation? If your explanation were as important as you seem to be saying, maybe those questions shouldn't be easy to answer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I'd add another factor the author did not mention: the market in which those "Elite U.S. men" compete is vastly more competitive than it was a generation ago.

I run a small technology business and have thought about ways to try and reduce the number of hours I work. One of the principal challenges is that every day I am fending off competition from offshore firms with lower cost structures and VC funded startups with resources to burn. That competition dictates a certain tempo whether I like it or not.

</comment><comment><USER33> To me this is the key point...

> "building wealth to them is a creative process, and the closest thing they > have to fun."

When you put a lot of your effort into something, you become invested in it. It doesn't matter what it is. I'd suggest that past a certain point, the drive for greater material wealth is no longer about survival or comfort, but is instead about wealth as its own end goal. It's like grinding in an RPG, if you grind past a certain point the game itself becomes too easy, so the enjoyment changes to maxing out your stats just because you can.

</comment><comment><USER34> > The rich were meant to have the most leisure time. The working poor were > meant to have the least.

Only in fairy tales. The conclusion in economic textbooks is always the same: if you're rich the opportunity cost of having a day off are _much_ higher so the more you can create in an hour the _less_ likely it is you'll have a day off. That's why CEOs of larger companies have assistants or, in case of mega corps, helicopters or planes.

Practical conclusion: if you're an independent professional schedule a fixed number in a year of weeks for vacations. If you plan for it you'd be less likely to hesitate than when making the decision on a week-by-week basis. (Said a person who had longer vacations about 5 years ago)

<comment><USER35> Absolutely. I'm SO glad I'm not hourly. I'd never take vacation because I'd think about all the money I'm 'losing'. I'd have a hard time enjoying unemployment for the same reason, even with ample savings.

I make it a point to use up all my allotted vacation, which has the side effect of making me more productive, and makes me more respected at work than the guy who is trampled all over because he never takes time off.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> >A Salary of Smoke

Don't be too upset when you see the poor kicked around, and justice and right violated all over the place. Exploitation filters down from one petty official to another. There's no end to it, and nothing can be done about it. But the good earth doesn't cheat anyone—even a bad king is honestly served by a field.

The one who loves money is never satisfied with money, Nor the one who loves wealth with big profits. More smoke.

The more loot you get, the more looters show up. And what fun is that—to be robbed in broad daylight?

Hard and honest work earns a good night's sleep, Whether supper is beans or steak. But a rich man's belly gives him insomnia.

Here's a piece of bad luck I've seen happen: A man hoards far more wealth than is good for him And then loses it all in a bad business deal. He fathered a child but hasn't a cent left to give him. He arrived naked from the womb of his mother; He'll leave in the same condition—with nothing. This is bad luck, for sure—naked he came, naked he went. So what was the point of working for a salary of smoke? All for a miserable life spent in the dark?

\-- [https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ecclesiastes+5&...](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ecclesiastes+5&version=MSG)

<comment><AUTHOR> Half the article talks about how one theory is that they work because they take pleasure in their work, that they are no longer driven my money but by the creative process or working.

While this might have only been true of a few people, a more mobile job market, more opportunity, more choice of field, more education, and other factors all allow more people to find jobs that they simultaneously love to do and get paid well to do. I'm one of those lucky people I guess. I absolutely love what I do and the more successful I become, the more I want to do it. Work has become almost game-like to me.

I'll see your out of context quote and raise you The Parable of the Talents. If you have a gift for creation or investment, don't be ashamed of it, but nurture it and use it.

[https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+25%3A14...](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+25%3A14-30&version=NRSV)

<comment><USER36> The context I meant to suggest was that people have been wondering why rich people keep working so hard that they miss out on their lives for about 2,400 years at least.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> "entertainment has become an inferior good"

That's quite an interesting thing to say that is super true. Consumption of too much media is now a sign of low class status.

<comment><USER38> In case you didn't know, "inferior good" is an economics term with a specific meaning:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferior_good](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferior_good)

<comment><USER22> That said, his comment does have a point, and consumption of inferior goods themselves can be a signal of low status.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> This statistic from the article strikes as amazing. Not 100% sure if I believe it.

"In 2015, 22 percent of lower-skilled men [those without a college degree] aged 21 to 30 had not worked at all during the prior twelve months,"

"Three quarters of their additional leisure time is spent with video games, Hurst's research has shown"

Doing some quick maths put 15% of lower skilled men are playing video games all day during their idle time. Is this really happening on the ground?

<comment><USER40> Oh yeah, definitely. It's a fantastic way to check out from the mundane crawl that is average life in America.

Honestly though, it's better than watching TV. Atleast you have to interact and think. There's also the fact that multiplayer gaming allows us to meet new people with similar interests. Someday people are going to just put on the VR hat and practically live in another world.

</comment></comment><comment> tuna-piano Economists have studied this kind of thing for a long time.

From Wikipedia: " In economics, a backward-bending supply curve of labour, or backward-bending labour supply curve, is a graphical device showing a situation in which as real, or inflation-corrected, wages increase beyond a certain level, people will substitute leisure (non-paid time) for paid worktime and so higher wages lead to an increase in the labour supply and so less labour-time being offered for sale.[1]

The "labour-leisure" tradeoff is the tradeoff faced by wage-earning human beings between the amount of time spent engaged in wage-paying work (assumed to be unpleasant) and satisfaction-generating unpaid time, which allows participation in "leisure" activities and the use of time to do necessary self-maintenance, such as sleep. The key to the tradeoff is a comparison between the wage received from each hour of working and the amount of satisfaction generated by the use of unpaid time.

Such a comparison generally means that a higher wage entices people to spend more time working for pay; the substitution effect implies a positively sloped labour supply curve. However, the backward-bending labour supply curve occurs when an even higher wage actually entices people to work less and consume more leisure or unpaid time "

Check out this Wikipedia page for further reading: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backward_bending_supply_curve_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backward_bending_supply_curve_of_labour)

<comment><USER41> I just wanted to say thanks for that comment. It set me off in some interesting directions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> This points out another issue with providing basic income -- while basic income is preferable to just letting people starve and probably better than expensive-to-administer welfare programs, it does _not_ provide a substitute source for people's self worth.

For many people, getting paid is literally society's signal to them that what they do every day is worthwhile and necessary.

<comment><USER43> I don't understand why you would require UBI to provide people's self worth.

Some picture UBI to be this utopia that solves everything. Please evaluate it based on being an improvement (however small) to the current system.

Also, playing videogames all day is an often heard scenario with UBI. But as the article states, this seems to happen now too. The question is: if it would be implemented, and after the dust settles, will so many more people be unproductive (in the narrowest sense possible)?

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Honestly I feel like a lot of this is social. I'm motivated to go and work because my peers all do that to and it's been that way since I was a kid. People I knew in high school went to college. Now my college peers are getting jobs, etc...

Outside of work I play video games a lot because, honestly, nothing else seems worth doing. I'm already decent at video games so let's just keep doing that. I'd be willing to bet that a lot of these people avoid board games due to lack of friends and lack friends because being social is super hard when all of your time is spent on video games. It's a negative cycle that's hard to motivate yourself out of.

On the bright side it's a pretty frugally lifestyle (don't really go out, only vacations I take are staycations, no car, etc...) so I'd imagine that it's a decently sustainable lifestyle for those who don't work or rarely work.

</comment><comment><USER45> Here are some factors that might have a role --

1) Those who found companies, or who otherwise become rich through their work (e.g. pro athletes), as opposed to more passive ways to make money, in a way have a viewpoint similar to a feudal lord: The fiefdom called self has to be cultivated, protected and expanded.

2) Modern economics expands the sphere of success more easily than ever, through things such as branding or genre-crossing. E.g. Trump, Kanye, Michael Strahan.

3) The old-school rich indulged in a lot of leisure but also personally patronized a lot of culture. This doesn't seem to happen as much today, or if it does, more of it happens through foundations that probably free up time to generate more income.

</comment><comment><USER46> I think gamer culture is a vast invisible swath of humanity. If you look at the communities on Twitch or YouTube around certain popular games, it's pretty clear that billions of human hours are poured into gaming.

<comment><USER47> Before computer games there were also sports, cards, books, alcohol, drugs etc. It's only a consequence, not a cause of humans inclination for exciting their reward centers with least possible efforts.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I think there might also be a very strong correlation between being rich and doing what you love, especially has job opportunities and mobility have drastically increased in the last couple generations.

I don't know too many top 1 percenters that would say that would love what they do. Very few.

And I do know of many that would say they never really made it -- because independently wealthy -- until they found what they really loved to do: from going into a new field to opening up their own store that grew.

I think loving what you do has a lot to do with wanting to put in the effort to really getting paid back what you put in.

<comment><USER25> I'm pretty sure, given the opportunity, that I'd love yachting and recreational aerospace.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> I like the bit about 4am being the most productive hour. I have always been a morning person and for most employers and customers I have worked early in the morning until mid-afternoon. Quiet time is golden.

As far as the main theme of the article: having more people idle is something society needs to adapt to. In the extreme of insufficient work, I would like to see a very low minimum income and a policy to promote breaking up jobs so people at least got 15 or so hours a week. Looking forward a decade, I bet there will be much less for people to work on.

</comment><comment><USER49> It is not "free time" that people want. It is "time to do what I want" is what we all want. For someone like Elon Musk running Tesla might be actually use of that free time.

For many of us writing code is the use of that free time.

On the other hand I can understand why unproductive people are unable to do much in USA. Most things are automated and minimum wages lock out people from mundane work.

</comment><comment><USER50> I think part of what is happening is that people with less money do things themselves (cooking, cleaning) that wealthy people pay someone else to do. So wealthy people can spend correspondingly more of their time on the kinds of activities that count as economic activity in our current system- their jobs. The amount of time they have left for exploring/learning/resting is most likely still much more than what poor people have, though.

</comment><comment><USER51> Certainly part of the explanation of the paradox is that a great deal of what elites work on is (intentionally or not) finding ways to automate lower- skilled folks out of a job.

</comment><comment><USER52> I had the pleasure of studying under a prof that wrote about how this can be a not so good thing:[http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674278714](http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674278714)

</comment><comment><USER53> til: people who are not working have a lot of free time

I guess the author has never heard of homelessness. instead of being homeless, or being forced to find work, young people are living with parents longer

</comment><comment><USER54> I can't tell if "men" is used as a neutral pronoun in this story.

        > young men
        > lower-skilled men
        > non-working men
        > rudderless middle-aged men
        > elite men
        > poorer men
        > rich men
        > young non-college men

<comment><USER55> I think it means males. The males are staying home, playing video games, watching porn, etc. while the females are attending college in droves and "leaning in" and discovering that they can get by just fine without the males around. I halfway suspect that video games and porn are this eras circuses and bread and that there is a secret feminist cabal backing the game and porn proliferation ;-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> I would like to tell the writer: "Cool story bro, nice job on all the research and kudos on your effort, but you're confusing the cause/effect."

It's not that "rich people work so much", it's that "people who work much tend to be rich".

<comment><USER57> Having seen how hard many poor people above the age of thirty work.... I'd disagree quite heavily with this assertion. Would be interesting to see the reasons.

My hunch would be more in line with much of the "rich" that we discuss here have managed to over leverage themselves such that they have to work hard to meet obligations. It takes surprisingly little money to lounge playing video games when you don't have a car/house payments.

<comment><USER58> > Having seen how hard many poor people above the age of thirty work....

so agree with you!

poor people often work even more than rich because their salary is low and they have to take extra hustle just to make the ends meet.

Getting a decent salary, which allows getting out of poverty, may free up quite a lot of time.

> "rich" that we discuss here have managed to over leverage themselves such > that they have to work hard to meet obligations

agree again :) I think they just carry take a lot on their shoulders just because they like to (thus they "have managed to over leverage themselves ")</comment></comment></comment>


AWS Account Structure: Think Twice Before Using AWS Organizations - <AUTHOR> https://cloudonaut.io/aws-account-structure-think-twice-before-using-aws-organizations/ <comment><USER2> These are non-issues if Orgs is setup appropriately for your company. There are plenty of ways to screw up your configs that cause issues, Orgs like the rest of the services need to have some potential issues mitigated. No different than having too many domain administrators.</comment>


California accuses Cisco of job discrimination based on Indian employee's caste - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cisco-lawsuit/california-accuses-cisco-of-job-discrimination-based-on-indian-employees-caste-idUSKBN2423YE <comment><USER2> All: please note that there are more comments on page 2: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23697083&p=2](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23697083&p=2).

(That's what the 'More' links at the bottom of large threads point to)

</comment><comment><USER3> I live and work in India and I would like to throw more light on this. Me and my friends like to joke around that you will never get your dues, either pay raise or promotions unless you have the last names jain, gupta, sharma, verma.

I had a guy on my team who was very capable but did not have the right last name, he was being harassed for promotions for 4-5 years. On the other hand the manager class was entirely "jain, gupta, sharma, verma". I know of a specific case where the same manager had one of his relatives transferred from another branch and then promoted to manager on a different team in the same branch. This was all very hush-hush, I know of it because I overheard them talking about it. This is not some local tidbit software company, this is a company you HAVE heard about.

But it is not just caste based discrimination. There's also linguistic and region based discrimination because there is a lot of regional and linguistic diversity in India. If you travel a few hundred miles in any direction, the language and culture completely change. I have seen teams being formed around states and languages, and they will not let anyone else come into their in group. I have seen teams with extreme left ideologies that will not let anyone else in their team.

I don't believe dalits are any different, they also engange in these practices when they can and I know about people who have suffered from that situation as well.

Everyone's naked in this bath house.

<comment><USER4> Couldn't people just change their last name? I imagine if suddenly everyone's last name was Gupta, that kind of discrimination would become difficult.

<comment><USER5> An even better approach is to just change your religion. I was born a hindu dalit but I converted and so have many of my friends and family. Religious conversions have become so common in India that states have started to bring out laws to curtail it. Casteism is a construct of Hinduism and other religions don't suffer from it in the same way as Hinduism does. So you can change your religion , your name and claim that you have no caste. Hindus have no problem seeing a converted christian as equal to them, but will refuse to see people from their own religion as equal.

<comment><USER6> Convert and you might get beaten up by your local Bajrang Dal chapter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've heard this argument alot. To people saying caste isn't that big of an issue in contemporary india, esp in the urban areas: let's ask an Indian parent if they'd be comfortable having their child marry someone they think is of a "lower caste" than theirs. THIS is the best litmus test, quick, cheap and easy way to clear all doubts on the contemporary caste question.

The things is inter-caste marriage is the best way for caste to be eliminated, and since that is hardly happening, doubt it'll go away anytime soon. Hell, Indians on matrimonials openly advertise theirs and ask for partners of specific caste.

[https://www.scroll.in/article/897802/how-same-caste- marriage...](https://www.scroll.in/article/897802/how-same-caste-marriages- persisted-for-thousands-of-years-in-india-and-are-still-going-strong)

<comment><USER8> > let's ask an Indian parent if they'd be comfortable having their child marry > someone they think is of a "lower caste" than theirs. THIS is the best > litmus test, quick, cheap and easy way to clear all doubts on the > contemporary caste question.

This test will fail because it doesn't account for what truly is caste in people's minds. Even among those who do not want to discriminate, different castes represent different daily cultures, traditions and even languages. So the question becomes on if they are comfortable with someone from a different culture - and that answer is almost always no.

<comment><USER9> Is that just an Indian thing? Because in my family, here in Rural Iowa, the in-laws include a woman from New Delhi, Valencia Spain, Baguio Philippines, 2nd generation Elba Italy, Korea. That doesn't count the New Englanders and Appalachians (which is a whole different thing than Iowan).

I mention it because, a spouse of a different culture can be a wonderful thing. Language, food, daily culture are a constant source of enjoyment and growth.

<comment><USER8> I agree with you but for a country which has seen more than 1000 years of conflict from "outside cultures" (the Mughals, the British, etc.), the instinct to preserve one's own culture is very strong. That is why you see Hinduism still surviving whereas in other parts of the world other local religions (and cultures) were destroyed. Recently with more education, globalization, emigration and with the internet things have started to change slowly.

<comment><USER10> This unfortunately is very true. Hope things change as soon as possible for my kids. Intercase marriages are the solution to this problem, unfortunately is very low.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm a very white guy living in California and I often get the impression that caste is something that Indian folks living here are aware of amongst each other, but they don't really discuss it with white people.

On some level it feels to me like it's something Indian folks don't share because they feel it would be misunderstood (which makes a lot of sense). Or maybe it's a kind of "not airing out the laundry in public."

I would love feedback on this. Thanks.

<comment><USER5> I am someone who was born a hindu dalit and I am so ashamed of sharing that identity of mine that I am posting anonymously.

Hindus believe that humans are like dogs and they have a breed. So a person who is born in a higher caste is of a better breed than a person born in a lower caste. Numerous genetic studies have found no significant difference amongst Indian castes. The moment an upper caste person realizes that you are a lower caste, you will be made fun of and ridiculed. Caste is also tied to your last name, so when a Hindu person says his full name he is telling his First name and his Caste. Which is why brahmins will be the first ones in a group to say their full name, while dalits will only meekly say their first name. The entire religion and caste system was built to make people feel shameful of their last name. In fact, some last names of lower castes are commonly used as abuses by upper caste.

It is the worst form of discrimination known to man and it's horrible how hindu society openly supports and promotes it. While slavery lasted only for a couple of hundred years, caste system has been going on for millennia. Dalit atrocities are common in India even today and everyday 10s of lower castes dalits are raped, killed , tortured and humiliated just because they were born a lower caste Hindu. Upper caste hindu managers openly look down on lower caste hindus, even in the US , and will discriminate against them. Caste shame is also inbuilt in a lot of Dalit hindus and they themselves feel embarrassed while even saying their full name.

One of the best things I did after coming to this country was to convert to christianity and a few of my dalit hindu friends have done too. Upper caste hindus have no problem seeing a converted christian as their equal, but they would still regard a hindu dalit as inferior. Hinduism has a huge conversion problem even in India, and it is the fastest shrinking religion in the world.

<comment><USER12> Easy for me to say, but if I were you, assuming you're in the USA, I'd own the hell out of it. To be ashamed of it here is to give power needlessly to whole populations who do not own you. And the States love an underdog.

This is the country where "Yankee Doodle" started out as an anti-American insult by the Brits and ended up being one of the nation's favorite songs. The nation that used the N-word seriously until around 1965, then by 1975 it had been completely co-opted by people like Richard Prior, and later hip-hop artists. Just so you know, I am married to someone whose parents forbade her to go out with me because of my race. Before I married her another girlfriend stopped dating me because I wasn't black. Before that, another girlfriend's parents tried to stop her relationship with me because I wasn't Jewish. Now that I have a passel of mixed-race kids... guess who makes endless racial jokes? All of us. It drives our friends crazy.

I'd have a DALIT license plate. I'd have a line of DALIT T-shirts. I'd shove it right in people's faces for the sheer enjoyment of it. I would totally kill it with the DALIT merch.

My heart goes out to you, and my best to you and yours. What a nightmare.

<comment><USER13> I have seen a DALIT license plate in the bay area. It was on an Audi A4, I think. Anyways a luxury car.

<comment><USER14> I can with fair certainity say that he/she may have earned the wealth to afford one by promoting caste based christian evangelism or politics.

Caste based conflicts are the highest among the Christians, because the church was way too successful in exploiting social divisions, just like they did elsewhere in the world like Rwanda.

Caste is a poisson, but when it is bread and butter for some people they would like nothing better than to keep it alive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> "At Cisco, the unnamed employee reported Iyer to human resources in November 2016 for outing him as a Dalit to colleagues. Iyer allegedly retaliated, but Cisco determined caste discrimination was not illegal and issues continued through 2018, the lawsuit states."

If this is accurate, that's pretty messed up. If a private company, especially one of Cisco's stature knew of any form of harassment and then decided that this type of harassment is fine because its not technically illegal they should be punished. Harassment at work for any reason is never ok, work should be a space where you are judged on your productivity level and attitude, not on the place of birth of your ancestors.

<comment><USER16> It doesn't say it was fine - nor that it wasn't reprimanded or that they weren't told to stop. ...only that it ultimately continued anyway.

We shouldn't jump to conclusions. If it went to legal, I would venture to guess that people were at least told to cut that shit out. Legal isn't very tolerant of these things because they know there's liability exposure even if it's not illegal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Readers who are not from Indian subcontinent may find this difficult to understand or beleive, let me throw some context.

Indian caste system is probably the longest running abuse,racism, human rights violation in the human history. Even,now in some parts of the country people from lowest caste are made to carry human waste on their head[0].

After independence,thanks to rights offered by constitution & reservation by governments to repent the sins; many from lower caste were able to get educated.

Inequality is often perpertraited by people at the top of the food chain and in the case of caste system its been Brahmins and those acknowledged by them. Brahmin patriarchy is the deep state in India, do a quick search about top CEOs in India, Majority of Company auditors are Brahmins so the company/tax laws are often dictated by them (I just stated one example of brahmin patriarchy w.r.t context of the article).

Ask the lower caste team members of any large IT company in India e.g. TCS, Infosys led by a Brahmin manager(who is not an atheist); you'll hear about discrimination they face.

At the same time, Ex.Brahmins (Brahmins who have denounced their affiliation to caste system) have been one of the top voices in support of human rights & equality this includes freedom fighters, newspaper publishers, several leading luminaries, economists, Nobel laureates and top scientists who have left India for good.

[0][https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/08/25/india-caste-forced- clean...](https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/08/25/india-caste-forced-clean-human- waste)

<comment><USER18> You are painting only one sided picture and that's obvious from username you have chosen.

India has 1bn+ people, you can't generalize this. There are bunch of Brahmin people at higher level who actively work to uplift others and they do this without being atheist. There are 12 types of beliefs defined in Indian spirituality, it's not binary as in atheist vs believer.

Also, food for thought - are all Brahmins in India are still privileged to earn status of CEOs and managers? The amount of caste based reservation in education to jobs - it's hard for Brahmins to get a seat in college or take a job nowadays, still if these people are on top - do you think it's only some privilege? You are wrong here.

Please provide both the sides on platforms like HN or some brahmins in india will have to have their own version of BLM - "Brahmin Lives Matter"

<comment><USER19> > India has 1bn+ people, you can't generalize this.

Have you seen the matrimonial ads in India?

Why am I getting a feeling that you are a Brahmin and you are not happy that people from lower castes have their own quotas in govt jobs/education.

<comment><USER18> may be the reason why you are getting this feeling is that racist instinct.

and no, I'm not unhappy for the said reason. If you read my comment properly, I was pointing out the fact that mentioning only one side of the story, because one fell victim to the caste system, on a forum like HN is wrong as it provides very different picture. Most of the people reading this have no clue what it's like. Be responsible.

<comment><USER19> Why are you using a throwaway account, are you ashamed to admit that upper castes in India have subjugated lower castes or are you just ashamed that everyone else on HN now knows about India's dirty laundry?

Shame is good, it will help you change.

<comment><USER18> thanks

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> As a former employee of Cisco and having been in the Silicon Valley for 10+ years, I can say that I have witnessed extreme casteism and nepotism in Cisco. There was a saying I heard a few years back that one of the criteria to get hired in one of the Cisco guaranteed acquisition spinoffs is that you wear a thread (called Janeu - worn by high caste Hindus over their shoulder and hidden inside shirt). If there is one company in the valley where HR is totally absent and managers form a clique to abuse employees, it is Cisco. It is polluting the entire valley with its casteism and also by exporting its incompetent managers to other companies.

<comment><USER21> As far as I understand, you're supposed to wear that thread in a way that would keep it hidden when wearing normal work attire. If that's so, how would others know you had one? Would you secretly flash them at each other like a gang symbol?

<comment><USER19> I have seen some Indians when they are peeing they will first pull the thread over their ears and then pee, after they wash their hands they will put back the thread under their shirt.

<comment><USER18> that thread is bit long to carry and comes in between when you sit to take a dump in Indian style (squatting style). Hence it's suggested to put it on left ear to keep it up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I am an Indian and have been in US for many years. There is one thing I have noticed among brahmins, during their Naturalization process many of them change their last names to Iyer or Iyengar (two sects of Brahmins).

I am referring to guys from the southern part of India where I am from. Its not a common practice there.

My interpretation of this is these folks have a perceived sense of superiority feeling about their caste and having it in the last name is a form of boasting.

In South India there has been a social movement in the last few decades to allocate quotas for "lower" caste members in universities and govt jobs to stop the domination of brahmins (merits, or lack there of, of the quota system is whole different topic). So having Iyer or Iyergar as last name would be frowned upon/judged endlessly there. May be they feel a sense of freedom here in US that prompts this behavior.

<comment><USER23> The quota system is actually called 'reservation' and it's not specific to South India.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reservation_in_India](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reservation_in_India)

Though the percentage of the seats reserved varies with each state.

<comment><USER24> the atrocity is prevalent in the entire nation?!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I am someone who was born a hindu dalit and I am so ashamed of sharing that identity of mine that I am posting anonymously. For someone wondering what the Hindu caste system is, here is a primer.

Hindus believe that humans are like dogs and they have a breed. So a person who is born in a higher caste is of a better breed than a person born in a lower caste. Numerous genetic studies have found no significant difference amongst Indian castes. The moment an upper caste person realizes that you are a lower caste, you will be made fun of and ridiculed. Caste is also tied to your last name, so when a Hindu person says his full name he is telling his First name and his Caste. Which is why brahmins will be the first ones in a group to say their full name, while dalits will only meekly say their first name. The entire religion and caste system was built to make people feel shameful of their last name. In fact, some last names of lower castes are commonly used as abuses by upper caste.

It is the worst form of discrimination known to man and it's horrible how hindu society openly supports and promotes it. While slavery lasted only for a couple of hundred years, caste system has been going on for millennia. Dalit atrocities are common in India even today and everyday 10s of lower castes dalits are raped, killed , tortured and humiliated just because they were born a lower caste Hindu. Upper caste hindu managers openly look down on lower caste hindus, even in the US , and will discriminate against them. Caste shame is also inbuilt in a lot of Dalit hindus and they themselves feel embarrassed while even saying their full name.

One of the best things I did after coming to this country was to convert to christianity and a few of my dalit hindu friends have done too. Upper caste hindus have no problem seeing a converted christian as their equal, but they would still regard a hindu dalit as inferior. Hinduism has a huge conversion problem even in India, and it is the fastest shrinking religion in the world.

<comment><USER25> I have been living in the western hemisphere for the past decade or so, and it bothers me that other Indians to this day try to find my caste and try to argue that their caste is superior than mine. One of the reasons I avoid making Indian friends abroad. I have a feeling many of these Indians living in the west for a good amount of time have much narrower minds than most Indians living in India these days.

<comment><USER26> I cannot agree more. I feel the folks living in cities in india are much more broad minded than indians who have migrated to US long time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> "Cisco determined caste discrimination was not illegal"

Holy shit if there was ever a red flag on an employer and their HR it's this.

Basically-

"We have determined that whilst we pay lip service to getting rid of good ole US style bullying and discrimination we are ok with non-US people bullying and discriminating against each other in their own cultural way as long as it doesn't break the US law."

I can add Cisco to a company I'd never work for.

</comment><comment><USER28> As a Brahmin (the highest of the caste system) I think the whole caste system is stupid.

This is one of those things that my parents tried to enforce on to me, but it didn't work, and if/when I have children they will be taught to consider themselves not Brahmin (because my wife isn't even Indian).

Thankfully I grew up with the Western world schooling system where equality is continually preached. When I was old enough to think for myself, I realized I cannot be better than anyone else just because of birth. In the context of BLM, sometimes it is hard to see that our continual strive towards equality is indeed somewhat working. (It just has a very long long way to go.)

</comment><comment><USER29> >At Cisco, the unnamed employee reported Iyer to human resources in November 2016 for outing him as a Dalit to colleagues. Iyer allegedly retaliated, but Cisco determined caste discrimination was not illegal and issues continued through 2018, the lawsuit states.

I wouldn't expect HR to side with the lower level employee as generally HR groups are there to protect the company.... but I would wonder what their findings were that found it wasn't illegal.

<comment><USER30> This is the buried lede in the article: they didn't deny the allegations, simply determined that it wasn't illegal (!)

<comment><USER31> Well, retaliation is illegal even if they believed the initial complained wasn't illegal. Of course, discrimination is bad for businesses and they should have taken action against the managers anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I am an Indian and this is one of the reasons I didn't move to US (among other reasons).

My own brother is part of an Indian clique, which is, believe it or not exclusive only to members of our own caste. He has been living in US for almost 20 years and all his friends are from our own caste.

It bothers me that Indians in US follow all these customs and superstitions blindly after being so educated and having travelled the world. But then moving to California doesn't mean travelling the world of course.

<comment><USER32> Maybe I misunderstood you, but moving in USA just to have most or all the friends from your own country is not emigrating, it moving part of India in US. It is usually expected that when you emigrate you blend in with the country where you emigrated, bringing with you cultural diversity, not creating ethnic bubbles.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> It sounds like cisco found discrimination but decided that it wasn't technically illegal and therefore to let it continue. Whether they end up being correct on the legality, that's very shitty behaviour.

</comment><comment><USER34> > but Cisco determined caste discrimination was not illegal and issues > continued through 2018

How this shit is legal.

<comment><USER35> To give you a concise answer, USA Federal law only prohibits discrimination based on the following characteristics:

Race. Color. Religion or creed. National origin or ancestry. Sex. Age. Physical or mental disability. Veteran status. Genetic information. Citizenship.

Anything else you can think of is a legal reason to discriminate

<comment><USER36> you could argue that caste, is a combination of color+religion+origin/ancestry combo... it has a racial + religion + ancestry undertone.... i.e. it is something you are 'born into'.

<comment><USER37> Sure. But maybe to complex for most people. And more often than not, people seem to be quite happy with excuses to _not_ do anything.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> As a cisgender hetherosexual male of European descent (that's apex privilege tier in case it's not obvious) I can't help notice that the things that keep the Indian caste system alive are Brahmins opining against it at every opportunity while prepending their statements with 'As a Brahmin...' and the fact that promoting Brahmins makes sense for many companies with significant Hindu workforce because other castes naturally defer to their authority and in many cases this is pretty much all you want from a line/middle manager.

</comment><comment><USER39> As an American I never really understood how bad the caste system was until I went to an Indian restaurant and arrived a few minutes before it opened for dinner.

The owner, an Indian gentlemen, invited me into the restaurant rather than making me wait until it opened. He was exceedingly polite and even offered me a complimentary cup of tea while I waited for the restaurant to open.

Then he barked something in an Indian language (I would presume Hindi but I don't know there are a lot of languages spoken in India) and a small man who looked older than he probably is came out of the kitchen with the tea for us.

He would not look us in the eye. He had only a few teeth.

I didn't realize until after I left the restaurant that the Indian family who owned the restaurant probably brought their lower caste servants from India with them to labor at the restaurant.

The whole thing made me feel terrible and I haven't been back to the restaurant since.

<comment><USER40> Report them.

<comment><USER39> I thought about it, but I am not sure what I would report them for.

For example, in the US you can legally bring your unpaid servants to the US on a B-1 visa.

Conversely, if he is a paid employee and legally migrated with the family then there is nothing to be done about it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Maybe this should also reveal why impactful innovations don't occur much in India - where the majority of the population (~97%) is classified as 'untouchables', 'dalits', 'lower caste', 'most backward class', 'backward class', 'other backward class' and treated badly and discriminated - no wonder the large population in India is busy dealing with their socio-economic condition rather than freeing up their mental bandwidth to innovate on socially impactful ideas!

</comment><comment><USER42> On a not totally unrelated note, the quota for scheduled caste (SC)/scheduled tribes (ST) in India has had the unintended effect of discriminatory behaviour towards them by non-SC/ST. E.g. if the cut-off marks for getting admission in a college course come out to be 165 for non-SC/ST category and 135 for SC/ST (depending on the no. of seats/no. of candidates/ranking etc), the non-SC/ST applicant who got 150 and didn't make it, isn't going to super happy that an SC/ST applicant who got 140 marks got into the same course. This results in resentment of SC/ST students/applicants/workers who have availed the quota system for courses/jobs etc.

Further, the fact that such a quota system was supposed to be for a fixed/limited period for upliftment of such groups, has been renewed again and again for vote-bank politics and that has caused even more acrimony. This has nicely played into the politicians' dream of dividing people into clusters that they can manipulate.

</comment><comment><USER43> An interesting article: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reservation_in_India](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reservation_in_India)

Also, [https://minorityrights.org/minorities/dalits/](https://minorityrights.org/minorities/dalits/)

</comment><comment><USER44> I once had a western educated (self confessed Brahmin) guy say that India and Pakistan were culturally identical. Now there's some comments here about converting to Christianity as an attractive alternative, but what about Islam? Could the success of Islam in certain places in the Indian subcontinent have been driven by the caste system? Does conversion to Islam involve a change of name? Does the caste system operate in muslim majority Pakistan for example?

<comment><USER45> Caste system is pervasive in India. It invades almost every religion in India over time. As an example, here's what I wrote in another response.

This Jati is so pervasive in India that even the non-Hindu religions such as Sikhism and "Lingayat" which were explicitly formed to be away from the Hindu caste system couldn't escape it. So we now have a few dozen Jati within Sikhism and Lingayats with an overly of Verna.

<comment><USER44> How about Islam?

<comment><USER45> India has that covered too. Muslim caste structure is a thing, though not as apparent.

I can't think of a religion that doesn't have this structure in India. Maybe Parsee?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> From India, working in software product companies since late nineties. My experience all in India, other than couple of years in USA very early. Have worked in companies like Microsoft, Google, Amazon etc in India.

To be honest I'm amazed at all the top level comments around caste, surname etc.! In my career never came across such situations.

At places like Microsoft, Amazon etc the promotions and perf eval brutally gets fought over during calibrations time. All in open, one manager against another, supported by data - who shipped what, how well, who could have done better, and so on. The last thing one would bring about is 'caste', 'surname' etc., even whiff of it would have pulled down the managers among their peers and their managers (typically group head), before even reaching to HR.

I'm not sure what kind of companies all these people worked at. Just so that HN readers does not get a skewed view - in my two decade plus experience I did not see any evidence AT ALL in those FANG+M companies and also do not hear in startups from my friends.

</comment><comment><USER47> This is misinformation. in india when you ain't growing you start playing victim card in order to gain more attention. this isn't a news. this is just an internal fighting.

British Caste System isn't active in india [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrTUp2mKbWs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrTUp2mKbWs)

<comment><USER41> That is simply untrue my friend. I haven't watched what you have shared yet - sure some people might play victim card when they can't grow - but to dismiss the plight of millions of people is unwise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Having worked with so many people from the Sub Continent - as many of us have - I find it really, really odd out none of this seems to escape the bubble. It's like the rest of us are very unaware of this deeply 'specific' and pervasive issue.

In some ways, it's our ignorance, in other ways, it's really quite mysterious.

</comment><comment><USER49> This happens around the world. I previously worked closely with teams in India and someone told me that there's secret lineage books that track every born Indian so that higher castes can identify lower castes.

Explained a lot cause many of those promoted, didn't deserve it as much as others, who were probably in lower castes.

</comment><comment><USER50> I am ashamed that a few bad people give a bad name to us all. It reinforces the cast divide and enables a section to trumpet about the bad Indian culture or bad Hindu.

It's despicable and I fail to understand how educated and technical people can still practice something so inhuman.

To the people saying nothing has changed in India, no, so so much has changed, there are many more intercaste marriages and anecdotal but like 50% of marriage news I hear are all intercaste. Casteism is on a decline as far as I can tell. The young generation seems to care about these things.

Also people saying Indian parents don't allow to marry anyone with a lower caste are being selective. Indian parents don't allow to marry anyone outside their "own" caste whether they are higher or lower, practised by both "lower" and "upper" caste parents.

<comment><USER51> How many of the 50% of your anecdotal data is brahmins/upper-castes marrying dalits?

Have your heard of honour killings where a dalit family killing the upper caste bride or groom?

<comment><USER50> Don't really know any brahmins, my friend circle has Dalits and other upper castes. My sister's friends have examples of Brahmin-Dalit marriages, I know Dalit-Dalit, Dalit-Non Dalit marriages. All are economically well off whether Dalit or non Dalit and I get to discuss this online only. We do have discussions about reservation and it's effects however. My Dalit friend chose to fight UPSC in general category as a matter of pride and principal, he didn't want a freebie.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Hindu upper caste are unnecessarily oppressed. the victim is not named. Let us consider this fair. Assume that the lawsuit is frivolous, then how is it fair to name the accused. Here accused would be the victim. California has not acted fairly.

</comment><comment><USER52> > lawsuit found that 67% of Dalits surveyed felt treated unfairly at their > U.S. workplaces.

I'm more surprised 67% of Dalits would have coworkers knowing their caste. Can someone give context on how this happens?

<comment><USER53> If you're raised in India, it is relatively easy to determine someone's general (varna) caste and specific (jati) caste from their familial name(s) and/or physical appearance. You can pick these things up by osmosis from adults (my case), through being taught, or simply through caste-influenced culture. It's quite complicated, and I'm not an expert. You don't even have to be Hindu to be a part of the caste system - Muslims and Christians may retain a familial name that is a marker of caste; in some cases, even without a name as a marker someone who knows of your particular community may be able to tell what caste a non-Hindu is simply by knowing what community you're from and being able to tell what caste that community is historically.

<comment><USER11> _> it is relatively easy to determine someone's general (varna) caste and specific (jati) caste from their familial name(s) and/or physical appearance._

Is this because people from a specific caste tend to concentrate in a specific geographic region?

I've learned as a Westerner that there's no model I've grown up with that's really the best for making sense of India as someone who wasn't born there. What makes the most sense to me is what an Indian colleague told me - "think of it as the United States of Europe -- that many languages, that much diversity, that much complexity and problems."

<comment><USER54> No, not geographic. Unlike ethnicity or color, the caste system is racial discrimination based on profession.

In old Indian kingdoms, there were warriors, priests, teachers, business people, janitors etc. The caste system basically puts a social value on each of these with priests (who were also teachers) being at the top.

The problem is, you couldn't just choose to be a priest.. or a warrior.. or a janitor. You were born into the profession. You were a janitor because your father was a janitor and his father before him.

Discriminating based on caste for the purposes of education, work, government services, etc.. has been outlawed in the Indian constitution since 1948. It still happens, because people are people, but less so with each generation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> I don't understand. If "caste" is something specific to country of India, and if it is not explicitly listed in US law; can the defendant just claim it to be a more generalized version discrimination? It's like going to a barber shop and they won't cut your hair because they discriminate based on your accent. It's discrimination regardless even though it's not explicitly listed in the law. As far as the US law is concerned, caste system of India is completely arbitrary just like the accent or the color of your clothes or whatever.

<comment><USER56> US laws typically don't have a blanket ban on "discrimination" in general, but rather ban discrimination based on explicitly listed characteristics. In this case, they're accusing Cisco of violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which bans discrimination based on "race, color, religion, sex or national origin".

So you're actually fully allowed to discriminate based on the color of someone's clothes, although probably not accent since it could be considered a proxy for race or national origin.

<comment><USER57> > US laws typically don't have a blanket ban on "discrimination" in general

Discrimination happens any time a choice is made. When we hire one person because we think they'll do a better job or avoid someone because they lack skills we need, we're not hiring indiscriminately -- i.e. we discriminate. Sometimes the criteria make sense and other times they don't.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> I am not surprised, I have a friend of mine working for a large financial services company in north america, he was appreciative of the inclusive environment and work culture, but in the same conversation used racist slurs and derogatory language for people from India, it just baffles me how people can compartmentalize hate for one group of peoples and appreciate inclusive/liberal views for themselves.

</comment><comment><USER59> It's because American companies weed out American biases (sex, gender, race) in management. When it comes to foreign-born employees with their own biases HR is silent because there are no rules. I think that a better job needs to done here.

</comment><comment><USER60> > Like other large Silicon Valley employers, Cisco's workforce includes > thousands of Indian immigrants, most of whom were born Brahmins or other > high castes.

This seems too important to just throw in unsubstantiated. I have never seen this kind of statistic.

<comment><USER53> It may be surprising or disconcerting to you, but it is an assumption that is usually borne out - I don't have figures for you, so I can't speak to this specific case. It is well documented that access to education, wealth, and most other factors that determine whether an Indian can emigrate to America for a highly-skilled job are extremely skewed in favour of the forward castes.

<comment><USER11> I was told by a colleague that most Indian folks you meet in tech in the Bay Area are the 1 percenters of India. Is that kind of what you're saying here as well?

<comment><USER61> Nah, more like middle to upper-middle class, with good access to education. 1 percenters are the ones with old family money and successful businesses (which they will inherit). They have no reason to leave the country for a tech job.

<comment><USER62> Top 1% in India is just $77000 pre-tax income per year (5.5 LPA). This is comfortably middle & upper-middle class. I think what you are talking about is top 0.1%

<comment><USER63> 1% is determined by wealth, not income.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> > allowing him to be harassed by two managers because he was from a lower > Indian caste than them.

Would be cool if article didn't state as fact that some castes are higher than others and/or that people belong to castes.

<comment><USER65> how else would you have worded it?

<comment><USER64> Something like this:

> allowing him to be harassed by two managers which consider him to have a > lower status caste

The prejudice should be attributable to the managers, or better, alleged to the accused.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> I happen to Sundar very well for past 20+ years. I very seriously doubt the allegations here and frankly surprised his name was mentioned publicly. That is against the law I would imagine. I hope Cisco covers his legal defense. This feels like a disgruntled employee trying to get back at his former bosses.

While I agree nobody should be discriminated against based upon their national origin, race, caste, gender etc., people need to come to terms with the fact that life is unfair. Some day you are the pigeon, some day you are the statue.

</comment><comment><USER67> It's interesting to see how systemic discrimination takes root. I wonder if there's an encyclopedia identifying the forms of systemic bias.

</comment><comment><USER68> I worked at a company called UST global where the CEO was a racist South Indian, that hated North Indians. This stuff is totally common.

</comment><comment><USER69> Question coming from a position of ignorance: how does someone know what caste you're in if you are applying for a job in the US?

<comment><USER8> The name gives it away most of the times.

</comment></comment><comment> sahin-boydas I heard way worse stories than this.

<comment><USER10> Wish they would investigate Apple as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> Didn't the State of California just repeal its workplace anti-discrimination law?

</comment><comment><USER71> Is this the reason why my Indian colleagues never reveal their last name?

<comment><USER72> yes

</comment></comment><comment><USER73> There is an unparalleled desire of humans to feel superior and thus it does not matter we are in which country or company. It comes out of us and intelligence has nothing to do with that.

</comment><comment><USER74> How does the caste system affect Bollywood?

</comment><comment><USER75> Patels man ....

</comment><comment><USER41> This happens all the time, right from when someone joins schooling. In my college, the brahmin domination was easily visible. They would target and harass promising young students from other castes, and make them get into depression. I have simply seen too many people from other castes suffer in my college, these are not any ordinary students, they are really bright and very intelligent ones - their only mistake was being a non-brahmin. And this isn't any ordinary college in India either.

I have heard open statements from brahmin students about their "so called superiority" during college - many of them are not really smart or intelligent, but they were of brahmin caste (assumed superiority). One of the YC funded startups has a person who graduated from the same college - he was a prick who would discriminate purely based on caste.

I was hoping workplace would be more meritocratic, but it turns out Indian Hindus are screwed up from the inside. You can easily validate this for yourself, goto any organization in India, and you can easily see the upper caste domination - majority of the managers and higher ups would be from brahmin caste or "other upper castes".

Brahmins like to project it like, people from other castes are not their equals and since these people from other castes are unable to match them, they are throwing stones at them due to their frustrations.

But this is far from the truth, in many organizations if the truly valuable person for the company isn't from this caste or other "so called higher castes", then they don't get promotions, hikes, and end up being harassed and forced to quit if they retaliate - seen too many cases, and am smart to know truth of what happened.

And this is all true for ANY non-brahmin people, not just the lower caste ones.

The real problem though, there is no real solution to this problem except making these people realize they are being stupid for "assuming superiority" and not understanding science.

Many people in the society (obviously from the brahmin caste, especially from south India) have recently come openly stating they are superior and only people born into their caste are brainy. And the Indian government doesn't take any action!

Winston Churchill had said this about brahmins : "To abandon India to the rule of the Brahmins would be an act of cruel and wicked negligence. It would shame for ever those who bore its guilt. These Brahmins who mouth and patter the principles of Western Liberalism, and pose as philosophic and democratic politicians, are the same Brahmins who deny the primary rights of existence to nearly sixty millions of their own fellow countrymen whom they call 'untouchable', and whom they have by thousands of years of oppression actually taught to accept this sad position. They will not eat with these sixty millions, nor drink with them, nor treat them as human beings. They consider themselves contaminated even by their approach. And then in a moment they turn round and begin chopping logic with John Stuart Mill, or pleading the rights of man with Jean Jacques Rousseau.

While any community, social or religious, endorses such practices and asserts itself resolved to keep sixty millions of fellow countrymen perpetually and eternally in a state of sub-human bondage, we cannot recognise their claim to the title-deeds of democracy."

<comment><USER41> pretty sure some Brahmin user downvoted this :D This is the reality in India, whether private or government jobs doesn't matter. People who actually work here know this as an unspoken truth. And i merely pointed out Winston Churchill's comments on Brahmins, even that triggers some :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER76> I've got a "hot button" about castes. I hate 'em.

Comes from growing up overseas (I live in the US), and having servants.

These were the people that raised us, and were, for all intents and purpose, "family."

Except they weren't, and when I found out how they lived, it broke my heart.

I was also raised by a British mother, who was an awesome woman, but came from a middle-class Liverpool ("scouse") family, and spent her entire early life feeling "not good enough," despite attending an Ivy-League university, and excelling at her work ([http://cmarshall.com/miscellaneous/SheilaMarshall.htm](http://cmarshall.com/miscellaneous/SheilaMarshall.htm)).

Knowing how she felt also broke my heart.

The British have a heavy-duty caste system that isn't as codified as India's, but just as pervasive.

Of course, in the US (and, I believe, in other parts of the world), we are currently facing a reckoning about another type of "caste system."

There seems to be an innate human need to "just be better" than others. I think we all have it, and have to make a conscious effort to suppress the impulse.

<comment><USER5> As someone who was born a lower caste hindu, I don't really mind the british caste system at all. Because the british caste system is fluid. If you are born to servant parents and study hard to become a doctor, you end up at the top of the caste system. Not in Hinduism. Even if you become a doctor, but were born a dalit(lowest caste), you will remain a dalit and so will your future generations. There is no escape from the inhuman hindu caste system.

<comment><USER77> Becoming a doctor does not make you upper class in the UK. You can't really become upper class, at least in the traditional sense - certainly not through a job or money.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_class_in_the_United_Kin...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_class_in_the_United_Kingdom#Upper_class)

e.g. David Cameron, Eton educated prime-minister, described himself as middle class.

[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25744526](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25744526)

Edit: You could argue that everyone is middle class these days - almost nobody self identifies as working class and there are so few real upper class people (I've never met one).

Edit2: Of course, you _used_ to be able to buy entry into the upper class. But that doesn't happen anymore ;-)

<comment><USER5> A doctor would happily take being middle class rather than being a lowest caste hindu dalit. The fact that someone can advance to middle class makes it vastly different from Hinduism where you and your future generations are doomed to be born in the same caste.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> People have tried to bring caste politics into Britain and failed miserably.

The intent is not social justice, but to splinter the Indian community in the US by legalising divisions and forcing them to declare it in their documents.

As a child growing up in south India where we do not have caste names, I became caste conscious only in high school. Friends and class mates, some of them from wealthy, powerful and privileged families would point out how all they need was a B grade to get in a college of their choices. Whereas I may not even if I got all As.

It is not that I come from a "high caste", my ancestors were refuges of islamic invasion and were subsistence farmers. It is just that one needs the political clout to be classified as a backward caste to enjoy the many benefits of being classified as one including college admission, scholarships and government jobs.

In hindsight I am happy that I made it without reservation, because I do feel less like a free loader.

Ironically, my parents did give me a first name popular among brahmins and in hindsight I do see why some Christian teachers might have been especially harsh on me.

Stop promoting hate & divisions, especially if you are in a position of power.

</comment><comment><USER78> Maybe somebody can clarify this for me. It seems that there is a difference in American and European laws about discrimination, where U.S. has a concept of protected groups (i.e. they explicitly enumerate who is not to be discriminated), while EU has laws based on equality of the groups (or more generally, humans).

It seems to me that the American system is more antagonistic, in the sense it really prefers some groups (or classes) to another. And this causes more issues (and more resentment). Am I understanding this right?

<comment><USER79> One underlying difference is that the US has at-will employment. Meaning an employer can terminate employee for any reason, _except_ specific no-no reasons.

In the US, it's perfectly legal to fire someone, just cause you think their haircut is stupid, they stole your girlfriend, they root for a sports team you don't like, or you just plain don't like them.

I don't want to over-generalize, because Europe is a collection of many different legal systems, but in general European employees can only be fired for just cause. That is instead of listing why you can't fire someone, they enumerate specific reasons you can terminate an employee.

Therefore to protect against discrimination, the American system requires listing protected classes. The European system does not, because they simply omit "discrimination" from the list of acceptable just causes for termination. However in the US discrimination, i.e. employment termination for reasons unrelated to job performance, is perfectly legal. _As long_ as it doesn't coincide with officially prohibited types of discrimination. Discriminating against employees on the basis of race, sex, or religion is a big problem. Discriminating on the basis of sports fandom, haircut or taste in music is perfectly legal.

<comment><USER80> That makes a lot of sense for termination. How about hiring? Do you know if the European system specifies what attributes are and aren't allowed to be considered when it comes to hiring employees?

<comment><USER81> EU is a collection of many countries with their unique laws, even if the principles might be similar. I can only speak of Finnish law.

Our constitution simply states that no-one can be treated unequally, without acceptable reason, based on race, sex etc etc or any other trait related to the person itself.

So caste discrimination would be illegal here as it is a reason based on the person. The loophole of "Acceptable reason" there is mostly to allow them to put only people with testicles in mandatory military service without it going against constitution.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER82> Oracle also reported similar incident [https://archive.vn/XTZ5f](https://archive.vn/XTZ5f)

Caste matters everywhere: schools, jobs or life at large in India [https://archive.vn/tj8tI](https://archive.vn/tj8tI)

And Casteism is worse than Racism;

Casteism = Racism + Slavery [https://archive.vn/mPsqz](https://archive.vn/mPsqz)

</comment><comment><USER14> Caste is a complex subject, the word itself is imported from Portuguese and the system itself is a copy of the European system - Royalty, Clergy, Merchant, Landlords, Artisans, peasants/labourers.

There is nothing "Indian" about the caste system, certainly nothing to do with "Hinduism" where even rocks, tree, animals are considered divine.

The modern caste theory was synthesised by British scholar by putting together two separate ideas that existed in the Indian culture.

"Varna" \- found in one of many law books called manu-smrithi used by some kingdoms at some point in time. It postulates society and a nation's strength lies in the four pillars of society based on the type of powers and responsibility a person has based on where he/she fell, nowhere does it make the claim that it is by birth. I have never known anyone who has actually read the Manu-smrithi nor have I even seen one, so much for the theoretical indulgence.

And it is very practical and fair in that harsh laws apply to people of power like royalty, clergy, teachers or landowner for crimes committed.

The "jatti" on the other hand evolves naturally based on the work passed on from father-son and communities based on profession, marriage. In fact, different jetties do have their own temples, with their own priests and gods related to their profession. This is in strong contrast to the Church that monopolised god.

Jatti is strong among people who still live in traditional rural settings still following professions passed on from father to son. So ironically jatti is extremely relevant among the poor and weaker sections.

So who benefits from promoting casteism today?

\- Politicians who can divide and rule

\- Christian evangelists who have done similar things around the world like in Rwanda

\- The elitist among the different castes who either benefit from reservations, exclusivity, politics or as bargaining chips

\- Even for people who do not care about caste, will find it exceedingly difficult to find a partner for marriage outside their community network

</comment><comment><USER82> An advertisement to hire Upper caste/Brahmin/Bania/Kshatriya to clean toilets in India [https://archive.vn/sJ7nO](https://archive.vn/sJ7nO)

</comment><comment><USER82> Casteism is an Organized Mafia, not Merit which is evident from the fact that 50% Cabinet Ministers in India are Brahmin and 80% Judges in Courts are Brahmin; And Brahmin are just 3% in India;

</comment><comment><USER82> Education/Employment was 100% 'reserved' to Brahmin for 2000+ years as per [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rigveda](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rigveda) in [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Indian_history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Indian_history)

</comment><comment><USER14> Lower-Upper caste is a misnomer, when the British tried to segregate jattis (communities) into Varna many protested. You could be a king, a priest or a landowner within your own jatti or community.

The colonialist did the same in Africa, dividing different communities into "tribes". There is no lower tribe or upper tribe.

If not for reservation (affirmative action), no one would call themselves a lower caste.

</comment><comment><USER82> And this is why in 1932 [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communal_Award](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communal_Award) British recommended a separate country to Lower castes where Upper caste/Brahmin/Bania/Kshatriya can live on a Visa;</comment>


Does those ecosystem rankings make sense when you search them in yellow box? - <AUTHOR> https://www.startupblink.com/?leaderboards <comment><AUTHOR> the idea is to rank 1000 cities and 120 countries according to their startup ecosystem strength. Giant algorithm activated, looking for a sanity check of the locations in your country or region, so i can fix it in the next update.</comment>


Let it crash (the right way) - <AUTHOR> http://mazenharake.wordpress.com/2009/09/14/let-it-crash-the-right-way/

<comment><USER2> _Crash-only software: More than meets the eye_ by Valerie Aurora

<http://lwn.net/Articles/191059/>

From the conclusion: _"Properly implemented, crash-only software produces higher quality, more reliable code; poorly understood it results in lazy programming. Probably the most common misconception is the idea that writing crash-only software is that it allows you to take shortcuts when writing and designing your code. Wake up, Sleeping Beauty, there ain't no such thing as a free lunch. But you can get a more reliable, easier to debug system if you rigorously apply the principles of crash-only design. "_

Also, of interest I believe Snow Leopard simply kills (i.e. crashes) any software that signals it doesn't have state in order to speed up shutdown.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've seen a lot of enterprise-y programs that do this and it just looks lazy. The poor user enters some invalid input data and the program crashes, and the developer points at the spec and says "there was nothing in here about validating and giving an helpful error message".

The assumption seems to be that "ad-hoc decisions" made by the programmer, are often worse than crashing. I'm not sure that is often true. Who is supposed to be the domain expert, the person writing the spec, or the developer?

Perhaps asking the spec-writer what should happen in the situation would be better than just letting it crash. There is a business cost to crashing, and businesses are normally the ones paying for the software.

</comment><comment><USER4> This sounds like a good idea. Reminds me of Dan Weinreb's video where he says that sometimes if your process has too much garbage to collect in a clustered implementation, that the best thing to do is to just crash.

And in a backhanded way, this relates to "do the simplest thing that could possibly work" (although I have begun to have some doubts about that philosiphy).</comment>