[tptacek]

Historically Slovakia gets lumped with Eastern Europe in popular perception - Slovakia is nothing like Romania, the Ukraine, Albania or even Poland in turning out petty criminals or promiscuous online fraudsters. Not to forget Western Europe, France has a far more unhealthy work culture and fraud at work and as a way of living is far more acceptable than in Slovakia. Germany and Austria tend to value probity far more highly than the Mediterranean countries. Hundreds of years of late Roman Empire corruption left an undying footprint.

This attitude is shot through the whole piece (essentializing not just Europeans but also Indians), and it's weird and creepy.

[insom]

Glad to see someone already posted this. I don't know how anyone writes something like "this is what Slovaks are like" and doesn't stop to think about their biases.

I originally thought maybe he was from Slovakia (I have occasionally made jokes or generalisations about Irish people, as I am one) -- but then the footnotes make it clear it's not self deprecation. It's just prejudice.

[Mizza]

He is obviously from Slovakia. It says on their about page that their homebase is in Bratislava.

[lazyasciiart]

Are you assuming that nobody would be based in Bratislava who is not Slovakian?

[lazyasciiart]

Spoiler: you're wrong, the author is Canadian.

[wolco]

But what is his background? Canada is not a melting pot and many keep strong ties cultural backgrounds.

[newfoundglory]

His name is pretty Anglo Saxon, he had a solidly well off Canadian childhood and he has previously lived in Russia, France, and Austria.

[alexk]

Thanks for calling this out.

I think we should do more of it on HN (and everywhere else). People should try harder to decouple their biases from facts especially in their public writing.

[Mizza]

I'll play devil's advocate here: I actually greatly prefer when people expose their biases early on rather than try to hide them through weaselly or bland language. I think immediate total aversion to nationally biased language is a specifically American trait (and left-coast American at that) - as the result of contemporary cultural conditioning and general lack of exposure to international identities. Europeans are more comfortable with it as it happens more there, there is much more international exchange, and as a result, people can be given the benefit of the doubt by default, in the sense that "oh, I know that when the author says Slovakian culture, he obviously doesn't mean every single individual Slovakian person, but rather his perception of the traits of their culture as a whole."

[danso]

If Europeans are more exposed than Americans to folks of different nationalities, wouldn't they be less inclined to broadly generalize them?

No one would accuse the author of meaning to judge "every single individual Slovakian person". It's ironic that you state your dislike of "weaselly or bland language", and then go on to describe the author as having a "perception of the traits of their culture as a whole". Most people would describe that as simply having stereotypes.

[Mizza]

> If Europeans are more exposed than Americans to folks of different nationalities, wouldn't they be less inclined to broadly generalize them?

Why would it? It's just more data to pattern-match on, and that can mean confirming bias and prejudice as well. It might also shock you to find out that people who work in retail or food service also develop prejudices as well. It's not a good thing but it happens.

I'm not saying that stereotypes are good (or I suppose, that they are always bad), I'm just saying I don't need to clutch my pearls about it every time I see it. I can just read it and think "Okay, this guy is obviously using stereotypes about other countries here" and then keep reading without it necessarily immediately invalidating else that's been written. This is particularly so when Europeans talk about other European countries, as in this particular case. It is, I think, actually a form of comradery. (We might hate the Germans, but they're _our_ Germans, and we won't have any yanks slagging them off!)

I am sharing my perspective here as a European who immigrated to the United States who has observed the response to this in both cultures.

[danso]

OK I won't get into an argument of whether stereotypes or prejudices are good/bad and I'm sorry if I implied that. I can't speak for the GP (u/alexk), but I interpreted his assertion of "People should try harder to decouple their biases from facts especially in their public writing" as saying that using stereotypes as factual evidence leads to weak writing.

For example, this graf:

> Yet if these people or their friends were the only ones who had contact with your data, no issues at all. Slovaks, particularly in the service industry, are astonishingly honesty.

> [the next section is about how technical work is outsourced from Slovakia]

The author apparently thinks IBM's off-shoring would be fine (indeed, "no issues at all") if the work outsourced to Slovakia stayed in Slovakia (rather than be outsourced to India), and his supporting argument is that "Slovaks are astonishingly honest". Take away the stereotype, and we see how flimsy the author's assertion is. It's not the stereotype that's wrong, necessarily, it's how the author uses it as evidence.

Yes, I suppose I agree with you that people being explicit about their biases makes it easier to identify weak essays. But it's also worth arguing that no matter your biases, your writing is stronger when you rely on empirical evidence, rather than using generalizations/stereotypes that you assume the audience will agree are true.

[Mizza]

> The author apparently thinks IBM's off-shoring would be fine (indeed, "no issues at all") if the work outsourced to Slovakia stayed in Slovakia (rather than be outsourced to India)

Yeah. It's a blog post from a Slovakian offshoring company. Of course he does.

I don't expect that this Slovakian blog post about why Slovakian offerings are better than Indian offerings will be free of bias, and in fact I think it's unreasonable to ask for that.

Mostly, I find it a bit annoying that people (almost always Californians - stereotype!) are tripping over themselves trying to point out - "Hey! This guy might be biased! Let me tell everybody, and congratulate everybody else on that awesome 'call out!' We need more of that here!" - with total contextual and cultural blindness.

I think, no, we need more critical thinking, more benefit of the doubt and less US-centrism.

[YeGoblynQueenne]

>> I can just read it and think "Okay, this guy is obviously using stereotypes about other countries here" and then keep reading without it necessarily immediately invalidating else that's been written.

The author's whole point in this article seems to be "IBM offshored its work to Bratislava and India and that's bad". I don't know how you can decouple the stereotyping from an article when it's the main line of reasoning of the article.

[jaclaz]

>The author's whole point in this article seems to be "IBM offshored its work to Bratislava and India and that's bad". I don't know how you can decouple the stereotyping from an article when it's the main line of reasoning of the article.

And - in passing by and without any particular apparent reason - he manages to bad mouth half of the rest of Europe or nearby countries:

"... nothing like Romania, the Ukraine, Albania or even Poland in turning out petty criminals or promiscuous online fraudsters. Not to forget Western Europe, France has a far more unhealthy work culture ..."

If the above is not (additionally gratuitious in the context) stereotyping, I wonder what it is.

[newfoundglory]

> This is particularly so when Europeans talk about other European countries, as in this particular case.

Given that you appear to be incorrect about this case being such an example, are you still sure that it’s all well meaning comradery?

[philwelch]

> If Europeans are more exposed than Americans to folks of different nationalities, wouldn't they be less inclined to broadly generalize them?

This is the exact opposite of what I would expect.

[alexk]

> I think immediate total aversion to nationally biased language is a specifically American trait (and left-coast American at that) - as the result of contemporary cultural conditioning and general lack of exposure to international identities.

I am Russian

[RandComment]

https://www.thelocal.fr/20180314/what-drives-you-mad-about-w...

The work culture in France has been understood for a long time. I don't understand how you think it's bias, when you clearly have never worked there.

[lainga]

The whole article smacks of a people-are-their-nations attitude I'd expect from a copy of National Geographic circa 1890.

[throwaway7312]

As an expatriate who has traveled through dozens of countries and lived long-term in a handful, let me assure you: different national personal characteristics are very real. Put an Englishman, a Norwegian, and an Italian in a room together and it is more than their accents that tells you who's whom. Or a Chinese, a Japanese, and a Korean for that matter.

Pick up your suitcase and get outside North America for a bit. The world's a lot more diverse and interesting than the education system might have you believe.

[verylittlemeat]

I've spent time in countries all over the world and my experience was not like yours at all. There were so many more important factors in guessing a foreigners personality than what their nationality/ethnicity was. What is their education level? What is their occupation? What is their economic background? If you want to stereotype then those were much better questions to ask than "chinese, japanese or korean."

Now if you want to argue that certain countries produce way more of one socio-economic class than another and that you're more likely to be exposed to people raised in that culture then maybe I can agree. But to just say, for example, all Nigerians are loud mouthed tricksters? No I don't agree with that kind of stereotyping.

[YeGoblynQueenne]

>> Put an Englishman, a Norwegian, and an Italian in a room together and it is more than their accents that tells you who's whom.

Unfortunately, that's very difficult to know for sure, for instance because you can't just take the accents out of the people and see if you can guess their nationalities from their behaviours.

Also, I don't know how you can tell that the differences between an Englishman, a Norwegian and an Italian are due to their nationality and not just the difference in personalities you'd expect to see between any three people- say any three Englishmen or Italians etc.

[lainga]

What makes you think I haven't "gotten outside North America"?

[newfoundglory]

And you can tell Americans by their assumption that everyone else on the internet is also American.

[John_KZ]

Well if someone keeps praising Germany and Austria exclusively, you know what to expect.

[forgotmypw]

>the Ukraine

Referring to Ukraine as "the Ukraine" has been inappropriate since the end of 1991. Just this detail paints the author as being out of touch.

[will4274]

> out of touch

Or maybe just not perfect? Google trends show that "the Ukraine" is about 1/3 as popular as "Ukraine" in common usage. It's more like calling the FSB the KGB - wrong, for sure, but was correct for decades, so not at all surprising that people still say it. http://www.businessinsider.com/why-ukraine-isnt-the-ukraine-...

[forgotmypw]

Can you please link the Google Trends? I am curious how to do one of these searches that compares using it with "the" and without.

[will4274]

There is a screenshot in the Business Insider article I linked

[duncan_bayne]

Yeah, the correct term is "Russian Federation" these days.

:(