Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by maslam 1318 days ago
Well written and kind response. Thank you for doing this. We could use a bit more of this on HN.
1 comments

> The 'high' or 'dominant' castes make up more that more than 90% of Indian migrants as per a study in 2016.

> The backward castes of South Asia, known as Dalits, form 1.5% of all Indian immigrants to the United States

Calling me ignorant and a passive aggressive "forgive you" without actually addressing my comment isn't "kind".

GP came here with a stem degree worth millions of dollars in lifetime earnings , NOT $30 in pocket ( which was used as a proof of "not privileged" )

Grossly misrepresenting oneself and denying privilege is not kind.

Astounding to see racism and ignorance represented as virtue signaling so blatantly!

Are you aware that the majority of STEM seats in Indian colleges are set aside for either affirmative action for ‘lower’ castes (itself an arbitrary criteria) and women?

The average man in India is competing for approx 10% of college seats!

And saying an Indian STEM degree is worth millions in lifetime earnings reveals even more ignorance - outside of a handful of colleges, the India higher education system is considered woefully inadequate, underfunded, pumping out graduates who only succeed out of personal initiative.

Every major corporation in India essentially has a retraining program to actually teach what’s necessary for work. The worker training issue is one of the top challenges faced by businesses there.

Perhaps it’s time you described your own ethnicity and background etc. Let’s learn a little more about where your biases flow from.

If you actually grew up in India in the time period of the OP, or knew anything about it other than nonsense in woke publications, you would feel ashamed for your tone and envy and render a sincere apology to the OP.

> Are you aware that the majority of STEM seats in Indian colleges are set aside for either affirmative action for ‘lower’ castes (itself an arbitrary criteria) and women?

And these seats are never filled and go to upper castes anyway?

My class was supposed to be 50% low caste with 25% Dalits in a class of 60. There were literally 2 Dalits in my class. And of late, the OBC categories are being crowded in by upper castes through political action.

A whole 50% of my class was actually "payment seats" where they paid double the fees to get seats with low entrance scores. Basically, a 50% quota for the privileged.

Curious non-Indian here, how did you know that there were exactly two Dalits in your class? Is this a thing people talk about? Were they open about it? Or do you just recognize them on sight?
I am not a Hindu, so my caste radar is fairly weak. I cant tell caste by last name or by religious practices.

Having said that, People ask folks how much they scored in their entrance exam. Then it becomes obvious who were Dalits are - they had the lowest scores. The 2 of them were also fairly underprivileged, so you could guess from their less trendy and not as new clothes too.

50% were payment seats with about the same entrance rank as OBC students. So it was hard to tell the OBCs apart from the payment seat students. India actually has "affirmative action" for the rich in all private universities, which most of Indian H1Bs have graduated from. My parents couldn't afford these seats. The H1B upper castes wont tell you that, and will pretend that rich Dalits are taking over all the seats. No such thing is happening. I have never met a rich Dalit in my life. I am sure they exist, but I have never met them.

Their academic performance improves with time, and some of them are engineering managers at Microsoft now.

Okay, but to follow up, how do you know that some are engineering managers at Microsoft, now? Is this just something that gets around via gossip?

Also, is "caste radar" a word you made up, or is that a generally-used concept?

I merely quoted some stats, stats are not racist. I read through your rant but didn't see an explanation of why only upper caste Indians are emigrating to usa. whats that about? How do only 30% of Indians make up 90+% indians in USA.
>GP came here with a stem degree worth millions of dollars

Degree helps you at the beginning of the career

After you have exp and knowledge

It becomes less and less relevant

It is impossible to predict value of degree

Just like the value of connections

> It is impossible to predict value of degree

Surely a stem degree and an opportunity to get a post graduate stem degree in a blazing hot tech market is worth more than $30.

Do you really think GP and a venezuelan asylee have same amount of privilege because they both came over with $30 in their pockets. Yet that was the logic GP used to justify his lack of privilege.

All im saying is that you are probably giving degree too much value

You guys over there seem to be treating degree like the only way to better life

Read it over again Magoo: the subject is a specific kind of degree and how it opens doors for a specific industry in the Bay Area. A specific industry known for being insanely competitive and requiring almost comical qualifications to get in. Put the pieces together.
I still stand with my point

Degree is not worth this much.