It also seems like Belarus is killing the goose that laid the golden egg here, not that that’s surprising behavior from an authoritarian regime fighting for its life.
Crazy to see it's EPAM which is the company my old client used. Also crazy to see Yandex evacuated staff (presumably back to Russia?) which kind of feels like being tossed from the frying pan into the fire...
> It also seems like Belarus is killing the goose that laid the golden egg here
If some kind of deeper integration with Russia is on the horizon, as many have expected for years, then this might hardly matter. The overall Russian economy is so based on the export of natural resources, that the ruling stratum is hardly worried about other industries like the IT sector. All those Russians except for the ~10 million needed to run and support the oil and gas sector, have sometimes been described as "superfluous population" by commentators. Obviously this situation sucks for the ordinary citizen, but what can you do?
The Germans were well aware of Russia's population at the time. In the 1930s, the Germans produced a huge amount of areal-studies scholarship with regard to the USSR (demographics, ethnography, history, linguistics, etc.). Even today scholars occasionally rely on those papers and monographs, as distasteful as a publication produced under the Nazi regime might be.
No, the Germans’ delusion was that these many tens of millions of Soviet citizens were so unhappy with the regime, that they wouldn't rush to defend it.
To be fair to them, Russia had gone through a civil war 19 years before. If you're listening to the exiles and losers, it's easy to get a false impression.
It's a mistake we've seen made through out history time and again (e.g. bay of pigs, CIA adownplaying Castro's popular support, etc.)
I was taught that when the Germans invaded, there were industrial cities in the Soviet Union that had been created after World War 1 that weren't even on the German maps at the time of the invasion, the Germans didn't know the extent of Soviet industrialization in the inter-war period. Is that all false?
I'm doubtful. The Soviets were loudly propagandizing their industrial achievements to all who would listen.
Something like military bases they would try to hide, but if anything Soviet industrialization was oversold, in the sense that there was a huge fetish for certain production modes such as tons of steel produced, which overstated actual industrialization.
To say it another way, this is an example of Goodhart's Law:
"Any observed statistical regularity will tend to collapse once pressure is placed upon it for control purposes."
In the annals of western industrialization, it became common to look at various indexes, for example of tons of steel produced, as a measure of industrial output and thus of GDP per capita.
So Soviet Planners decided that they would focus on these traditional indexes as targets, and so created massive overproduction of things like steel, reasoning that this would catapult their industrialization, as measured by the same indexes, upwards.
But that's not an apples to apples comparison to western nations measures of GDP, because a society needs many things: butter, milk, bread, steel, coal, clothes, shoes, etc. In a normal market society, these are all produced in rough proportions as people need them, millions of products are produced, so you can pick 100 of them as indexes to track overall economic output as there is no reason to think that the economy would bizarelly produce twice as much steel as it needed. Thus taking a handfull of goods and using them as proxies makes sense.
But if you take the same society, and instead of producing a million goods, you only produce 100 according to a plan rather than according to consumer demand, then you can have a situation in which the economy produces twice as much steel as it needs, and so steel production ceases being an accurate proxy for overall production.
Thus using western measures to track production of command economies is very challenging.
Which is not to say that Soviets didn't industrialize rapidly (at a terrible price in terms of human suffering) but that the bulk of the real gains happened as a result of World War 2 mobilization and the two decades after the end of the war, rather than in the period 1918-1940.
The pre-WW2 period saw a doubling of GDP per capita from the start of WW1 to the start of WW2, or a tripling of GDP/capita from the war ravaged state Russia was in after losing WW1 and and the end of the civil war to the start of WW2, but this gain in production was mostly due to shifting production away from agriculture and towards mass production -- sectoral shifts. But because production was planned, the increase in production did not result in a corresponding increase in sectoral productivity (productivity within a sector), which actually declined spectacularly due to collectivization, and so you had an economy in which some goods were massively overproduced even as millions were starving.
The Russian economy is both super small (last time I looked it was smaller than Italy), and not terribly diversified. I’d be a bit worried about it I lived there.
The trick the various Russian governments pull is to make sure the general populous is too busy surviving to be able to worry about let alone mount an offensive against the regime.
Which is a shame, because I remember there were a LOT of highly talented individuals in Russian academia right when the Soviet Union dissolved - owing to the SU's strong showing in mathematics research.
There's more or less noone working at EPAM in developer capacity who was an engineer before collapse of USSR, and it's been the case for a couple decades.
>The overall Russian economy is so based on the export of natural resources, that the ruling stratum is hardly worried about other industries like the IT sector.
This is a tautology and the reason why many corrupt regimes suffer from the resource curse.
The government blesses a few industries as the cash cow and keeps them under state control to finance the authoritarian regime. Other growing industries are seen to be disrupting the status quo and thereby undermine state control. Authoritarian governments would rather own 90% of a pile of crap than 30% of something valuable. Then those countries fall into poverty because the statesmen are billionaires no matter how they treat their people.
Hyperbole: Imagine a parallel world where Donald Trump had a "dayjob" where he earns enough money to pay for the military of the US on his own and can buy military equipment from other countries. He could easily suppress American citizens without any consequences. Losing votes doesn't matter because the military is on his side. Destroying or preventing civilian infrastructure doesn't impact military funding. One thing is certain. This would not be a world of prosperity.
"The IT sector in Belarus. The total production and sales revenue of the IT sector was $3.1 billion in 2018. In 2018 IT accounted for 5.7% of Belarus's GDP, which is comparable with agriculture and forestry (6.4%), construction (5.4%), and transport (5.8%). By 2022, IT's share of GDP will have increased to 10%."
They felt fine with Lukashenko for the last four years, they'll be fine with Lukashenko for the next four years. Actually, I don't think Daddy will hold up for the whole term, Russia will play smart and integrate Belarus , one way or another. Not as part of Russia, but I'd expect closer ties in finances and planning; and, possibly, heavy industry
“There’s no borders at all for IT engineers. They can find a job anywhere.”
Uhm yeah, but they also have parents, siblings, girlfriends. Probably they might have some properties bought already. So as it may seem really advantageous to be in IT, one might not be able to move to another country just like that...
If this BS going on will end up in couple of months they might be able to move back soon. If not, living somewhere abroad without close ones is going to hurt them in the long run.
I moved out from my home country and in the place I live now people are nice, but I am never going to be one of them (so there are also not nice people, but it is easier to deal with not nice people from your own country).
Some people have it even worse, because I can go back to my own country and have my friends from school and family quite close by. There are people who are children of migrants that are still treated on the streets like they are not part of that society even though they grew up in that country. It gets even worse for them when they go to visit their parents country because they look familiar to people but when they speak they use English or broken local language which makes them foreign there as well. In the end they are not welcome in the place they grew up, they are not welcome in the place where they fit in by looks. They don't have a place in the entire world they can go and feel like home.
You have quite a negative view of immigration. It works well for many people (while for others it doesn't).
Children are quite adaptable. The West is long ago not 100% white and it's only gonna become more pronounced the coming decades. It's mixed. Whites will become the minority in U.S and the UK in the coming decades. It's not that different in West Europe, Canada, Australia, etc.
Overall it's a good trend for immigrants.
Those children you describe may have a few rough episodes in their upbringing, but won't they have more rough episodes growing up in Belarus? Some proportion is needed.
>Whites will become the minority in U.S and the UK in the coming decades. It's not that different in West Europe, Canada, Australia, etc. Overall it's a good trend for immigrants.
1. The US may become a white-minority country. Europe, not really. Whites are still the majority, and are going to remain so in the distant future. The "Great Replacement" isn't real.
2. Most immigrants to EU countries are from other countries within the EU and white themselves.
3. Many people from outside the EU, even though they're not considered "white" by Westerners, look white from the outside (think of e.g. Arabs) and the differences are purely cultural. Within a few generations you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between them and "white" people.
4. One's ability to integrate and be welcomed depends far more on cultural differences than "looking" different. This is why people from former colonies immigrate to the country that colonized them - lasting vestigial ties and a common language help far more than sticking to people who share one's skin color.
> 3. Many people from outside the EU, even though they're not considered "white" by Westerners, look white from the outside (think of e.g. Arabs) and the differences are purely cultural. Within a few generations you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between them and "white" people.
The US government officially considers Arab people to be "white". [1] Some Arab Americans disagree with this and believe they are not "white", other Arab Americans identify with the "white" label and want to keep it. The former group have been lobbying the US government to create a separate category, e.g. "Middle Eastern and North African", thus far non-successfully.
Unlike the US, I don't believe most EU countries have a formally adopted definition of "white" (the EU as a whole certainly doesn't.) But, just like in the US, it would be wrong to think there would be a single viewpoint. So the statement that Arab people are "not considered 'white' by Westerners" is a bit dubious – some Westerners no doubt think that, other Westerners actually do think Arab people are "white", yet other Westerners just don't think about the concept "white" or its definition that much at all, or think that "white" is an arbitrary category which should not be used
Perhaps some will consider Arabs white (which I doubt), but still many will see them as "other", which is the same thing, especially if they are muslim.
I'm an Australian from a Catholic family of British and Irish descent. My aunt married a Muslim man of ethnic Albanian descent (not actually from Albania, his family come from the Albanian minority in North Macedonia). I've met members of his family on a number of occasions over the years. I never thought of them as "other". I've never really thought about the question of whether he is "white", but his skin has always been paler than my own
He's probably not super religious or you're super progressive. While I respect and appreciate what you said, many many people still think in terms of us and them.
Most Albanian Muslims are not "super religious". His family is about as Muslim as my own family is Catholic (i.e. not very devoutly), but I believe his family's degree of religiosity is pretty much the norm for Albanian Muslims both in Australia and in Europe.
Australia and US are historically a mix of immigrants from all the world so things are much different there than in "solid culture" countries where xenofobia is a part of life as a result.
Generally speaking, this question in this form just doesn't come up much in Europe as, "who is white" is much less of a discussion point than in the US, along with all "race" discussions. This is not to say that racism or xenophobia don't exist in Europe, but animosity exists inbetween "whites" as well, and people can hate Arabs without thinking about it in terms of "whites" vs Arabs, and rather thinking about it as "my nation" vs "strangers". Not saying this is much better, just trying to point out that not all parts of the world are obsessed with the American flavor of the concept of race. For one, it's definitely never ever used officially as a concept in many European countries.
In fact, the idea that races even exist is considered outdated and racist. France recently removed the word from their constitution because of that. The same is being debated in Germany.
That doesnt remove the fact that older generation people and many younger too in EU still have "built in firmware" to instantly classify my / foreign culture people. And I doubt this will change for the next generations.
And BLM demonstrations in europe... Sorry, but this is ridiculous. Those are more about protest against goverment ant police than BLM.
"Not saying this is much better, just trying to point out that not all parts of the world are obsessed with the American flavor of the concept of race"
We've just witnessed BLM demonstrations all over Europe though. I agree it's less of a thing in Europe, but it definitely exists.
We can argue about numbers all night long.
It doesn't matter if the U.S / UK is 65% white or 40% white. They're much LESS white than they used to be. That's the trend.
If you're a visible minority, you'd probably feel more comfortable in NY / Berlin / London today than you would have 50 years ago, and 40 years from now unless something unexpected happens - you'd be even more comfortable.
I wasn't aiming for a discussion about race or if "great replacement" is a thing. Only saying that for immigrants it's way better than it used to be, at least by numbers.
your 3rd point: I don't believe most Arabs think of themselves as white or are seen as white (nor do they want to be), especially if they are religious muslims, which many of them are. So the difference between them and the dominant culture still exists, even if we're talking about 3rd generation "immigrants".
your 4th point: visible minorities have a harder time. It's enough that 1% of the population is racist (it's usually way more), for them to have a sense of being discriminated against. Your colonies example is hit and miss, are French Algerians all perfectly integrated?
I suspect that outside the US, most Jews rarely if ever think about whether they are "white", much less about whether they feel "white"
US culture is very focused on racial categories – who is and isn't "white". Most other Western cultures are not – European cultures, Australia, etc
I think in Israel, people think about who is Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Mizrahi, Beta Israel, Arab/Palestinian, Druze, Secular vs Religious Zionist vs Haredi, etc, not about whether or not they or others are "white". The question of "who is white" is very American, not one that has a lot of relevance for Israeli society
They probably use some word that differentiates them from everyone else - be it White, Christians, Dutch, Goyim or whatever.
In Israel Ashkenazi heavily correlated with appearing "White" btw, and the word White is used when you want to say privileged. So I wouldn't say skin colour isn't a thing there.
Given that Europeans (outside the UK) never have to officially pick a race on paperwork, probably many Arabs haven't given much thought to whether they are "white" and if not then what. You can't apply the American concept of whiteness all over the world. Their skin shades range over a large spectrum and is similar to other Mediterranean people's, like Greeks and southern Italians and Spaniards. Are tan skinned Sicilians white? Who cares, the concept doesn't work the same way in Europe as in the US.
> Whites will become the minority in U.S and the UK in the coming decades
Regarding the US, that's a bit of a misleading statement. US Census Bureau projections have "white" people as a majority in the US until 2060, which is as far out as their projections go [1].
The claim that "whites" are going to become a minority soon is arrived at by redefining "white" to exclude white-identified Hispanic people. Indeed, "non-Hispanic whites" are projected to become a minority in the US by 2045. But "whites" overall are not going to become a minority in the foreseeable future.
In 2060, the US Census Bureau projects the US will be 68% white-identified (white-identified Hispanic people included). By comparison, their actual estimates for 2016 are that the US was 76% white-identified (again, Hispanic people included). Although their projections don't go out that far, it seems likely the US will still have a white-identified majority at the start of the next century.
I'm talking about the experience of being a visible minority in a white country (or for that matter, a homogenous society). I'm just saying - the U.S isn't particularly white and it will only get more pronounced with time.
Let's leave all the race discussions aside.
We can talk about the problematic experiences of immigrant minorities without bringing race into it. For example, my friend's father moved from Uruguay to Australia in the 1970s, and my friend told me his dad was teased at work for his accent and gaps in knowledge of English. Like most Uruguayans, he is of European descent, so arguably just as "white" as the English-speaking Australians who were teasing him were.
You chose to bring race into the discussion, when one can make the same point without any reference to race.
I agree in principle, although exactly who counts as a "visible minority" is a bit of a complex question.
In Sydney, Australia, a woman wearing a niqab is still a rare sight, and she is likely to get starred at, a lot–even other Muslims are going to stare at her. Women wearing hijabs are a far more common sight, so they will get starred at a lot less, although I'm sure they will report being starred at sometimes too. But, a lot of Muslim women don't wear any head covering – like the women in my uncle's family – indeed, in Albanian Muslim culture, women rarely cover their heads, and a woman who starts wearing a hijab is likely to be suspected of religious fundamentalism, which is viewed about as negatively in their culture as in my own. Should my uncle's family be considered a "visible minority" then?
Sydney is over 20% Asian (including East Asian, Southeast Asian, and South Asian people in that term)–Asian Australians are a minority, and obviously a visible one–but do Asian people get starred at in Sydney solely on account of their race? You usually stare at the unusual, but in a city which is over 20% Asian, there is nothing unusual about seeing a Chinese/Indian/Japanese/Korean/Vietnamese/Filipino/etc person, you see them every day, you count them among your friends, classmates, coworkers, neighbours, etc.
I remember one time I ventured with a Finnish colleague to a working class bar in Bangalore, and we got a lot of stares there, because nobody was expecting to see people like us in such an establishment – by contrast, in the airport, hotel, offices, shopping centres, tourist sites, etc, nobody starred at us, because Indians are used to encountering foreigners in those places.
So we basically have no argument. All I was saying was that as the West is demographically changing, visible minorities will have an easier time. Your examples just demonstrate my point. Maybe in 60 years the whole notion of visible minority won't even exist in the West.
Now all that is just demographics. If some crazy fascist leader rises to power, which doesn't seem so far fetched nowadays, minorities may suffer again.
> The claim that "whites" are going to become a minority soon is arrived at by redefining "white" to exclude white-identified Hispanic people.
You can look at the numbers in your chart and see that basically all of the U.S. Hispanic population is found under this "white" category, 55 million Hispanics. Total Hispanic population in U.S. is at most a few million more. 90%+ of all U.S. Hispanics feel like they are part of a "white" majority? You must be joking.
So I don't think that "white identified majority" in the census numbers means what you think it does. The vast majority of Hispanics in it fully realize and are made to feel like they are part of a minority in the U.S.
"White" in the US Census means someone who ticked the "White" box on the census form. A "White Hispanic" is someone who chooses to tick both the "White" box and the "Hispanic" box. Anyone can tick any box they like, out of the boxes available (and if they don't agree with the choice of boxes, they can write in whatever they like, and the Census Bureau will make its best effort to shoehorn their written response into its categories, or just put them in the "Other" bucket if it can't work it out). If they don't view themselves as "White", why are they putting themselves down as that on the Census?
> 90%+ of all U.S. Hispanics feel like they are part of a white majority?
I feel very hesitant in speculating about the feelings of tens of millions of people whom I don't know–and who of course are not all going to think or feel the same way, but who are going to have a very diverse range of feelings and opinions. Rather than speculating about their feelings, why not just go by what they voluntarily choose to put on their US Census forms?
> The vast majority of Hispanics in it fully realize and are made to feel like they are part of a minority in the U.S.
There are white minorities, so identifying as "white" doesn't necessarily make white-identified Hispanics non-minority. If an (ethnic majority) German or Russian or Finn moves to New York City, they are going to be an immigrant minority in their new home, but they and everyone else will see them as "white". A European-descended person who moves to New York City from Buenos Aires has Spanish as their native language instead of German or Russian or Finnish, but why would their experience be fundamentally different? The Spanish-speaking immigrant will be officially classified as "Hispanic", the German/Russian/Finnish-speaking immigrants wouldn't be, but they are all equally white ethnic minorities.
The next gen can blend in very easily, if they go to kindergarten and school there. They will grow up bilingual and only use the original language at home, and may not even pass on the language to the 3rd generation (because it's seen as a useless extra burden and the 3rd gen can talk to their grandparents - the 1st gen - in the new language). Happens all the time in Europe.
That's an extremely american response. I guarantee you someone from Belarus would pretty much never be seen as a native Pole unless they spoke flawless Polish (no accent at all).
And it's naive to say that there's no borders. You have to be qualified for the visa requirements. You also have to renew this visa every year or so. You have to start all over. Of course everything is possible with some effort and money, but i'm tired of seeing this term "no borders for it engineers".
yeah i'm from Belarus, so i know everything about borders and also pandemic-related visiting troubles. currently in Vilnius on almost expired residence permit
They all speak Russian. Lithuania has a sizable minority of Russian speakers, and has historical ties to Belarus. Latvia is predominantly Russian-speaking. Ukraine as well.
Knowing Belarusian, they can pick up Polish rather quickly.
As a last resort, Russia is still freer than Belarus politically and better off economically. Smolensk is half an hour drive from the Belarusian border.
While Russian is common it's not ubiquitous. Latvia is 26.9% ethnically Russian and 34% speak it at home. 27% of students are partially instructed in Russian. A referendum to adopt Russian as a 2nd offical language was voted against in 2012.
Lithuania is 5.8% Russian with 39% speaking it as a foreign language.
This seems to imply the majority of residents of Latvia speak Russian natively. That might have been correct had the USSR existed a bit longer, but history took a different turn.
"Most Latvian businesses, especially in the Riga area, will happily serve you in Russian." That would be a more neutral and correct statement appropriate for this context.
Also relevant would be how Latvian government is publicly angling for Belarussian businesses willing to relocate to Latvia [1].
Regarding native tongues in Latvia... Currently, over 30% of Latvian residents speak Russian, Belarussian or Ukrainian natively, versus 62.3% Latvian. In Riga, the number of Russian, Belorussian or Ukrainian native speakers rises to over 43% [0] versus 47.1% Latvian.
As the resident of Riga have to add that it depends on age. Young native Latvian people tend to avoid learning russian (but actually they have to while living in Riga). Also there is a constant goverment level pressure to ignore russian as a vital part of latvian life so you will always feel that you are not welcome in many places like the oficial institutions. But actually you could live for years there not speaking any latvian word :) Also it is worth to mention that english is starting to be more and more important (even more important than latvian) in daily life for IT people as foreign people in teams are much more usual now even than 5 years ago.
This is quite inaccurate. Lithuania's minority of Russian speakers is not "sizable" at all. Much fewer ethnic Russians lived there historically compared to the other two Baltic states, and loads of the Soviet-era Russian transplants left after '91. Russian is pretty useless for doing business as a foreigner, people expect English.
In Latvia, especially Riga, Russian is spoken, but younger generations of ethnic Latvians are less and less welcoming of using it. Again, English is expected. There has been a distinct rise in shops in Riga where it's basically "Speak Latvian or English to me or GTFO".
Source: I'm a Russian speaker who visits all three Baltic countries at least 2-3 times a year, most recently last week.
Lithuania is an interesting case (I don't know much about the other Baltic states). I've been there at least twice a year for the last decade, and have helped organise one of the largest software conferences there for several of those. Several of my best friends (British and American expats) live in Vilnius and are married to Lithuanians.
My experience is anyone 30 or over speaks fluent Russian, but many of those will not admit to it - those in the 30-40 range are highly distrustful of anything Russian - and reasonably so given the history of the country. Anyone under 30 barely speaks Russian unless they themselves are immigrants from Russia.
I'd agree that in Lithuania a software engineering candidate that spoke Russian and not at least a "very good" standard of English or fluent Lithuanian would struggle to find work.
Russia isn't drastically freer, but the lack of visa or work permit requirement with almost the same employment process as Russian citizens is a good bonus, although local employers might lower the salaries for immigrants.
> As a last resort, Russia is still freer than Belarus politically
That's an arguable statement. Russia is also ruled by lifetime president, any protests are being brutally oppressed, opposition leaders are being assassinated or imprisoned, state TV airing anti-Western propaganda 24/7. Ukraine and Lithuania look much better choice by all measures.
"Predominantly"? Why did you choose to use such an ugly word. As a consequence of occupation by Soviet Union, and prolonged Russification policies, there is a sizeable population share in Latvia who understand and speak Russian language. It's a minority share, though only just (about 40%).
Most of those IT workers probably know Russian and English languages. Knowing both of them you can both get an IT work in Eastern European countries and deal with everyday life. I don't think language barrier is that big of a problem for them.
English will get you pretty far in the daily life in Western Europe, too, in places like Sweden, or Netherlands, or cities like Berlin. (Not in France, of course.)
Yeah that is incredible. Minsk has been having the government shut down their internet and there are numerous other countries blocking people from contacting the outside world. Not to mention constraints around getting VISAs and also everything you are mentioning as well. There is a very real border around it. Even smaller issues would be language and time zone.
> but they also have parents, siblings, girlfriends
+ boyfriends, romantic partners
I agree with the motivation of your statement, just wanted to complete it to reduce the (likely unintentional on your part but implicit) hetero-male stereotype of software engineers.
Computer Programmers are almost all male in Belarus, but QA, Graphics Designers, Data Science, etc roles are very often female, which makes for a rather decent 70/30 gender distribution in headcount (2020 PVT numbers).
Sure, they may be almost all male now, but (a) there are still females and non-hetero people in the mix (b) I still think it is worth not propagating stereotypes in language.
The first step toward positive change is to change the way people think about these roles, and remove the automatic mental picture of a hetero male when people say "software engineer". That feeds back into the hiring loop and worsens the problem.
I have no intention to start a fuss, but I just think that it would be a nice gesture to make sure our language is as inclusive as possible, and so made a suggestion on a small change that would do that.
(Also, I'm surprised at all the downvotes, I thought HN was a better crowd of people than that. I mean if you don't want to upvote it that's fine, but I'm really surprised that many people actively downvoted my comment. How would it hurt you for the language to be more inclusive? By downvoting it, did you want to maintain that we only mention "girlfriends"? By downvoting, you are part of the problem in tech today.)
Honestly it's a matter of motivation and dedication. Boys like videos games so they end up using either consoles or computers a lot. Some of them want to make their own game and learn programming. Anyone who reads injustice into this doesn't understand anything about humans.
People may think that career choice is something special and magical when it is not.
Let's say you have become a successful developer. Now you want to work on a side project. There are so many choices and possibilities. Most of them are equally good. You choose something. Then you get stuck, bored or the rest of your life gets in the way. You scrap the old thing and do something new. Rinse and repeat. After 5 unfinished side projects you feel like you have accomplished nothing.
The reality is that you didn't actually care about any of the side projects. If you cared about them you would have stuck with them until completion. Making a choice and staying with it is difficult at any stage in your life. Unless... it is extremely obvious and necessary. Suddenly there is no question about it. You you know very little about electronics but think you absolutely need to design a custom PCB for this important project and you're not going to compromise on this at all. You read up on electronics theory for 3 whole weeks without even thinking a single thought about your final design, pick some components and feel lost reading the datasheet. Start up your EDA suite get mad and feel like everything is hopeless the first few days. Two weeks later you have finally designed a good enough schematic and then suddenly everything is easy in hindsight.
You didn't have the qualifications to finish this project but did so anyway, all you needed was a little motivation and dedication.
If there is a need, it will be met. If you think someone should do X, then give them a reason to do X. This applies to "software engineers" and all other professions equally.
The overlap between talented and motivated students exists for a reason. Talent is just motivation in disguise.
> Uhm yeah, but they also have parents, siblings, girlfriends. Probably they might have some properties bought already. So as it may seem really advantageous to be in IT, one might not be able to move to another country just like that...
> And it's naive to say that there's no borders. You have to be qualified for the visa requirements. You also have to renew this visa every year or so. You have to start all over. Of course everything is possible with some effort and money, but i'm tired of seeing this term "no borders for it engineers".
1. Qualification:
1.1 University degree, usually means a Western university degree, or a few top tier ones in your own country. Lots of people from the East choose Western education not because they think so highly of it, but because a Western degree contributes to their visa eligibility.
1.2 Even if you have a Western degree, your troubles don't end there. Eligibility criteria often cover the most trendy topics as usual, but may stumble at something dumb as a requirement for a verbatim match of the degree title: i.e. the most dumb on my memory was "Electronics Engineering" getting a pass, but "Microelectronics Engineering" not, while this very much being the originaly intended criteria. The inviting countries are obviously more than content with the amount of people they can cherry pick with the utmost capriciousness.
1.3 Your usual age, health, crime check, marriage status check, security check (telling them you are not a spy, and not alkayeda)
1.3.1 The last few former may involve waiting for completely idiotic paper on your side of your border. A fake crime check note costs 1000 roubles cash ($20) to get from every cop, but may take few months if you want to get it legally, especially if you are from a far away province.
1.3.1.1 A completely innocent note on the former, like being a witness in a court case, or a traffic ticket will subject you to months of pain, and if some countries 100% denial rate, after being flagged in every international rogue person database.
1.4 Regulatory capture works in immigration too. This is they way Microsoft handwrote much of non-public selection criteria for professional evaluation in BC, Canada to unfairly gain advantage attracting foreign labour who are using MS stack.
2. Life situations:
2.1 Lots of Western countries outright deny family applicants, some on other hand given huge bonus.
2.2 Lots of Western countries use immigration programs to repopulate their dying, depopulating regions. Canada will happily settle any amount of Chinese, Indians, and Africans if they agree to live somewhere in New Brunswick
2.3 Lots of Western countries will never allow you to settle down, or pretend to say they will, but then repeatedly change the goalpost in their immigration programs: Canada, Australia.
2.4 Lots of Western countries will outright deny applicants older than forties to mid thirties
2.5 Lots of Western countries will outright deny applicants who are women
2.6 Lots of Western countries will outright deny applicants who are women with children
2.7 Lots of Western countries will outright deny applicants who are women who are single
2.8 Lots of Western countries will outright deny applicants who are women who are not single
2.9 Lots of Western countries will outright deny applicants with just any health condition
3. Incentives:
3.1 Prime majority of countries don't want any more of their own people, let alone strangers. In such, immigration programs are ran as a token sign to say "hey, we are so International, we are not bigots at all!"
3.2 The minority of countries who are actively soliciting immigration are not much better, and some times worse. They obviously have their own agendas. Very often have an interest to crush their own labour into submission, or serve a political agenda. Less frequently, outright exploitation: Gulf, much of East Asia.
3.3 Incentives often are a carrot on a stick, with this stick being constantly moved forwa...
The ‘last dictatorship in Europe’ moniker dates back to a time when the general impression was that Russia was democratising. It’s definitely more dubious now.
I used the scare quotes for a reason- Belarus definitely isn't the only dictatorship in Europe, but its a common enough nickname for it that you really should be surprised if a country that's nicknamed the "last" dictatorships is authoritarian.
Also, you could probably argue that Russia is Asian, or that turkey is European, its not like there's a clear historical or geographic border, so there's some flexibility in how many dictatorships or authoritarian leaning countries you include
People don't see a dictator as a dictator until they disagree with the dictator's actions.
This is a slippery slope of course and that's why it's important to retain term limits, ensure elections are fair and untampered with, and impeach a leader when they stray toward dictatorship policies and procedures, even if you agree with those policies and procedures. It takes a lot courage to impeach a leader you agree with.
I have a theory that when news orgs nurture soft authoritarians (Bush/Patriot Act, Obama/espionage charges for whistleblowers) their weakened journalistic instincts leave a vacuum that's easy for harder line authoritarians to fill.
That's what I believed happened in the US. I wonder if a similar process happened in Belarus.
Curious why the onus is on journalists and not complacent political parties or branches/members of government.
Sure, newsrooms can sway public opinion, but they’re also basically the only reason we know about those problems to begin with. Blaming them seems akin to treating a symptom, not the cause.
Not trying to disagree. I do think journalists today are partially responsible for our current situation - especially White House correspondents, whom are wholly ineffective at challenging any statements from the president or calling out outright lies.
Authoritarian propaganda alleges that journalists are fabricating news.
I'm not alleging fraud but neglect and passive collusion. That is, journalists are allowing certain US Gov misdeeds to go largely unreported while amplifying US Gov voices w/o ever vetting if official claims are true.
A lot of misdeeds are documented but nobody is really outraged by them. There's certainly lots of bad stuff happening that doesn't have a legion of takery behind it to drive a certain narrative but... the reporting is there.
>A lot of misdeeds are documented but nobody is really outraged by them ... the reporting is there.
I'd like to rephrase your assertion, to bring it more in line with reality:
A minuscule percentage of known US Gov misdeeds get reported, generally as a one-off novelty. The story then becomes so forgotten that it doesn't even get referenced for context in any future reporting.
Meanwhile top Gov officials get miles of free press time to make headline-grabbing claims, that have no meaningful truth. Because zero independent experts are EVER consulted, the official never gets challenged. Dozens of actual experts reach out to set the record straight - which has no effect at all on present or future reporting.
Free of any press oversight at all, the official is free to continue to make patently false claims, pretty much for the duration of his tenure. He'll then revolving-door to the private sector & get invited onto news segments as a guest expert, to vouch for whatever Gov claim needs an instant witness.
> Curious why the onus is on journalists and not complacent political parties or branches/members of government.
It's because the primary power to oust corrupt officials rests with the public. Likewise for the power to push broad policy change.
US Gov agencies have been accumulating inappropriate power and commit atrocities (esp post 2001), largely w/o any pushback or coverage from news orgs.
It hasn't been zero coverage. For example, Edward Snowden dragged reluctant news outlets into doing their jobs for a little while. But the vast, vast bulk of Gov misdeeds that are right out in the open, rarely get even a nod - while a small selection of stories get huge parallel coverage, from coast to coast.
What? There was no descent from liberalism in Belarus. It's been a dictatorship since shortly after the fall of the USSR. This is more like if Hu Jintao just became Xi Jingping.
Maybe, but at least some journalists have been spot on about the way trump is going from Day 1 and that hasn't made any difference.
He is still insulting war dead, threatening the validity of election, not even interested in solving COVID, and much more that I'm sure that you're already aware of. His approval ratings are at about 40%, that's not good but 40% is almost saint-like by (say) french standards. That's despite journalists reporting on this near constantly.
Trump isn't rated in a vacuum - There is too much hypocrisy in the opposition, starting with sticking with Biden after the allegation of sexual assault.
The allegations against Biden have almost no water at all. Unless they are waiting to use Reade as an October surprise they wasted it.
She made an allegation, and more specifically said she filed a complaint. The Biden team tried to publicly confirm its existence (i.e. they don't think it does), but the senate cannot publish it without Reade's permission. She later said she actually didn't publish a complaint.
I would be inclined to believe her if she could keep her story straight and generally not seem a bit unreliable.
You put that in quotes, which usually implies a exact quote, rather than a third-party description of what someone said; But that is not an accurate quote. He said:
..when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. ... Grab ‘em by the pussy. You can do anything.
Not sure why the downvotes, I think this is almost a tautology. My perception is that Biden is just as "mainstream" as the previous opponent of Trump was - hence the slower decline of Trump's approval despite the president's performance.
Well at least he doesn't not call the working clas "deplorables". Michael Moore has a very good comment on why Trump won in 2016, and why he still has a chance in 2020. Overall, Trump's performance up till COVID was okay, but he mishandled the pandemics terribly. Biden will win only because of this. Other than that Biden is boring bland candidate.
Hillary Clinton didn't call the working class deplorables.
Here are her words, verbatim:
“You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s
supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right?”
“The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic—you name it.
And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up.”
As you can read, the "basket of deplorables" refers to "about half of Trump's supporters" who she considers "“The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic—you name it."
Now one can argue that she was wrong about the fraction of Trump's supporters who fit this archetype, but she did also call her own comment "grossly generalistic," so she wasn't trying to be precise and make a statement about literally 50% of Trump supporters.
The only way someone can interpret this as referring to the entire working class is if, 1) they simply drink the Trumpist Kool-Aid without bothering to research because Screechy Woman Bad, or 2) they believe the entire working class comprises about half of Trump supporters, all of whom are racist, sexist, homophobic and xenophobic.
And Biden being boring shouldn't be a negative. The Presidency isn't supposed to be entertainment, it's a political office in a bureaucracy.
It really does not matter how you spin this. What is important is how it was perceived by the working class.
The most obvious understanding, which would not involve mental gymnastics is that half of the people who support Trump are indeed deplorables, or they are deplorables just because they are homophobic or Islamophobic. Guess what - many of the working class are indeed are, which does not make them lesser human being; it is the result of the environment they grew up.
Even if Biden is boring, he's a good man to lead the US out of the quagmire it's in at the moment.
Trump is totally amoral, whereas Biden has experienced loss in a way that few can imagine. He's not perfect, but he knows how to play the congressional game and when he reaches out to people looking for change in the police who have lost a loved one you know he isn't lying.
The alternative was also Bernie, which I just cannot see ending well.
What loss, his marbles? If you mean his son, well, Trump lost two brothers.
When in congress, Biden pushed for the harsh sentencing that we had, with the 1994 crime bill. Trump supported and then signed the First Step Act, which is legislation to undo some of that.
"Unless we do something about this, my children are going to grow up in a jungle, the jungle being a racial jungle" -- Biden, in 1977
here is a better example than her deplorables gaffe. when Hillary's own campaign manager says in private that Hillary hates everyday Americans, that goes way beyond working class--we're talking 50% of the citizens. voters aren't stupid. they can sense when a politician is full of BS and hates them.
that's why they didn't vote for her.
"On Apr 19, 2015, at 4:20 PM, John Podesta <john.podesta@gmail.com> wrote:
I know she has begun to hate everyday Americans, but I think we should use
it once the first time she says I'm running for president because you and
everyday Americans need a champion.
I think if she doesn't say it once, people will notice and say we false
started in Iowa."
In case anybody else stumbles on this thread, I'd highly encourage reading the actual email chain. In context, it's clear the meaning is "hate the phrase 'everyday Americans'" - perhaps because it's been overused. This is a speechwriting discussion.
Context and thinking about things- they're important! You really don't need to rely on this stuff to criticize Hillary Clinton, of all people, for being out of touch. Honestly, it almost comes off as downright malicious sometimes.
I’m not trying to compare Biden and Trump in this, but you seem to imply in your post that dems should have dumped Biden because of that accusation. Why should Biden be treated differently than Trump?
There's no hypocrisy involved with Republicans since they didn't state that all allegations by women should be believed unconditionally. Again, see the Dem comments about Kavanaugh and why they didn't think they needed any evidence to label him a rapist.
As for the misconduct claims on Wikipedia, a lot of them look doubtful.
>Despite the authoritarian rule of Alexander Lukashenko, Belarus’s tech companies have prospered.
The common argument I hear is they prospered because of authoritarian rule. Belarus never had to deal with oligarchs created by a power vacuum like in Ukraine or other EE countries. As a result a large portion of outsourcing labor for other EE countries is technically done through Belarussian companies(EPAM).
If you go to Belarus, you would rather hear that IT prospered because Lukashenka could not figure out how to extract money from it easily.
There were a few attempts at hostile takeovers of IT companies by state actors, but the state could seize only used equipment. Staff moved on, clients fled.
So, at some point, the state just decided to let IT free at the effective tax rate of 9% (against 52% for the rest of the country).
Living in Central Asia, I'd say, although Lukashenko was/is a corrupt leader, amount of corruption in educational system was relatively low compared to those in -stans of the former USSR, or even Russia. This a necessary prerequisite for high tech companies to appear and grow.
I think it's a qualitative difference. Belarus has corruption but it's consolidated to the top even if there's more of it. Compare with Ukraine where IT business will be killed off before it gets off the ground because every small time bureaucrat wants their pound of flesh. As a result a significant portion of Ukrainian talent goes through companies that are/were Belarussian even though Ukraine has the center of gravity in terms of talent concentration.
Absence of oligarchs has nothing to do with this. Belarus and Russia have very different political situation but IT industry is strong in both countries, even stronger in Russia. There are several reasons for it: strong educational system and engineering culture, piracy and almost no law enforcement of copyright, favorable taxation, government policies. It’s hard to underestimate the effects of investment in digitalization of government services in Russia and influence of it on the Russian-speaking IT ecosystem, including neighboring countries - to the point where Russian speaking conferences or meetups are way more interesting than English speaking ones.
You forgot to mention that Russia happens to have a lot of brainiacs. It's rare event to meet a dumb Russian in IT. I've never met one.
I have worked with and managed outsourced engineers from Russia, India, and South America. The Russians were consistently the best: effective combo of smart + hard working. The only negatives were a reluctance to disclose bad news before SHTF, which was quite annoying, but I've always put that down to residual USSR culture.
In other words, I question the early appearance of the term "piracy" in the list of reasons of why Russians excel at software engineering.
> It's rare event to meet a dumb Russian in IT. I've never met one. I have worked with and managed outsourced engineers from Russia
Survivorship bias. There are a lot of dumb engineers here (in absolute numbers, the country is still 9th by population) mostly because of the IT industry growth in 2000s required more workforce, but they wouldn't be hired by the outsource companies since there is no shortage of better recruits (as of now).
Emigrating from Belarus to Poland is easy. Even if one of your grandparents has Polish origins you can get easily equivalent of USA green card. Polish governament is working on new law to make it even easier and available more broadly. Given Poland borders before World War II were covering huge part of today Belarus a lot of people can take of the advantage.
Regular work permit for IT proffesional is also rubber stamp. Nothing compared to cruel H1B.
I guess same as after Ukraine revolution, a lot of Belarusians will end up in Poland.
From my friends in Poland I hear many of them are considering moving after the latest election and the direction the country seems to be heading. Good to know there are tech workers from Belarus to step into their positions.
> be hopeful that their country improves in the future
Yes, but things can go into the other direction too, if for example the EU takes over and their good old country turns into another failed state ala Ukraine...
Which means, most probably you never been to Ukraine or Belarus, but you mock or hate them simply for the fact of belonging to their nation. Congrats, this is what nazis during WWII did. What people like you still do.
Well, it doesn't usually take much time until one starts talking about nazis in a debate, does it?
But I'm sure the pro-EU Ukrainians who ousted their legitimate president in 2014 would be very proud of me if I were a nazi, though...
FYI, I am Russian myself, I've been to Ukraine many times, and the only problem I spotted is proximity of Russian regime and Russian occupation. And of course, St.Petersburg Lahta workers like you.
Surprisingly enough, tech salaries are not that much higher in Germany than they are in Poland. In Germany, the tech wages are surprisingly low, and when you couple that with higher taxes and high cost of living, it is not as attractive as US or Switzerland.
In more concrete terms: 60-70k EUR is what you are looking at in Germany in good job markets, while in Poland the figure is 30-40k EUR. When you consider taxes, housing, and other costs, the difference is really not that great.
Life is pretty cheap in Germany if you live a simple life. Supermarkets are famously cheap. Clothes, electronics cost the same as anywhere else. Rent is bearable outside of big cities and jobs are quite well distributed across Germany.
The big difference is in the savings. Even if you just make twice as much, your savings per month can be several times higher than in Poland, which makes a lot of difference if you want to go back to your country later on and buy a house etc.
One has to also mention that living a simple life likely involves living in a smaller town somewhere with all the negative aspects that it involves. i.e. lack of social life, no other like-minded expats, etc.
Lots of "small towns" have social life especially university towns.
Also, yes, a simple life means not to live like an American expat lol. You can have a social life without spending lots of money if you socialize with "like minded" people who also don't want to waste money. You can have friends over for dinner at home with a few beers from the supermarket, play cards or boardgames or video games, soccer or basketball outside, have a BBQ, watch a movie at home, etc.
But it's not like you'd have an American expat-like luxury life in the alternative scenario of staying in Eastern Europe either. The point is, by keeping down your lifestyle you can multiply your savings and escape the cycle of poverty and be able to afford a home in a few years, if you go back to your home country and can support your relatives back home in the meantime. This is a great deal for a lot of people even without the fancy expat-like money-burning lifestyle.
Not just American expat, but any kind of expat (or if you prefer foreigner) because these are the people most likely to become new acquaintances and friends since they're likely also looking to make new friends. Locals will always be more reluctant and less interested to make friends because they already have a social circle and it takes effort on their side.
University towns only really make a difference if the hypothetical person moving there is college age and if there's a significant number of foreign students. Otherwise why would German college kids want to socialize with a late 20s foreigner?
Someone which moves to a new country will leave their entire social circle behind: family, friends, personal and professional acquaintances. It's an immense loss that will never really be recovered and the older you are the harder it is.
It must be a language thing but the oxymoron of "smaller town" strikes me as a very odd thing to say. I'm sure you use it to mean "smaller city" because according wikipedia a town has a population of around 5000 people. So when people think of a smaller town they may think of a place with a few hundred people.
Now lets cut to the chase. With the exception of the top 40 cities in Germany every other city has a population of less than 200k people. Unless you go to those 40 places which represent roughly 25% of the population the rest of Germany is nothing but "small cities".
Technically small town's not an oxymoron, since the two don't contradict each-other. :-)
Now adding small was probably too much, but on the other hand a city of around 200k people already has quite high rents/prices.
I have some friends living in what according to wikipedia one could call a half-town and looked at an apartment there out of curiosity. A 3 room apartment (newly built) was about 280.000 EUR and that's in a town where they have 1 hotel, 1 restaurant (or maybe 2) and 0 supermarkets.
In my experience if one wants a 3 room apartment in a normal city, one would add another 100.000 EUR to that price.
Outside of big cities, you're looking at <50k EUR gross. Granted, software wages outside big cities in Poland are significantly worse, but you can live pretty grand life in Warsaw for the same amount as simple life in Germany, while saving more.
It's possible to earn far more than 60-70k a year in Germany as a SWE. In my city, Munich, total cash compensation packages range from 85-110k Euros per year for 5-10 years of experience. The base salary trends to on the lower end, but there can be significant bonuses (company bonus, August vacation bonus, and Christmas bonus. For example st BMW, each of these are typically a month's extra salary). In addition, if your position is unionized, it's possible for you to accrue substantial overtime to further increase annual compensation.
And it's possible to earn far more than 40k EUR a year in Poland as well. Google Warsaw starts at 45k EUR for new grads, and you're looking at 80k EUR for senior software engineers. There are a few high pitching companies that try to match that. I was rather pointing out the typical case that covers most of the workers.
>When you consider taxes, housing, and other costs, the difference is really not that great.
I've made the opposite experience. Sure everything is 30% more expensive in Germany than in Poland but you also make twice as much money. The differences in cost of living are pretty insignificant but the salary is so much higher that it more than makes up the difference.
Then go to Switzerland. If you find a job and have EEU citizenship (not sure about residence permit), getting a permit to stay is just a form and less than 100.-. you can’t find a better place in the EEU for salaries imho. In a small town, your expenses are rather low and these jobs pay 80–120k CHF with taxes around 15–30% depending on the kanton.
Poland is not a great place to live either. Sales tax is 23%, stores are all shut on Sunday (by decree of the Polish Catholic church, essentially), real estate prices are similar to the midwest USA due to restrictions on new builds, and taxes on labor and small business are high and complicated.
The language itself uses a bastardized version of the Latin alphabet which is inferior to Cyrillic, and general pronunciation is the much more difficult compared to Ukrainian or Russian.
Many of the cities are cold and dark owing to latitude, and in winter filled with air pollution from out of control coal and trash burning in urban chimneys.
The main thing Poland has going for it is a massive flow of EU funds and no refugees from Africa or the Middle East, as well as a population with a generally Western mindset and work style.
Poland definitely could be a lot better, but these are some odd points.
VAT is higher than in Germany, but lower than in Sweden. Nothing that gets anyone going really. Real estate is quite cheap (dollar to dollar, not exactly for Poles) for a European country, though Warsaw does stand out as the capital.
There isn't anything "bastardized" or "inferior" about either the Polish or Belarusian alphabet, or really any alphabet for that matter. They just come from different backgrounds.
Poland is also largely south of Belarus, including Warsaw being south of Minsk, so not sure about cold or darkness.
While you've addressed things in a way that I think is fair, to me the most important points are about air pollution and atmosphere. Are they wrong about those as well?
H1B doesn't qualify you for a green card, either, it just gives you temporary residency and work authorization, without prohibiting you from intending to later seek a status that would qualify you for a green card without leaving first.
I don’t know that that’s always true, but it may seem frequently true. The time to do something is before things get bad, but it’s difficult to convince oneself to act when things aren’t “that bad”. In short, it’s complicated.
I think everyone has the right to make the best possible life for themselves. Life is short and if I was in that situation I'd rather not waste it living under a dictator.
A notion of duty to your country is well and good, but consider this:
1) Greater duty to family, what are you going to tell your wife when she asks you how is she meant to feed the kids and keep a roof while you serve a 20 year sentence for protesting? Or worse yet if you are maimed or killed.
2) This isn't like a 'normal' war, the course of action is not clear. Should I take up arms and attack government buildings, or would that backfire in terms of public support? Should I protest peacefully, or does that just give the dictator more time to prepare? If I already live outside, should I return to Belarus and put my body on the like, or would I be more effective donating cash that I am privileged to earn?
This is a harbinger for the western world too. Can any of us in the tech industry claim that silicon valley "authoritarianism" is not an issue?
Working in tech now is fraught with peril, especially if one says anything outside of the overton window. I wouldn't be surprised if this starts happening in America as well in a few years.
The issue is that currently public discourse happens on semi-public spaces. (Eg. Facebook, reddit, YouTube.) All slightly different mediums, different rules, different communities (and meta-communities, and other aggregates and hierarchies and moderation/reporting systems).
And the owners of these places want to extract profit from these places, they on one hand like the money, but they reasonably must police their places. Virtually millions of people can shout at the same time at the same place. Bullying, doxxing, harassment, SWATing, spam, scam, porn, gore, really fucked up ideologies, racism/xenophobia, and whatnot are cropping up.
And it's clear that people are not really interested in going back to the typewriter and mailing letters to various publications.
This large scale "politicing" is likely truly unprecedented. Bored and angry people can comment, like, upvote, downvote whatever anyone wrote/posted/created/asked.
> Working in tech now is fraught with peril, especially if one says anything outside of the overton window.
That's "fake news" - because the base rate is low, even if there are clear examples of it. (Eg Google firing Damore who pointed out that Google's diversity group/effort is very inefficient because it's unscientific, so inadvertently exposed it as a simple PR effort.)
It is a very smart turn of the Polish side to support the political crysis is Belarus. When the country is turned into chaos it will be beneficial for the Polish economy when many Belarussian workers go to Poland.
"IT haven takes authoritarian turn". Really? Isn't the so called IT haven exists under the exactly same government? What changed?
What changed is the situation of foreign instigated chaos intended to weaken a key Russian ally with the additional benefit that when many Belarussian workers leave the country they will serv someone's else economy. The competition of Belarussian IT industry will also be eliminated.
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[ 593 ms ] story [ 2124 ms ] threadIt also seems like Belarus is killing the goose that laid the golden egg here, not that that’s surprising behavior from an authoritarian regime fighting for its life.
If some kind of deeper integration with Russia is on the horizon, as many have expected for years, then this might hardly matter. The overall Russian economy is so based on the export of natural resources, that the ruling stratum is hardly worried about other industries like the IT sector. All those Russians except for the ~10 million needed to run and support the oil and gas sector, have sometimes been described as "superfluous population" by commentators. Obviously this situation sucks for the ordinary citizen, but what can you do?
No, the Germans’ delusion was that these many tens of millions of Soviet citizens were so unhappy with the regime, that they wouldn't rush to defend it.
It's a mistake we've seen made through out history time and again (e.g. bay of pigs, CIA adownplaying Castro's popular support, etc.)
Something like military bases they would try to hide, but if anything Soviet industrialization was oversold, in the sense that there was a huge fetish for certain production modes such as tons of steel produced, which overstated actual industrialization.
To say it another way, this is an example of Goodhart's Law:
In the annals of western industrialization, it became common to look at various indexes, for example of tons of steel produced, as a measure of industrial output and thus of GDP per capita.So Soviet Planners decided that they would focus on these traditional indexes as targets, and so created massive overproduction of things like steel, reasoning that this would catapult their industrialization, as measured by the same indexes, upwards.
But that's not an apples to apples comparison to western nations measures of GDP, because a society needs many things: butter, milk, bread, steel, coal, clothes, shoes, etc. In a normal market society, these are all produced in rough proportions as people need them, millions of products are produced, so you can pick 100 of them as indexes to track overall economic output as there is no reason to think that the economy would bizarelly produce twice as much steel as it needed. Thus taking a handfull of goods and using them as proxies makes sense.
But if you take the same society, and instead of producing a million goods, you only produce 100 according to a plan rather than according to consumer demand, then you can have a situation in which the economy produces twice as much steel as it needs, and so steel production ceases being an accurate proxy for overall production.
Thus using western measures to track production of command economies is very challenging.
Which is not to say that Soviets didn't industrialize rapidly (at a terrible price in terms of human suffering) but that the bulk of the real gains happened as a result of World War 2 mobilization and the two decades after the end of the war, rather than in the period 1918-1940.
The pre-WW2 period saw a doubling of GDP per capita from the start of WW1 to the start of WW2, or a tripling of GDP/capita from the war ravaged state Russia was in after losing WW1 and and the end of the civil war to the start of WW2, but this gain in production was mostly due to shifting production away from agriculture and towards mass production -- sectoral shifts. But because production was planned, the increase in production did not result in a corresponding increase in sectoral productivity (productivity within a sector), which actually declined spectacularly due to collectivization, and so you had an economy in which some goods were massively overproduced even as millions were starving.
More information can be found here: https://voxeu.org/article/stalin-and-soviet-industrialisatio...
They were not only wrong on how long it would take for the Russians to mobilize, they also overestimated their chances of knocking out France early.
This is a tautology and the reason why many corrupt regimes suffer from the resource curse. The government blesses a few industries as the cash cow and keeps them under state control to finance the authoritarian regime. Other growing industries are seen to be disrupting the status quo and thereby undermine state control. Authoritarian governments would rather own 90% of a pile of crap than 30% of something valuable. Then those countries fall into poverty because the statesmen are billionaires no matter how they treat their people.
Hyperbole: Imagine a parallel world where Donald Trump had a "dayjob" where he earns enough money to pay for the military of the US on his own and can buy military equipment from other countries. He could easily suppress American citizens without any consequences. Losing votes doesn't matter because the military is on his side. Destroying or preventing civilian infrastructure doesn't impact military funding. One thing is certain. This would not be a world of prosperity.
Meh. Belarus economy is heavy machinery and agriculture (mostly exported to russia).
IT for Belarus is as important as expensive watches industry for US economy.
"The IT sector in Belarus. The total production and sales revenue of the IT sector was $3.1 billion in 2018. In 2018 IT accounted for 5.7% of Belarus's GDP, which is comparable with agriculture and forestry (6.4%), construction (5.4%), and transport (5.8%). By 2022, IT's share of GDP will have increased to 10%."
URL: https://minskdialogue.by/en/research/memorable-notes/how-can...
https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-belarus-election-tech-idUK...
https://www.republicworld.com/world-news/europe/belarus-it-w...
https://icotalknews.com/business/tech-workers-flee-belarus-a...
P.P.S This was one of things I used to use the now defunct 'Web' button for https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23762479
Uhm yeah, but they also have parents, siblings, girlfriends. Probably they might have some properties bought already. So as it may seem really advantageous to be in IT, one might not be able to move to another country just like that...
I moved out from my home country and in the place I live now people are nice, but I am never going to be one of them (so there are also not nice people, but it is easier to deal with not nice people from your own country).
Some people have it even worse, because I can go back to my own country and have my friends from school and family quite close by. There are people who are children of migrants that are still treated on the streets like they are not part of that society even though they grew up in that country. It gets even worse for them when they go to visit their parents country because they look familiar to people but when they speak they use English or broken local language which makes them foreign there as well. In the end they are not welcome in the place they grew up, they are not welcome in the place where they fit in by looks. They don't have a place in the entire world they can go and feel like home.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_culture_kid
1. The US may become a white-minority country. Europe, not really. Whites are still the majority, and are going to remain so in the distant future. The "Great Replacement" isn't real.
2. Most immigrants to EU countries are from other countries within the EU and white themselves.
3. Many people from outside the EU, even though they're not considered "white" by Westerners, look white from the outside (think of e.g. Arabs) and the differences are purely cultural. Within a few generations you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between them and "white" people.
4. One's ability to integrate and be welcomed depends far more on cultural differences than "looking" different. This is why people from former colonies immigrate to the country that colonized them - lasting vestigial ties and a common language help far more than sticking to people who share one's skin color.
The US government officially considers Arab people to be "white". [1] Some Arab Americans disagree with this and believe they are not "white", other Arab Americans identify with the "white" label and want to keep it. The former group have been lobbying the US government to create a separate category, e.g. "Middle Eastern and North African", thus far non-successfully.
Unlike the US, I don't believe most EU countries have a formally adopted definition of "white" (the EU as a whole certainly doesn't.) But, just like in the US, it would be wrong to think there would be a single viewpoint. So the statement that Arab people are "not considered 'white' by Westerners" is a bit dubious – some Westerners no doubt think that, other Westerners actually do think Arab people are "white", yet other Westerners just don't think about the concept "white" or its definition that much at all, or think that "white" is an arbitrary category which should not be used
[1] https://www.census.gov/topics/population/race/about.html
I am definitely not "super progressive".
And BLM demonstrations in europe... Sorry, but this is ridiculous. Those are more about protest against goverment ant police than BLM.
As far as I know the religion has no effect on your skin color.
US culture is very focused on racial categories – who is and isn't "white". Most other Western cultures are not – European cultures, Australia, etc
I think in Israel, people think about who is Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Mizrahi, Beta Israel, Arab/Palestinian, Druze, Secular vs Religious Zionist vs Haredi, etc, not about whether or not they or others are "white". The question of "who is white" is very American, not one that has a lot of relevance for Israeli society
Regarding the US, that's a bit of a misleading statement. US Census Bureau projections have "white" people as a majority in the US until 2060, which is as far out as their projections go [1].
The claim that "whites" are going to become a minority soon is arrived at by redefining "white" to exclude white-identified Hispanic people. Indeed, "non-Hispanic whites" are projected to become a minority in the US by 2045. But "whites" overall are not going to become a minority in the foreseeable future.
In 2060, the US Census Bureau projects the US will be 68% white-identified (white-identified Hispanic people included). By comparison, their actual estimates for 2016 are that the US was 76% white-identified (again, Hispanic people included). Although their projections don't go out that far, it seems likely the US will still have a white-identified majority at the start of the next century.
[1] https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/popproj/tables/2017...
You chose to bring race into the discussion, when one can make the same point without any reference to race.
In Sydney, Australia, a woman wearing a niqab is still a rare sight, and she is likely to get starred at, a lot–even other Muslims are going to stare at her. Women wearing hijabs are a far more common sight, so they will get starred at a lot less, although I'm sure they will report being starred at sometimes too. But, a lot of Muslim women don't wear any head covering – like the women in my uncle's family – indeed, in Albanian Muslim culture, women rarely cover their heads, and a woman who starts wearing a hijab is likely to be suspected of religious fundamentalism, which is viewed about as negatively in their culture as in my own. Should my uncle's family be considered a "visible minority" then?
Sydney is over 20% Asian (including East Asian, Southeast Asian, and South Asian people in that term)–Asian Australians are a minority, and obviously a visible one–but do Asian people get starred at in Sydney solely on account of their race? You usually stare at the unusual, but in a city which is over 20% Asian, there is nothing unusual about seeing a Chinese/Indian/Japanese/Korean/Vietnamese/Filipino/etc person, you see them every day, you count them among your friends, classmates, coworkers, neighbours, etc.
I remember one time I ventured with a Finnish colleague to a working class bar in Bangalore, and we got a lot of stares there, because nobody was expecting to see people like us in such an establishment – by contrast, in the airport, hotel, offices, shopping centres, tourist sites, etc, nobody starred at us, because Indians are used to encountering foreigners in those places.
You can look at the numbers in your chart and see that basically all of the U.S. Hispanic population is found under this "white" category, 55 million Hispanics. Total Hispanic population in U.S. is at most a few million more. 90%+ of all U.S. Hispanics feel like they are part of a "white" majority? You must be joking.
So I don't think that "white identified majority" in the census numbers means what you think it does. The vast majority of Hispanics in it fully realize and are made to feel like they are part of a minority in the U.S.
> 90%+ of all U.S. Hispanics feel like they are part of a white majority?
I feel very hesitant in speculating about the feelings of tens of millions of people whom I don't know–and who of course are not all going to think or feel the same way, but who are going to have a very diverse range of feelings and opinions. Rather than speculating about their feelings, why not just go by what they voluntarily choose to put on their US Census forms?
> The vast majority of Hispanics in it fully realize and are made to feel like they are part of a minority in the U.S.
There are white minorities, so identifying as "white" doesn't necessarily make white-identified Hispanics non-minority. If an (ethnic majority) German or Russian or Finn moves to New York City, they are going to be an immigrant minority in their new home, but they and everyone else will see them as "white". A European-descended person who moves to New York City from Buenos Aires has Spanish as their native language instead of German or Russian or Finnish, but why would their experience be fundamentally different? The Spanish-speaking immigrant will be officially classified as "Hispanic", the German/Russian/Finnish-speaking immigrants wouldn't be, but they are all equally white ethnic minorities.
Take into account COVID-19 pandemic and it is not as easy to move somewhere just now.
They all speak Russian. Lithuania has a sizable minority of Russian speakers, and has historical ties to Belarus. Latvia is predominantly Russian-speaking. Ukraine as well.
Knowing Belarusian, they can pick up Polish rather quickly.
As a last resort, Russia is still freer than Belarus politically and better off economically. Smolensk is half an hour drive from the Belarusian border.
Lithuania is 5.8% Russian with 39% speaking it as a foreign language.
Numbers from Wikipedia.
This seems to imply the majority of residents of Latvia speak Russian natively. That might have been correct had the USSR existed a bit longer, but history took a different turn.
"Most Latvian businesses, especially in the Riga area, will happily serve you in Russian." That would be a more neutral and correct statement appropriate for this context.
Also relevant would be how Latvian government is publicly angling for Belarussian businesses willing to relocate to Latvia [1].
Regarding native tongues in Latvia... Currently, over 30% of Latvian residents speak Russian, Belarussian or Ukrainian natively, versus 62.3% Latvian. In Riga, the number of Russian, Belorussian or Ukrainian native speakers rises to over 43% [0] versus 47.1% Latvian.
[0] http://data.csb.gov.lv/pxweb/en/iedz/iedz__iedzrakst/IRG080....
[1] https://eng.lsm.lv/article/economy/business/belarusian-busin...
Still, even those statistics admit that Riga is mostly Russian-speaking [1]. This is where the IT crowd would land, anyway.
[1] https://www.csb.gov.lv/en/statistics/statistics-by-theme/pop...
In Latvia, especially Riga, Russian is spoken, but younger generations of ethnic Latvians are less and less welcoming of using it. Again, English is expected. There has been a distinct rise in shops in Riga where it's basically "Speak Latvian or English to me or GTFO".
Source: I'm a Russian speaker who visits all three Baltic countries at least 2-3 times a year, most recently last week.
My experience is anyone 30 or over speaks fluent Russian, but many of those will not admit to it - those in the 30-40 range are highly distrustful of anything Russian - and reasonably so given the history of the country. Anyone under 30 barely speaks Russian unless they themselves are immigrants from Russia.
I'd agree that in Lithuania a software engineering candidate that spoke Russian and not at least a "very good" standard of English or fluent Lithuanian would struggle to find work.
That's an arguable statement. Russia is also ruled by lifetime president, any protests are being brutally oppressed, opposition leaders are being assassinated or imprisoned, state TV airing anti-Western propaganda 24/7. Ukraine and Lithuania look much better choice by all measures.
+ boyfriends, romantic partners
I agree with the motivation of your statement, just wanted to complete it to reduce the (likely unintentional on your part but implicit) hetero-male stereotype of software engineers.
The first step toward positive change is to change the way people think about these roles, and remove the automatic mental picture of a hetero male when people say "software engineer". That feeds back into the hiring loop and worsens the problem.
I have no intention to start a fuss, but I just think that it would be a nice gesture to make sure our language is as inclusive as possible, and so made a suggestion on a small change that would do that.
(Also, I'm surprised at all the downvotes, I thought HN was a better crowd of people than that. I mean if you don't want to upvote it that's fine, but I'm really surprised that many people actively downvoted my comment. How would it hurt you for the language to be more inclusive? By downvoting it, did you want to maintain that we only mention "girlfriends"? By downvoting, you are part of the problem in tech today.)
People may think that career choice is something special and magical when it is not.
Let's say you have become a successful developer. Now you want to work on a side project. There are so many choices and possibilities. Most of them are equally good. You choose something. Then you get stuck, bored or the rest of your life gets in the way. You scrap the old thing and do something new. Rinse and repeat. After 5 unfinished side projects you feel like you have accomplished nothing.
The reality is that you didn't actually care about any of the side projects. If you cared about them you would have stuck with them until completion. Making a choice and staying with it is difficult at any stage in your life. Unless... it is extremely obvious and necessary. Suddenly there is no question about it. You you know very little about electronics but think you absolutely need to design a custom PCB for this important project and you're not going to compromise on this at all. You read up on electronics theory for 3 whole weeks without even thinking a single thought about your final design, pick some components and feel lost reading the datasheet. Start up your EDA suite get mad and feel like everything is hopeless the first few days. Two weeks later you have finally designed a good enough schematic and then suddenly everything is easy in hindsight.
You didn't have the qualifications to finish this project but did so anyway, all you needed was a little motivation and dedication.
If there is a need, it will be met. If you think someone should do X, then give them a reason to do X. This applies to "software engineers" and all other professions equally.
The overlap between talented and motivated students exists for a reason. Talent is just motivation in disguise.
Are you talking about properties bought as investments?
> And it's naive to say that there's no borders. You have to be qualified for the visa requirements. You also have to renew this visa every year or so. You have to start all over. Of course everything is possible with some effort and money, but i'm tired of seeing this term "no borders for it engineers".
1. Qualification:
1.1 University degree, usually means a Western university degree, or a few top tier ones in your own country. Lots of people from the East choose Western education not because they think so highly of it, but because a Western degree contributes to their visa eligibility.
1.2 Even if you have a Western degree, your troubles don't end there. Eligibility criteria often cover the most trendy topics as usual, but may stumble at something dumb as a requirement for a verbatim match of the degree title: i.e. the most dumb on my memory was "Electronics Engineering" getting a pass, but "Microelectronics Engineering" not, while this very much being the originaly intended criteria. The inviting countries are obviously more than content with the amount of people they can cherry pick with the utmost capriciousness.
1.3 Your usual age, health, crime check, marriage status check, security check (telling them you are not a spy, and not alkayeda)
1.3.1 The last few former may involve waiting for completely idiotic paper on your side of your border. A fake crime check note costs 1000 roubles cash ($20) to get from every cop, but may take few months if you want to get it legally, especially if you are from a far away province.
1.3.1.1 A completely innocent note on the former, like being a witness in a court case, or a traffic ticket will subject you to months of pain, and if some countries 100% denial rate, after being flagged in every international rogue person database.
1.4 Regulatory capture works in immigration too. This is they way Microsoft handwrote much of non-public selection criteria for professional evaluation in BC, Canada to unfairly gain advantage attracting foreign labour who are using MS stack.
2. Life situations:
2.1 Lots of Western countries outright deny family applicants, some on other hand given huge bonus.
2.2 Lots of Western countries use immigration programs to repopulate their dying, depopulating regions. Canada will happily settle any amount of Chinese, Indians, and Africans if they agree to live somewhere in New Brunswick
2.3 Lots of Western countries will never allow you to settle down, or pretend to say they will, but then repeatedly change the goalpost in their immigration programs: Canada, Australia.
2.4 Lots of Western countries will outright deny applicants older than forties to mid thirties
2.5 Lots of Western countries will outright deny applicants who are women
2.6 Lots of Western countries will outright deny applicants who are women with children
2.7 Lots of Western countries will outright deny applicants who are women who are single
2.8 Lots of Western countries will outright deny applicants who are women who are not single
2.9 Lots of Western countries will outright deny applicants with just any health condition
3. Incentives:
3.1 Prime majority of countries don't want any more of their own people, let alone strangers. In such, immigration programs are ran as a token sign to say "hey, we are so International, we are not bigots at all!"
3.2 The minority of countries who are actively soliciting immigration are not much better, and some times worse. They obviously have their own agendas. Very often have an interest to crush their own labour into submission, or serve a political agenda. Less frequently, outright exploitation: Gulf, much of East Asia.
3.3 Incentives often are a carrot on a stick, with this stick being constantly moved forwa...
Well, I mean, if you ignore the country that takes up 39% (maybe a little more de facto after recent unilateral border alterations) of Europe, sure.
Also, you could probably argue that Russia is Asian, or that turkey is European, its not like there's a clear historical or geographic border, so there's some flexibility in how many dictatorships or authoritarian leaning countries you include
This is a slippery slope of course and that's why it's important to retain term limits, ensure elections are fair and untampered with, and impeach a leader when they stray toward dictatorship policies and procedures, even if you agree with those policies and procedures. It takes a lot courage to impeach a leader you agree with.
That's what I believed happened in the US. I wonder if a similar process happened in Belarus.
Sure, newsrooms can sway public opinion, but they’re also basically the only reason we know about those problems to begin with. Blaming them seems akin to treating a symptom, not the cause.
Not trying to disagree. I do think journalists today are partially responsible for our current situation - especially White House correspondents, whom are wholly ineffective at challenging any statements from the president or calling out outright lies.
I'm not alleging fraud but neglect and passive collusion. That is, journalists are allowing certain US Gov misdeeds to go largely unreported while amplifying US Gov voices w/o ever vetting if official claims are true.
I'd like to rephrase your assertion, to bring it more in line with reality:
A minuscule percentage of known US Gov misdeeds get reported, generally as a one-off novelty. The story then becomes so forgotten that it doesn't even get referenced for context in any future reporting.
Meanwhile top Gov officials get miles of free press time to make headline-grabbing claims, that have no meaningful truth. Because zero independent experts are EVER consulted, the official never gets challenged. Dozens of actual experts reach out to set the record straight - which has no effect at all on present or future reporting.
Free of any press oversight at all, the official is free to continue to make patently false claims, pretty much for the duration of his tenure. He'll then revolving-door to the private sector & get invited onto news segments as a guest expert, to vouch for whatever Gov claim needs an instant witness.
It's because the primary power to oust corrupt officials rests with the public. Likewise for the power to push broad policy change.
US Gov agencies have been accumulating inappropriate power and commit atrocities (esp post 2001), largely w/o any pushback or coverage from news orgs.
It hasn't been zero coverage. For example, Edward Snowden dragged reluctant news outlets into doing their jobs for a little while. But the vast, vast bulk of Gov misdeeds that are right out in the open, rarely get even a nod - while a small selection of stories get huge parallel coverage, from coast to coast.
He is still insulting war dead, threatening the validity of election, not even interested in solving COVID, and much more that I'm sure that you're already aware of. His approval ratings are at about 40%, that's not good but 40% is almost saint-like by (say) french standards. That's despite journalists reporting on this near constantly.
She made an allegation, and more specifically said she filed a complaint. The Biden team tried to publicly confirm its existence (i.e. they don't think it does), but the senate cannot publish it without Reade's permission. She later said she actually didn't publish a complaint.
I would be inclined to believe her if she could keep her story straight and generally not seem a bit unreliable.
Holds no water? That doesn't seem to be accounted for in "I believe women" when Biden et al were warring with Republicans in general, not just Trump.
Compare and contrast Reade & Biden with Christine Bleakley Ford & Kavanaugh, which quite a few publications have already.
Here are her words, verbatim:
As you can read, the "basket of deplorables" refers to "about half of Trump's supporters" who she considers "“The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic—you name it."Now one can argue that she was wrong about the fraction of Trump's supporters who fit this archetype, but she did also call her own comment "grossly generalistic," so she wasn't trying to be precise and make a statement about literally 50% of Trump supporters.
The only way someone can interpret this as referring to the entire working class is if, 1) they simply drink the Trumpist Kool-Aid without bothering to research because Screechy Woman Bad, or 2) they believe the entire working class comprises about half of Trump supporters, all of whom are racist, sexist, homophobic and xenophobic.
And Biden being boring shouldn't be a negative. The Presidency isn't supposed to be entertainment, it's a political office in a bureaucracy.
Trump is totally amoral, whereas Biden has experienced loss in a way that few can imagine. He's not perfect, but he knows how to play the congressional game and when he reaches out to people looking for change in the police who have lost a loved one you know he isn't lying.
The alternative was also Bernie, which I just cannot see ending well.
When in congress, Biden pushed for the harsh sentencing that we had, with the 1994 crime bill. Trump supported and then signed the First Step Act, which is legislation to undo some of that.
"Unless we do something about this, my children are going to grow up in a jungle, the jungle being a racial jungle" -- Biden, in 1977
Trump has no concept of morality or loss - you realise why he wasn't invited to John McCain's funeral, right?
John McCain's funeral was a political event.
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/4433
"On Apr 19, 2015, at 4:20 PM, John Podesta <john.podesta@gmail.com> wrote:
I know she has begun to hate everyday Americans, but I think we should use it once the first time she says I'm running for president because you and everyday Americans need a champion.
I think if she doesn't say it once, people will notice and say we false started in Iowa."
Context and thinking about things- they're important! You really don't need to rely on this stuff to criticize Hillary Clinton, of all people, for being out of touch. Honestly, it almost comes off as downright malicious sometimes.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_sexual_miscondu...
I’m not trying to compare Biden and Trump in this, but you seem to imply in your post that dems should have dumped Biden because of that accusation. Why should Biden be treated differently than Trump?
As for the misconduct claims on Wikipedia, a lot of them look doubtful.
I think a lot of that is just party loyalty at the moment, and party loyalty is a MUCH bigger deal in the US than in most European countries.
The common argument I hear is they prospered because of authoritarian rule. Belarus never had to deal with oligarchs created by a power vacuum like in Ukraine or other EE countries. As a result a large portion of outsourcing labor for other EE countries is technically done through Belarussian companies(EPAM).
There were a few attempts at hostile takeovers of IT companies by state actors, but the state could seize only used equipment. Staff moved on, clients fled.
So, at some point, the state just decided to let IT free at the effective tax rate of 9% (against 52% for the rest of the country).
I have worked with and managed outsourced engineers from Russia, India, and South America. The Russians were consistently the best: effective combo of smart + hard working. The only negatives were a reluctance to disclose bad news before SHTF, which was quite annoying, but I've always put that down to residual USSR culture.
In other words, I question the early appearance of the term "piracy" in the list of reasons of why Russians excel at software engineering.
You can not read English effectively. Work on it and stop with the ad homs.
> It's rare event to meet a dumb Russian in IT. I've never met one. I have worked with and managed outsourced engineers from Russia
Survivorship bias. There are a lot of dumb engineers here (in absolute numbers, the country is still 9th by population) mostly because of the IT industry growth in 2000s required more workforce, but they wouldn't be hired by the outsource companies since there is no shortage of better recruits (as of now).
Regular work permit for IT proffesional is also rubber stamp. Nothing compared to cruel H1B.
I guess same as after Ukraine revolution, a lot of Belarusians will end up in Poland.
Yes, but things can go into the other direction too, if for example the EU takes over and their good old country turns into another failed state ala Ukraine...
PS: sometimes I'm a Chinese too.
https://hoaxeye.com/2014/12/22/nazi-flags-in-ukraine/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_National_Unity
FYI, I am Russian myself, I've been to Ukraine many times, and the only problem I spotted is proximity of Russian regime and Russian occupation. And of course, St.Petersburg Lahta workers like you.
In more concrete terms: 60-70k EUR is what you are looking at in Germany in good job markets, while in Poland the figure is 30-40k EUR. When you consider taxes, housing, and other costs, the difference is really not that great.
The big difference is in the savings. Even if you just make twice as much, your savings per month can be several times higher than in Poland, which makes a lot of difference if you want to go back to your country later on and buy a house etc.
Also, yes, a simple life means not to live like an American expat lol. You can have a social life without spending lots of money if you socialize with "like minded" people who also don't want to waste money. You can have friends over for dinner at home with a few beers from the supermarket, play cards or boardgames or video games, soccer or basketball outside, have a BBQ, watch a movie at home, etc.
But it's not like you'd have an American expat-like luxury life in the alternative scenario of staying in Eastern Europe either. The point is, by keeping down your lifestyle you can multiply your savings and escape the cycle of poverty and be able to afford a home in a few years, if you go back to your home country and can support your relatives back home in the meantime. This is a great deal for a lot of people even without the fancy expat-like money-burning lifestyle.
University towns only really make a difference if the hypothetical person moving there is college age and if there's a significant number of foreign students. Otherwise why would German college kids want to socialize with a late 20s foreigner?
Someone which moves to a new country will leave their entire social circle behind: family, friends, personal and professional acquaintances. It's an immense loss that will never really be recovered and the older you are the harder it is.
Now lets cut to the chase. With the exception of the top 40 cities in Germany every other city has a population of less than 200k people. Unless you go to those 40 places which represent roughly 25% of the population the rest of Germany is nothing but "small cities".
I have some friends living in what according to wikipedia one could call a half-town and looked at an apartment there out of curiosity. A 3 room apartment (newly built) was about 280.000 EUR and that's in a town where they have 1 hotel, 1 restaurant (or maybe 2) and 0 supermarkets. In my experience if one wants a 3 room apartment in a normal city, one would add another 100.000 EUR to that price.
I've made the opposite experience. Sure everything is 30% more expensive in Germany than in Poland but you also make twice as much money. The differences in cost of living are pretty insignificant but the salary is so much higher that it more than makes up the difference.
The language itself uses a bastardized version of the Latin alphabet which is inferior to Cyrillic, and general pronunciation is the much more difficult compared to Ukrainian or Russian.
Many of the cities are cold and dark owing to latitude, and in winter filled with air pollution from out of control coal and trash burning in urban chimneys.
The main thing Poland has going for it is a massive flow of EU funds and no refugees from Africa or the Middle East, as well as a population with a generally Western mindset and work style.
VAT is higher than in Germany, but lower than in Sweden. Nothing that gets anyone going really. Real estate is quite cheap (dollar to dollar, not exactly for Poles) for a European country, though Warsaw does stand out as the capital.
There isn't anything "bastardized" or "inferior" about either the Polish or Belarusian alphabet, or really any alphabet for that matter. They just come from different backgrounds.
Poland is also largely south of Belarus, including Warsaw being south of Minsk, so not sure about cold or darkness.
IT has grown even more.
>Nothing compared to cruel H1B.
H1B doesn't need your grandparents to be from USA.
How many entrepreneurs and companies fell for the "law and order" discourse every authoritarian uses to gain power?
1) Greater duty to family, what are you going to tell your wife when she asks you how is she meant to feed the kids and keep a roof while you serve a 20 year sentence for protesting? Or worse yet if you are maimed or killed.
2) This isn't like a 'normal' war, the course of action is not clear. Should I take up arms and attack government buildings, or would that backfire in terms of public support? Should I protest peacefully, or does that just give the dictator more time to prepare? If I already live outside, should I return to Belarus and put my body on the like, or would I be more effective donating cash that I am privileged to earn?
Working in tech now is fraught with peril, especially if one says anything outside of the overton window. I wouldn't be surprised if this starts happening in America as well in a few years.
And the owners of these places want to extract profit from these places, they on one hand like the money, but they reasonably must police their places. Virtually millions of people can shout at the same time at the same place. Bullying, doxxing, harassment, SWATing, spam, scam, porn, gore, really fucked up ideologies, racism/xenophobia, and whatnot are cropping up.
And it's clear that people are not really interested in going back to the typewriter and mailing letters to various publications.
This large scale "politicing" is likely truly unprecedented. Bored and angry people can comment, like, upvote, downvote whatever anyone wrote/posted/created/asked.
> Working in tech now is fraught with peril, especially if one says anything outside of the overton window.
That's "fake news" - because the base rate is low, even if there are clear examples of it. (Eg Google firing Damore who pointed out that Google's diversity group/effort is very inefficient because it's unscientific, so inadvertently exposed it as a simple PR effort.)
"IT haven takes authoritarian turn". Really? Isn't the so called IT haven exists under the exactly same government? What changed?
What changed is the situation of foreign instigated chaos intended to weaken a key Russian ally with the additional benefit that when many Belarussian workers leave the country they will serv someone's else economy. The competition of Belarussian IT industry will also be eliminated.