Fascinating to see the Western world fall apart while quadrupling down on the possibility AGI and fossil fuels.
5 to 10 more years of these disproportionately wealthy nations quibbling with each other and fighting within themselves due to far right politics and one wonders what the world will look like in a few decades.
Most empires fall when they spend more time looking backwards than forwards. Looking at you America…
Sounds like it applies to any form of governance.
slams buzzer ER nurse.
Capitalist nations uphold those with capital. Who would have thought?
What would you say to those that wish the same on America since Trump defended the Saudi government’s actions? Or is that a “special case” where civilians should be seen as distinct from their government?
The only way you counter it is with education and being worldly
Well said. It really shouldn’t be harder with the technological advantages we have today but clearly the powers that be go out of their way to make sure it’s not used for that purpose.
Indian Hindus have had a caste system since it was introduced in the Vedas 3500 years ago. It was initially intended as means of organizing society and not necessarily hierarchical.
It wasn’t necessarily systemized until it was legally codified by the British during the colonial era. Indian historians have debated the fluidity of caste prior to this time and concluded that while caste endogamy was clearly the norm, caste was much more fluid historically.
There are thousands of castes in India. When the British came across this system, for the purposes of census administration, they limited self identification to only one of the four castes as described in the Vedas, legally codifying it as a hierarchy.
The idea of one group of people seeing itself as superior to others is a common theme throughout human history. The US had a race based caste system for most of its history with the addition of legally codified chattel slavery and segregation of African Americans.
Pulitzer prize winning author Isabel Wilkerson argues that America still has an invisible caste system to this day.
America utilizes DEI to remedy past and present caste discrimination. India outlawed caste discrimination at its inception in article 17 of it’s constitution.
Some regressive Indians bring a casteist worldview with them. The government of the United States and its supporters are currently working at establishing a caste system where those of European heritage are high caste and those of other races or heritages are low caste. Both are wrong.
I say this mainly because I come across many people that see caste as a uniquely regressive institution the likes of which has not existed in other societies. Every hierarchical system based on race or ancestry is casteist and essentially every human society in civilizational history has had and likely currently continues to have that bigotry deeply ingrained within.
Nothing you said is wrong. Just adding context for a better understanding.
Not entirely true, many want to bring their family (see settler immigrants in early America) and there are still many that don’t want to eliminate immigration entirely.
Sectarianism will always exist. One can argue that the resurgence in white supremacy here is a manifestation of that (a group of Europeans and their descendants thinking their sect is superior / innately worthy of more resources).
I think one would be hard pressed to defend the argument that racism is a “white export” but what is undeniably true is that colonial Europeans were obsessed with race and saw the world through the lens of a race based caste system.
They assumed that all human progress could be distilled to lighter skin people being more advanced and darker skin people being more primitive.
They created entire scientific fields around this and interpreted their religion in a way to support this.
In India, they interpreted indigineous systems of social hierarchy such as caste and took them a step further, defining those that were darker skinned and lower caste as inherently criminal, keeping them under the watchful eye of their surveillance state.
They perceived lighter skin Muslims and upper caste Hindus as more “civilized” than darker skin low caste Hindus and gave the former administrative opportunities because of this perceived superiority.
They had an explicit policy of divide and conquer, promoting hateful and divisive rhetoric that resulted in communal violence so that people would be distracted from fighting against them.
Then when Nazi Germany destroyed their infrastructure in WW2 such that they could no longer financially maintain their institutions of colonialism, they drew an arbitrary border which cut through incredibly culturally and linguistically diverse communities and left.
In summary: Would there be animosity between Pakistan and India without the mismanagement of partition and the empire going out of its way to promote hate? Probably.
Would racism and sectarian violence not exist in the absence of the European world view being spread globally through colonialism? No we would still have that.
Were these made substantially worse by colonial powers promoting those divisions around the world over centuries? I think absolutely yes.
So while I take your point that such divisions didn’t originate in the West, it very much was a core component of their worldview and they stoked and exacerbated those divisions everywhere they went. I find it difficult to let colonists off the hook for that.
But to your general point on human nature, I agree. The reason why I hold America toa different standard is it calls itself the land of oppurunity and takes pride in that.
From the regressive perspective, if you’re nonwhite and poor you’re a leech on society and if you are well off you must have took it from them by gaming the system. The core is not seeing others as equally human.
Being financially secure is a multiplier to their bigotry as they feel it challenges 1) their collective power and 2) their worldview that anyone that shares their melanin level is innately superior in every way.
This sounds more like H1b fraud (failure to meet prevailing wage for hours worked) on the part of the company rather than an issue with the H1b visa itself. More oversight is certainly necessary to ensure American companies don’t break the law.
To be honest, as a South Asian, racists have always been openly bigotted in our direction. It was never really taboo in most Western countries. We have no StopAsianHate or BLM equivalent.
That being said I appreciate the author for highlighting the issue. Despite our faults (by virtue of being human) we value family and education as ideals and that has helped us create prosperity, especially in the US where Indians are the highest earning demographic. This rubs some the wrong way, even if it is fairly earned.
Though its not surprising, it is disappointing when it occurs in a nation that sees itself as being a land of opportunity.
I am curious since it appears you are Canadian, what reform would you propose? The LMIA system in Canada faces similar issues but for a shorter period since immigrants with a high enough score on their application can secure PR within around 2 years. During those two years Canadian employers have similar leverage over immigrant employees. However under the American H1b system if you’re terminated, you have up 60 days to leave which is often not enough time to secure a new sponsor. Under the Canadian LMIA system you have 90 days and can potentially apply for a temporary visitors extension which allows immigrants and their families a better shot at staying. This delverages the employer to a degree.
There are several different aspects of policy that can be tweaked but the employer leverage is really a tough one to eliminate. Though it can certainly be cushioned by removing barriers to PR and offering a longer grace period in the event of termination as Canada has.
I think the systems employed in the middle east where passports are confiscated and more overt coercion is involved are closer to slavery.
The conditions you describe certainly exist but are the nature of employment based immigration everywhere. It’s hard to imagine any country forgoing that initial period of leverage in their corporation’s favor. What’s uniquely exploitative in the US is keeping people in visa limbo for a period of 10 to 15 years because each nation has a cap of 7% of total green cards regardless of size or level of immigration. That mean the number of greencards available to a nation of 1 billion is the same as the number available to a nation of 20 million.
In the end it’s not the population of an immigrants origin country that matters, it’s how many are coming to the US. If there are a larger number of immigrants admitted from one country via H1b then there should be a greater number of green cards alotted. This way that exploitative relationship doesn’t stretch for 10 to 15 years which allows employers to engage in questionable labor practices.
Immigrants have always had to come in, put their heads down, and work. That’s the nature of moving to a new country. To a degree, anyone (even locals) that joins a new employer has a probationary period and has to avoid making waves initially, at least in the many parts of the country with at will employment. Those circumstances are not likely to change.
Instead we should be focussed on immigrants getting at minimum fair (median) pay and having a clear pathway to permanent residency to curtail an employer’s ability leverage visa status.
If there is another “nation of immigrants” that does it better I’d be interested to hear about it. As far as I know Canada’s LMIA system faces similar issues.
I can’t speak for the tech industry only the system as a whole.
I think people calling it slavery or likening it to some kind of bonded labor are obviously exaggerating to a degree.
The only situation where its clearly problematic are for countries like China and India that have massive populations but still have the same green card cap as a nation a tenth of their size.
Everyone else on an H1b would generally be working towards a green card on a timeline of 3-5 years. Yes mobility is limited during that time (though not absolutely so) but I can’t think of a country on earth where new immigrants don’t have to work with their hands tied to a degree.
Right now employers only have to pay the prevailing wage to an H1b employee. This can be significantly less than the median.
I think the median should be the absolute floor. One can make an argument to have 75th percentile be the floor also.
I think if a company is allowed to pay below median wage for a large number of employees they should be forced to invest in local education / apprenticeship. Even if they are allowed to, there should be strict caps on this.
There are many H1bs that get paid above the median wage in the US but I think conversations around the tech sector tend to dominate so the perception is that these are mostly lower wage entry level workers. It’s really the tech sector that has exploited the system the most so I think it’s worthwhile distinguishing tech H1bs and therefore considering more significant restrictions on a sectoral level.
Weren’t American soldiers killing countless civilians during that war? I believe 61% of Americans see the war as unjustified in hindsight. Makes for a bit of a complicated situation.
Should we see America entering a war without justification as evil too or just a big oopsie?
Al-Qaeda is in every way unjustifiable but my guess is the person you’re responding to sees this individual as a resistance fighter of some sort, which must be in some way how the West sees him for them to be cozying up to him like this.
The regime he toppled was undeniably evil which makes things even messier.
Ancient India and China (largely due to Dharmic and Daoist philosophies). The political aspects which make up 80% of the Kama Sutra are undeniably feminist by many standards, promoting female education, financial autonomy, right to divorce, agency and consent. It also promotes respectful treatment towards female sex workers. It’s not perfect, but it sought to describe an ideal perspective towards sex according to Dharmic philosophy at the time.
Ancient Egypt, Mesoamerican and other Indigineous cultures also did not perceive sex in what I’d describe as a simple minded penetrative dominance.
Roman attitudes towards sex were based on power and control. It wasn’t seen as a connection between two individuals, that was secondary. It was informally allowed for a high ranking official to have sex with individuals below them in status including other men and adolescents without harm to one’s reputation.
Having sex with a man of higher status was seen as emasculating and worthy of ridicule. Essentially it was seen as taking on the role of the woman in a relationship and women were very much subservient to men in this society.
Christianity has had a cultural impact on some of these views but there are definitely times when it seems like modern Western cultural attitudes (especially amongst regressives) have not progressed very far beyond that old conceptualization of sexual relationships.
Tl;dr: Having a sexual encounter with a man of higher status is feminizing which is more damning than crimes against humanity to the backwards minded.
Deploying the same methodology that Republicans used to track cost increases under former President Joe Biden, JEC Democrats found that the average US family is spending roughly $700 more per month on basic items since Trump took office in January, pledging to bring prices “way down.”
Smart to use their methodology. That way they can’t call it flawed. Well they can but they’ll sound stupid
Its possible as a once or twice off but I think with how the population skews in many Western countries, retirees will always have a disproportionate voice. Essentially death by gerentocracy. It’s why new legislation often amounts to a transfer of wealth from young to old.
Even if that skew wasn’t a factor, many young people are consuming far right propaganda on social media and accepting that ideology as their worldview.
Finally even if there is a massive rebuke against Trump/MAGA etc. by 2028 it may be too little too late.
Its fascinating to watch news within the US versus outside of it. Within the US there are political commentators recommending that allied nations do their best to hold out to 2028 when the US hopefully gets back on track. Outside the US, countries are reorganizing supply chains to minimize US involvement / dependency wherever possible.
When your most reliable partner suddenly becomes unreliable, you don’t forget that in one election cycle.