Did you miss that part of the article or have you intentionally excluded the presence of Asian students in your reply because it makes your argument stick better? I don't think it meets the definition of segregation when a subset of multiple groups are given special treatment due to their aptitude on topics that are inherently race-agnostic. Yes, those with money and power can better educate their kids compared to the poor, but so can those without money who simply value education higher (speaking as a 1.5 gen immigrant who grew up extremely poor). Why are we always the first ones to be penalized in the name of racial equality?
Another day, another Asian gets the raw end of the stick.
"Pull yourself up by your bootstraps" they said. "Reach out and grab that American dream" they also said. So many of us listened and found a tiny slice of success in the academia despite being systematically opposed and ridiculed... and now what? We're somehow treated in the same vein as the 'oppressor' who have been enjoying their undue systematic advantage and our success must now be supressed?
We're still heavily underrepresented in Hollywood, most major sports leagues, the government, and practically most forms of leadership - yet we're finding ourselves constantly lumped in there as "whites and asians" when it's convenient for the narrative of racial inequality to construct a heart-wrenching story. Do people not see how backwards it all feels?
Just like you buy the propaganda that whites are “oppressors enjoying systemic advantages”, so do other people buy in the same propaganda but lump in Asians as well (i.e. “people doing better than me”).
They didn't say that racism doesn't exist, those are words you've put into their mouth.
They said that you're buying into the same identity politics narrative that you're decrying, where groups of people are put into a basket based on their ethnicity and assigned the label "oppressor" without regard for individual variation.
In case it wasn't absolutely clear to you, I'm in full agreement with you on how ridiculous the decision to suspend the gifted program is.
Speaking of racism in the U.S., however, nothing you say will change the dozens of firsthand experiences that I endured as a minority immigrant growing up in this land. I say this not from a place of bitterness, but from a place of sadness: I too wish racism wasn't real or as heavily perpetuated as it actually is. Working in SV almost makes me forget the shit I had to endure because it's much less visible from the ivory towers of the west coast. But my friend, racism is very real, and it is very alive. I'm not here to say whites are evil and we are noble - it's simply that being in the place of power gives you many more avenues with which to abuse.
Let me say this one last time: shutting down a gifted class due to its racial make up is the wrong way to go. It's the lazy way to "establish social justice". I say this not because I believe racism isn't real - I say this because this is reverse racism. If what we want to build is a world that is accepting of all individuals regardless of their race, we should accept that racism exists and devise reasonable solutions to combat it. Punishing white kids is not the way to go, nor is denying that racism is alive.
> The person "buying into the propaganda" in this instance is not myself, but you unfortunately.
I wish I knew how to say this in a constructive manner, but your lack of self-awareness is sad. You are guilty of the very thing you are decrying, just changing the race to what fits your narrative.
Yes, I am saying you are racist and don't realize it.
I'm genuinely curious why you're still pushing the oppressor narrative, given that you see how it's being used as a weapon to enforce equality of outcome? instead of equality of opportunity.
People blamed white supremacy for the recent unprovoked attacks on asians by black perpetrators. Cognitive dissonance became really common on that side of the political spectrum.
Think deeper. The American dream died in 2008. We could have let the inefficient corrupt behemoths crash under their own weight and free the market for the next wave of companies. But instead we printed more money and bailed them out. Ans we keep doing it ever since [0]. It's not about Asian, Black, Russian, Jewish or whatever. It's that if you haven't bitten a large enough chunk of the pie before 2008, you are second class and are bound to working for those who had. And when people across the society get frustrated with their lives, the racial differences is the easiest thing to spot, so it metastasizes first.
U.S. is now as much "a land of opportunity" as Democratic Republic of Congo is "democratic" or People's Republic of Korea "people's".
Is your ultimate goal to break into the tech industry? If so, I'd spend a bit more time getting some actual working pieces of code on your GitHub. Editing documentation is a noble deed, but as an interviewer it wouldn't do much for me in assessing your skills.
I know it takes a lot of effort as well as luck in landing that first entry-level job so all I can say is to keep knocking, but also be prepared to show something tangible. Anyone can talk all day about their awesome work ethics but it's another thing to be able to prove it by presenting a polished (for a junior) software.
I've known several people – usually in their early 20s – who claim to be smart and motivated. Most of them are smart. But when it comes time to actually build something, they'd rather play video games. So how do you distinguish yourself from the video gamers? Build something. Anything.
If you want a full stack job, build a Twitter clone (with limited features) in React (or ReactNative) and Django. Even if you don't use those tools when getting hired, it'll show people that you have what it takes to do the work. Both React(Native) and Django have the added benefits of being in high demand, and extremely well documented.
Is it still true that Java (with Spring) is still the best backed stack to know for finding jobs? Or is Python sufficiently popular now for someone to ignore Java?
I've been dealing with a similar condition for a while. I've learned that it's impossible for me to "not think". Any attempts at emptying my head will only invite more anxieties and problems to be solved. Instead, I've learned to fill it with trivial, creative challenges that occupy keep my brain busy enough to ward off negative thoughts yet introduce no stakes.
Some examples include:
- If I found myself stranded on an island, what kinds of challenges would I have to overcome and how?
- If I could improve the magic system of Harry Potter, what changes would I introduce?
- If I were given a device that I could use to turn back the time to 6 am once everyday, how could I use it to my best advantage while avoiding any pitfalls?
- If I were given a small 12x12x12 room with an unlimited budget to create a living space for me to be confined in, how would I use that space?
These would be the kinds of things that I could think about for a while before finding myself fast asleep. Not sure if this would work for anyone else, but maybe you can give it a try?
I agree, it's nearly impossible to stop thinking on a dime. What you ignore gets invited back into your head. If I try not to think of a pink elephant, it only reinforces that image in my head. I found that tiring it out through a diverse set of means is the only way to drain the gas, so to speak. I also watch/read/listen to dreadfully boring media to mentally tune out.
Funnily enough these are the exact kind of thoughts that keep me up. I get really into it and can't let go of consciousness. Technical or problem solving are the worst for it.
Brains sure are different and weird across us all.
Can you please elaborate on bad actors absuing the appeals process? Is your point about how everyone will automatically appeal, making it difficult for genuine queries to receive the human attention they need? Or is there another vector of abuse you were thinking of?
If every action taken against an account by automation is appealed, then the automation becomes worthless.
In gaming forums that are run by the developer, such as the World of Warcraft or League of Legends forums, I have very frequently seen people whining and complaining that their accounts were banned for no reason until a GM or moderator finally pipes in and posts chat logs of the user spamming racial slurs or some other blatant violation of ToS.
We see that on HN too, where people who have been banned/hellbanned with ample warning are often complaining that it's because "hackernews groupthink" but when you look back at their comment history they call someone some redpilly insult in every comment they've ever made on the website.
It’s even worse than that because the bad actors are doing this at scale and will have automation to auto-appeal while normal people will sometimes shrug and decide it’s not worth it. So your appeals queue likely contains a higher flow of bad actors than the distribution of FPs.
I wouldn't jump to that conclusion so fast. It depends on what you're looking for in your career. I too have made a similar move from UX designer -> Junior engineer a few years back. The paycut hurt at the beginning and it took a lot of self-learning, but looking back I'm very with the decision I made. We spend so much of our lives at work, so what's wrong with aligning it with something you love?
Besides, it's not like software engineering doesn't pay. Even before I landed by current SV big tech job, I had more than made up for the initial paycut I took at a local startup.
Right, and given HN's policy towards preserving the original title when you can, it's especially puzzling as to why the title was edited to introduce this shade of negativity.
I love this story. I can intensely relate as I too have made the pivot from being a UX professional to software engineering a few years back. Sure I hadn't achieved anything close to being the director of design for a known tech firm; My design career was just starting to flourish when I'd made the move. But so much of the sentiment regarding confidence and self-doubt were the exact emotions that I had experienced . It felt as if there was this huge gap in knowledge that I'd never be able to fill. It took a lot of effort from me to overcome that fear of inadequacy and make the jump, so I know it must've not been easy for the author either. It's also funny how the activities she chose to express her desire to code - tinkering with Arduino, participating in Ludum Dare - were the exact stuff I was doing too!
Huge congrats to Kristina, and I hope her engineering career brings her as much joy and fulfillment as it has brought me.
I went from a Sr. Manager to Jr. Developer. The pay cut sucked. The first year working as a developer was rough. Everyone assumed that I knew a lot because of my age, but I was mostly a newbie.
Fast forward 8 years later, I am a Lead Developer and making double what I made as a Sr. Manager. I am still learning, I am still behind compared to my peers. Technology feels like it's moving too fast.
But in the end, the best part is to open my IDE and write code. It makes me the happiest.
I think any developer who feels like they have a 100% handle on all the new tech in their field... isn't paying enough attention :D feeling like there's more to learn is a way of life!
I believe you were going for hyperbole, but it reads more like misinformation instead. Please reconsider saying misleading shit like this, especially on HN.
I found My old gmail account placed under a flagged status one day. It would not allow me to purchase anything on the play store. Turns out, it was because I used an old Google service called Google Checkout(?) or something more than a decade ago to purchase a few hundred dollars worth of clothes overseas. The clothes were purchased from an H&M equivalent, legally operating stores of course, and no payments were deferred or anything - they just simply said something about my account being associated with possible fraud and disabled all Google Wallet features suddenly many years after, citing my purchase history. Wanting to purchase a $2 game on my phone, I inquired about removing the restrictions placed on my account, but the response I received were quite haphazard and they finally stated that they would not accept anything short of physical copies of my IDs before removing any restrictions. No, fuck off.
I guess it's easier to throw out blocks and bans, placing the burden of proof on their customers rather than to have people looking into why completely innocent accounts were getting flagged in the first place. I've made my peace with it and I'm happy not spending a cent on your damn play store for the rest of my life.
