Hacker News Reader

This is very ignorant towards many cultures and such behavior would be actively harming your career in most places I've got to know. You're lucky to be in a place where your lack of empathy towards local etiquette does not result in more peer pressure, for better or for worse.

We are not equal.

View on HN

No idea why you are being downvoted. I think people in some circles and some places hold strongly to their newly crafted dogmas.

No one is equal to no one. I do not see how this can be taken badly at all : absence of equality does not equate to lack of intrinsic merit.

As to the main topic : I think some degree of deference to some people, represented by some specific words, is a good thing, as long as it does not fall into some Byzantine rules that make communication less efficient.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com