Comment by jim_kaiser | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jim_kaiser | Hacker News Reader

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"These days due to reservations, people want to be born in lower castes in India."

Pure unadulterated bullshit or trolling.

Er.. I'm from India too.. and kamaal.. you seem to be stuck in the small college student protests about reservation around 7 - 8 years ago.

Nobody wants to be born in a lower caste. In the end, such comments are just jokes. India's social playing field is still more important to the ordinary people. Especially when castes play a big role in marriages in India, the next most important thing after society as a whole.

So, i have to ask... whats your angle kamaal. Convincing HN that reservations are bad is going to make no difference on the politics of India. You seem to be ranting about it every chance you get (and against poor people from the last comment i read).

Also, your rant here is only against the backward sections of society, which have been denied equal opportunities for ages and have now become a political pawn in the reservations fiasco.

I question this, because India, as you know has reservations for women too, already in many educational institutions, pending in the parliament.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Womens_Reservation_Bill

So, instead of quoting something relevant like the impact of various reservations the country has implemented for women, you seem to just pout out your own agenda.

Don't wanna make the world a better place? Please don't try to make it worse.

>>Pure unadulterated bullshit or trolling.

How? You really need to explain.

>>Er.. I'm from India too.. and kamaal.. you seem to be stuck in the small college student protests about reservation around 7 - 8 years ago.

Yeah, may be. Most people who come from a middle class general category are going to suffer from reservations. Because they will be doing all the hard work only to watch someone who scored some thing like half their marks eat all their opportunities.

>>Nobody wants to be born in a lower caste. In the end, such comments are just jokes.

Have you ever visited a local Taluk office? Say some where in Bangalore? Do you even know how much bribe is given simply to obtain a OBC certificate because some one needs a job, or to get a seat and doesn't have the required marks to get one?.

>>So, i have to ask... whats your angle kamaal.

Let me put it the other way, what's your angle. I've put my views clear.

You should elaborate how denying the hardworking general category students their due chance is helping the country.

>>Also, your rant here is only against the backward sections of society, which have been denied equal opportunities for ages and have now become a political pawn in the reservations fiasco.

So is this now a revenge cycle? Are we supposed to make the general category suffer because some 20 generations back a ancestor of their made a mistake.

>>I question this, because India, as you know has reservations for women too, already in many educational institutions, pending in the parliament.

Last time I checked most women who stand for elections in my area were the wives of most prominent rowdies/mafia types.

>>So, instead of quoting something relevant like the impact of various reservations the country has implemented for women, you seem to just pout out your own agenda.

>>Don't wanna make the world a better place? Please don't try to make it worse.

Sorry you need to give your agenda, not me.

And how are you making the world a better place by denying the hardworking their due chance. And taking all their opportunities and giving to some one who probably didn't do 1/10th the work they do.

When bias (like gender, or race) is so prolific. It is institutional change that is required.

You are arguing, just make it a level playing field and the hardworking woman will eventually show up. But that takes generations for change to happen.

In a lot of our eyes, that is not good enough. Change needs to happen now. Quota systems may deny an opportunity to a deserving person (as the quota is full). But it is morally equivalent to being denied an opportunity due to some other kind of bias (i.e because you are a woman).

So really, quotas is just a new (not prejudicial) form of bias. The only difference is, it will eventually change the whole system (for the better). Where as prejudicial bias just makes the system worse.

I would say that by keeping the status quo (i.e. 90+% men in tech) you are poisoning the system.

Reservations don't bring about institutional changes.

Again, I have to come down to giving the example of Indian society[Sorry can't help it, but 60 years of these experiments make India the perfect case study for these sort of problems].

In India, there are cases where some one got a medical seat through reservations. The person generally goes on to become a pretty good doctor, earns well and is now pretty much empowered to do anything he/she wants. But yet you will see their children claim seats though reservations. What's more ridiculous? You can even get a post graduation seat through reservations. Why does one need a reservation when a transparent ranking process exists through a competitive exam? The exams are often objective multiple choice questions and the candidates identity is anonymous and known only through a serial number.

While all this is happening, some guy in the general category watches his well deserved seat go to some other guy who makes it through on just qualifying marks.

At one point of time, before the free market reforms in the 90's. This problem was the big reason, why so many Indian's left India to settle abroad.

>>The only difference is, it will eventually change the whole system (for the better).

It won't.

Quota/Reservations systems at best work like socialist/communist set ups.

Sooner or later- The deserving guy finds no motivation to continue contributing to the system. The undeserving guy never contributes because regardless of his work the rewards are assured.

> Are we supposed to make the general category suffer because some 20 generations back a ancestor of their made a mistake.

So what's your proposal here? I would love that each generation we had the wealth allocated on a purely merit basis but the world does not work like that, I know a fair share of mediocre people with fortunes who can send their children to better schools and some smarter poor fellas that can't, and besides I live in Brazil and ignoring the past did not produced a really better alternative.

EDIT: Text was bad

I don't like reservations very much, but sometimes they're necessary. And anyway, if they're reservations, they will only take SOME opportunities away from the privileged, and give them to the minorities. Not all of them.

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