People sometimes conflate inelegance with buggy code, where the market fit and value matter more than code elegance. Bugs still are not acceptable even in your MVP. Actually I think buggy software especially if those bugs destroy user experience, will kill products. It’s not 2010 anymore. There are a lot of less buggy software out there and attention spans are narrower than before.
Which are often complex & multi-faceted, measuring the rest of reality's weighing, to make broad judgement with. Reality's normal context window is a google deep for even the most everyday of circumstance. The weights exist there, but amid too broad a reality with too many factors for that exacting a use, and are too complected to measure out individually easily.
Code is simple. It's context is limited to what it is. To ascertainable viewable realities that mankind has already distilled out, into the form of systems and code.
And like relativity, we can measure the curvature of space around these weights, can envision how space bends and attracts. And now set in motion our own bodies, to orbit on nicely composed courses.
> people who fled in the aftermath of the revolution and are extremely antagonistic towards the regime
Iranian who left Iran here. Do you have stats or reference for this critical piece of information?
It’s as if someone’s says, since Bangladesh is predominantly muslim, the majority aligns with what the Islamic regime does for ideological reasons and would try to undermine the account of atrocities.
But one shouldn’t believe this before seeing some polls, stats, etc.
Anecdotally this does seem to be true in US. I know several Iranians in US, from completely different social circles, but all of them strongly anti-clerical and not shy about it.
Also, as a Russian who left Russia, it's certainly a familiar pattern.
Note, by the way, that this doesn't really imply anything about whether those people are wrong to be antagonistic.
I've noticed there's two distinct 20th century Russian diaspora groups in the US. Those who came here prior to the fall of the USSR, and those who came after.
In talking with the ones who came after the fall, life wasn't glamorous but got truly unlivable in the wake of the collapse.
In talking with the ones who came before the fall, they wanted to make money.
There's a group here, largely those expats kids in my experience, that swears they had things better back in Russia and ravenously consume Russian media. I used to encounter them a lot in Sheepshead Bay.
Most immigration in 00-10s was economical, and yes, for that group of people it's often the case that they are very much still enmeshed in Russian imperial agitprop. It's common enough that there are memes about this: https://lurkmore.media/%D0%9F%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%91%...
However there was a smallish wave of political immigration after the 2011 protests and 2014 conflict with Ukraine, and a much larger one since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. And those people tend to be very anti-Russian-government for obvious reasons.
I really do not understand immigrants who still love their home country. I’m going to die 12 thousand miles away from where my ancestors are buried going back tens of thousands of years. After spending most of my life with ashy dry skin because I’m somewhere I’m not designed to be. All because my ancestors fucked everything up! Fuck those people.
You are looking at this from the perspective of someone to whom "my ancestors fucked everything up" is obvious and self-evident. Many people don't see it this way.
FWIW when it comes to Russia specifically, I would broadly agree that the problem there is not just the government but the culture as a whole (although we'd probably disagree about the specific things in that culture that are problematic). It is not obvious, though, and I think it always behooves one to be careful when making sweeping generalizations like that and carefully rationalize them.
> FWIW when it comes to Russia specifically, I would broadly agree that the problem there is not just the government but the culture as a whole
You’re correct about Russia. And the same observation applies to the Indian subcontinent, where I’m from, as well. And, while you’re correct that each place requires a separate analysis, I would guess it applies to most places people leave.
People’s emotions and tribalism often make them romanticize the places they left. They attribute the good things about their society to the people and their culture, but externalize the bad things about their society. That’s usually self-deception.
Poor guy seems to be going through some self hating racism crisis after reading too many twitter posts. He’s probably a nice guy and all but this online thing can get way too much.
I know you're just saying that because you've never met my parents. But consider that my dad packed us all up, left a country where we were rich, and moved us to the most stereotypical 1950s-style red-state suburb he could find.[1] But no, I'm sure it was Twitter...
Joking aside, we are on opposite sides of a sociological debate. Is Bangladesh a crappy country because of external factors, or because of the culture and choices of the people who live there? It's not crazy to ask that question, and stop pretending that it is. What's ironic is that most Bangladeshis (not the ones raised in the west) fall in the "culture" camp. My family is particularly negative on Bangladeshi culture--especially my mom (growing up as a woman in a Muslim country will do that)--but none of my views are remarkable in my extended family. Or even in Asia more generally. One of the greatest success stories in third world development is Singapore. Lee Kuan Yew adamantly believed that "culture is destiny" and that principle guided the incredible results he achieved in Singapore: https://paulbacon.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/z....
[1] I was at a cousin's wedding a few years ago, and I complained that I couldn't find anyone on Facebook because in our culture we don't have family names. Everyone has two given names, but goes by a nickname which is completely unrelated to either given name. My dad responded, "Bangladeshis don't know how to name their children." I reflexively tried to say, "no, they just do it differently." Then I stopped myself, because why the fuck should I whitesplain the merits of naming conventions to my father.
I have, or rather, had, a friend that lost it. He was the nicest guy. Then 9/11 happened and both him and his wife got into this 'it's all special effects' (they worked in special effects) thing and there wasn't anything you could do about it. Intelligent, creative, very skilled. But on that subject they were completely dug in and any evidence to the contrary was dismissed. Their parting words were that I must be 'one of them' and we are no longer friends.
There are a couple of subjects that seem to do this to people, immigration is one of them, 9/11 is another. Then there are holocaust deniers and people who seem to - without any kind of prompting - find it in them to be defending the actions of the various strong-arm government components in the United States.
I have no idea if there is something in the water or not but it is very scary to see otherwise intelligent people completely lose it over such objectively simple things. Once dug in the only solution seems to be to dig further and to cut off all input to that might lead to introspection.
I’m sure it’s Twitter, and not the fact I had to go to the airport with an armed escort the last time I visited, or that I had to cancel my most recent trip because they overthrew the government, again.
> I used to encounter them a lot in Sheepshead Bay.
My friend is one but wasn't always like that. He was never critical of Russia or the USA and was pretty quiet until befriending some Russian dude in his apt building during the blackout of hurricane Sandy. Now he frequently criticizes and rants about capitalist USA then sings praise of Russia. We keep telling him to go back but he doesn't. He's unfortunately "that guy" in our group of friends now -_-
> It’s as if someone’s says, since Bangladesh is predominantly muslim, the majority aligns with what the Islamic regime does for ideological reasons and would try to undermine the account of atrocities
That’s true. Bangladeshi people strongly supported amending the constitution to make Islam the official religion. Islamization of the country has accelerated since we left, and now it looks like the Islamist parties will get a seat at the table in a coalition government.
My spouse (Bangladeshi) and I (not) went to a rally in Jackson Heights when the first protests were going on and we were surprised by how pro-Islamist the crowd leaned, from their signs and chants. We jumped on video with my in-laws at one point and they were even like "oh no you guys should leave, these young people are Islamists".
It seems to be true across the Muslim world. My father is from North Africa, and any time we've been back there over the past decades it's very clear a large swath of the youth are embracing the more religious political movements.
I have family around Jackson Heights and one is reposting stuff from Jamaat-e-Islami (the main Islamist party) on FB.
It’s very odd. I saw lots of younger Bangladeshis supporting the overthrow of the Awami League government (the most secular of the parties). I wasn’t sure if it was people who just didn’t realize it would leave a vacuum for Islamists, or or people who wanted that. It seems there’s some of both.
He always told me he didn't support any one party outright but he also told me Pakistan was a great country so I could put two and two together. He also called Prothom Alo communists.
All I can do is throw my anecdotes into the pool: I mostly have met two types of Iranians: Those that fled in the 80's post-revolution, and those that come to the US for university (90's, 00's, and 10's).
All of them have been anti-regime.
I have met a few that came for other reasons (not education and not the 80's stock). Yes, those are either pro-regime or neutral.
My guess is that what rayiner says is correct: The majority of the Iranian diaspora in the US is self selecting and not representative of the full population.
> The majority of the Iranian diaspora in the US is self selecting and not representative of the full population.
My guess as well. As an Iranian outside of Iran, I see that my folk in Iran are way angrier, more disappointed, braver and determined against this injustice than I (we outside) am. It’s common sense.
That’s skipping over more than 100 years of recent history. Iran started transitioning to a democratic form of government with establishment of parliament after constitutional revolution starting from 1905. Twice, foreign super powers meddled and help derail it.
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