hairband

I think Amazon is having trouble hiring and retaining talent. Given the horrible covid situation in India, the L1 Visa pipeline must have dried up. And their reputation has taken quite a hit given all the stories about PIP and the political/toxic culture, so no experienced engineers wants to go join a place like that. I guess, this is them panicking.

While the above may have been a joke, its not a secret that work life harmony and culture are perhaps the worst aspects of Amazon (talking of the corporate side of course, not including warehouses)

If I read the disable FAQ correctly, then even if you disable it, the bridge would still work. So your device would still contribute to the network, you just won't be a part of it.

Given that, I am not sure if its any use to disable sidewalk, since your network is still being shared.

The disable FAQ:

> If I disable Amazon Sidewalk, will my Sidewalk Bridges still work? Yes. All of your Sidewalk Bridges will continue to have their original functionality even if you decide to disable Amazon Sidewalk. However, disabling means missing out on Sidewalk’s connectivity and location related benefits. You also will no longer contribute your internet bandwidth to support community extended coverage benefits such as locating pets and valuables with Sidewalk-enabled devices.

There are 3 parties involved here: Driver, Amazon, and Customer. Your comment makes it sound like either the driver should compromise and pee in bottles, or the customer should compromise and accept late deliveries. Why can't Amazon compromise, and hire more delivery drivers?

Not sure if you know, but there are 'Upper Castes' that eat Non-Vegetarian food. Asking someone if they are vegetarian or not, just to ascertain their caste would be a dumb thing to do, especially when you can know someone's caste from their last name (and maybe some googling on top, if you really really wanted to know their caste)

> I thought that was weird, and then started googling their last names and caste systems in India on a hunch.

You saw people asking for opinions from a senior member and your first thought was casteism? How does one even make that leap?

To me this is all political. With the election coming up, its in Trump's interest to look tough on immigrants. H1Bs are easy targets, they don't have any political rights, and a large number of them will likely never have those rights.

You can't target family based immigrants because their families might already have been naturalized and have voting powers. The family GC recipients would also eventually get naturalized, and you don't want to upset potential voter base (however, tiny it might be).

> There has been no meaningful legislation changes to H-1B program in over two decades and I don’t think that there is political capital to make those changes .

This makes it even better. You get to throw punches which makes you look tough, but also doesn't really hurt the other side. Sort of win-win. Although I do think the other side in this is the H1B sponsoring employers and not the folks actually on H1B.

> Yeah alternate app stores exist but when something like this is driven from a nation stare, the Indian govt will most likely mandate inclusion of their AppStore on Android and iOS. Once it is loaded on by default, you suddenly gain 800 million strong distribution channel. It would be a no-brainer for devs to put their app on the strore.

What is the problem with this? If the device manufacturers don't want to preload the Indian Appstore then they can prevent sale of their devices in India. If they agree, and this is limited to India only, then what is the problem?

I understand the mental stress of having people after you all the time, but that doesn't mean that all the people are after you all the time. In this case they may have extended a genuine invitation. And given the historic context, it may have led to him feel like it was a casteist action, that doesn't make his colleagues casteist.

I am sure you didn't intend for it to be this way but your comment is very arrogant. It seems you are coming from privilege and haven't really interacted with the real world yet. Perhaps you are still in college/ have only had high paying jobs like software engineering. Most people are not looking for high-risk jobs, they want a stable source of income that can enable them to provide a stable living for their family. This is especially true for people in countries like India. There is nothing boring or backwards about that. Especially not to someone who is not privileged.

And please do elaborate on why/how a career in medicine boring?

Thats what I am having trouble understanding. how does he know? Unless you take into account the context of them being Indian and his experience in India, they won't be able to tell whether its to figure out his caste, or just to have fun.

Thats what I am trying to say. You can never be sure, and it is only when you attach the context of them being Indian and his experience in India as a "lower caste" person that you arrive at this conclusion that the invitation must be extended to figure out his caste.

And that makes it a very bad anecdote for an article like that, and in general weakens the point the article is trying to make.

Quoting from the article:

> Years ago, these invitations to go swimming with American friends and neighbors were a sign of acceptance. But now the same invitations for his fellow Indians felt like a trap to out him as a Dalit.

Not trying to defend casteism or anything, and Maybe I understood it wrong, but this makes it seem like if Indian guys are inviting him for swim then it must be ascertain his caste, but if Americans do it then its a sign of friendship. This makes it seem like its more in his head.