[HN Gopher] Why most Hacktoberfest PRs are from India
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Why most Hacktoberfest PRs are from India
Author : pulkitsh1234
Score : 67 points
Date : 2020-10-02 22:04 UTC (56 minutes ago)
(HTM) web link (pulkitsharma07.github.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (pulkitsharma07.github.io)
| paxys wrote:
| This is all a very long winded way to say "a popular YouTuber
| asked teenagers to do something and they did it". Take out all
| the cultural aspects of it, and an Instagram/TikTok/Twitch
| influencer doing this here in the USA would have the exact same
| result, so I'm not sure I buy all the later reasoning.
| google234123 wrote:
| Yeah, all cultures are the exact same. Very appropriate
| dismissal.
| dewey wrote:
| Wasn't this the same problem in all the previous
| Hacktoberfests?
| pvtmert wrote:
| was not that popular (first one being in 2016)
| phoe-krk wrote:
| > This is all a very long winded way to say "a popular YouTuber
| asked teenagers to do something and they did it".
|
| You have completely skipped the _why_. The answer in the
| article is so much more nuanced and complicated than "because
| a popular YouTuber asked them to do that".
| captain_price7 wrote:
| I disagree. I think the key point was that most Indians don't
| even know what they're doing is immoral. And the post spends
| majority of its space explaining why this problem is kind of
| unique to India.
| scrollaway wrote:
| Either you haven't read the article, or you stopped after the
| first couple of paragraphs, or you misread it altogether. I
| don't think you're qualified to give a TLDR.
| aplummer wrote:
| It's interesting comparing this to Australia / NZs cultural
| career issue, "tall poppy syndrome" [1].
|
| People really need to be coached to even say a personal
| achievement let alone sell it when apply for jobs.
|
| 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tall_poppy_syndrome
| kelnos wrote:
| > _Somehow Indian parents will become self sufficient, so that
| children are free to do and discover what they actually want._
|
| This bit near the bottom (under "improbable futures") really
| struck me as necessary, and not just an Indian problem. The
| pressure to be generally successful and support their immediate
| family is hard enough on anyone, but adding onto that the
| pressure to be able to care for your parents when they're old is
| even worse.
|
| I'm not saying people shouldn't care for their parents, or that
| people shouldn't live in multi-generational households, but
| humanity really needs to figure out how to care for our older
| members without requiring huge sacrifices from their children.
| Some countries have mostly figured this out with strong social
| safety nets, but many... have not. And beyond that, we shouldn't
| have to rely on a social safety net. Increasing income inequality
| makes it harder and harder for people to build enough wealth
| during their lives so they can retire comfortable, or even at
| all.
| ssivark wrote:
| I'll duplicate a comment I made on another thread today.
|
| This has less to do with India, and more about what happens when
| there's no prior _culture of open source_ , to balance against
| the willingness to "hustle". The fact that a lot of these PRs
| might originate in India is only relevant insofar as there are a
| lot of people willing to hustle, and don't have much open source
| experience to understand the culture and the role played by
| maintainers. Chances are that they are oblivious to what happens
| on the other side of the table, and open source projects are
| abstract entities (which might as well be run by Github, or some
| other bureaucracy!) A useful reminder that the celebrated
| "hustle" is susceptible to the unintended consequences of
| Goodhart's law.
|
| If this was Sean Parker with Napster or Zuck with early Facebook,
| we'd be celebrating it.
|
| For all those who advocate for growth hacking techniques, or
| annoying ads, this is exactly how scummy most such techniques /
| dark patterns feel to users. I don't think that is geographically
| localized in any way.
|
| As for comments trying to characterize "Indian culture", it's
| _really complicated_! With a population of ~1.4B people, you'll
| easily get a LOT of examples for _any_ kind of behavior
| (including polar opposites).
| pvtmert wrote:
| tl;dr because of population, people step on each other to feel
| 'successful' and get approved by their family/peers.
|
| unfortunately this happens in many places if not all. (eg same
| cr*p applies here in Turkey, if you're male and not a doctor or
| engineer or government employee, basically seen as failure)
|
| it is apperantly much more visible/causing problem because of
| lack of resources, strict cultural values as well as driven by
| high population
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