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Comment Re:Terrible (Score 5, Interesting) 430

You are looking at this through your own cultural lens. Take a step back and look at in the context of the broader culture and conditions in which these men live. Polygamy and much shorter lifespans for women has created a shortage of marriageable women in Afghanistan. This coupled with severe cultural taboos on pre-marital sex(in the case of Afghanistan, it's not just a taboo, it's illegal) means that for many men, especially those on the lower rungs of the economic ladder, other men are essentially the only way they can have sex.

This is not much different from any other situation where women are rare to non-existant(prison, the front lines of a war etc). In these situations men often engage in what is referred to as "trade", but of course none of them wants to label themselves homosexual because:
a) homosexuality is taboo and/or illegal where they come from and/or
b) they aren't actually gay, they are only engaging in homosexual behavior because that's all they have available to them.

It doesn't surprise me at all that men in Afghanistan are having sex with each other but not declaring themselves to be gay.....

Comment Re: Why? (Score 2) 109

How many people were saying the same thing about the Japanese economy in the late 80s? Answer, almost all of them. Do a google search for China and debt and you will see what I mean. They are also not the "sole manufacturing center for most of the west". Very little value is added in China, and it's manufacturing that can be done elsewhere, and is increasing done elsewhere as China gets more and more expensive, both economically and politically. Crappy hardware trade shows do not an economy make.

Comment Re: Why? (Score 5, Interesting) 109

It's only going to get worse as the chinese economy stagnates. I've been saying this for years, but people are finally starting to realize that China copied the post-war Japanese model right down to the bad loans, today's China is pretty much where Japan was in 1988, barreling towards the cliff. The difference between the 2 countries is the government though. Outside of the economy the CCP has been deeply unpopular for years. However there was little unrest since the economy was booming. However what will happen when growth slows is much more unclear. Hong Kong like protests against the government would probably be the best case. More likely is large scale riots as unemployment coupled with a large # of men being unable to find a wife is a recipe for disaster. The CCP knows they are living on borrowed time and are going to do everything in their power, including perhaps returning to the days of the cultural revolution if it finds it necessary. In the short term expect spying incidents like this to become the norm.

Comment Re:Taxes (Score 1) 123

And Obama and the Democrats made it worse with this FACTA bullshit. Basically as a US citizen abroad, both me and my family have to report stuff to the IRS(bank accounts, investment accounts etc) that I wouldn't have to report to the IRS if I were in the United States. And if you fail to report they will help themselves to your bank account, even if you didn't actually do anything other than forget to file. And it doesn't apply to just individuals, any American with signature authority on a foreign account, be it business or personal, has to report the details of that bank account to the IRS.

And here is the kicker, the whole thing is actually predicted, even by the supporters of the bill, to be revenue negative. Meaning they are SPENDING TAXPAYER MONEY to fuck over Americans living abroad. The sheer stupidity of this bill is staggering. I had up to that point always been a democrat and a supporter of Obama, but this just drove me away from both. I even donated some money to a Republican-led campaign to challenge this incredibly unconstitutional bill in the supreme court. This bill is responsible for an almost exponential increase in the # of Americans getting rid of their citizenship, perhaps most famous among them Tina Turner, who is now a Swiss citizen.

(Un)fortunately, I live in a country that is basically beholden to the US and as a coder I don't expect to be in charge of corporate bank accounts , so it's not a huge deal, but it's just the principal of the thing. More here

Comment How much of a vested interest do they have? (Score 1) 405

How much of a vested interest does Gartner have in this technology? My guess is a lot, it's 2003 all over again. In 2003 Gartner predicted that within the next 10 years over 50% of IT jobs would be sent overseas, and by the way we also happen to have an offshore IT consulting service, what a coincidence, totally unrelated to our over exaggerated findings, really!

Comment Are these issue really female-specific (Score 4, Insightful) 342

Did they try to find men who left the field as a control group? The reasons cited in TFA also applies to a lot of men I know that have left the industry. I would like to know if it really affects women, also whether or not a higher % of women leave the tech industry vs men, esp. if you control for being a parent.

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