Cookies and affirmative action

Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Yesterday I heard a very strange analogy. There is some political unrest right now in northern India, and it seems as though the cause of the unrest boils down to a certain class of citizens that want to be included into the country's version of affirmative action. The affirmative action system was established when the country was founded in order to end the caste system, and was originally intended to be ended 10 years.

This discussion happened a few minutes after we were talking about how Intel acquired a group of people in India who were used to free cookies, and the near revolt they had on their hands when they tried (unsuccessfully) to end the perk. They got there eventually, but not before having to end the lease on the building.

On explaining the current events, the comment was made that it's actually pretty similar to the cookie situation...once you give people something, they want more, and don't dare take it away...

PS: I couldn't find a good reference point for this URL, but I thought it might be interesting for my reader(s) to have more background on the caste system in India.

Emil's Wicked Cool Blog