Too often I see Americans taking xenophobic or anti-foreigner positions. Some of these people may in fact be racist and my blog post really isn't to address or communicate with the demographic of Americans who are racist. If you believe in any sort of racial superiority or adopt a racial identity then this blog post certainly is not for you. If on the other hand you have xenophobia due to perhaps legitimate concerns based on statistics whether it be perceptions of criminality, or cultural incompatibility, this blog post will attempt to address what in my opinion is the correct perspective when determining how to treat foreigners.
When you interact with a foreigner who does not speak good English it is very important to understand that when you travel outside your home country you'll get to be that foreigner. If you've never traveled outside your home country then you probably have no idea how big the world really is and that in some parts of the world you'll be the one who stands out. When foreigners visit or immigrate to the United States it is critical to treat them with the best behavior. Think of the foreigner as the most important guest person in the room.
Why the foreigner is the most important guest in the room
The reason to think of the foreigner as the most important guest in the room is because if you love your country or simply care about how people from your country are perceived then you'll want to treat any foreigner as you would treat a representative of that country. This means if someone visits your home and this person is from China then it is a good idea not just to think about how this person might perceive of you but how your actions toward this person could impact how China perceives of America or of the demographic of American which you're closely associated with. If you mistreat the foreigner then that foreigner will communicate back to their homeland in their language how the nasty xenophobic American treated them. This could even potentially impact international relations between the United States and China.
How not to be perceived as racist
In order to not be perceived as racist on the world level it is important to treat all foreigners with exactly the same respect. This is not likely going to be realistic for an individual to do but a company must do this. Foreigners or foreign travelers who are visiting the US or who shop in your store must be treated exactly the same no matter what country they came from. There are legal exceptions to this if there are sanctions but in the case where there are no sanctions the idea is to treat all customers with equal respect.
When people from other nations see that your store is giving special treatment to certain foreigners for certain reasons this is really going to disrupt relations. To be perceived as racist is not necessarily to be deliberately racist so the idea here is to avoid negatively stereotyping foreigners.
If the foreigner is Muslim and speaks Arabic they are an equal customer to the foreigner who speaks English. Their money is just as good, their contracts are just as good until proven otherwise.
World level vs local level
To operate on the world level requires considering the impact of international relations on your objectives. For example:
This is an example where the perspective is world wide. This is actually a good perspective. He highlights the problem but he does not offer the solution in my opinion. The solution ultimately is we must connect developing countries so that these countries cna unlock their wealth building potential. What developing counries need is access and blockchain technology in my opinion is the great equalizer when it comes to providing access. That being said, the "company" model is really just a legal construct and this legal construct can be implemented anywhere. FinTech companies in my opinion can bring banking to developing countries provided the technological base is available for them to build from. That technological base is hyper connectivity and smart phone tech.
World level requires thinking about how what you are developing will impact the entire world (not just the United States citizen). Most of this world and it's 7+ billion people are not US citizens. In fact, the average person in this world is an Asian. This means blockchain technology and all that we are building is primarily going to impact the lives of people in Asia, in Africa, in South and Central America, because that is where the demand is going to come from. It's not just a matter of banked vs unbanked but the complete lack of financial instruments, complete lack of ability to track who owns what, too much corruption is one of the big problems in some African countries and blockchain technology may help to solve that.
Local level thinking often does not consider the true state of humanity. Often the developers even do not have enough experience and may never have even left their home country. International or world level developers have left their home country and do have on their team people who can at least reveal to them the potential impact of their design decisions to different demographics of potential users around the world.
As blockchain and crypto develops into real world use cases it has to be developed for the demographic of potential users who will want it. For this reason it is important to actually know about different cultures, different living experiences, and what people in different parts of the world want or need. The needs of a person living in a village will be very different from the needs of a person living in a big city. The mindset of a person living in an Asian city will be very different from the mindset of a person living in New York or London or Moscow. Only by listening to foreigners and by being the foreigner can we learn what tools the "global foreigner" will need.
For sake of clarity the phrase global foreigner means any one of us who is in the position of foreigner in any country anywhere on earth. It is the case that if we leave our home country then we become the foreigner and what tools might we need to thrive from that position? This could be the person who leaves and renounces citizenship completely or it could be the person who simply takes a job overseas. The tool should be useful to anyone in the position of foreigner if is to be "foreigner friendly".
Reciprocity matters
The why be nice to foreigners is simply because by doing that it encourages foreigners to be nice back. It is also a matter of abstraction. Foreigner if we think of it like a position which anyone could find themselves in at any point in time then it becomes be nice to the foreigner position. So in the abstract, to accommodate the foreigner position is to promote reciprocity. If all people were nice to foreigners then it improves life for anyone who happens to ever be in the foreigner position. Refugees, asylum seekers, renouncers of citizenship, expatriates, all have unique challenges to face and at the same time we can learn from these people quite a bit.
- Walls only create more boarders and reduce the flow of people, goods, and information.
- Being mean to foreigners only encourages animosity when or if you or anyone you know ever travels outside your home country to experience being foreign.
- Developers need to listen more to foreign perspectives or the international perspective when designing certain technologies. Too often the technology is designed by the local geeks for the local geeks and that is a problem.