241–250 of 701 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
We have a solid border control regime, so we need to move straight to a rational immigration/visa system.
We don't do effective overstay tracking.
The same HN readership who believes this narrative also gets on board with the idea that we need immigrants in order to innovate.
If the latter is true it very much supports my claim that opportunity in the US has never been greater and that the rich are not keeping anyone from reaching for the stars.
It also supports the idea that rising inequality has nothing to do with the rich doing things the rich do but rather a complex set of factors, ranging from education to lack of drive and motivation. Some choose to blame others (the rich) for their ailments instead of going after root causes. The latter is far more difficult and time consuming.
Immigrants arrive at our shores devoid of these pre-conditions. Why, then, is it that they excel and thrive? Simple: Drive, motivation, dedication, commitment, grit and lack of victim mentality.
This should come as no surprise to anyone who understands subjects such as competitive sports. Often the difference between athletes of similar physical capabilities is in their minds far more than anything else. Same characteristics I listed above: Drive, motivation, dedication, commitment and grit.
A few months ago I could not dead-lift 325 lbs when just a few days earlier I had done 320. I could not get the damn thing off the ground. My trainer looked at me and said: "Dude, it's all in your head. Take five minutes and think about that". Minutes later I completed my set as if nothing had happened.
If it is true that we need to "import" innovators and entrepreneurs this is a sign that our approach to education (and other areas) need a serious pivot. With over 300 million people this country should not need to import entrepreneurs or well qualified candidates. Tech companies would not be crying for qualified people if our educational system was doing a good job.
How many high school kids graduate with a solid understanding of how business, money and finances work? Virtually none.
Our kids graduate with, for the most part, a binary view of the world ahead: Enlist in the military or be a good employee for life. The vast majority of them have trouble calculating a tip at a restaurant and couldn't tell you what simple interest is if their life depended on it. They know more about Kim Kardashian than they do about business, finance, investment and career building.
How can this be good for the US?
And we blame the rich for a gap in equality? How about we stop living in fantasy and address real problems?
Interestingly enough, another thread on HN today [2] echoes some of the issues with education as it pertains to opportunity. A quote I like from the current top comment:
"At the same time, we have a public school system that after 18 years with a child...has not actually prepared them to get a job. That's borderline criminal IMHO."
Clearly some understand the realities of where we are failing while others prefer the simpler path of blaming others for all problems.
For the eleventy-millionth time: Most of those accused of being "anti-immigrant" aren't against immigrants, but are against illegal immigrants. There must be an orderly process to entry, primarily to prevent criminals & diseases, and also to keep the numbers assimilate-able. The headline alone seems designed to invoke consternation where none existed, or to construe a common position as anti-immigrant which isn't.
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> outrageous ... irrelevant The citation seems quite clear to me. Perhaps I'm missing something. Was Bannon not complaining about the number of ethnic minorities?
A generous interpretation of Bannon would be that he simply wants to see more domestic workers founding successful tech companies. He might see these statistics not as a reason to get rid of ethnic minorities, but rather as a sign that something about American culture is discouraging Americans from entrepreneurism.
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It wouldn't be hard to have an immigration system which is biased toward useful vs. not useful. The question is: where do you want to have the cutoff? I'm in favor of a solid border control regime (i.e. "build the wall"), combined with a transparent and straightforward points-based system for mainly immigrant visas. I'd eliminate the inherent racism in the current system (penalizing India and China vs. Equatorial Gui…
> I'm in favor of a solid border control regime (i.e. "build the wall") Walls going up are days of sadness. Walls broken down are days of joy. The thing to keep in mind here is that such walls built to keep others out can be used just as easily to keep the locals in (on either side).
Depends. Whenever people put up the walls for their house (which serve the same purpose) those are days of joy too.
Same for nations that fought hard to establish their borders and sovereignty.
And fewer national borders is not some "wave of the future" -- it's what was tried and rejected when nation states became a thing.
We had large, all-encompassing empires before and it wasn't that nice...
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Apart from the idea of sorting people into useful and useless being inhumane, it also seems to be counterproductive. Universities do it.
universities have limited classrooms and labs to fill. A country is not limited.
One of the basic premises of anti-immigrant policies is that you can somehow influence the ratio of "useful" vs "not-useful" immigrants. Apart from the idea of sorting people into useful and useless being inhumane, it also seems to be counterproductive. It looks like every kind of screening of immigrants will deter the more desirable ones, as far as that determination is possible on their arrival at all.
Wonder how many birthright US citizens who support this "useful/not-useful" immigration filter would pass if it were applied to themselves.
Whenever I see "Immigration" in the title, i think anti-Trump and get sad. No one is trying to stop legal immigration. Tech companies are mad because they are cracking down on H1-B Visa abuse. This is not a bad thing.
Really? Than why so many leaked memos show that Bannon and Miller want to reduce family Visas for those already legally here? Why is Bannon and Miller's favorite novel a racist French book about Europe becoming less white? Why when Bannon was interviewed on radio he said he wanted to bring the numbers on legal immigration way down? You're fooling yourself if you think this is just about undocumented Mexicans, Muslims…
1: http://www.npr.org/2017/03/13/519662321/in-their-search-for-...
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Yes, tribalism is human nature, and we have done very many ugly things to one another because of it. Much of modern advancement in civil liberties and human rights have come about because of the recognition that human nature is flawed and we need to act to fight our worse instincts. I don't think we should sweep racism and xenophobia under the rug with the argument that "boys will be boys"
What is racist about not wanting things to change? This is a totally separate issue from racism. Calling it "boys will be boys" or "girls will be girls" is a gross oversimplification.
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It also heavily depends on the definition of "immigrant". Uber is listed, for example. The two founders of Uber are Travis Kalanick (born in Los Angeles, not an immigrant) and Garrett Camp (born in Canada, resides in San Fransisco). Is Garrett Camp an immigrant? Sure sounds like it. But is that really in the spirit of "founded by immigrants"? I am not arguing in favor of an immigrant ban in any way, I think it's a ba…
You think immigrants smart enough to co-found a billion dollar startup want to come to a country that hates the idea of immigration so much they want to build a wall they know won't work?
At least from a cultural perspective for the majority of legal immigrants I'm sure day-to-day life isn't much different than before the wall plan. There are still more than enough good people in the US. Especially in urban areas where most immigrants end up.
As someone who has applied for an American Visa, my main concern would be more about the available Visas suddenly changing after I've established a life there. The process is quite complicated and stressful, and the T1 visa was the most common one for my type of work. For T1 you had to get it renewed each year.
That was a concern even in a pre-Trump US. The immigration policies there definitely need some work. And have for a long time. I was happy to see Trump saying he was looking at Canada's immigration policy (where I'm from) as a good example.
It will always be stressful for legal immigrants when the immigration policies are currently in political flux.