Study: Immigrants Founded 51% of U.S. Billion-Dollar Startups • Hacker News Board

Re: Study: Immigrants Founded 51% of U.S. Billion-Dollar Startups

#291

Post by deegles » Mon, Mar 13, 2017, 5:37 PM UTC

oh_sigh wrote: post #127

muninn_ wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I mean, the problem is that we can't afford to "let them all in", so how do you decide who to let in? An immigration policy that is held be numerous other countries that favors skilled immigrants seems to be reasonable. On the other hand, brain drain. How will those countries continue to get better and enjoy a modern standard of living if all the smart people leave?

Perhaps nations will be incentivized to fix the underlying causes of their brain drain if they perceive it as a big problem.

Aren't the "brains" the ones most suited to fix those problems in the first place?

Re: Study: Immigrants Founded 51% of U.S. Billion-Dollar Startups

#292

Post by coldtea » Mon, Mar 13, 2017, 5:37 PM UTC

cromwellian wrote: post #157

muninn_ wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What the book was actually about was the worry that the France was losing its national identity, the framework upon which it was built was Christianity. They want to preserve that identity. I don't think it's about skin color, but about shared cultural values that they found to be appealing and necessary. As it happens, white people were those people. You could easily reverse those roles with any other skin color. Th…

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"

>Yes, tribalism is human nature, and we have done very many ugly things to one another because of it.

We have also done as many ugly things to one another in order to build cross-national entities, like empires and communist-based internationalist mega-states.

>I don't think we should sweep racism and xenophobia under the rug with the argument that "boys will be boys"

Well, first let's not call the desire to maintain one's national identity "xenophobia", the same way wanting to have your own house and family, and live as you like there, and accept whoever you like, is not "strangerophobia".

Re: Study: Immigrants Founded 51% of U.S. Billion-Dollar Startups

#293

Post by ctdonath » Mon, Mar 13, 2017, 5:38 PM UTC

dopamean wrote: post #240

ctdonath wrote: post #227

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.

I have yet to see anyone prove how even illegal immigrants are a detriment to our country. Also, xenophobia is xenophobia. Let's say we actually got rid of all illegal immigrants. You really think the debate about immigration would end there?

Yes.

ETA: I married an immigrant. Stop the imputation of "xenophobia".

Re: Study: Immigrants Founded 51% of U.S. Billion-Dollar Startups

#294

Post by tristor » Mon, Mar 13, 2017, 5:38 PM UTC

akhilcacharya wrote: post #171

the_absurdist wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another insidious equivalence of equating immigration policy geared towards unskilled, illegal immigrants with immigration policy in general. Let the downvotes begin.

It's pretty clear that actual immigrants seem to equate them pretty well. It's why Asian-Americans went from being part of the Republican base to overwhelmingly voting Democratic.

I'm pretty sure that has more to do with Trump making veiled mentions of building internment camps again. People who have either lived through that or know someone who has rightly share a "never again" attitude. Clearly Trump's campaign had no interest in even remotely cultivating the Jewish or Asian vote.

Re: Study: Immigrants Founded 51% of U.S. Billion-Dollar Startups

#295

Post by nilkn » Mon, Mar 13, 2017, 5:39 PM UTC

xapata wrote: post #244

nilkn wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why would he not finish his thought to clarify that Americans are not as entrepreneurial as Asians? That seems like an easy thing to say if that's what he meant.

It's possible he didn't think it needed clarification. This discussion took place within effectively a far-right echo chamber where everyone was already more or less on the same page. It's also possible he didn't even feel very strongly about this point to begin with and decided he didn't like it before even finishing his sentence. It's really impossible to say. During live, unscripted discussions it's very common for someone to begin a thought, decide they don't even personally like it while in the midst of saying it, and then cut themselves off.

Re: Study: Immigrants Founded 51% of U.S. Billion-Dollar Startups

#296

Post by freehunter » Mon, Mar 13, 2017, 5:40 PM UTC

protomyth wrote: post #183

freehunter wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alright settle down there. Racism exists enough that you don't have to go looking for it. It's a fact that in many places, Native Americans are the only people allowed to own casinos, so it's an entirely accurate statement. Likewise, there's no law saying Native Americans can't own other businesses, so the only businesses that are reliably exclusive to Native Americans are casinos. I don't think that comment implied…

"Alright settle down there. Racism exists enough that you don't have to go looking for it. It's a fact that in many places, Native Americans are the only people allowed to own casinos, so it's an entirely accurate statement. Likewise, there's no law saying Native Americans can't own other businesses, so the only businesses that are reliably exclusive to Native Americans are casinos." Las Vegas and Atlantic City might…

Point to any business type that has state of federal laws saying "Native Americans are not allowed to own this kind of business" or even "only white people are allowed to own this business". Can you name 10? How about 5? How about just one?

On the other hand, I can name one where the vast majority of business are only allowed by law to be owned by native americans. Yes, LV and AC have a lot of casinos, but I can count hundreds of them in my state alone, and they're exclusively Native American owned because that's what the law allows.

Point is, "casinos are the only business that can be exclusive to Native Americans" is a true statement, and calling that racist is not only offensive, but is a statement made in really (really really) poor taste. Because racism exists, and that comment isn't it.

It's not racism. Under the law, many locations restrict casino ownership to Native Americans. Fact. It's not racist to point it out. So yeah, settle it down. Let's reserve the cry for racism to places where it actually exists. Falsely calling someone a racist is far more rude than anything I've ever said.

Re: Study: Immigrants Founded 51% of U.S. Billion-Dollar Startups

#297

Post by xapata » Mon, Mar 13, 2017, 5:40 PM UTC

refurb wrote: post #266

xapata wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Knowing that explicit white nationalism could be problematic, a white nationalist might speak in code. This is similar to the way someone might speak in code when discussing criminal activity, since it's illegal to surveil non-criminal discussion. The question in court is whether a reasonable person would interpret a conversation as normal speech or criminal code. "The eagle flies at midnight," is obvious code. Other…

Knowing that explicit white nationalism could be problematic, a white nationalist must speak in code. You have got to be kidding me. Ok, let me play along. Xapata is clearly a white nationalist! How do I know it? He doesn't speak in white nationalist terms! Those white nationalists need to speak in code, so the evidence is clear!

Not kidding at all. Was my comparison with drug-speak not clear? Let me try again.

Suppose I'm a nice girl. A guy just asked me if I was free to go to dinner tonight. I don't want to offend, so I say, "I'm sorry, I'm washing my hair tonight." The guy now has a conundrum. He can interpret the statement literally and ask if I'm free for dinner tomorrow night, or he can interpret it as that I do not want to eat dinner with him. Humans speak in codes and implications regularly.

In Bannon's case, we must decide what interpretation of his thought is the most plausible cause of his speech. I can come up with two options:

1. Bannon believes there's something hindering the ethnic and cultural majority from technological entrepreneurialism and we should address that problem.

2. Bannon believes the number of ethnic minorities achieving economic success will decrease the prevalence of the historically common culture. Being of that culture, he dislikes this trend.

Are there any other interpretations? What's the most plausible to you?

Re: Study: Immigrants Founded 51% of U.S. Billion-Dollar Startups

#298

Post by greenshackle2 » Mon, Mar 13, 2017, 5:40 PM UTC

zo1 wrote: post #212

greenshackle2 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you can somehow influence the ratio of "useful" vs "not-useful" immigrants. I'm sure it's possible to do it, if you take a narrow enough view of 'usefulness', e.g. 'usefulness' = measurable economic productivity. You can screen out people with expensive preexisting medical conditions, people who cannot work, etc., and that will obviously raise the average productivity of immigrants. But it's immoral. Rich host coun…

>" The fair thing to do would be to accept a random sample of would-be immigrants. " All points aside, isn't that exactly what the US is doing with the Green Card lottery system? It's entire mandate is to "increase immigrant diversity", by giving countries with low immigration to the US preferential counts towards the lottery. >" But it's immoral. Rich host countries are poaching productive individuals while selectin…

> You know what is actually immoral? Forcing individuals that want to make a better life for their children, into staying in a country that "needs help" and they want to get out of.

But that's also true of would be migrants who are most in need of help. In either case you are 'forcing' someone to stay in their home country. The question is, if you don't have an open border policy, which of the would be migrants will you "force" to stay in a rotten country? The sick, elderly, under-educated, or the able-bodied, educated, rich, etc.

> Let people leave and go where they want

Yes absolutely.

> if you want to prevent people from coming into your area, well then let the majority current residents decide.

The controversial question is what constitutes 'your area'. Depending on who you asks it's anywhere from your neighborhood to the entire Earth. Depending on your take on that you could conclude that you have a legitimate right to kick people out of your street or that we should adopt an open border policy worldwide.

Re: Study: Immigrants Founded 51% of U.S. Billion-Dollar Startups

#299

Post by rdl » Mon, Mar 13, 2017, 5:40 PM UTC

xbmcuser wrote: post #241

rdl wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't do effective overstay tracking.

For effective tracking you will need a national Id card for us nationals. That is something many different groups in the US are against for different reasons. Such an id could solve a lot of other problems and of course will create its own problems. But I think the net benefit outweighs the loss.

You could also potentially do it by retaining positive tracking of non-permanent visitors and then going after them as soon as status becomes disallowed. It would be challenging to locate someone in a disallowed visa status on transition without a national ID card, but there are probably ways.

One option might be to enroll them on entry with lots of biometrics, and then do a "not on blacklist" biometric check at government-provided services. That wouldn't necessarily require identifying the US people, just validating that the US people are not the other non-US people.

Re: Study: Immigrants Founded 51% of U.S. Billion-Dollar Startups

#300

Post by qdog » Mon, Mar 13, 2017, 5:40 PM UTC

bayesian_horse wrote: post #32

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.

Yes,all the immigrants I know are hard-working people, more so on average than people born and raised here. "Are you willing to go through the current immigration process?" Seems to do a pretty good job of selecting productive individuals already.

As an aside, this is probably my last post on HN, reading the xenophobic and likely astro-turfed replies to this and other threads has really reduced the value of HN comments to me. Seems to be as an increasing problem in all online venues :(