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Bill to Eliminate H-1B Visa Program Introduced in Congress

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Re: Bill to Eliminate H-1B Visa Program Introduced in Congress

#91

Post by RealityVoid »

remarkEon wrote: post #69
RealityVoid wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So... Protectionism, right? Stupid me, I thought the US was about competition and boldness, a place where a man can work, be good at what he does and be appreciated for it. But it turns out that for many of you it's about the place you happened to be born.

Yes. The purpose of the United States government is to benefit the people already here . It is not reasonable to assume that Americans should have to compete with the labor pool of the entire planet. >But it turns out that for many of you it's about the place you happened to be born. This meme needs to die. It was not some sort of accident that I was born in this country, it was the consequence of generations of cons…

> Americans should have to compete with the labor pool of the entire planet.

You almost always do, with houw our world is set up. No matter what you believe.

> it was the consequence of generations of conscious decisions and actions.

Oh, yeah, you are worthy, the others aren't. Got it.

> it is perfectly reasonable to want my government to prioritize the needs of me and my compatriots over those of others who are not from here.

They are not, in fact, prioritizing the needs of your compatriots. They would if they cared about making your country more competitive.

But in fact, they are hard at work to alienate your allies, erase your competitive advantages and turn you into a dictatorship.

Good luck, you're going to need it. Don't worry, I know us across the pond are fucked too, but at least we are not throwing away our status as a superpower for the dumbest of reasons.

Re: Bill to Eliminate H-1B Visa Program Introduced in Congress

#92

Post by RealityVoid »

Muromec wrote: post #90
hippo22 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not "normal competition" to be displaced by immigrants in your own country. Allowing that is simply allowing the capitalist class to assault and weaken the labor class.

>It's not "normal competition" to be displaced by immigrants in your own country Is it? It's just free market deciding you are not needed. What's the problem with that? Are you against the free marker or something?

Nah, these are all just taking points to be used when it's convenient, discarded when it's not. You can't expect internal consistency.

Re: Bill to Eliminate H-1B Visa Program Introduced in Congress

#93

Post by 10xDev »

Unfortunately there are consequences for its abuse. Is eliminating it the right consequence? Who really knows but it should have never been abused especially in favour of one particular country that is taking over tech. People talk about brain drain but people do go back home and they are opening more offices back at home.

Re: Bill to Eliminate H-1B Visa Program Introduced in Congress

#94

Post by myk9001 »

Epa095 wrote: post #55
m00dy wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question I think is more interesting is why can't Europe retain talent?

Others has given good reasons, but I think it's hard to overestimate the effect of 'rich gets richer'. Once you have the stronger pool of talent you get the better companies, you get more income, higher salaries and talented people wants to work with talented people. As a young geek I was very attracted to the tech environments in the US, MIT and silicon valley, and other places were not really on my mind. Even thoug…

> Once you have the stronger pool of talent you get the better companies

Don't really have anything to back up what I'm about to say except a gut feeling. But Europe actually has got plenty of talent. European business just doesn't seem to value that or have ideas what to do with it.

Re: Bill to Eliminate H-1B Visa Program Introduced in Congress

#95

Post by ludicrousdispla »

hippo22 wrote: post #63
happytoexplain wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's nuts - but I can only speak with anecdotes. The Americans around me are desperate to pull absolutely any lever that will slow the death of the American dream, and at this point even the "light" version of the dream is dying (work hard, be smart and a little lucky, spend on an education in a strong field, get a family and small property). Stats and experts be damned - that's what desperation is. In the specific c…

It's not "normal competition" to be displaced by immigrants in your own country. Allowing that is simply allowing the capitalist class to assault and weaken the labor class.

And that is why elimination of the H1-B visa program has support from the left.

Re: Bill to Eliminate H-1B Visa Program Introduced in Congress

#96

Post by Muromec »

myk9001 wrote: post #89
jedberg wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Risk taking is more frowned upon in Europe, and it's really hard to start a new business there, because of how employee friendly the laws are. One of the things that makes starting a startup in US so favorable is that you can fire anyone at any time for any or no reason, which means you can easily retool or cut costs. And if you're not looking to start a startup, the huge different in salaries and concentration of ta…

> because of how employee friendly the laws are. Do you have anything specific in mind? Maybe European law if friendlier to employees on avarege. But in tech US companies seem to offer similar if not better conditions. E.g., Amazon is widely considered an employer straight from hell, and yet they offer 3 monthly salaries when letting an engineer go -- that's more than a European employees typically gets. On the other…

3 months is nothing really. Half a year is more the start of negotiation in a comparable place in Europe. That and having a 2 years burnout leave as an option and having trade unions and the regulator to sign off on your layoffs plan in more reputable places.

Add: It's not that layoffs are not a thing, they are a bit more complicated and expensive for a company than getting a list of people and sending mass-email, then blocking all access.

Re: Bill to Eliminate H-1B Visa Program Introduced in Congress

#97

Post by Muromec »

myk9001 wrote: post #86
qingcharles wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you. I've been saying the same thing since forever. In Europe if you say you want to start your own company you get a lot of "why would you do that? why not take a nice government job with a pension?" For all of the USA's myriad flaws, if you say the same thing people will cheer you on. It infuriates the fuck out of me that practically all the success of the Internet era has come out of one single country that…

Majority of innovation comes out of that single country. What's really infuriating is Europe isn't even trying to compete beyond paying some lip service.

It's not really true. There are European startups, they make it big and you heard of them and used their products. The concentration in US is a thing, because that's where the money is.

Re: Bill to Eliminate H-1B Visa Program Introduced in Congress

#98

Post by anal_reactor »

happytoexplain wrote: post #53
RealityVoid wrote: post #43

I would be incredibly curious if the mods could look into the stats of these political threads. I personally feel they are being manipulated at least through the voting system if not through active bot influence campaigns. It might be me being emotional about this and about seeing a country I looked up to becoming what it's becoming, but I just can't comprehend how some of the people in this otherwise great community…

It's nuts - but I can only speak with anecdotes. The Americans around me are desperate to pull absolutely any lever that will slow the death of the American dream, and at this point even the "light" version of the dream is dying (work hard, be smart and a little lucky, spend on an education in a strong field, get a family and small property). Stats and experts be damned - that's what desperation is. In the specific c…

The message "guys, it's really not that smart to let in a huge number of people from a completely different culture, this is going to be a problem" was completely ignored and labeled racist.

Re: Bill to Eliminate H-1B Visa Program Introduced in Congress

#99

Post by ljsprague »

gary_0 wrote: post #20

"Killing the golden goose" is the phrase that has come to mind repeatedly in the past few years. As someone living in a country that has been brain-draining into the US for decades, I'm quite perplexed at all this. It looks like the next Andrej Karpathy (born in Czechoslovakia, educated in Canada) will be taking their talents somewhere besides the US in the future. Maybe they think they can just cherry-pick the geniu…

The question is whether we're a nation or an economic zone.

Re: Bill to Eliminate H-1B Visa Program Introduced in Congress

#100

Post by Muromec »

myk9001 wrote: post #77
RealityVoid wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because of the salaries. They are much higher in the US. Also, the SV bay area has an absurd concentration of talent that you probably can't find anywhere else. Having a head start from anyone else helps. But don't worry, I'm sure that in the current climate Europe will be able to gather and retain talent. I personally would be much more happy to work for lower pay than contributing to the prosperity of such a predat…

> I personally would be much more happy to work for lower pay than contributing to the prosperity of such a predatory country. Even if that pay was so much lower that you'd have to split your rent with flatmates? (yes, European comp is typically that bad, not oveblowing this) Then I admire your principled position, but you're one in a million.

>Even if that pay was so much lower that you'd have to split your rent with flatmates? (yes, European comp is typically that bad, not oveblowing this)

In tech? Not really. Village kids having studies in the city -- sure, when they are too fancy to live in a dormitory. Tech is more like having a mortgage without your partner contributing kind of salary.

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