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Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

paulgraham.com

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Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#551

Post by kenjackson »

dang wrote: post #327

All: much of this thread is of low quality, below the standard that Hacker News discussion should adhere to, because it doesn't engage with what pg's essay actually says. It merely uses it as a trigger point for passions about other things, like H1Bs and Infosys. In other words it goes on a generic tangent, and generic tangents are the vectors we most need to avoid if we want discussions that are substantive instead…

Judged on its merits, it is one of PGs poorer essays. And if written by nearly anyone else would have not made the front page or any comments. That there has been discussion on it all has been charitable.

With higher quality content you will see higher quality discussion. I do hope the lack of charity has shown Paul that his thinking, as demonstrated by his writing, on this topic is muddled.

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#552

Post by jqm »

silverlake wrote: post #525

There are a number of problems with this argument. (1) Great programmers are not evenly distributed around the world because most places lack good educational systems. It makes sense that most are in 1st world countries. (2) Big companies have offices in India, China and elsewhere. Immigration policy does not prevent Google from hiring every great programmer on the planet. What's their complaint? (3) Do many companie…

"Desperate" but won't hire anyone over 35 or who doesn't look like they "fit in", regardless of ability....

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#553

Post by droopyEyelids »

canes123456 wrote: post #420
don_draper wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"the idea of pg lobbying to flood the market with cheap programming labor is not only demonstrably wrong" He wants the top programmers in the world to be able to come to the USA. But my suspicion is he has very little concern for your above average, but not great, USA born programmer whose wages are threatened by corporations that exploit and abuse the H1B Visa program.

As an above average, but not great, USA born programmer, I say bring as many programmers as possible to the USA. Great one create can help create the new Google, Uber, etc which than create more jobs. More above average makes software companies more effective over all. There are a ton of horrible "programmers" that are net negatives that bring down the average for a whole IT department.

I don't know if you're making a tongue in cheek argument or not, but currently an enormous portion of the tech immigrants come to America to work as cogs in consulting companies or MegaCorporations.

And there isn't any precise way to pick the people who are going to start the next Google- except for the people who already run successful businesses and therefore have the money and influence to emigrate if they wanted to anyway.

So yes, it'd be cool to have all the Job Creators come to America so we could work in their companies, but I see no evidence that would happen.

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#554

Post by davidw »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #490
Iftheshoefits wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best, strongest interpretation of PG's essay merits far less charity than even exists in this thread. There is barely anything of substance in the whole piece, and the parts that are substantive are just so far out of line with the empirical data we have regarding this issue as to be baffling coming from somebody with the cache of PG. If I were not being "charitable" I'd use words like "peurile," "ignorant," "tra…

so far out of line with the empirical data we have regarding this issue What is that empirical data? I'm curious, not being snide.

> What is that empirical data? I'm curious, not being snide.

Nearly everything I've read indicates that immigration doesn't really hurt wages, except perhaps those of recent immigrants.

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#555

Post by droopyEyelids »

jedberg wrote: post #500
anemitz wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So how do we implement this as policy? What we can't do is just say anyone can immigrate. We need to find ways to make it easy for exceptional people to live and work here but make it difficult (sliding scale to impossible) for everyone else. One random idea I was thinking about was regional, industry specific visa committees that would review each application to ensure that we are able to more accurately identify ex…

Allow anyone to immigrate, require they be paid an equal wage as a citizen of similar skill (hard to enforce I know), and then charge the employer a tax on the wage (10%?). This would force employers in any industry to only take people who are at least 10% more valuable to the company. You can change the tax appropriately to get the desired result.

If this was actually the policy fwd.us and PG and the rest of the crew were lobbying for, I think it'd set the world on fire.

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#556

Post by gaius »

1971genocide wrote: post #387
gaius wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

every tech worker's salary will drop significantly if the United States allowed more open immigration laws. But think about this - what would have happened if elon musk, vinod khosla,Sundar Pichai See, this is just crazy. Why would you or I or anyone want to make ourselves materially worse off, so some guys we've never met, and who couldn't care less about us, can become richer than the dreams of avarice? Politicians…

The thing you are suggesting leads to a frighting conclusion. Are you saying that you are against people like elon musk from doing what he does ? He wasn't born into wealth and was middle class just like you and me but was just too damn smart. The free market rewarded him for his smartness and we are all better off because of it. Yes he became really rich but the net sum of wealth he provided in return has made every…

The thing you are suggesting leads to a frighting conclusion. Are you saying that you are against people like elon musk from doing what he does ? He wasn't born into wealth and was middle class just like you and me but was just too damn smart. The free market rewarded him for his smartness and we are all better off because of

"Hey I've invented a self-driving electric car, which you can't buy because I've halved your salary, lol" isn't a deal that works for me.

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#557

Post by dang »

aceperry wrote: post #514
dang wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But my suspicion is The principle of charity would ask you to suspend that suspicion in the absence of clear evidence for it (in which case it would be more than a suspicion).

Hey dang, maybe you should write a critique of pg's post, and how it fails in so many ways with the principle of charity. Just to give this discussion more balance since you've been criticizing other people's responses.

That seems to miss my point, which is not about immigration, but about the quality of discussion on Hacker News.

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#558

Post by gaius »

OmarIsmail wrote: post #421
gaius wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

40+ y/o programmers first started learning programming 20+ years ago when programming was more low level in general. Furthermore their skills were honed on broken processes and outdated technology When you have been around technology for a little while you will see that the changes over time are superficial. There's actually not much you can do with a fancy Angular app now, that you couldn't do with an IBM 3270 termi…

Fundamentally programming is all the same: it's pushing around some 1s and 0s. But you'd have to be crazy to think the people in this industry haven't been standing on each other's shoulders and constantly refining existing ideas and developing new ones. If anything, the pace of innovation has been accelerating. This kind of "I've been coding banking systems that have been around for 20 years what do you know you lit…

Not really, it's the voice of experience. For example, I did Versant in the 90s, and the reasons we ripped it out and went back to Oracle, still apply when someone says "let's use MongoDB!". But too many people in the industry lose out if we stop reinventing the wheel and start REAL innovation.

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#560

Post by dang »

kenjackson wrote: post #551
dang wrote: post #327

All: much of this thread is of low quality, below the standard that Hacker News discussion should adhere to, because it doesn't engage with what pg's essay actually says. It merely uses it as a trigger point for passions about other things, like H1Bs and Infosys. In other words it goes on a generic tangent, and generic tangents are the vectors we most need to avoid if we want discussions that are substantive instead…

Judged on its merits, it is one of PGs poorer essays. And if written by nearly anyone else would have not made the front page or any comments. That there has been discussion on it all has been charitable. With higher quality content you will see higher quality discussion. I do hope the lack of charity has shown Paul that his thinking, as demonstrated by his writing, on this topic is muddled.

> That there has been discussion on it all has been charitable.

Your use of the word "charitable" is different from what the principle of charity is about. I'm concerned with the latter. One good thing is that the principle applies regardless of whether or not somebody else is following it, so the excuse of but-the-other-person-started-it (even if they did start it and/or they did worse) doesn't wash.

When people don't care to understand each other and try instead to cast the other's statements in the worst light, discussion becomes mediocre and foul. HN has a problem with this, and the principle of charity may be a tonic for it.

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