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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

#81

Post by lconnell962 »

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…

Recent years have made me realize that as bad as reading political threads in online circles can be, it still does bring a greater ability to self-innoculate yourself to emotional influences than watching and listening to other groups editorialized political media.

But yes, I also do wonder with these political topics on all online sites using text, votes, and comment trees what kind of things would become red flags about users if sites chose or were forced to make more metrics appear in them. "Lurker" votes, Estimated Geolocation or VPN use of commenters, anythings that could be shown in "suspect" topics even if not "bannable or confirmed" manipulation was happening.

Or maybe just a politics filter. I know I have a bad habit of getting into reading these topics and their comments when my sanity would prefer I filter them out entirely.

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

#82

Post by RealityVoid »

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.

First of all, I am an EU citizen and I absolutely don't have to split rent with any flatmates. In fact, I own my residence.

Second, I did in fact split my rent with flatmates during my 6 years of college, we lived 5 people in about 200sqft, then my first job I split and apartment with 3 other people. That was luxurious already! Sure, it would tricky to live like that if you have a family, but as a young person? It's fine, actually, it was a great learning experience.

Anyways, what I want to tell you is that life is not that bad in the EU and things can be much much worse than the current status quo. Personally, I have no concern for myself or my comfort, but for my family. I could live in a box in a ditch.

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

#83

Post by Muromec »

jedberg wrote: post #60
m00dy wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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…

It's more of a problem with big established companies and less in startups really. What I'm familiar with is -- initially everyone gets a temporary 1 year contract. Contract could be not extended, but the company commits to 1 year. After two extensions, you get a permanent one and can't be fired because you look funny to your boss.

Then there is outsourcing, where the contract with their company can be dropped. They are more expensive and have 1 year contracts too. People on permanent contracts have to be persuaded to sign separation agreement and have leverage over you. I have seen some funny examples of management trying to fuck over people for no good reason and then having to continue paying them for 2 years without seeing any output, but that was not a 10 people shop that would go under for it and was self-inflicted too.

They mood in Europe is you as a company owner have to take the risks, not the employees. Which is reflected into salaries of course.

For the startups it's not the problem I saw so far, as they benefit from having to pay lower then otherwise salary, without actually taking the risk. If the company goes under, everyone goes back to job market anyway.

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

#84

Post by entropyneur »

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…

The majority of American voters chose this at the most recent presidential elections. And immigration was the central issue, so that's exactly what most of them voted for. Not sure why you are surprised. If anything I find it notable how much this forum deviates from what I assume is the average view.

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

#85

Post by Muromec »

CalRobert wrote: post #42
m00dy wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

When I was a kid in the US people told me "you can do anything! Anyone can be president! Just set your mind to it!" Now as someone raising kids in Europe the general sentiment is "The system is rigged, don't even try, anyone with nice things got it through avarice or corruption, nothing ever changes" (to be fair, I've lived in only two European countries, but this seems to be a common sentiment that varies primarily…

It's the Eastern European mood taking over everything. Doesn't seem to be a sign of anything good, but at least, if you get lucky, you get the endless supply of gallows humor.

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

#86

Post by myk9001 »

qingcharles wrote: post #67
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…

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.

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

#87

Post by ben_w »

HelloNurse wrote: post #78
ben_w wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Several reasons. Top talent has the world as their oyster: for the best the answer is obvious even when it is a 96% fit vs. a 96.5% fit. I don't know the actual %, likely gap used to be much bigger, but point is you can get very sudden state changes in outcome from very small policy change when at that point: think idiom "it was the final straw that broke the camel's back". Self sorting: the best see that people like…

> This one also depends on political stability. Canada is going to be seen as similar to USA, but open to immigrants and not fascist. Will it develop enough opportunities?

Canada might be able to do that, but do also remember that the USA's president keeps talking about making Canada into just another state.

There's a big risk that everyone says "I want to be in the country that wins the next war. Therefore, China." and this then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because all (or enough of) the talent made the same choice.

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

#88

Post by Muromec »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #57
TMWNN wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Karpathy, with a Stanford PhD, would not have received or needed an H-1B. This, like the new $100K fee, is about shutting down the Indian body shops that consume the vast majority of "tech" H-1Bs.

There's so many Americans who have this intuition you're expressing, that there must be some good immigration system for responsible people who obviously ought to be allowed to stay in the country. The reason there isn't is that immigration reform deals have been sabotaged for decades by the people who are feeding you this disinformation. To emphasize, the person who told you this information knew it was false, lied…

Meanwhile, I didn't ever qualify for H1B because I don't have a degree, but getting a kennismigrant visa to the twelve starts of harmony jurisdiction was basically "find a place that can pay you above 4k month and file one form with the government".

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

#89

Post by myk9001 »

jedberg wrote: post #60
m00dy wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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 hand, both layoffs and long-hours aren't unheard of in, say, Getmany.

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

#90

Post by Muromec »

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.

>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?

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