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Comment by marcus_holmes | Hacker News Reader

<refills popcorn> This'll be interesting.

Tech workers hate Trump, and have been forcing SV bosses to say bad things about him.

But this move is clearly going to benefit us (well, I'm in Australia so not affected directly, but "us" as tech workers). Raising tech salaries and reducing the ridiculous exploitation of immigrant tech workers is good.

SV bosses would clearly like to continue paying less for tech workers, and the visa program was a tool to do that. They now have a proper reason to say bad things about Trump.

But Trump would also like to have SV on his side. Where does he think the power lies there? With the bosses or the workers?

I look forward to next week's episode of "What Trump did to the USA"

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> But this move is clearly going to benefit us (well, I'm in Australia so not affected directly, but "us" as tech workers). Raising tech salaries and reducing the ridiculous exploitation of immigrant tech workers is good.

As a US green card holder currently living in SV, I must say I'm really confused what you mean by "us". At first I thought you meant "US citizens who are tech workers", but it's possible you really meant all tech workers?

In any case, considering the past two weeks, I don't think most SV folks would consider Trump as a net positive, even though this particular action might benefit some of them.

let's define "us" as "the people reading this who do things with technology for a living".

and the net positive thing is the interesting bit - when does self-interest trump social values? (pun intended)

> Raising tech salaries and reducing the ridiculous exploitation of immigrant tech workers is good.

Why not keep the H-1B floor at 60,000, but require employers to contribute another 60,000 to a fund to pay for Americans to be retrained as tech workers?

Because the same companies will open training programs that provide $50 worth of education to the Americans and pocket the rest. Probably even make them do mandatory job training alongside the H1bs and triple dip.

Kinda like a certain defunct university....

I don't think that's particularly fair on immigrants. It sets a double standard as to what people are worth.

PS. Also Australian... yeah, we're awake at this time.

EDIT:

To clarify, I'm not at all suggesting screw over Americans either. I'd not be thrilled working in any industry where I'd spent years getting qualifications, just to be constantly undercut by any group of people.

However, I don't think encouraging companies to underpay a certain segment of humans is an ethical way to resolve the problem.

> I don't think that's particularly fair on immigrants. It sets a double standard as to what people are worth.

How so? The minimum wage for H-1Bs is over 4x higher than the minimum wage for Americans.

If Americans had a minimum wage of 60k per year and immigrants were getting paid $7.25 per hour then that would be one thing, but it's currently the other way around.

So, ah... What you want is the American minimum wage increased to $100,000 and to leave the immigrant minimum wage at $60,000?

Yeah... I can't see that being abused at all. Good luck with that.

Not all tech workers hate Trump. Those that don't probably won't be posting about it here, advertising it at work if they work at Google, Facebook, Github or some place like that.

It might be comforting to think that it was only those dirty uneducated white supremacists who voted for Trump, but I don't think that is reality. That's called living in bubble.

Not all, but most.

> Raising tech salaries and reducing the ridiculous exploitation of immigrant tech workers is good.

> tech

Are we able to replace "tech" with other types of workers? Or is nationalism only ok when it protects this particular class of workers?

Depends if just having a larger salary is important to you or do you want religious idiots out of the education system for your kids and that your gay relatives and friends have the same rights as you if all that is important to you or just having more money

I was referring to self-interest. You could replace "tech" with "steel" but that conversation probably wouldn't happen on HN...

Tech workers in SV seem to hate Trump, but tech workers are not only in SV. There are also tech workers at defense contractors all across the deep south, and they definitely do not hate Trump. They might roll their eyes at his antics or prefer a tougher stance on Russia, but "lock her up" is a very real desire. The H1B issue kind of resonates with them, since many are older people with families, though obviously the competition with H1Bs is indirect due to citizenship requirements at defense contractors.

> but "lock her up" is a very real desire.

Given that Trump abandoned that almost immediately after being announced as President-Elect, how is that a reason to support him now?

1. Support and hate are relative. Given that the alternative was somebody they really really seriously want locked up, even a Trump who fails to carry that out is obviously preferred.

2. It's possible he said things in order to avoid encouraging a pardon.

I'm sure there are some tech workers who support Trump, but education seems to be one of the best predictors for who voted against Trump, and tech workers are probably on average better educated than the general populace...

The most educated also tend to cluster around areas where a Trump vote would have been a waste.

I wonder if the higher educated are also more prone to the "shy tory" effect.

The education correlation is also supported actual voting results, by seeing how voting results correlated with education levels in each voting region.

So it doesn't seem to be just an artifact of polling behavior.

But would an educated Trump voter in California or New York bother coming out to vote?

And turnout numbers for Democrats was lower than usual, so you are correct.

Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Not if the hands have fallen off.

They've not fallen off, they're just really small.

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