Comment by lazaroclapp | Hacker News Reader

Comment by lazaroclapp | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

The U.S. should be doing their very best to have the strongest possible education system for all its citizens (and non-citizens living in the country long term). As should any reasonable country. But the fact remains that, unless you are counting with excellent execution in that regard from the U.S. and abysmal negligence from the rest of the world, you simply can't extract the same talent from a population of 400 million than from one of 7 billion. The U.S. benefits enormously from immigration, in ways many don't even perceive. If the flow of minds into the country is ever truly stopped, no amount of improvement in the internal education pipeline will be enough to maintain the U.S. dominant position in science and technology.

Now, you might be ok with a broader geographical distribution of this type of talent, or argue that it will happen eventually no matter what. I hear you, on both counts. But, as a non-U.S. citizen, I am actually pretty surprised that the country would chose to forgo the advantage it enjoys by being a preferred immigration destination for so many skilled people...

It also seems to be done due to nothing but rank xenophobia. I mean, what is the excuse here? "They are stealing our jobs!"? This is literally a visa where the requirement is to create jobs for American citizens, and most of these tech firms will do so by exporting goods mostly to foreign markets (the market for most tech startups is not over 50% local to the U.S.) and/or creating local technology and expertise. Hell, once profitable, you can and should tax these companies to help provide for that very same education you want for American citizens! As well as UBI for those whose jobs are being displaced by automation. Startup visas are as win-win as it possibly gets.

Final point: The party and particular administration that seems to be most against immigration also seems to be the one most against science or robust public education. The foreseeable end result is grim, even if these policies last only 4 years: a "lost half-decade" in which the best domestic talent is under-nourished and the best foreign talent goes elsewhere.

The complaints that I read are often that they aren't actually jobs that couldn't be fulfilled here, with local talent. There have been many claims of training your replacement. If you're training them, it seems most probable that you're able to do the job.

There is only a small subset that seems to just be bigoted. And, yes, they do exist. I am pretty sure they are low in number. Most of the complaints are about things like body shops but there have even been complaints involving Disney.

Maybe I'm wrong, but if you can train your replacement, we probably didn't need a replacement. It's not like they move them up the ladder. They lay them off and pay the people with visas very little money, comparatively.

I don't have a dog in this fight, but I think, if true, they have a legitimate complaint. Most of them seem to agree that it should be bringing in experts and not lower paid people that need to be trained by the people they are replacing.

So, what do you think? Would you agree that there are legitimate concerns? Many of these complaints do not, to me, appear xenophobic or racist.

You know what can solve most of the issues?

Better worker protections.

Stopping immigration doesn't stop you from having to train your replacement, they'll just be American instead. Making companies have to treat their workers with a bit of civility will solve a lot of problems.

Alright, I can agree with that. How do you propose doing so, in this specific political climate?

You change the environment. Be clear - this rhetoric, which is so naively being echoed here on HN, of all places, is based on assumptions of a world which does not exist.

In this specific case, and depth in the comment tree, there have been 2 incorrect assertions made, the clarification of which leads to the truth.

The first is - maybe now america will invest in its own talent

the second is - many times people are being told to train their own replacement

The issue is that job distribution is bi-modal in tech.

Theres a cluster at the very high end (jobs as a google scientist), and theres a cluster at the lower end (guys maintaining web pages).

The talent people compete for around the world is for the top end of the curve - and america has been sucking these people away from their home country for ages.

Furthermore - I have seen American talent in American colleges, you do a very good job of converting people into smart people.

This process has only recently been corrupted because of the poor job scenario for the lower and middle ends of the job curve. But its still damn good.

Closing those doors, after the rank xenophobia being displayed by the Administration means you lose out on the part of the curve you want to be competitive on.

Rhetoric doesn't do much good. I appreciate the reply but you may just have well said, "Magic!" ;-)

To be clear, I'm not sure my question even really has an answer. I understand the need to attract top talent. If we don't, they are just going to go to work somewhere else.

At the same time, do we really want to replace local talent with not as talented, but less expensive, people? There are some big implications there and I have seen reasoned arguments to support doing so. It hits very strongly on the concept of what duties the government has to its citizens and to the rest of humanity who are not citizens.

I really don't know. I don't have a solution. I can do your math homework, but I'll be damned if I can figure out how to realistically determine the answers to these questions.

I suspect that nobody would listen, even if I did have the answers. Ah well...

>do we really want to replace local talent with not as talented, but less expensive, people?

This is a false dichotomy. These people could be just as skilled, if not more. So then your only argument is localism.

Also, if we _let immigrants compete in the labor market properly_ by not handcuffing people like H-1Bs to their company.... they won't be cheaper. They could just get poached by another company or take a job at market rates.

If they were just as skilled, they'd not be being trained by the people they are replacing.

That's very wrong POV - you can train someone else to work with tooling/software/processes specific to your company, while still being less skilled or otherwise beneficial than him/her overall.

Ah then I suppose we are in a bind because the party mentioned a couple parents up also seems to hate worker protections...

You just described capitalism as it exists today. Even if you did away with immigration, your problem has barely seen any solution at all.

If your fear is being replaced by someone who is ready to work for less. There are enough kids who will do anything for a job, including taking a good pay cut. To replace you.

The real issue you must be worried about being relevant to the work you are doing. Being productive, resourceful and keeping your skills up to date. And yes never putting yourself in a situation where you think some particular work is beneath your station.

Oh, no. I am quite happily retired.

However, I would suggest that we have a moral obligation to avoid sinking as low as we possibly can. Yes, if people are hungry, they will work for pennies on the dollar.

Ethically, I would suggest we avoid desperate people en masse, for a whole mess of reasons. Hell, I can make a financial argument that suggests we not do that. You get better work from content people who have the means to consume.

I guess it's more a thought exercise. It's probably up to us, as individuals, to do the right things. We don't really have much history of doing so, collectively. Buggered if I have the answers.

For me, I've always liked highlighting the problem at hand. It can be multi-faceted with different actors wanting mutually exclusive things - where the resolution is violence.

But in talking of these, I see it more akin to the way Open Source software is up front and public about it - with the idea that enough eyeballs, these problems can be worked with. Being able to even frame the question, with politically charged areas like this, is a step in the right direction.

And no single person is expected to figure it out. But a thousand of us could.

So your reply to this...

> > This is literally a visa where the requirement is to create jobs for American citizens

is this?

> The complaints that I read are often that they aren't actually jobs that couldn't be fulfilled here, with local talent

No, I was responding to the questions asked, more or less. It is merely a verbose reply to point out that there are some legitimate concerns about guest workers.

I don't expect that to change in any meaningful way. I would say there are no reasons to expect any different. I'd not be surprised to see Company X 'invest' a certain amount in someone just to get a cheaper person here and then get their investment money back, probably with interest, while paying the imported labor very poorly.

Hell, it'd probably be even less expensive because said company will just use said startup as a contractor. I have no reason to suspect they will doing any additional oversight or enforcement.

Others are giving better replies to this than I can. I will just note two things:

1) This is a particular case where making immigration difficult to the people involved directly results in less jobs for Americans, as observed above. Yet that's still what is being done. It is clear from it that, for some people, the desire to reduce immigration is not just related to job security. This doesn't mean there aren't legitimate concerns, just that it doesn't seem to me that the explicit legitimate concerns are the only issue here.

2) The particular cohort of H1-B developers I am more familiar with compete with American grads for equal jobs and equal salary/RSUs, and are nobody's 'cheaper replacement'. Now, I am not saying that what you describe doesn't happen. But you know what would help there? Making it easier for people in H1-B's to change employers or even stay unemployed (even on their own money, without benefits) for a few months in the U.S. searching for a job if their employer is exploitative!

There is a sort of issue 2.1. here that I will acknowledge: yes, having more skilled people come in increases supply and lowers prices for labor, slightly. But most of the jobs in question are at companies that target a global market, this means not making use of a global labor pool is both ideologically suspect and a bad long term plan. Talented people in other places will still compete with you, and now you don't even get their taxes or the effect their talent creates in the available job opportunities in your area. If, say, you keep all the Amazon jobs for Americans but end up buying all your stuff from Alibaba the world over, was that a good outcome for you?

Are we really extracting from a talent pool of 7 billion?

The problems we have in America are the same if not much worse in most of the world (except for Europe, I imagine). What % of children in China and India do not have access to decent education or opportunities? I think it's pretty high.

My thought process was inspired by the recent article on the estimated 5 million geniuses in India, most of which will go on to lead lives in poverty.

Immigrants do not just bring their intellect. The imaginative capacity, courage, and tenacity required to move across countries and often continents are very helpful for developing new ventures and technologies.

The 5 million number is vastly exaggerated if you go for a real meaning of the word 'genius'. For example, Einstein's IQ is reportedly 160 and assuming normal distribution that is about 1 in 32,000. Even if everyone in India receives the same opportunities as Einstein did from their childhood, the number would be 1.34 billion/32,000 = 42,000.

Not to mention that IQ alone is far from adequate. Imagination, persistence, and courage are required for intellectual distinction. That's why there are so few accomplished geniuses in the world.

> Are we really extracting from a talent pool of 7 billion?

No. Or rather we are doing it badly. But we don't do any better if we geographically segregate people who otherwise might want to work together. It is an orthogonal (albeit incredibly important) problem. As I said, all of our countries should be investing more in education, in addition to having humane and sensible immigration policies and a reasonable social safety net. But in any case, there are more skilled people in the whole world right now than in the U.S. alone, by construction...

Our domestic talent pool has been decades on the decline for lack of support, uncorrelated with which side of the party aisle the current administration has been.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com