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Comment by eksemplar | Hacker News Reader

I wonder why these changes are so welcomed by low-middle skill labour. Do they simply not see the big picture of what brain drain does to the total sum of opportunities?

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I'm frustrated with this kind of response. You don't seem to have read the article and yet you're attacking an entire group of people suggesting they are too ignorant to understand what is in their own interest. The article and the source reporting on Politico [1] make it very clear that the intent is to increase merit-based immigration; where is the brain drain?

1: http://www.politico.com/story/2017/07/12/trump-legal-immigra...

are you actually serious? the lower middle class support Trump because of his job focused agenda. the man says the word job more than anything.

to correlate everything a president does with support of his general fan base is ridiculous. that's like saying democrats support murdering people with drones because Obama used that often. This type of logic is very divisive and dangerous.

They kind of do, don't they? The reason Obama was able to kill so many people with drones was because he was elected. His voters could have decided killing was wrong and not voted for him. He even warned people he would do drone killing while he was campaigning.

Perhaps you're saying most Obama voters didn't like the drone killing but tolerated it because they liked the rest of Obama enough? That at least means they don't mind killing too much - it's not a show stopper for them.

Did other candidates promised they'd end drone strikes? If not, then it would be naïve to assume other candidates wouldn't continue with the program (frankly, it would be dumb to assume that even if they promised so).

In other words, it's not that this particular issue is a discriminator between candidates.

Voting for a candidate doesn't mean you agree with all their policies, simply that you agree more or find the bad ones less vile than the competition. This is especially true in what is essentially a two-party system.

For example, one candidate is racist and thinks segregation and separate-but-equal is the way to go towards a peaceful society. The other one supports drone strikes (or something else you find vile). Any other candidates have one similarly vile views.

Abstaining from voting to protest these views doesn't seem to be the answer for most folks, so they look at other things and pick the one they like the most. Afterwards, you can voice your concern over the things you disagree with or choose to ignore them.

This isn't dissimilar to not needing to agree with everything your friends, partner, or family says to spend time with them.

That's the ridiculous thing about American voting. They don't pick the one they like the most, they do what your first paragraph said and pick the one they dislike the least out of the two major parties. The result is the same two parties doing the same things year after year, swapping places about every 8 years and making the whole exercise of voting pointless except to maintain that stable state.

So many people on HN seem to support strong climate change action, dislike drone strikes, and want massive immigration reform. But hardly anyone voted for the Green party.

It is ridiculous, but I also think folks tend to not like either viable choice, and often don't see themselves represented in the fringe parties - if they even have many choices in the category. I'm from Indiana, and often the only third choice was the green party. And that was only for presidental election, nothing for other offices.

The system in the states is a multi-party system in name only: Functionally, it is a two-party system, hence the low participation in such political parties. I think this could be changed with proper legislation, but am doubtful this will happen in the current political climate.

Besides, it isn't like the green party could make everyone happy either, and doubt they'd have an easier time getting things done in congress.

This country survived before H1B immigration. One could say we actually had relatively more rapid technological progress during the time in which we had the least immigration.

Of course you're downvoted. You know who benefits from mass immigration of cheap skilled and unskilled labour? Growth/profit oriented businesses, aka the majority. And you know they'll fight for their profits.

After WW2, immigration dropped, while a lot of new work in all areas was popping up. Result - labour shortages and decent wages, more or less.

It seems there's no consensus on the big picture in the general population. It's a very divided country.

I'm not American, or from the third world. I'm Scandinavian and even I have seen talent drain to scilicon valley where they've created thousands of jobs that could potentially have been made here.

You should be happy about any US anti-immigrant policies. It'll stop some brain drain from everywhere else :)

Non-American businesses and corporations which depend on intelligent manpower should be more worried because of the proposed changes, not less. The entire point of immigration reform is to make it merit-based i.e. the most promising candidates would be prioritized.

Exactly

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