Satya Nadella: DREAMers make our country and communities stronger
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The thought that a child would be taken from their home and put on a one way plane to a place they've never been before because their parents are guilty of jaywalking seems dystopian.
Diversity doesn't require illegal immigration, nor are the children of illegal immigrants particularly beneficial to their host country -- if you have any faith in our system (that should be designed to select for the best and brightest), you'd have to admit that the immigrants admitted by a real merit-based immigration system would be superior to immigrants admitted more or less at random. The only traits that illegal immigration selects for are desperation and a willingness to break laws and live on the fringes of society.
Not that I believe Satya Nadella is sincere in any case, this is just evidence of the growing politicization of large tech companies (as the anti-trust suits loom) -- large corporations don't support liberal causes out of genuine concern (corporations are by default, sociopathic) -- they're trying to do political astroturfing: the goal is to prolong the continued existence of their monopolies. If the issue of concentration of power in the tech giants were to be handled solely (and dispassionately) by the appropriate financial regulatory bodies, it would be over very quickly. The large tech giants plan to avoid that by making their existence an ongoing issue in the cultural cold war, split the popular opinion down the middle, and make the issue too political to ever be resolved.
The history of immigration and of "whiteness" in the U.S. is a fascinating study in cognitive biases. If you look at groups that we consider fully American now (eg. Irish-Americans) vs. how we considered them when they first immigrated, it's night-and-day (except for African-Americans people, who were shat upon when they were first brought over and are still shat upon now). It's clear, historically, that we were mistaken in the past, and yet people still make the same mistake, probably because it is evolutionarily useful to consider yourself superior to other people and socially useful to do so in groups. Indeed, even in the most PC, liberal, progressive, colorblind, diversity-affirming circles, the same dynamic still plays out, except that the "other" in those cases is rural dwellers, or people who didn't graduate from college, or folks who live in the South.
Microsoft is a large, multi-national corporation. What better way to say "We still support these people" than, where possible, helping to relocate them to an office in their country of origin? Not every country, or city, has a Microsoft office, but Microsoft isn't exclusively in Redmond, either.
This issue should not be simplified to "You have to go back." Even if it were, that would still leave a lot of creative solutions for how Microsoft (and other large, wealthy corporations) could take care of the employees they claim to care so much about, regardless of where they live.
So those Microsoft DREAMers Nadella is talking about are nothing but miserable, desperate nothings who live on the fringe and contribute nothing to America?
Alternatively, entrepreneurial go-getting risk-takers with the gumption to actively make better lives for themselves, planning ahead and investing in their own futures, able to prosper with minimal assistance from the state.
A skilled thief could be described exactly as you have described an illegal immigrant. Plans ahead, "invests" in their own future, able to "prosper" with minimal assistance from the state. (In fact, assistance is explicitly avoided at times, it would complicate matters...)
Taking this further down the absurdity rabbit-hole, one could even suggest that a non-criminal lacks the necessary traits to succeed - companies should show preferential treatment to criminals, or at least certain types of criminals. (Who decides this? Also, in before white collar criminals.)
A lot could be said about the positive attributes of serial killers, if we want to go hyperbolic.
I am not suggesting that illegal immigrants do well because they are criminals. I suggest they do well because they make sensible, long-term choices to build themselves a better future, and that people who want to do that and are willing to work hard within a society are a benefit to that society.
A lot of criminals do not plan well for the future. They repeatedly make bad choices, based on short terms gains that seriously jeopardise their longer term futures as they suffer the consequences of their criminal actions. Their crimes are frequently not sensible investments in their circumstances to build themselves a better future, but actually give them a worse future as they suffer the penalties of having attracted the attention of law-enforcement. They do not typically prosper; many criminals have low incomes and have damaged prospects.
one could even suggest that a non-criminal lacks the necessary traits to succeed
The evidence indicates otherwise. Non-criminals typically do better.
As an aside, it's interesting that I frequently see the argument "it's illegal" being presented against illegal immigration; when part of the argument against something is that it's illegal, rather than wrong or damaging, it's quite telling. Some people even lead with that argument; that the problem with illegal immigrants is that they broke a rule years ago by coming in without permission - not that there's an actual problem with what they're doing.
> I think you're engaging in the typical hacker news out-of-context nit-pickery.
I think you dislike looking at your slippery slope.
>I am not suggesting that illegal immigrants do well because they are criminals. I suggest they do well because they make sensible, long-term choices to build themselves a better future,
At the expense of citizens.
>...and that people who want to do that and are willing to work hard within a society are a benefit to that society.
You are assuming that illegal immigrants will share both qualities, though the actions prove only one half of that.
No crime is a sensible investment, if you get caught.
>The evidence indicates otherwise. Non-criminals typically do better.
So illegal immigrants, criminals if you will, would do worse.
You have taken a crime, and made generalizations about the perpetrators, because at least a percentage of them 'mean well.' Would you at least agree that not every illegal immigrant has a desire to become a contributing part of the county they are entering?
I disagree. An economy is not a zero sum game and adding people to it, especially people ready, able and willing to start working now is a benefit. Compare with children of indigents, who take up to twenty years to start being a benefit to other citizens. Twenty years! If the problem is people being drains on society without contributing, there's the place to start looking.
So illegal immigrants, criminals if you will, would do worse.
I understand the evidence indicates that's not the case.
Would you at least agree that not every illegal immigrant has a desire to become a contributing part of the county they are entering?
I would, yes. I can only go on the general trends; the general trend is that immigrants are willing to take risks and work hard to make better lives for themselves, wanting the opportunity to live and work within the civil society they're moving to, and illegal immigrants are too. All we have is general trends; there will always be individuals who buck those trends.
As an aside, to me you seem very fixated on the idea of "crime" being a bad thing. Perhaps this is a difference we have. For you, me accepting this crime is slippery slope; crime is crime, accept one, you'll accept the next. For me, there's no slippery slope; just because something is crime doesn't actually mean it's bad or damaging, and if a person's crime is wanting to work hard and contribute to society, building a better life for themselves, that crime is less likely to lead to crimes that cause actual damage.
I did not argue a zero-sum game, this is a cooked book. There will always be losers until that is fixed, and this is more redistribution. At least according to my understanding of general trends.
As for the crime, it is the enforcement, not the act. You are arguing for not having a clear code of laws. I am arguing for the opposite, and for the revision of said laws as deemed necessary by the citizens. Without law, we cannot hold individual nor government accountable.
As to the “merit” argument: designing merit-based systems is hard. Merit is neither totally ordered nor easily perceived - see, for instance, any amount of research about the effectiveness of interviewing processes. (TL;DR: it’s really low; most interviewers make up their minds in the first few seconds of an interaction; without blind interview practices, decisions are often biased.)
To put it bluntly, I very much do not share that faith. I consider it rather more likely that any “merit-based” system instituted would be used to give the appearance of legitimacy to racial profiling in immigration policy.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/civil
Illegal immigrants are not citizens.
Or were you talking about the coyotes with US citizenship? Most wouldn't call that civil disobedience.
What an irresponsible statement.