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Comment by namdnay | Hacker News Reader

How do points make it “fair”? I’d say points favour those who already have the privilege of an education.

Points remove the subjective nature of acceptance process which makes it more fair. It is much fair than a old lady sitting behind a desk and judging you based on 10min of interview.

Yes. It favours the privileged but countries tunes the thresholds for points based on kind of people they want in their country. In the example you mentioned, more educated.

Countries regularly abuse and malware their own regulations for their own purposes. For example, Japan imports cheap labour from Nepal and Southeast Asia, and treats said labour very poorly. There is no avenue for “fair” treatment for the affected parties

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/01/02/national/abuses...

Countries exist to benefit their citizens. There’s nothing wrong with only letting the educated.

It's not clear that points systems like this really select for optimal benefit, though. They tend to be biased toward the qualifications that are already well represented in the country.

Looking at immigrants I've met, yes, qualifications count for something, but sheer hustle and ambition can play a role as well, and often those propagate into the next generation too.

In hiring decisions, I was told to try to select for potential, not qualifications. Points systems are the classical "select for qualifications" move.

I don't think anyone said they're optimal benefit. But on the whole increasing the education and income level of your immigration pool is going to be more beneficial to your country than the opposite.

Potential can be a part of the point system. You yourself made some sort of crude scale of potential when you were interviewing people. Nothing wrong with formalizing that.

I'm not sure how one would formalize it, even less so for the children of immigrants.

If you can't be formalize it is is unfair.

Yes, it's considerably harder to administrate such a system in an objective manner. A points system has the advantage of being objective. But that doesn't necessarily make it fair or a well chosen policy.

I'd say it's impossible to administrate such a system in an objective manner. If you could administer it in an objective manner then you can quantify and formalize it.

A point system doesn't mean the parameters are well chosen but by it's very definition it's more fair then an interview without any formal requirements.

There is a investor visa also, at least from what my friends tell me for those “hustlers”.

That potential is usually extremely subjective and unproven.

I didn’t say there was. But how is it “fair”?

Fair to whom?

It’s fair to the country as the country is able to make informed admission decisions weighted by the needs of the country, rather than a take-all-comers model.

It’s fair to the applicants as they have a clear set of guidelines as to what they need to do to become eligible for admission. Need to learn English to boost your score (As in Canada)? Cool. That’s tangible and clear. On the other hand America’s system of, roughly speaking, “Indians need not apply” isn’t exactly fair to the applicants.

Note: a points based migration scheme doesn’t preclude for instance refugee admissions, and Canada’s system has a points escape hatch if a province nominates you based on their specific needs too.

> and Canada’s system has a points escape hatch if a province nominates you based on their specific needs too.

Further, private groups can sponsor refugees as well (pledging to support them):

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_Sponsorship_of_Refugee...

* https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/se...

More fair than an arbitrary non-points based system Switzerland presumably has?

At least you have some agency in qualifying if there is a clear points based merit system around education.

Less so if it’s things you can’t control (country of origin, ethnicity, etc.)

Is it really fair? There are several countries with degree mills for things such as masters even when they do not show the competencies required for such degrees.

> How do points make it “fair”?

Everyone knows the rules coming in:

> 1a: marked by impartiality and honesty : free from self-interest, prejudice, or favoritism

> b(1): conforming with the established rules : ALLOWED

* https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fair

Subjective tests are also gameable by privileged educated people.

You're being downvoted unfairly, I think. The "fairest" approach is a lottery. Fair is not one of the goals here though.

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