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Comment by christiansakai | Hacker News Reader

I love it how Americans and first world countries native born just love to bash these kinds of articles.

While people like me who came from 3rd world country that immigrated to US and first world countries can relate with posts like these.

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Exactly! I used to travel a lot for work and talk to Uber drivers all over the country.

The immigrant ones had stories like "I own 3 of these cars, so 2 guys drive for me, and my daughter is in nursing school" or my favorite "I just got hired in Columbia University as a janitor so I can get my MBA there for free". While the Americans were just kinda resigned to driving the Uber.

Immigrants are self selecting - we are people who chose to make moves, get off our asses to make something of ourselves .so of course the idea of accreting valuable skills and assets is going to resonate with us.

I love immigrant stories! U know what we have in common as immigrants. We just love to work and make money, to see that our hands actually produce money that goes into our bank statement just brings joy. It is almost not about the money itself but the honor that we get knowing that people appreciate our service.

> we are people who chose to make moves,

It’s easier to make a move when you have nothing to lose, or have a fallback option in your home country.

FYI, usually in 3rd world countries don’t have unemployment benefit, govt support or bankruptcy laws. Not sure what fallback you meant here.

In family oriented societies, there can be lots of support from within the family if they have assets in home country.

If they’re a family oriented society, then losing the family is a big loss by itself, no?

My family did not. US has chain immigration so all the family members come over (and did in my family). We still visit the second and third cousins in the home country.

But the point is there can be support from outside the government.

You probably can't imagine the kind of initiative it takes to leave where you are to start fresh somewhere else. THAT's the self-selection I am talking about.

My parents’ and their siblings and all of their extended family left their country to go to US and UK. But they all had homes and networks and a place to go back home if things went sideways. The collective wealth of their network is sufficient to provide its own safety net.

Contrast that to someone in the home country who might not have that network, and who landed a decent government job that affords enough to feed and shelter and educate family.

This person will not have the “initiative” to throw away a relatively sure future because they do not have the ability to count on friends/family to support them in case they fail.

This is very common in the US itself though. People move cross country all the time as part of working or education.

Nothing to lose? They lose everything and everyone they know. You’re underrating how important that is for most people.

I’m referring to people who do not have anything or anyone, e.g. refugees or asylum seekers.

There's a certain self selection in that people who are motivated and brave enough to move counties for a new life are the only ones you see. Back home there are also people who are resigned to their position (or getting money from the ones who have moved). Moving to a developed country from a developing one as someone unskilled takes a lot of effort and determination and luck (for skilled people to a certain extent too), so there's a survivorship bias here.

I’ve noticed immigrants to New Zealand are often highly motivated, work hard, and are well on their way to success.

i suspect that this is because there is a strong selection bias: it takes some serious effort and skill to be allowed to immigrate here (plus some luck maybe!).

Whether native or immigrant, rags to riches stories are almost always: a) incomplete (they leave out substantial advantages or good fortune); b) reek of survivorship bias (i.e. ignore the fact that for every success story there are dozens if not hundreds of them with poorer outcomes).

Yeah. I know HN doesn't like the social sciences, but people have actually studied social mobility and found how limited it is in the US and similar countries.

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