Re: H1B MAGA Debate | Hacker News Reader

Re: H1B MAGA Debate

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9 pointsdelichon8 comments

According to a 2019 census survey:

    "...less than a third (28%) of STEM-educated workers actually worked in a STEM job."

The USA doesn't have a shortage of STEM talent. USA employers have a perceived shortage of disposable, "low wage" STEM talent who will readily work long hours without overtime pay.

Mommas don't let your kids grow up to be STEM workers. In the USA, most of them are effectively being discarded by middle age. It's a documented cultural fact.

https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/06/does-majoring...

> The percentages were even lower for STEM majors in biology, environmental, and agricultural science (16%), psychology (10%) and social science (9%)

If you look at engineering, computer science & math it's roughly half. Which is still pretty bad.

The classic "You need to let foreigners take over your country otherwise how are we gonna compete with foreign countries?"

Is that what a country is supposed to be? A professional sports team, with interchangeable players, where the only thing they have in common are their uniforms?

Are communities based on circumstances of birth more important than those based on personal choices? If you can choose your religion and profession, why not also citizenship? Of course there can be reasonable requirements, but it's clear how an individualist and a collectivist would answer.

Communities based on identity are more important for long-term survival, yes. Just 200 years ago the politics and ideologies of most nations were completely alien to what they are today. Only their people remain.

A country based on "ideas" or "values" is also tyrannical - if people born there espouse different values, do they lose citizenship and get exiled, replaced by a foreigner that mouths the right platitudes?

But is it a chosen identity or an identity imposed by circumstances of birth? In any case, focusing on identity leads to identity politics and (at least anecdotally) bad outcomes.

I believe that countries should be based on citizenship without any assumptions of shared identity, values, or culture. There will always be citizens who don't fit in, no matter which policies the country chooses to pursue. But with reasonably free immigration, those people could at least try their luck elsewhere.

The US has changed drastically in the last 200 years, in large part from the contributions of immigrants. The US has been a country of immigration for most of its history. We were taught (in the 90s) that it is the melting pot of the world and that is part of what made us great

"... it's clear how an individualist and a collectivist would answer."

It should be clear that most countries and individuals are not strictly individualist or collectivist --- they're some combination of both.

Casting it as a strictly black or white choice is not reflective of reality.

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