[0] Indentured Servant is probably an exaggeration: but google sure has a lot of hits: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=h1b+indentured+servant
I don't know about the OPT thing, but H1B situations vary[1]. If Obama and his advisers can change the law such that no tech person can be entrapped by the H1B visa shenanigans described in the article I linked, I see no problem here.
1. "Even immigration experts have trouble sorting out how the brokers manage to game the system. From 2000 through 2013, at least $29.7m was illegally withheld from about 4,400 tech workers here on H-1B visas, US Department of Labor documents show." --- http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/oct/28/-sp-jobs-brok...
Well, there are 2 limits: you have to work in your field of study (we won't be taking over your precious Art History, or English job :-)). And you have to be working full time.
Also, even within the context of abstract humanist principles, immigration isn't wholly positive. My family and I are immigrants to the U.S. It's been great for us, not so great for the country we came from that sees all its bright and ambitious people leave never to return.
Governments exist because having them tends to lead to better decision-making than the alternative. That's all it requires. Nobody is proposing that anarchy would better serve anyone.
Remittances alone are on the order of half a trillion per year, much higher than all foreign aid combined. And lots of people do return when they're older and richer.
Why are you standing in the way of it?
No one wants their advantages whittled away, regardless of whether it helps other people or not. This is simple self-preservation. It is a type of selfishness, yes, but I personally don't consider it a dishonorable type of selfishness.
I think the idea is that there are some advantages that aren't considered good for society. For some historical examples: "regardless of your potential or the quality of your work, you were born to a nobleman/peasant so you'll be a nobleman/peasant". For a more modern example: "regardless of your potential or the quality of your work, you were born in country X so we will erect barriers to prevent you from reaching your productivity potential".
By contrast, "you have an advantage because you are much more productive at this task than that guy[0]" is an advantage that's decidedly not arbitrary, since choosing you means less wasted potential and more wealth for society at large. This is the kind of advantage that can't really be removed without ending up in some sort of Harrison Bergeron type situation, where you pull high-achievers down instead of removing unnecessary impediments to low-achievers (thus increasing total achievement).
The distinction between these two types of advantages should be obvious: fostering the "unfair" advantages benefits nobody but the people being arbitrarily protected, and allowing the "fair" ones is good for pretty much everyone.
> This is simple self-preservation.
We're not monkeys. Presumably we should have the ability to understand whether an advantage is just or not. To use a dramatic example: by your stated logic, it's not "dishonorable" to fight for segregation or for limiting opportunity based on race (if one is in the favored race). Do you really believe that, or is there some unexpressed nuance in your view that would somehow exclude the race-based example but not the country-of-birth example?
[0]Yes, I realize that this is dependent on similarly arbitrary factors like who you were born to (and thus what your education was like), but that's an upstream problem.
True, but we are often driven by biological influences that cannot altogether be considered "reason".
>> it's not "dishonorable" to fight for segregation or for limiting opportunity based on race
Fighting for advantages, being the disadvantaged, is simply the other side of the coin, behaviorally, from the advantaged holding on to their advantages.
If you find a group of peasants better than local peasants at task X you can import them and the locals will either move to do task X elsewhere, accept lower salaries or switch to task Y.
Task Y can pay less and make a lot of pissed off cynics. Task Y may be harmful to society at large, like crime or Wall St quant voodoo. Wall St attracts quants because A students were promised respectable jobs, but because of STEM oversupply or whatever, many of those jobs pay 30K.
So you can't force one narrow interest, superior performance at task X, without consequences. Everything must be done in moderation, even it means inferior quality X. Task Y may destroy all the productivity gains of task X, like middle management, crashing economy for 3 years, etc.
Example. Individual A : Master's of CS from Stanford, Passed interviews, Java, SQL, Hadoop, JSF - Requested salary - 115k
Individual B : PhD Student at Stanford, Passed interviews, Java, SQL - Requested salary - 95k
Job requirements: Java, SQL, Hadoop, JSF
What would you decide on as the hiring manager, you have a limited amount of funds per year and need to meet a deadline. You know A is more qualified, but B is 20k cheaper. As a manger if time permits you will select B since he is cheaper and can acquire the skills needed in his spare time from his fellow engineers or from online materials. In making this decision B has the advantage due to price manipulation, and you allowing him to work even though he in under qualified.
Some might say this scenario is unrealistic but both candidates are using their salary to improve their lives, it just so happens B takes a lot less money (due to being born in a poorer country) to improve his life then A. Typically what you will see in the valley is B living in an apartment with 4 or 5 other people for 3 to 4 years periodically sending his money to his mother country. He can then start a company easily in that new country with his capital, meanwhile A plans to raise a family locally.
Much of this is happening right now http://www.nbcbayarea.com/investigations/Silicon-Valleys-Bod... Google, Facebook, Linkedin, Everyone does this in the valley.
In this market, at least, I don't think these choices are very common.
Also, we already have competition on a global scale, and most people don't complain about that. Read any thread on Ask HN about becoming a freelancer, and it's always acknowledged that you're competing with devs who bill $10/hr but no one is expressing rage towards them.
The tech industry is not unionized. If all we're asking is that in our home country we're not facing unfair competition from non-citizens, I think that's fair. And personally, I'd be happy to see much higher levels of immigration as long as it's spread uniformly across industries and that those people be made full citizens.
The tech companies would absolutely love it if they could get away with paying their workers as little as the developing countries do; decreasing wages results in increased profits, which are the only thing that matter to them.
I don't see a reason why we have to abide by their greed when we have so much to lose and nothing to gain.
You're essentially advocating to favors one set of people over another set of people. Which the line between two sets being drawn by luck.
Except for those foreigners who get much higher salaries than at home, plus their whole families and communities thanks to remittances.
In any case, I don't see why should I pay for someone else's discrimination.
I believe what you perceive as issues is just the fact that you're expecting people to argue it as a simple policy, while I believe that it's an ethical question. That said, I'll suggest that three shorts posts is a rather small sample to psychoanalyze someone.
No one said freedom and equality were easy. The privalaged lose their advantages.
more offer+equal demand === lower salaries.
Sadly, here on HN there is little discussion of how the tech industry could focus more on making this a better world. Even more sadly, the deeper discussions that do surface here quickly get booted off the front page because they are "controversial".
(and of course this will get downvoted)
That requirement is pretty much impossible to clear if you wasn't born in the US (and hence your relatives isn't US citizen). So for all practical purposes, you might as well codify it.
For private sector job, however, there seems to be no difference in motivation between a citizen and a non citizen in working for the organization (we're there to make some $$$ and keep on with our lives). So yes, I'd love to see the damn requirement get removed :-).
Once we have a global governmental organization of some kind that can provide open immigration globally we can revisit this.