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Apart from the idea of sorting people into useful and useless being inhumane, it also seems to be counterproductive. Universities do it.
by sillysaurus3 10y ago
Apart from the idea of sorting people into useful and useless being inhumane, it also seems to be counterproductive.
Universities do it.
- omarforgotpwd 10y agoThere are many alternatives if you are denied from a university, such as applying to a different university or learning online instead. There is only one America
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- roesel 10y agoWell there are other countries, contrary to popular belief. With your logic, the answer would be to emigrate somewhere else. But I think that's not the point.
- omarforgotpwd 10y agoThere's only one America though. If you want to live with your American cousin, work at an a company that happens to be headquartered in the us or just like America living in another country may not be an alternative.
- snambi 10y agothere are many other countries. so, there is choice for poeple emigrating.
- eeZah7Ux 10y agoFar from enough. If each city in the world was its own country, maybe. On top of that, people are born in a random country leading to very unfair [dis]advantages.
- zo1 10y agoYes, but America is one of many "countries". If you want to extend the example to universities, then you have to compare America to say "Harvard". Potential students always have the chance to go to other universities, some with definitely lower standards of entry. Same goes for America and other countries. E.g. I wasn't smart enough to get a fancy scholarship and entry to a top-tier American university? But, I sure was able to get into a good university in a third-world country. Options are available! America is not the only answer out there, so to phrase it as if America has the sole responsibility of fixing the world's problems is kind of one-sided.
- am_i_down 10y agoThe distinction often is more akin to "promising" and "not promising". Universities, employers, creditors, those looking for a spouse, etc. Everyone does it to some degree. Why can't a country?
- mozumder 10y agoBecause the populist parameters used to define usefulness of a person is incorrect. You think a person from Mexico is more useless than a person from Canada?
- microcolonel 10y agoOn the whole, a Canadian citizen will be more promising in the U.S. Canadians speak English which is close to Standard American English; the cultures are more similar, and the level of poverty is much lower, meaning they're less likely to become dependent on social programs. If usefulness is measured in ability to contribute to the productivity of the nation as a whole, then Canadians are a better bet (knowing nothing else about the individual). All else being equal though, I don't see how you could make the claim that the U.S. is engaged in favouritism between equally-promising Canadian and Mexican potential immigrants. Mexicans and Canadians both (technically) need to get permits to work in the U.S.
- thatfrenchguy 10y agoAll Canadiens don't speak English. A lot of people only speak Spanish in the US.
- microcolonel 10y agoThe Québécois were estimated in 2011 to be about 43% functionally franco-anglo bilingual; seems they're becoming more so year over year, the estimate was about 41% in 2006. About 8% of Québécois have English as their mother tongue. 5% of Québec doesn't even speak French, granted some of those will be allophones and illiterates.
- 10y ago
- danesparza 10y agoHow is this a useful statement? It was common for dysfunctional parents to teach racism in the 1960's -- but parroting back this statement of fact didn't end racism. Simply stating "universities do it" isn't helpful, unless you're indicating where you'd like to start affecting change. People need to be accountable to "the better angels of our nature" in order to affect useful change.
- kashkhan 10y agouniversities have limited classrooms and labs to fill. A country is not limited.
- dgellow 10y agoOf course a country is limited. Limited territory, limited resources.
- atomi 10y agohttps://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/06/the-graying-of-rural-america/485159/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/06/the-gra...
- drewrv 10y agoMost immigrants pay more taxes than they owe. In other words they add resources rather than cost them.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- kashkhan 10y agothe US is not being destroyed by immigrants coming and stealing the territory and resources. The US has plenty of unused fallow land that immigrants can buy/lease with real money and work with real labor. the US doesn't give free territory and resources to immigrants. It should allow them to freely trade in it.
- dgellow 10y agoYou're strawmanning me. I never said anything about the US being destroyed by immigrant or a stealing of territory or resources. In fact I never mentioned the US. The comment I responded to was: > universities have limited classrooms and labs to fill. A country is not limited. That's factually incorrect. A country is limited in a lot of ways. To be honest I think that your definition of "immigrant" is biased.
- maxerickson 10y agoThere's no university drawing that line. Selective schools don't need to, less selective schools don't want to.
- bayesian_horse 10y agoPartly the screening process of universities is entirely different - they are much smaller entities, investing a huge amount of resources in individuals, and have a much better and much more well-founded idea of what kind of applicants will be successful. And then, even they get it wrong all the time. Students drop out and the least promising ones turn out to be superstars somewhat later. For that matter, I would prefer universities only screen for effort, meaning the applicants show they are willing to work hard enough. That doesn't exclude tests for prerequisites, but it excludes certain things like age, income, parents, irrelevant prior education, origin...