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> I hope not. I've seen enough HNers talk about how they want immigrants out of the industry, and about how we should restrict the supply of programmers to kee

> I hope not. I've seen enough HNers talk about how they want immigrants out of the industry, and about how we should restrict the supply of programmers to keep pay high Incidentally, this is exactly what labor unions have spent their time doing for much of their history as incorporated organizations. Labor unions fought (successfully) to exclude immigrants from certain regions from immigrating, and even fought to retroactively strip them of citizenship, so that members could seize their property after they were deported. Labor unions fought to relocate Japanese-Americans during World War II, to create jobs for members, and then fought to prevent them from returning home. The current quota system for visas and immigration that tech people frequently complain about? That was the result of legislation that the AFL lobbied for decades ago. People don't like to talk about this, because it's an ugly chapter of labor history, but especially in this day and age, it's important to remember.

s73ver_ 9y ago
They don't like to talk about it because it's entirely off the subject, here. It is extremely intellectually dishonest for you to say that, implying that a tech union would do such a thing.
- chimeracoder 9y ago
  > They don't like to talk about it because it's entirely off the subject, here. It is extremely intellectually dishonest for you to say that, implying that a tech union would do such a thing. Every time the topic of immigration and visas come up, the comments are flooded with racist comments and talk about how we need to make it harder for companies to hire people on H1Bs from Asia. The more overtly racist comments get flagged and removed, but the rest still stay. If anything, it's intellectually dishonest of you to suggest that these same people wouldn't actually fight to do that, given that's literally what they say they want to do.

s73ver_ 9y ago

They don't like to talk about it because it's entirely off the subject, here. It is extremely intellectually dishonest for you to say that, implying that a tech union would do such a thing.

chimeracoder 9y ago
> They don't like to talk about it because it's entirely off the subject, here. It is extremely intellectually dishonest for you to say that, implying that a tech union would do such a thing. Every time the topic of immigration and visas come up, the comments are flooded with racist comments and talk about how we need to make it harder for companies to hire people on H1Bs from Asia. The more overtly racist comments get flagged and removed, but the rest still stay. If anything, it's intellectually dishonest of you to suggest that these same people wouldn't actually fight to do that, given that's literally what they say they want to do.