5 ms·

We're shooting ourselves in the foot so hard. China is expanding aggressively, and will likely be the next superpower. We need all the engineers we can get our

We're shooting ourselves in the foot so hard. China is expanding aggressively, and will likely be the next superpower. We need all the engineers we can get our hands on, or soon, people won't want citizenship here.

austincheney 9y ago
Then why doesn't the US produce more top quality engineers? It isn't as though the US lacks the population or resources to solve this problem domestically. My thinking is that Americans simply don't want it that badly.
- rootw0rm 9y ago
  We produce excellent engineers. We also want them badly. We just don't want to pay them.
  - austincheney 9y ago
    I believe I am paid rather well for the work I do, but then I also live in an affordable area. Developers make far more than average wages and often much more than many other careers of similar experience/education requirements. I don't believe wages are the problem or that suddenly inflating wages will magically blossom into a supreme talent surplus. It is possible to make 6 figures as a trash collector, without any education, if you work your ass off. Yet, I don't see people without college rushing into trash collection even though they probably earn less than half of that.
  - aianus 9y ago
    This logically doesn't make any sense. What are they doing then, sitting on their ass at home? Emigrating outside of the US? If not, and they're working, and companies are still having trouble filling positions, how would paying the existing American engineers more fill those outstanding positions?
    - rootw0rm 9y ago
      Yes, the whole point of this discussion is how the status quo makes zero sense.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - jimmaswell 9y ago
      When I was applying to job openings after college, the very few times I heard back from them, I was offered pay in the range of $15/hr, 35k, etc. for a junior software developer position. Luckily I eventually got something decent but it really is a problem with the companies. There are way more than enough programmers out there, companies just don't want to pay them/don't want to invest in junior devs anymore, as discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16367997 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16367997
      - aianus 9y ago
        What year was this in? It wasn't my experience in college in 2010-2015 at all. Many SV companies recruited mostly useless interns like me and mentored us and paid us well over the median US household income. All in the hopes that we would become useful and join after graduation (at well over six figures salary). And I'm Canadian so they were also paying flights, relocation, visa fees, etc. It doesn't make a lot of sense for them to do these things if it's so easy to hire an American developer at $50k, but maybe their hiring process is that broken?
        jimmaswell 9y ago
        2017. They could easily fly in students from other states too if they wanted. My experience was in NY.
- landryraccoon 9y ago
  The math doesn't work out. China has four times the population of the US. The only way the US can consistently stay ahead in technology is attracting the best scientists and engineers from other parts of the world. The arms race of trying to produce more domestic engineers faster is one that China will win.
  - HillaryBriss 9y ago
    The math has not worked out for a very long time. I mean, China has had a far larger population than the US for many decades and yet somehow the US had a lead for a large part of the 20th century. How did US leadership _ever_ happen? Other factors beyond population and human talent are important: how does each country educate its people, organize its research facilities and personnel, its industry, its economy, etc? Did a country encounter misfortune, war, pestilence, political instability, etc.? I don't disagree with you though. China has created a method of economic decision making and industrial growth which is amazingly powerful. The US seems to be struggling, paralyzed, stagnant.
    - landryraccoon 9y ago
      > mean, China has had a far larger population than the US for many decades and yet somehow the US had a lead for a large part of the 20th century. How did US leadership _ever_ happen? I just gave a reasonable explanation. The US has always been a comparatively immigration friendly nation. We used to attract the best and the brightest. Nikola Telsa, Albert Einstein, Elon Musk, Segei Brin - do those names sound familiar? They were all foreign immigrants to the United States. If they all stayed home or picked another country, the US would be weaker.
      - HillaryBriss 9y ago
        ok. i see the case you're making, but i still think the explanation for a nation's power and leadership depends upon much more than how many highly talented people it has. i say that because all countries have highly talented people. and some countries (e.g. Nigeria, Indonesia, Japan, Brazil, Philipines, India) have large populations and thus large numbers of highly talented people. but that isn't enough to explain the big differences between nations as technological innovators, military powers, per capita wealth, etc. for example, when i look at the war that led up to Britain's acquisition of Hong Kong in the 1841, i don't think i can explain much of the outcome by looking at how many highly talented people there were on each side. in 1841 China had a population of roughly 400 million while Britain had less than 30 million. China had a HUGE pool of highly intelligent, highly talented people. i see the same thing in Britain's colonialism in India. India had a VAST number of highly intelligent people. does anyone doubt that China and India had more highly gifted people than Britain in the 1800s? i guess i just don't see as much explanatory power in that one variable as you seem to see.
- analyst74 9y ago
  Because nerds have lower social status, and sadly due to insane competition for popularity, it's quite hard to become good at math/science without being labeled a nerd. What that means is fewer kids go to STEM schools and become scientists/engineers. This is a pipeline problem caused by culture, it's a very hard problem to fix. For engineers already here, it's actually a good situation, because scarcity drives up wages; for major tech firms, it just means more hiring will be done in their international offices; for startups, it just means a different tradeoff, and having international connection to hire from other countries will become a competitive advantage.
mynameishere 9y ago
expanding aggressively Are they aggressively expanding their open boarders immigration policy? Hmm? Oh, they don't have such a policy? Golly, looks like they've been "shooting themselves in the foot" for a while now, 1000s of years really, so I guess it doesn't matter if we indulge in the same.
- sterlind 9y ago
  One Belt, One road is really taking off. South China Sea expansion with floating island bases and military protection of eco-depleting fish trawlers is soaring. they have rapid momentum, many talented people, good education, scalable infra and a powerful economy. they're building good relations and influencing a growing Africa, providing jobs and extracting industrial metals. our economy needs all engineers fully employed, and as many more capable STEM immigrants as we can get our hands on. don't be lazy, don't be entitled, or America will be second-world, and our country irrelevant.
- gowld 9y ago
  Do you want life in USA to be like life in China? Being required to wear a gas mask to walk down a street in town? Going to jail for disagreeing with a government official? Working in a sweatshop with no safety regulations?
shard972 9y ago
China isn't exactly growing because of its immigration policies though.
chrisper 9y ago
The idea alone that no matter where on this planet I earn my income, I would have to pay US taxes makes me not want citizenship there.

austincheney 9y ago

Then why doesn't the US produce more top quality engineers? It isn't as though the US lacks the population or resources to solve this problem domestically. My thinking is that Americans simply don't want it that badly.

rootw0rm 9y ago
We produce excellent engineers. We also want them badly. We just don't want to pay them.
- austincheney 9y ago
  I believe I am paid rather well for the work I do, but then I also live in an affordable area. Developers make far more than average wages and often much more than many other careers of similar experience/education requirements. I don't believe wages are the problem or that suddenly inflating wages will magically blossom into a supreme talent surplus. It is possible to make 6 figures as a trash collector, without any education, if you work your ass off. Yet, I don't see people without college rushing into trash collection even though they probably earn less than half of that.
- aianus 9y ago
  This logically doesn't make any sense. What are they doing then, sitting on their ass at home? Emigrating outside of the US? If not, and they're working, and companies are still having trouble filling positions, how would paying the existing American engineers more fill those outstanding positions?
  - rootw0rm 9y ago
    Yes, the whole point of this discussion is how the status quo makes zero sense.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - jimmaswell 9y ago
    When I was applying to job openings after college, the very few times I heard back from them, I was offered pay in the range of $15/hr, 35k, etc. for a junior software developer position. Luckily I eventually got something decent but it really is a problem with the companies. There are way more than enough programmers out there, companies just don't want to pay them/don't want to invest in junior devs anymore, as discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16367997 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16367997
    - aianus 9y ago
      What year was this in? It wasn't my experience in college in 2010-2015 at all. Many SV companies recruited mostly useless interns like me and mentored us and paid us well over the median US household income. All in the hopes that we would become useful and join after graduation (at well over six figures salary). And I'm Canadian so they were also paying flights, relocation, visa fees, etc. It doesn't make a lot of sense for them to do these things if it's so easy to hire an American developer at $50k, but maybe their hiring process is that broken?
      - jimmaswell 9y ago
        2017. They could easily fly in students from other states too if they wanted. My experience was in NY.
landryraccoon 9y ago
The math doesn't work out. China has four times the population of the US. The only way the US can consistently stay ahead in technology is attracting the best scientists and engineers from other parts of the world. The arms race of trying to produce more domestic engineers faster is one that China will win.
- HillaryBriss 9y ago
  The math has not worked out for a very long time. I mean, China has had a far larger population than the US for many decades and yet somehow the US had a lead for a large part of the 20th century. How did US leadership _ever_ happen? Other factors beyond population and human talent are important: how does each country educate its people, organize its research facilities and personnel, its industry, its economy, etc? Did a country encounter misfortune, war, pestilence, political instability, etc.? I don't disagree with you though. China has created a method of economic decision making and industrial growth which is amazingly powerful. The US seems to be struggling, paralyzed, stagnant.
  - landryraccoon 9y ago
    > mean, China has had a far larger population than the US for many decades and yet somehow the US had a lead for a large part of the 20th century. How did US leadership _ever_ happen? I just gave a reasonable explanation. The US has always been a comparatively immigration friendly nation. We used to attract the best and the brightest. Nikola Telsa, Albert Einstein, Elon Musk, Segei Brin - do those names sound familiar? They were all foreign immigrants to the United States. If they all stayed home or picked another country, the US would be weaker.
    - HillaryBriss 9y ago
      ok. i see the case you're making, but i still think the explanation for a nation's power and leadership depends upon much more than how many highly talented people it has. i say that because all countries have highly talented people. and some countries (e.g. Nigeria, Indonesia, Japan, Brazil, Philipines, India) have large populations and thus large numbers of highly talented people. but that isn't enough to explain the big differences between nations as technological innovators, military powers, per capita wealth, etc. for example, when i look at the war that led up to Britain's acquisition of Hong Kong in the 1841, i don't think i can explain much of the outcome by looking at how many highly talented people there were on each side. in 1841 China had a population of roughly 400 million while Britain had less than 30 million. China had a HUGE pool of highly intelligent, highly talented people. i see the same thing in Britain's colonialism in India. India had a VAST number of highly intelligent people. does anyone doubt that China and India had more highly gifted people than Britain in the 1800s? i guess i just don't see as much explanatory power in that one variable as you seem to see.
analyst74 9y ago
Because nerds have lower social status, and sadly due to insane competition for popularity, it's quite hard to become good at math/science without being labeled a nerd. What that means is fewer kids go to STEM schools and become scientists/engineers. This is a pipeline problem caused by culture, it's a very hard problem to fix. For engineers already here, it's actually a good situation, because scarcity drives up wages; for major tech firms, it just means more hiring will be done in their international offices; for startups, it just means a different tradeoff, and having international connection to hire from other countries will become a competitive advantage.

mynameishere 9y ago

expanding aggressively Are they aggressively expanding their open boarders immigration policy? Hmm? Oh, they don't have such a policy? Golly, looks like they've been "shooting themselves in the foot" for a while now, 1000s of years really, so I guess it doesn't matter if we indulge in the same.

sterlind 9y ago
One Belt, One road is really taking off. South China Sea expansion with floating island bases and military protection of eco-depleting fish trawlers is soaring. they have rapid momentum, many talented people, good education, scalable infra and a powerful economy. they're building good relations and influencing a growing Africa, providing jobs and extracting industrial metals. our economy needs all engineers fully employed, and as many more capable STEM immigrants as we can get our hands on. don't be lazy, don't be entitled, or America will be second-world, and our country irrelevant.
gowld 9y ago
Do you want life in USA to be like life in China? Being required to wear a gas mask to walk down a street in town? Going to jail for disagreeing with a government official? Working in a sweatshop with no safety regulations?

shard972 9y ago

China isn't exactly growing because of its immigration policies though.

chrisper 9y ago

The idea alone that no matter where on this planet I earn my income, I would have to pay US taxes makes me not want citizenship there.